' Deck: The Druid Oracles
Spread: Card of the Day
Date: Wed Sep 25 07:29:35 EDT 2024

Today's Card
Hare (Upright)

Gea‌rr

Pronunciation: Gy-arr

keywords
Rebirth • Intuition • Balance

The card shows the original hare of Britain—the Arctic hare which was later replaced by the common brown hare, probably imported by the Romans from the plains of central Europe. It is nearly dawn but we can still see the moon in the sky. In the background stands a dolmen—symbol of rebirth—and in the foreground we can see a lapwing's nest, with the eggs which were said to have been brought by the hare. Harebell, hare parsley, & hare's foot clover grow close by.

Upright Meaning

Gea‌rr brings us the benefits of balance and intuition, of promise and fulfillment. The hare is a creature of the Goddess, the moon and the night, and yet it also represents the dawn, brightness and the east. It is the most adept of animals at shape-shifting: we can never be sure exactly where the hare is—in this or the Otherworld. It represents intuition, which makes things appear suddenly in our consciousness, like the lapwing eggs of Eostre, that magically appear in the hare's form (nest). As representative of the Corn Spirit & the two equinoxes, the hare brings the excitement of rebirth, fertile abundance and willing release as each creative cycle comes to an end. With the hare as your ally you will be well able to negotiate times of change, and you will be able to draw on your intuition to guide you through life.

Reversed Meaning

There may be an imbalance in your life. It is possible that you are allowing yourself to be overly concerned with the Otherworld: regarding every unusual sign as a portent, or paying too much attention to "channeled" messages. To achieve balance, we need to concern ourselves with the outer realm just as much as the inner: of channeled messages someone once remarked, "Just because they're dead doesn't mean they're smart." Wisdom and guidance come from many sources, and you may need to apply common sense to a greater degree than you have in the past.

The Tradition of the HARE

Keen-eyed her hares and hounds,
Blackberries and fruit of the dark blackthorn
Weaving their wall in the woods
From "Arran of the many deer," Irish twelfth century

The hare's habits of foraging and mating at night mean that human observation of its behavior has until recently been severely limited. People once believed that hares changed gender annually, and that their frantic racing around and their peculiar boxing matches were confined to the month of March—hence the term "mad March hares." But we now know that this mating behavior takes place throughout the breeding season: before March it happens unseen before dawn, in March the days grow longer and they can be observed, but later in the spring the vegetation grows and their "madness" is again unnoticed by humans.

When her daughters were disinherited by the local governor, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni in eastern Britain led a revolt against the Romans which almost succeeded in destroying their power. The classical writer Dion described how she used a hare to divine the outcome of her first battle: "When she had finished speaking to her people, she employed a species of divination, letting a hare escape from the fold of her dress; and since it ran on what they considered the auspicious side, the whole multitude shouted with pleasure, and Boadicea, raising her hand toward heaven, said, I thank thee, Andraste [goddess of battle and victory] ... I supplicate and pray thee for victory."... '

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' In the old days, hares were animals sacred to the Goddess—they brought luck, fertility, transformation, and healing. But as with other sacred animals, such as the cat and snake, Christianity degraded and inverted their symbolism. The close association between cats and hares is seen in their both having the nicknames of "pussy" and "malkin," and in medieval times it was commonly believed that witches could shape-shift or skin-turn into hares—to go milking at night, or to travel over great distances. It is possible that the "Hares' Parliament," in which hares sit in rings, reminded observers of the witches' circle, with each member of the ring being in reality a witch who had disguised herself as a hare.

A hare's foot was often carried as a protection against rheumatism, or by an actor to help with "shape-shifting" into a role, but in Scotland if a hare's foot was discovered on a fisherman's boat it was considered a curse, and the word "hare" was never to be spoken at sea. Similarly, seeing a hare crossing one's path when setting out on a journey was considered unlucky. It was also believed that the "machinations of the fairies"produced hare lips, or that in pregnancy the mother had accidentally startled a hare.

Rebirth, Resurrection and the Corn Spirit

As bearers of good fortune, and as animals sacred to the Goddess, hares, or figurines of them, have been found buried in ritual pits. As a grave companion the hare is ideal, for it symbolizes the power of the Goddess to bring rebirth and immortality. This power is often represented in the Corn Spirit, who embodies the magical ability of the life-sustaining crops to die in the fall only to be reborn in the spring. The pagan underpinnings of Christianity become abundantly obvious at Alban Eiler, the Spring Equinox. Here the hare is the original "Easter Bunny"—the word Easter being derived from the Saxon goddess Eostre, to whom the hare was sacred. Hares sleep outdoors in "forms," which look remarkably like lap-wings' nests, and in spring when these nests are filled with eggs, it seems as if the hares have made them magically appear—they become the gifts of the Sacred Hare. As goddess, the hare has brought new life—rebirth—at the Equinox. The Christianized version becomes the moon-determined time of Easter, when the appearance of "bunnies" and chocolate or painted eggs marks the time of the resurrection of Christ.

The hare reappears again at the other side of the year—at the time of Alban Elued, the Autumn Equinox—when the promise of the spring is fulfilled in the autumn harvest. The last sheaf of corn to be cut was called "the hare" and its ritual cutting was known as killing or cutting the hare. If a hare happened to bolt out of this last sheaf as it was cut, this was considered extremely auspicious.

Grandmother Hare

Since the hare was sacred to the Goddess and symbolic of the Corn Spirit, eating it was taboo. In Kerry they still say that to eat a hare is to eat one's grandmother. But like horsemeat, hare's flesh was forbidden only in Britain and Ireland, except that the Kings of Tara were allowed to eat the hares of Naas. In Gaul the hare was the most popular of hunted animals. In Ulster "chasing the Cailleach" (the hag-goddess) was allowed immediately following the harvest, and in some parts of Britain hare-hunting was allowed on the one day of Beltane.

Hare-coursing was a later introduction, probably of the Romans, but the image of the hare being pursued by the grayhound is powerfully invoked in the story of Taliesin—in which the fleeing Gwion turns himself into a hare to escape the goddess Ceridwen, who then shape-shifts into a grayhound to continue her pursuit.

Virtually impossible to raise in captivity, supremely fertile, the hare when caught cries like a human child. In the Western tradition, and in many other traditions throughout the world, it is strongly associated with the moon, whiteness, dawn and the east. '

Presented by The Druid Oracles app from The Fool's Dog.

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Alban Elued, the Autumnal Equinox, these past few days. 🐇

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