Eggs De Valera: Reflections on Dolly West's Kitchen and Dancing at Lughnasa (Critical Essay‪)‬

The egg means a new germ, a new life possibility. That's why at Easter and in all Spring festivals eggs symbolize the renewal and the possibility of new life. If you think of the many cosmogonic myths where the egg is the beginning of the world, it acquires the dignity of a cosmic principle. It is the very beginning, something out of which the whole universe can be born ... In alchemy the egg plays a tremendous role. It is equated with the philosopher's stone because, as the alchemists said, it contains everything in itself and needs no addition, except some slight amount of vital warmth or even temperature. Giving birth out of itself without addition, it symbolizes the innermost nucleus of the individual, the Self, to which we cannot add or take away. (1) 1. Recipes