Page 41 - 2021 Almanac

20th March Ostara
Ostara is a pagan festival which is celebrated at the spring equinox. For pagans, it’s a time of year when everything in the natural world is in perfect balance because the day and the night are the same length. The festival takes its name from Ostara or Ēostre, the goddess of renewal and rebirth, who has the head of a hare.
27th March Passover
Jewish people celebrate Passover to remember how the Prophet Moses helped the Israelites escape from Egypt to a new life in the Promised Land. They left in such a hurry that the dough for their bread had not risen, so that is why Jewish people eat matzo at Passover today – a flat bread which is ‘unleavened’. This means it has no yeast in it and so does not rise like a normal loaf of bread.
29th March Holi
Holi is a Hindu festival also known as the ‘festival of colours’ or the ‘festival of love’, when Hindus celebrate the victory of good over evil and the arrival of spring. They meet to play and laugh, forget and forgive, and make up with people they have fallen out with!
Holi lasts for a night and a day, starting on the evening of the Purnima (full moon day). People light bonfires
and pray that evil will be destroyed. Then they smear each other with coloured paints and drench
each other using water pistols and water-filled balloons!
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