I want to like the idea of the Easter Bilby but I am afraid I just struggle with it. I admit I’m not a particularly religious person and therefore Easter doesn’t have the same significance to me as for some. Nonetheless I respect it and understand that it has great significance in our culture. I also understand the sometimes reluctant relationship between Easter and the bunny. After all the bunny, here in Australia, is a pest. Not to mention the over-commercialisation of the chocolate variety at this time of year. If the sugary sweetness doesn’t make you feel a bit ill by the end of the four day break, then the mass consumerism of it all surely will.
Then there is the egg. From tiny solid balls of chocolate to giant hollow foil wrapped treats. Someone once told me you shouldn’t eat anything bigger than your head but there we have them, sitting on the top of supermarket shelves like chocolaty soccer balls.
But as a symbol of Easter, what is it that is wrong with the egg and the rabbit that we needed to trade them in on the Bilby? Nothing against the Bilby. He is in fact endangered and I hope that one day reverses itself. But, the egg, and the rabbit, are both symbols of fertility and rebirth. I’m not sure that the rabbit has been embraced as a symbol for the rebirth of Christ, in fact I’m sure it hasn’t. It is more a symbol of longer standing pagan rituals of spring and new life. After all, rabbits breed like, well, rabbits. The egg, however, is acknowledged as a symbol of rebirth, fertility and creation. So why then do we need the Bilby in the form of a chocolate offering? Isn’t it simply taking consumerism to even greater lengths?
I know I, for one, will be sticking to the age old symbols in the form of the egg and rabbit… and yes, of the chocolate variety.
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