Christians have Easter, that wonderful celebration of resurrection that's marked by bunnies, eggs, and flowers. Named after a Pagan equinox festival honoring bunnies, eggs, and renewal, this year Easter occurs in April, a long time from the equinox, but often the Paschal season falls near its progenitor, Eostara. The Jews have Passover - more eggs (plus charoset and tzimmes) - to celebrate the Israelites' hope for freedom from the restrictions of second-class citizenship in Egypt.

Hope, especially when it ferments into the more durable state we call optimism, is a delicious and necessary condition for the survival of the species. I believe this because I'm a born-again optimist. After years of viewing the world through a grim, suicidal lens, I made a truly conscious - and magical - effort to shift my perspective. It was either that, or slash my wrists again (a painful, messy hobby that I needed to give up). I worked hard, in counseling and in magical circles, to turn away from scarcity and toward abundance; to (as author and creativity trainer Roger Von Oech suggests) expect the unexpected, and actually welcome it; to stop calculating endless "worse case scenarios" and instead wait with enthusiasm for the valuable nugget of wisdom at the end of every experience. (Mind you, I still run one or two WCSs, just to keep my hand in...)

I've been so successful at this transformation that my beau recently accused me of being a Pollyanna, shocking news for someone who spent two decades in a wardrobe consisting of various shades of black. (Like Masha in the Seagull, I was in a state of constant "mourning for my life ...")

The trick with optimism is that it's built on a trust in the benevolence of the universe, which on a bad day can seem pretty far-fetched. I don't know about you, but as a born-again optimist, trust is one of those things I'm still working on, with fairly unimpressive results. At the slightest provocation, I fall so dramatically into doubt, suspicion, and abject despair you'd think I was working it up as an act for the Cirque de Soleil. I need things to work out now, immediately, and just the way I want them to, or my sunny side is definitely not up. (Okay, so I've got some work to do on patience as well.)

That's why I really like the pysanky ritual my delightful altar-sister Natalie taught me many years ago. I need a little reminder every now and again about how the greatest transformations are often preceded by long, messy stretches, and the most durable seeds of change sprout in the dark. And all that other stuff that people say to make you feel better, while you stifle an impulse to punch them.

Pysanky is a very hands-on experience. You start with an egg (oh, look, it must be spring, there's eggs involved!). The traditional Ukrainian pysanky is an intricate, gorgeous thing, very detailed and - to many of us - intimidating. If you're art-phobic, just visiting a pysanky website should have you palpitating with anxiety at the mere idea of tackling one of these mini-masterpieces.

Use the fear. Accept that you're not trying to create something that will be mistaken for a Faberge. Instead, envision a design that's meaningful to you: a spiral for the course you're on now in your career, or a heart for the lover you want to bring into your life. Include geometric shapes, wide or narrow bands, squiggles and blobs, definitely blobs. Incorporate blobs into your pattern, because hey: they're going to show up there anyway. In any case, create a design that speaks to what you want to "hatch" in the months to come. Ask for divine inspiration. Then, pencil the design onto the egg or, if you're feeling a little daring, just go for it freehand.

Pysanky uses a wax-resist process familiar to most of us from grade school crayon projects. The first step is to draw selected portions of the design on the egg with beeswax using a simple tool called a kistka. These portions will be white on the finished egg. Once you've waxed in a few design elements, dip the egg in yellow pysanky dye, a bold color wash that will leave you vowing never again to use that pale stuff you can buy every Easter at Longs. Then repeat, waxing another portion of the design with the kistka. These new contributions will be yellow on the finished egg. Now, dip the egg in orange or perhaps red Pysanky dye (different designs use different colors, moving from light to dark, often ending with black). Repeat this waxing and dyeing through each color you intend to use.

And here's where the trust comes in: as you add the wax - and it blobs, or spreads into places you didn't intend it to go - the egg will become covered with the thick, blackened goop. Each time you dye, the egg will change color, and the lovely yellow or red or blue previously displayed will disappear, trapped beneath a layer of grime. Your original pencil marks will be quickly obscured, and any sense you have of your design completely lost. You'll have to kistka on trust now, scraping away, hoping for the best, believing that when you're done, it will all come together in a satisfying visual mélange instead of proving once and for all that your kindergarten teacher was right, you do have spatial-visual problems, and your manual coordination is nothing to write home about either.

And then, suddenly, you're finished. It's the last dye lot. The egg, full of potential, sits in front of you. Now comes what one pysanky site calls "the fun" part: take this lumpy, blackened oval, and hold it near the side of the flame (not over the flame). When the wax looks a bit softened and wet, take a tissue or paper towel and wipe it off. Repeat this process, flame and cloth, carefully wiping around the egg, slowly, gently revealing the surprising beauty hidden beneath the wax.

If you're a newcomer like me, your design will be remarkably like what you intended, but with some surprises as well. Despite your feeling that "the whole thing will look terrible, just terrible, you haven't an artistic bone in your body, and you screwed it up the moment you squiggled when you should have squaggled" (and all the rest of that encouraging self talk so many of us are given to), despite this, the final egg - a testament to your creativity, hard work and patience - will be simply gorgeous, mistakes and all.

Just like life.

[Note from SnakeMoon: This is a very cursory explanation of the pysanky process - before you try dying your own, visit a few of the websites noted in this article, or take a class. Once you've seen it done, it will be easy to embark on your own pysanky adventure!]

SnakeMoon

Bio: A practicing Pagan for 16 years, SnakeMoon is the editor of the Full Circle Newsletter (www.fullcircleevents.org), and the newest member of a coven now celebrating its 13th magical year. She has participated in other circles, including EarthRite, a Marin county community that performs public celebrations of the Wheel of the Year.

SnakeMoon is the Communications Director for a forward-thinking industrial design firm, and previously worked as a communications consultant for a variety of clients across the Unites States. She lives in Marin County with her 16-year-old son, two cats, and a corn snake named Magic.