Hello dear everyone! How is life? What's new? I want to tell you about EGGS! I promise not to be as boring as modern scientists that can't decide whether eggs are healthy or not healthy food. I want to tell you about the sacral meaning of eggs across the centuries and cultures. Have you ever thought why Easter and eggs are going so well together? And why a bunny looks kind of weird in this team? So, eggs. An egg is a symbol of life in many cultures. In ancient Egypt, an egg has a symbolic role in the myth of Creation and in Christianity, it symbolizes Jesus Christ's emergence from the tomb after his resurrection. So you would wonder where is the bunny? That's very right, no bunny, at all. Easter Bunny showed up and became popular in the 19th century and is more of a marketing thing rather than any kind symbolic creature. On the other hand, a lamb is an animal that is directly connected to Jesus and when as a child I saw a lamb on Polish easter cards somehow I knew what it stood for.
So back to eggs, it is believed that when the Roman Emperor didn't want to believe that Jesus Christ resurrected the boiled eggs on his breakfast table turned red. Since then red colored egg symbolizes Jesus Christ's blood and cracking the egg on Easter morning symbolizes his emergence from the tomb. With time egg cracking turned into Easter game and the winner is the person whose egg stays intact after hitting the egg of the opponent. As kids, we always were trying to find an egg with the potential of the unbreakable hero ))
In Eastern Orthodox tradition exist four different kinds of Easter eggs: krashanka, pysanka, driapanka and krapanka. Each name derives from the method of putting ornament on them: krashanka comes from the verb "krasyty" - to paint (to paint with one color), pysanka comes from the verb "pysaty" - to draw or write, driapanka comes from the verb "driapaty" - to scratch (the egg is covered with one color and then an ornament is scratched on its surface with a sharp pointed object) and krapanka comes from the verb "krapaty" - "to drip" (when the ornament is made by dripping colors on the egg surface).
The most popular and widespread in Ukraine are Krahsanka and Pysanka. In my family, my grandmothers would usually make krashanka since they are the quickest and easiest way of decorating eggs. You just need to take a lot of onion skins which house ladies start collecting before Easter, boil them in a pot and you will see that the water changes its color to very intensive dark red. Then you put there either raw eggs or boiled ones. And in a couple of minutes, you will have a bunch of reddish colored eggs. If you feel very creative you can tie to the egg small cool shaped leaves like parsley, for example, and then immerse it in the colored water. There is a bunch of natural colorants that can be used to make the Easter eggs be more fun, especially if you have kids or grandkids all this coloring can turn into a really fun activity.
Pysanka is way more elaborate looking Easter egg and more loaded with symbols and meanings. Ukrainian pysanka tradition dates back to Pre-Christian era when the most important deity was Dazhboh (the God of the Sun). It was impossible for a human to get anywhere close to the Sun but birds could fly in the skies and it looked like they could get closer to the Sun than the human. Hence, the ability to harvest eggs that laid birds that could get closer to the Sun provided the connection between the human and the most important deity of that period in human history. In addition, the appearance of life out of hard eggshell embodied it with the power of giving life. The egg was a part of many rites and celebrations all year round. So when Christianity system of beliefs was forming the egg with its great load of meanings was made part of it. Pysanka combines centuries of traditions and can be read as a book if you know what each symbol stands for. In order to make a pysanka you will need a pysak (a kind of stylus) and wax. The wax gets melted and then you dip the pysak into it and draw an ornament on the egg. When you are done the egg is put into the colored water and after it's dry you put next ornament and immerse it into next color. This way the ornaments and colors on pysanka can be very complex and various. Traditionally all this process takes place at night when children are already asleep and all housework is done. The eggs were decorated exclusively by women after they pronounced a traditional prayer. Nowadays, in order to preserve this ancient tradition, you can attend workshops conducted both by male and female craftspeople. The Hutsuls (an ethnic group that lives in the region of Ukrainian Carpathians) have a legend that says the life on the Earth will last as long as the tradition of making pysanka will be preserved.
The variety of ornaments and colors can be really impressive and also depends on the region of origin. The main colors used on pysanka are red, black, yellow, blue, white, green and brown. The ornaments are numerous and represent both Christian and Pre-Christian symbols.
There are more methods of decorating eggs for Easter celebration. The laziest one is to buy Easter stickers. Another one that looks pretty impressive is to make ornaments out of beads. Wax coating is put on an egg and then beads are embedded on it.
So with this post, I want to wish everyone a Happy Easter and Tasty Easter Bread as we say in Ukraine. Unlike everyone on the 21st of April Ukrainians will abide the Palm or Willow Sunday and our Easter will take place a week later. All this mess is again because of "old" and "new" calendar. Hopefully, at some point, we will be able to celebrate Easter and Christmas with the rest of the world.
With all of this said and done I wish you a great weekend and as always - behave!
Here are a couple of photos of incredible Pysanka and Krashanka. All of them are taken from the Internet except the one showing my silver coin Easter Pysanka.
So back to eggs, it is believed that when the Roman Emperor didn't want to believe that Jesus Christ resurrected the boiled eggs on his breakfast table turned red. Since then red colored egg symbolizes Jesus Christ's blood and cracking the egg on Easter morning symbolizes his emergence from the tomb. With time egg cracking turned into Easter game and the winner is the person whose egg stays intact after hitting the egg of the opponent. As kids, we always were trying to find an egg with the potential of the unbreakable hero ))
In Eastern Orthodox tradition exist four different kinds of Easter eggs: krashanka, pysanka, driapanka and krapanka. Each name derives from the method of putting ornament on them: krashanka comes from the verb "krasyty" - to paint (to paint with one color), pysanka comes from the verb "pysaty" - to draw or write, driapanka comes from the verb "driapaty" - to scratch (the egg is covered with one color and then an ornament is scratched on its surface with a sharp pointed object) and krapanka comes from the verb "krapaty" - "to drip" (when the ornament is made by dripping colors on the egg surface).
The most popular and widespread in Ukraine are Krahsanka and Pysanka. In my family, my grandmothers would usually make krashanka since they are the quickest and easiest way of decorating eggs. You just need to take a lot of onion skins which house ladies start collecting before Easter, boil them in a pot and you will see that the water changes its color to very intensive dark red. Then you put there either raw eggs or boiled ones. And in a couple of minutes, you will have a bunch of reddish colored eggs. If you feel very creative you can tie to the egg small cool shaped leaves like parsley, for example, and then immerse it in the colored water. There is a bunch of natural colorants that can be used to make the Easter eggs be more fun, especially if you have kids or grandkids all this coloring can turn into a really fun activity.
Pysanka is way more elaborate looking Easter egg and more loaded with symbols and meanings. Ukrainian pysanka tradition dates back to Pre-Christian era when the most important deity was Dazhboh (the God of the Sun). It was impossible for a human to get anywhere close to the Sun but birds could fly in the skies and it looked like they could get closer to the Sun than the human. Hence, the ability to harvest eggs that laid birds that could get closer to the Sun provided the connection between the human and the most important deity of that period in human history. In addition, the appearance of life out of hard eggshell embodied it with the power of giving life. The egg was a part of many rites and celebrations all year round. So when Christianity system of beliefs was forming the egg with its great load of meanings was made part of it. Pysanka combines centuries of traditions and can be read as a book if you know what each symbol stands for. In order to make a pysanka you will need a pysak (a kind of stylus) and wax. The wax gets melted and then you dip the pysak into it and draw an ornament on the egg. When you are done the egg is put into the colored water and after it's dry you put next ornament and immerse it into next color. This way the ornaments and colors on pysanka can be very complex and various. Traditionally all this process takes place at night when children are already asleep and all housework is done. The eggs were decorated exclusively by women after they pronounced a traditional prayer. Nowadays, in order to preserve this ancient tradition, you can attend workshops conducted both by male and female craftspeople. The Hutsuls (an ethnic group that lives in the region of Ukrainian Carpathians) have a legend that says the life on the Earth will last as long as the tradition of making pysanka will be preserved.
The variety of ornaments and colors can be really impressive and also depends on the region of origin. The main colors used on pysanka are red, black, yellow, blue, white, green and brown. The ornaments are numerous and represent both Christian and Pre-Christian symbols.
There are more methods of decorating eggs for Easter celebration. The laziest one is to buy Easter stickers. Another one that looks pretty impressive is to make ornaments out of beads. Wax coating is put on an egg and then beads are embedded on it.
So with this post, I want to wish everyone a Happy Easter and Tasty Easter Bread as we say in Ukraine. Unlike everyone on the 21st of April Ukrainians will abide the Palm or Willow Sunday and our Easter will take place a week later. All this mess is again because of "old" and "new" calendar. Hopefully, at some point, we will be able to celebrate Easter and Christmas with the rest of the world.
With all of this said and done I wish you a great weekend and as always - behave!
Here are a couple of photos of incredible Pysanka and Krashanka. All of them are taken from the Internet except the one showing my silver coin Easter Pysanka.
My precious ))) (imagine me saying it with the Gollum's voice from the Lord of the Rings)
This coin is a copy of Vegreville pysanka monument located in Canadian town Vegreville. If you want to learn more here is a Wikipedia link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegreville_egg
Photos taken from the Internet.
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