✨ Author’s Note
This Easter reflection is a soul’s remembering and inner resurrection. It is an offering born of both reverence and rupture. It honors the Jesus I met outside the walls of religion, the Earth that mothers us all, and the sacred truth that we, too, are vessels of resurrection.
✝️ The Symbolic Power of the Cross Across Time
“Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world”
John the Baptist’s words have echoed through centuries of Christian thought. They form part of the foundational belief that Jesus’ death on the cross was a redemptive act meant to cleanse humanity of sin.
Every Easter the symbol of the cross is seen everywhere- reminding us of the ultimate sacrifice Jesus paid to redeem us back for God.
The symbol of the cross has bore different meanings that predate Christianity.
In ancient Egypt, the ankh was a symbol that looked like a cross with a loop at the top. It represented life and immortality and was often seen in the hands of gods and pharaohs. This symbol showed that they had the power to give life or protect others.
In India, the cross was a symbol of the god Agni, who represented fire and light. People would make crosses out of wood and stone for ceremonies and put them on altars and ritual sites.
In Babylon and Persia, the cross was used in religious art and writing to show the connection between heaven and earth.
Before Europeans came to the Americas, Native American cultures like the Aztecs and Mayans used the cross in their art. They carved crosses in stone or wood to represent stars, the sky, or directions.
People used crosses in jewelry, coins, and buildings for decoration and protection. In Greece and Rome, they wore small crosses made of iron or bronze as charms to keep away evil spirits.
When Christianity began to gain popularity, early Christians were drawn to the symbol of the cross. They didn’t just see it as a cool emblem for their faith, but also as a way to link their beliefs with familiar symbols. Over time, the cross came to represent Jesus’ sacrifice and the salvation it offered believers. This transformation was a significant departure from the cross’s original meaning.
The use of the cross as a Christian symbol didn’t really start until the fourth century. At first, it was just an empty cross, but it wasn’t until the sixth century that we started seeing the crucifix with a dead Jesus on it.
But even as far back as the early second century, Christianity and the cross were already linked so closely that people accused Christians of actually worshiping the cross.
Before Emperor Constantine in the 4th century, Christians were hesitant to show the cross because they were afraid of being made fun of or harmed. But once Constantine became a Christian, he stopped using crucifixion as a punishment and started promoting the cross as a symbol of the Christian faith. These symbols became really popular in Christian art and on gravestones around 350 AD.
For several centuries after Constantine, Christians focused on the triumph of Christ over evil rather than his suffering on the cross.
By the 9th century, depictions of the Crucifixion, whether in paintings or sculptures, began to show more detail in conveying pain and agony. Romanesque crucifixes usually depicted Christ wearing a royal crown, but in later Gothic styles, they switched it out for a crown of thorns.
Crucifixion was a brutal and widely employed method of punishment for political dissidents, religious rebels, pirates, slaves, and those deemed unworthy of civil rights. Countless individuals met their demise on the cross, enduring excruciating pain and humiliation. It was in the year 32 CE that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, issued the fateful order to crucify Jesus of Nazareth, a man who would go on to inspire millions with his teachings and sacrifice. The act of crucifixion, with its barbarity and symbolism, remains a haunting reminder of the cruelty of ancient times.
The Fearful Presence of God
For much of my early life, the idea of God was terrifying.
I didn’t grow up in a church where Jesus was central. In my childhood, the spotlight was on patriarchal prophets, rigid obedience, and the wrath of a distant, angry God. I was taught to fear God’s return—to imagine blood in the streets, judgment raining from the sky, and hell awaiting anyone who was in the “wrong religion.”
By the time I was a teenager, I’d already internalized a deeply rooted belief: that goodness could only be achieved through fearing God. That to stay “safe” meant staying small and invisible. The fanatical setting of my upbringing made me vulnerable to reentering a different religion later—one that also believed it was the sole bearer of God’s “holy” truth. There, I was told that to remain in grace, I must endure regular “judgment preaching.” Within the construct of these teachings, my fear of God only intensified.
I was told that the beatings Jesus took were meant for me.
That I was the sinner who belonged on the cross, and he—blameless and holy—took my place.
It was framed as love. But it felt like terror.
And because I wanted to be good—wanted to be loved—I thanked him. I wept for him. I made myself the problem and him the solution.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that this narrative mirrored the psychological dynamics I already knew too well: trauma bonds.
The message I had received—both at home and in church—was that I deserved punishment. That the only way to be safe was through someone else’s suffering. That love and violence could coexist in the same God.
I later curated a YouTube video where I identified this psychological trauma as “Stockholm Syndrome with God.”
Drenched in themes of sacrifice, worship, self-denial, and obedience, I lost every ounce of who I was when I came into this world, and this self-annihilation was lauded as holy. After years of living my life as perfectly as I knew how within these themes, I slowly fell into deep depression. The “fruits” I was beholding around me were far from true love, joy, and compassion. Something was way off, and I was TERRIFIED to leave, having had it drilled into my psyche for so long that to leave the Christian faith was to leave God and be sentenced to an eternal existence of torment. And because I had already been tormented so much as a child, this idea was very real to me.
The Awakening of My Truth
And yet—beneath all the fear, something purer shimmered. Something truer. A presence I couldn’t deny. A Jesus I had met all by myself, without the crux of religious teachings and ideology. I could feel this Jesus with me—not in the dogma, but in the stillness. Not in the threat of hell, but in the quiet whispers of compassion. He felt nothing like the god I had feared—and everything like the Love I had longed for.
True resurrection is never silent. It shakes the very ground beneath you. And in a moment I knew that I was being called out of religion. Not just the church I had succumbed to for almost 18 years, but all religions. I, myself, was the holy ground. I began paying attention to my own inner voice- the whispers of the spirit of God that lived within me. And I let go of the chord that kept me tied to the interpretations of men, and seized a new found freedom I had never experienced before.
The question lingers around me at times, “How do I reconcile my belief in, and relationship with a living Jesus- when it steps outside the pre-formed frameworks of Christianity? When, at times, it contradicts the written words they hold sacred? How can I give voice to a lived experience of God that is more expansive, more loving, and more embodied than the one I was taught to fear and reclaim the gospel- good news!
I stand at the place where centuries of doctrine and lived spiritual experience rub against each other—and it hurts. And it awakens. And it asks me to choose– not between two faiths, but between fear and my truth.
The Jesus that Lives in My Heart
Jesus, to me, was the interruption and liberation from a corrupted system of blood sacrifice.
The living word—not a book or a law—but the internal revelation of God written in the heart.
The resurrection—not as a legalistic exchange, but a cosmic awakening of divine identity.
I believe Jesus came not to demand worship, but to model living in alignment with the divine.
Not to start a religion, but to remind us that we are gods—as he himself said.
Not to be the exception, but the example.
He walked a path so pure, so fully integrated, that even death could not contain him.
And that is what I choose to honor.
I now understand that Jesus didn’t come to fulfill a cosmic punishment system.
He came to interrupt it.
I no longer see the cross as something I was supposed to deserve.
I see it as a revelation of what happens when divine love confronts systems built on fear, control, and projection.
I don’t believe that Jesus suffered to appease an angry God.
He suffered because humanity—lost in its own unhealed pain—didn’t know what to do with pure love when it stood in front of them.
He didn’t say, “This is what you deserve.”
He said, through every silent moment of agony, “Even now, I love you.”
He died not to validate violence, but to expose it.
To absorb it without retaliating.
To show us another way.
To end the cycle of blood sacrifice.
He rose—not to prove his power, but to reveal ours.
To show us that the grave—whether physical, emotional, or spiritual—is not the end.
That resurrection is possible. Not just for him, but for all of us.
Resurrection Stories Etched in the Soul of the World
Outside orthodox Christianity, Jesus is often understood as an ascended master, one who achieved divine union and taught others how to do the same. His message, when stripped of institutional edits, centers on unity with God (“I and the Father are one”) and love as the true law. This aligns beautifully with the path of inner awakening.
The story of resurrection is echoed in so many ancient myths:
✨ Horus (Egypt): virgin birth, baptized, tempted, crucified and resurrected
✨ Mithras (Persia): born on December 25th, savior figure, had 12 disciples
✨ Dionysus (Greece): died and resurrected, associated with divine ecstasy and transformation
✨ Krishna (India): divine child, born of a virgin, killed by a tyrant, and rose again
Carl Jung would call it the archetype of the dying and resurrecting god—symbolic of spiritual rebirth and the journey through shadow into light.
These are remembrances.
Echoes of a divine pattern etched into the soul of the world:
We die.
We descend.
We remember.
We rise.
What if the “sin of the world” is not a moral tally of wrongdoings, but a deeper wound—the illusion of separation from the Divine?
What if Jesus came not to suffer for us, but to awaken us?
Not to be the only son of God, but to remind us that we are all sons and daughters of the Living Light?
Beautiful Mother Earth- A Sanctuary of the Divine
Easter is the soul of spring—
It is the Earth’s resurrection echoed within the human heart.
The sun lingers a little longer.
New life springs up from the ground and calls out from the branches,
and deep inside me, something ancient stirs.
I feel the wind blowing away the heaviness of life and the waters refreshing my weary spirit. .
I meet God everyday in a cathedral of trees that line the path I walk.
The trees whisper truths and the birds sing the most joyous melodies. Indeed, perhaps it is not angels heard at the gates of heaven, but the melodic symphony of nature.
How do I respectfully honor Jesus without the religious entanglements? And even deeper- my own yearning for connection with the divine and the magick it holds- and honoring the earth as a sentient soul that graciously nurtures us from the depths of her being- her waters and rivers coursing through my body, her trees and woods in my bones, her winds in my lungs and her fires that are the very spark of life firing neurons throughout my body.
For me, to love Mother earth is to honor God in the highest form.
And to honor the resurrection is to witness it in the blooming branches, the softened soil, the holy yes of life after winter.
I no longer need a church to honor God.
The forest is my temple.
Nature’s song is my choir.
The winds and the waters carry the breath of my prayers.
My Rising
So this Easter, I rise, once again.
Not as someone indebted.
Not as someone ashamed.
But as someone who is finally free.
I honor Jesus—not as my scapegoat, but as my brother in light.
I honor the Earth—not solely as a resource, but as a living teacher.
And I honor myself—not as a sinner, but as a soul remembering her divinity.
To me, Easter is no longer a religious transaction.
It is a tribute to the spark of life and transformation.
And it is happening now.
