TODAY, as a Chinese fortuneteller might say, is an auspicious day. Aside from it being the day after April Fools' Day -- which is auspicious in its own right -- there are four things happening today which merit mention.
Eostre was the Saxon version of the Germanic lunar goddess Ostara. She gave her name to the Christian Easter and to the female hormone estrogen. Her feast day was held on the full moon following the vernal equinox -- almost the identical calculation as for the Christian Easter in the west. One delightful legend associated with Eostre was that she found an injured bird on the ground one winter. To save its life, she transformed it into a hare. But "the transformation was not a complete one. The bird took the appearance of a hare but retained the ability to lay eggs. ..the hare would decorate these eggs and leave them as gifts to Eostre."Related to the occurrence of the full moon, today is also Pesach, the beginning of the Jewish holiday, Passover. Passover commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from ancient Egypt and the "birth" of the children of Israel as a Jewish nation.
On a more mundane, albeit athletic level -- though some may regard it as the high, holy day of college basketball -- is the National Championship game for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The final competitors, the two rivals facing off this evening in Atlanta, Georgia, are the Ohio State University Buckeyes and the University of Florida Gators. In the Final Four round, OSU beat the Georgetown Hoyas and Florida beat UCLA to have a go at one another and a crack at the national title. As a diehard Spartan, and a fellow competitor of the Big Ten, I'll probably root for OSU.
Finally, today was an auspicious day because it was Opening Day for the Detroit Tigers baseball team, who had an incredible season last year and ended up winning the coveted American League Championship for the first time in 23 years or something like that. All the local Motown television stations provided lots and lots of air time to the event, including the local Fox channel, which carried the entire game live. I was a very bad, slacker-like unemployed person and sat and watched most of the game. (In my defense, I did take the dog and myself out for a 30-minute walk during the 6th, 7th and 8th innings. Not a complete slacker.) Sadly, the Tigers lost their opener to the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-3. But it was still a wonderful, exciting event, loaded with all kinds of hopefulness and anticipation.
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