Seasons & Celebrations: Understanding the Wheel of the Year and it's symbolism

 

Though most pagans follow the Wheel Of The Year, not all paths and traditions do. Some only observe some parts of it, and some others follow the seasons in an altogether different way.

The wheel of the year is how most witches and Pagans refer to one year’s worth of seasons and the festivals that mark them and the continuing cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The changes that occur throughout one turning of the wheel – one year – can most easily be seen in nature, especially in trees and flowering plants.

For witches who follow Wicca, the wheel is made up of eight sabbats, or holy days, including two solstices, two equinoxes and four “cross quarter” days. While I am not Wiccan and I do not observe the holy days in the same way, I do want to understand more about the different traditions of witches and their history. There is no evidence to suggest the Wheel of the Year once existed in the same way it does now, but the seasons have always been an important part of life for witches. In the ancient Celtic culture, as in many of the past, time was seen as cyclical. The seasons changed, people died, but nothing was ever finally lost because everything returned again – in one way or another – in a repeating natural cycle. 

Below is an explanation of the Wheel Of The Year for those of us in Australia, followed by a description of what I have learned about each festival and also what this time of year means for a green witch. 

Samhain

May 1st 

Samhain today is also known as Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, November Eve, or Hallowmas was an ancient Irish-Celtic celebration, though records on just how it was celebrated are patchy: most “halloween” traditions we associate with it only date back as far as the Christian era.

While in modern times is this a season for the dead, there are no historical records to suggest that this was originally the case. Mythologically speaking, Samhain was a night of the thinning of the veils between worlds and of powerful magic: according to the myths, this was when enchanted gifts and boons were given, spells were cast, fates were met, heroes died, magical and malevolent creatures walked the earth and attacked castles and keeps. From this alone, it is easy to see why this was a holiday to be feared during ancient times.

The connection of Samhain with spirits and the dead wasn’t until Sir James Frazer and The Golden Bough in the 1890s. Because of Samhain occurring so close to All Souls’ Day, Frazer wrote of the ancient festival being watched over by “the souls of the departed hovering unseen”.

Many modern witches and Pagans use Samhain season as a time to remember the dead, especially those who have passed over the last twelve months. At the same time, Samhain is sometimes still treated as the harvest celebration it was in days gone by: a time for bringing in the last of the crops and for hunkering down as the days keep darkening and winter sets in. 

Mid Winter

June 21st 

This is the longest, often the darkest, night of the year also known as Yule. After the autumn equinox, days get shorter and nights get longer, culminating in the solstice in June (or December for our friends in the Northern Hemisphere). After the solstice, the light slowly begins to return and the daylit periods will get a little longer each day for the next six months.

The winter solstice has been marked with celebrations of some kind for centuries. In the Northern Hemisphere many customs associated with it have been adopted into secular and Christian new year and Christmas traditions.

Midwinter is often seen by modern witches as the rebirth of the sun. Modern Yule and midwinter festivals involve light and fire in many cases: lots of glowing candles and lanterns, bonfires, etc to combat the long darkness.

As part of my practice, I will enjoy having a fire in the yard and burning the dried cuttings from my garden. I enjoy journaling by candlelight and spending time meditating on the year gone by and my plans for the year ahead. 

Imbolc

August 1st

Relatively little is known from the ancient Irish festival of Imbolc, after which modern Pagan and witch celebrations are named. We do know that they took place in early February in Ireland, in areas where this date would have been the beginning of spring.

One thing that has come up in my reading is that the goddess Brighid was connected in some way. Many of the symbols and customs that we as modern Pagans associate with Imbolc and the goddess Brighid – like Brighid’s crosses, or building a bed for her in ritual – actually come from early Christian traditions and celebrations for Saint Brigid.

While they sometimes share a similar date and the name was used by many witches in the 1950s and 1960s, Candlemas is actually a different holiday altogether: it is a Catholic tradition which owes its origins at least in part to similar ceremonies held in ancient Greece.

In areas where Imbolc occurs at the beginning of Spring, rituals and altars feature the first flowers of the season. In some places, it is still quite cold and wintry by Imbolc, with no signs of spring at all yet.  Many also celebrate the return of the light, which is why candles feature so prominently in rituals for this season. 

As a green witch, I like the idea of using this time of year to do some spring cleaning: cleaning, repairing, or replacing working tools; replenishing altar supplies; cleaning and cleansing ritual spaces, and getting things ready for the coming seasons. I also will start planning my vegetable garden and striking seeds inside ready to plant out into the garden. It's a great way to get a head start on the growing season. 

Spring Equinox

September 21st

The spring equinox is a precise moment in time on a specific day when the sun is perfectly lined up with the earth’s equator. During this time day and night are more or less equal. Many witches and Pagans call the season around this day Ostara and celebrate balance, life, fertility and springtime.

In Paganism and witchcraft, the name Ostara was first coined and used for the Spring Equinox by poet and witch Aidan Kelly in 1974. Until a few decades ago it was mostly used only by American witches and authors, although as the community has become more global and more Pagans from further afield consume these authors’ content, it has become more widely used around the world. That said, some witches do still prefer to use pre-1970s names like Vernal Equinox and Spring Equinox.

Many of the “ancient” symbols of Ostara/the equinox were not associated with the goddess or celebration until the mid-1800s: things like hares, eggs, chicks, etc were never mentioned by Bede or by Grimm. The earliest mention was actually a fairly offhanded comment made by Adolf Holzmann in 1874: “probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara”. As with the identity of the goddess Ostara, this one innocent quote was picked up and used by several authors, who were cited by other authors, and so on and so on, until it appeared as “fact” in many of the pagan and witch books you might have on your shelf right now.

Regardless of where they came from or how ancient they’re seen to be, modern symbols of Ostara and the spring equinox include painted or fresh eggs, fresh spring flowers, hares/rabbits and baby animals. Some modern witches use this season for both magical and mundane spring cleaning, rites of abundance/fertility/growth, returning to the outdoors after the winter cold, gardening, “small-c craft” such as egg painting, flower crown making, flower pressing, and divination for the year ahead.

As a green witch, this time of year is greatly dedicated to the garden and enjoying the new growth and flowering plants. The Spring Equinox is a reminder that it’s time to celebrate and plant seeds, both metaphorically and physically, for what we want to bring to bloom in the upcoming season. 

Beltane

October 31 

Beltane was historically an Irish celebration/fire festival that later spread throughout the British isles. It’s likely that the name comes from the Irish word bel, meaning “bright” or fortunate. These celebrations often involved big bonfires and using fire/smoke for protection. In some areas farmers would pass their livestock through the smoke of the fires to protect them from evil.

Beltane as we know it in modern witchcraft and Paganism is derived mostly from the English celebration May Day, a celebration from which we get traditions such as maypoles, may queens, jack-in-the-green, green men, etc. Traditional May Day celebrations involved fun, frivolity, games to celebrate the start of the English summer. Blooming flowers were often used as seasonal decorations. In modern Paganism, many consider Beltane to be a celebration of life and fertility. Celebrations sometimes include an enactment of the young Horned God courting the maiden Goddess, though the idea of a “chase” is slowly falling out of favour as the community and our values change. Maypoles, dancing, and bonfires are also a part of many rituals.

I love this time of year. You can physically see Mother Nature in action as the blossom fills the trees, aromas fill the air and the birds busy themselves feeding their youngsters and watching them learn how to fly and feed themselves. It fills us with the hope and anticipation of a long and wonderful summer. There are many festivals and markets that take place this time of year and I look forward to participating in those. 

Midsummer Solstice

December 21st 

The solstice may not be the middle of the calendar summer in all places, but many witches view Beltane as the beginning of the Summer season, the Solstice as the middle and Lammas as the first harvest and Summer’s end. Midsummer is also known as Litha, Summer Solstice, St John’s Night.

Throughout the centuries, many records exist of people across Europe building huge bonfires to celebrate midsummer, or St John’s Night: the birthday of John the Baptist. In some northern countries, this was considered the chief celebration of the year. Fires were lit not just to honor the sun on its strongest day, but in celebration of its magical powers – including the power to keep the “fair folk” at bay. The smoke from midsummer fires was considered by some to have protective properties, and with this in mind bonfires were built alongside crops and orchards. In some areas these protective fires were seperate from the “main” bonfires and contained animal bones.

Midsummer has long been connected to the fey, partly because of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This was among the first works to present the fey as anything other than malevolent and wicked, and certainly the most popular.

Modern Pagan midsummer celebrations sometimes include offerings and acknowledgments of the fey, Oak/Holly king rituals, bonfires prayers and offerings to solar deities. In Australia it can be very hot and dry in the summer. This means it is not unusual for us to have bush fires that cause a lot of damage and can be very dangerous. For this reason there is a fire ban in place to prevent disaster. I still enjoy burning candles and oil safely inside but I do a lot of swimming and water rituals in summer. 

Lughnasadh

February 1st

The ancient Irish festival of Lughnasadh took place at sundown on the 31st of July, with festivities running into the next day. Lammas was an Anglo-Saxon festival that took place at around the same time of year. Lammas later became a festival in the Catholic church, where it was sometimes called loaf-mass. It was a celebration of grain harvests and the loaves of bread that came from them. It was usually celebrated on the first of August, although some witches observe the second of August, which is the date given in Robert Graves’ The White Goddess. 

In Ireland and Scotland, Lammas marks the beginning of the grain harvest, which has long been a cause for celebration. In medieval times, this was a time of year to pay rent, elect officials, hold fairs and open public lands. Remnants of this exist in Britain and North America with the tradition of August State and county fairs. Lughnasadh in Ireland was not really a fire festival in the same way that Beltane and Samhain were. 

Lammas in modern Paganism is still often associated with bread and grain harvests. Some traditions include making corn dollies, which are generally seen as representing the Goddess in her role as the Earth Mother. Rituals around this time of year often honour the harvest in its many forms, and is sometimes localised to specific harvests relevant to that area. In central Victoria, lavender harvest festivals are a common event on the secular calendar at this time. Some groups and individuals celebrate their own harvests and incorporate the sharing, cooking and eating of homegrown produce into Lammas rituals. 

Autumn Equinox

March 21st 

The Autumn Equinox is also known as Mabon, Harvest Home, or Halig. From what I have read there are no concrete records of specific autumn equinox celebrations held in ancient times, but there is evidence in several different countries of harvest festivals held roughly at this time of year.

The old English festival Harvest Home was one such festival that occurred in the autumn season, once a community’s major grain harvest was complete. Celebrations included feasting and alcoholic drink, and sometimes the giving of gifts. In some areas, the last sheaf gathered was given a form and a name.

Mabon is a name coined by Aidan Kelly. It has been in use – mostly in North America – since the 1970s. The name comes from the Welsh mythological figure Mabon ap Modron, who appears in some Arthurian myths and in the Welsh collection of literature known as The Mabinogion. In the myths, Mabon is most certainly a very minor figure and is not associated with the equinox or the harvest in any real way. He generally appears as a young man, and some scholars have connected him to the Celtic Maponus, who was a god of youth and was often conflated with the Roman god Apollo.

Many modern witches and Pagans treat the autumn equinox as a second harvest festival. As with Lammas, what constitutes a harvest is often localised or personalised, and varies from area to area. For me, I use this time to clean and tidy my garden, harvesting the last of the crops and setting the finished plants in the compost. It's time to prepare the garden for cooler weather, collecting seeds, planting garlic, and cleaning up debris.   

I have enjoyed delving into the histories and festivals of witches from the past. Whenever I celebrate the magical turning of our planet I feel so strongly a part of the earth. So while my practice and my garden focus on the seasons of my home, I also like to acknowledge some of the bigger events as they occur in the northern hemisphere. I'll find smaller ways to share in celebrations while enjoying the seasons I am in. 

Day 15 of 366

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