DISCLAIMER: There are many different names for the eight holidays listed below.  Some are different words entirely and some are variations on spelling.  There will be at least a decent handful of folks who will say that someone’s spelling isn’t right or someone’s word is wrong.  For now and unless you really just give a huge damn about getting the “really, really, REALLY right information”, just try and get a grip on the pattern of the Wheel and its flow.  It’s far more important to celebrate the cycle and move with the Wheel, regardless of what you call it, than it is to get tangled in the splintered spokes of another “my Tradition is more valid than your Tradition” argument.  For one, you are never going to “get it right” for everyone.  And last, pretending like the name is more important than the action/observance is like saying your name is more important than who you are and what you do.  You have time to figure out how you want to spell it, what traditions from which culture you want to observe, and so forth.  For now, get the concept, pay attention to how the Wheel moves where YOU are, and leave the details for those who want to haggle about them.

This message has been brought to you by Sitara Haye, who realizes that she has a decent chance of getting burned at the keyboard for offending a Recon.  For those with the extreme desire to be judgmental or offended, allow me to direct your attention to the Built-in Argument Counteraction Key (codename:  BACK Arrow) in the upper left corner of your screen.  It is a safety exit and will assuredly deliver you from the evil on my page.  Thank you!

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If you’ve done any reading at all on Wicca, you will recognize this section as an explanation of the Wheel of the Year.  The Wheel of the Year is a fair bit more intricate than just the eight Sabbats of the Solar Wheel.  Matter of fact, I can pretty much explain my entire faith, cosmology, and spiritual foundation based on an eight-spoked Wheel.  And what I have no proof of, I can make an excellent educated guess based on applying what I call “Wheel Magick” to the situation.

Just as we discussed the Lunar Wheel and Her movements as manifestations of the Moon Goddess’ energy on earth, the Wheel of the Year is Solar driven.  Based on the placement of the Sun in the sky, we tell the time of year and thus also align with the energies of and activites of that time.   When we apply those stations on the Wheel to other areas for the purpose of classification, we are able to create a solid system of correspondence, interaction, and cyclical wisdom that guides our spellwork, dictates how we should stay in balance, and does a thorough job of explaining the passages of life.

The Wheel is one of the Keys to the Mysteries of the Craft.  You can ignore it if you want, but good luck picking the lock on the doors it opens.  You’re welcome to peek through the keyhole and take part peripherally by attending Sabbat rituals here and there, but it is the process of moving with the Wheel that helps us grow in power, that helps us unlock the endlessly nested doorways into deeper communion with the Gods and all of Nature.

Here is a brief but precise overview of the Wheel of the Year.  I have included the astrological aspects for the Sabbats (if the Wheel is the Solar clock, then you’d best know how to tell time).  I have also included the times of day, seasons of the year, and corresponding Lunar phases for additional reference.  You will notice how the correspondences seem to “stack up”.  This is the multi-layered Wheel Magick I spoke of earlier.  It would take far too long (probably a good quarter of a written book) to explain it in the kind of detail that puts the chill bumps on your arms, so for now I’ll just give an overview.

One last thing — there is whole cycle of mythology involving the Oak King and the Holly King.  This is  a complex round of mythology explaining the cycles of power and is the centerpiece of a large part of traditional Wiccan ritual drama.  It, inevitably, confuses the hell out of everyone when it gets mixed up with the details listed below.  In order to try and prevent further addled brains, I will tell the story elsewhere in another article.  Yes, it’s important.  No, I haven’t forgotten it.  Just want to say that for all those who might notice it missing.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?  This, of course, means starting at the end.  The Craft is full of paradox.  You come to love it.  *smile*

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SAMHAINE

• Sun crosses 15th degree of Scorpio
• Calendar holiday is traditionally eve of November 1st (ie, October 31st)
• Astrological holiday around November 7th
• Moon Phase: Waning Crescent
• Season: Final half of Autumn / Begin ‘Time of the Little Sun’
• Sabbat Classification: Greater Sabbat / Fire Festival / Cross-Quarter
• Theme: Death, Final/Blood Harvest, Summer’s End, Crossing The Veil, Ancestral Veneration
• Traditions: Culling of the herds before onset of winter, bringing herds in for the cold months, final crops harvested and season’s successes tallied.  Veil between worlds is thin, souls of those who have died in the past year cross on this night.  Ancestors and spirits can cross back to visit, Dumb Feast / Feast Of All Souls is held in honor of loved ones who have died.  Divination for the upcoming year a common tradition in Celtic and Brythonic homelands.  Time of Chaos at the cusp of the new year.

YULE / WINTER SOLSTICE

• Sun enters sign of Capricorn
• Astrological holiday, observed approx. December 21-22
• Moon Phase: Dark/New (no moon visible)
• Season: Beginning of Winter (modern calendar)
• Sabbat Classification: Lesser Sabbat / Cardinal Sabbat / Winter Solstice
• Theme: Longest Night, Sun’s Death and Rebirth
• Traditions: Festivities to celebrate the Sun’s birth. Vigil to keep watch during the Longest Night.  Feasting and singing.  Giving of gifts.  Hospitality and welcome.  Yule tree.  Yule log.  Yule bushes.  Midnight or dawn ritual observance, kindling newborn fire.

IMBOLC or CANDLEMAS

• Sun crosses 15th degree of Aquarius
• Calendar holiday is traditionally eve of February 2nd (ie, February 1)
• Astrological holiday around February 4th
• Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent
• Season: Final half of Winter
• Sabbat Classification: Greater Sabbat / Fire Festival / Cross-Quarter
• Theme: Awakening, Quickening, Purification, New Beginnings, Dedication
• Traditions: Festival of lights to celebrate the Sun’s growing light.  Beginning garden preparations/plans.  Traditionally honors Bridget/Brigit/Bride with rites such as Bride’s Welcome and Bride’s Bed.  Typically and hearth and home festival for groups.  Smooring the fire.  Purification and cleansing of persons and homes.  Dedication of projects (especially artistic ones to be harvested at Lugh’s festival at Lughnasadh).  Excellent Sabbat for storytelling (especially love stories such as Bride’s marriage to Angus Og).

OSTARA / SPRING EQUINOX

• Sun enters sign of Aries
• Astrological holiday, observed approx. March 20-21
• Moon Phase: Waxing First Quarter
• Season: Beginning of Spring (modern calendar)
• Sabbat Classification: Lesser Sabbat / Cardinal Sabbat / Spring Equinox
• Theme: Day and Night Balanced, Fertility, Planting of Seeds/Intentions, Life Returning to Earth.  Also is the Traditional Earth Day date (not April 22nd – see this link for more information)
• Traditions: Seed planting.  Eostre egg decorating and hunts.  Earth Day services and pause for Unity for Conservation efforts.  Earth Day service projects.  Garden preparation.  Dawn/morning ritual observance.

BELTAINE

• Sun crosses 15th degree of Taurus
• Calendar holiday is traditionally eve of May 1st (ie, April 30th)
• Astrological holiday around May 7th
• Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous
• Season: Final half of Spring / Begin ‘Time of the Big Sun’
• Sabbat Classification: Greater Sabbat / Fire Festival / Cross-Quarter
• Theme: Life, Fertility, Sex, Growth, Delight, Sensuality
• Traditions: Great Rite.  Celebrations of fertility and growth of crops.  Greenwooding.  Bonfires.  Traditional time to send cattle into the shielings for the summer.  Sensual celebrations of life and generative powers of sexual union.

LITHA or MIDSUMMER / SUMMER SOLSTICE

• Sun enters sign of Cancer
• Astrological holiday, observed approx. June 21-22
• Moon Phase: Full Moon
• Season: Beginning of Summer (modern calendar)
• Sabbat Classification: Lesser Sabbat / Cardinal Sabbat / Summer Solstice
• Theme: Longest Day, Height of Sun’s Power
• Traditions: Bonfires.  Faires and festivals.  Honoring the Faery Folk.  Honoring the spirits of the Land (genus loci).  Vigil.  Harvesting of St. John’s Wort.  Well-dressing (most of June and July in British Isles).  Dawn and/or noontime ritual observance.

LUGHNASADH or LAMMAS

• Sun crosses 15th degree of Leo
• Calendar holiday is traditionally eve of August 1st (ie, July 31)
• Astrological holiday around August 7th
• Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous
• Season: Final half of Summer
• Sabbat Classification: Greater Sabbat / Fire Festival / Cross-Quarter
• Theme: 1st Harvest, Settlement of Grievances, New Contracts (Marriages, Alliances), Sacrificial King, Games of Skill and Demonstrations of Arts
• Traditions: Festival dedicated to Lugh (Irish God, Master of All Skills).  Loaf-Mass (Lammas) or Bread Harvest.  Harvest of Grain.  1st Harvest and Offerings of Crops to Gods.  Peacemaking and addressing of grievances before the hard work of harvest begins (everyone needs to get along to get crops in).  Alliances made, marriages made before Winter season (this is a happy harvest theme, but practically, allowed for clans to know the number of mouths needing to be fed come Winter and thus accounted for during Harvest).  Sacrificial King (good time to do a symbolic sacrificial rite, ex. John Barleycorn).  Sharing of creations, works of art, songs, stories, and showcasing other skills.  Competitions and games.  Trial marriages (handfastings).  Making of oaths.

MABON / AUTUMN EQUINOX

• Sun enters sign of Libra
• Astrological holiday, observed approx. September 21-22
• Moon Phase: Waning Last Quarter
• Season: Beginning of Autumn (modern calendar)
• Sabbat Classification: Lesser Sabbat / Cardinal Sabbat / Autumn Equinox
• Theme: Day and Night Balanced, Harvest (focus shifts from fields to include vines and fruit bearing trees), Harvest of Intentions begun at Ostara, Death Approaching, Harvest Moon (falls in September)
• Traditions: Vanquishing of the God of Light by the God of Darkness (Night will be longer than day from this point onward to Yule).  Eleusinian mysteries of the abduction of Persephone.  Time of both Thanksgiving and impending Mourning.  Ritual drama to say farewell to the Light half of the year.  Festival of harvest, thanksgiving, wine and abundance.  Welcome of the Hunter (constellation Orion returns to the skies).

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An important part of your Craft practice will be celebrating these Sabbat holidays by observing traditions that mark this time of year for you and allow you to be connected to the Earth in a meaningful way.  Here are some things I suggest you research for your own personal practice.  If you are seeking to be part of a coven, I highly suggest you complete this assignment anyway, even though covens often have their own traditions in place in which you will take part.  It is important to know what speaks to you at this time of the year so you can decide if the way a coven practices is a good fit for you or not.  The following research angles will help you discover your own vital connectedness to the Wheel:

What is your blood heritage? Research the celebrations and traditions within your family blood line. These traditions and cultural myths will likely speak very strongly to you.  Blood sings to blood and the traditions of your ancestors have a high chance of being a good match for you if you are reclaiming your cultural heritage and expressing it through Wicca.

What is going on in the natural world where you live at these times? It may feel wrong to celebrate Spring Equinox if your flowers and bunnies don’t start popping up until later in April.  A comparison between cultures with colder climates (such as Norse/Germanic) and those with warmer climates (Brythonic) will show a difference in how these cultures flowed with the land.  The celebrations do differ, even if the astrology doesn’t.  For example, I always call the Full Moon near the end of September Geese Fly Moon because that’s when the geese start their V-formations and migrate.  This time will be different for other places, but the mental connection ties me to the land here.

What are modern expressions of ancient cultural traditions and how can you weave them back in? For example, a suitable replacement for a Summer Solstice Faire would be a trip to a carnival or Ren Faire.  A perfect modern celebration of the harvest is a trip to the Farmer’s Market (or your own garden if you have one) and the preparation of locally grown (preferably organic!) produce.

What cultural groups were native to your land and what did they do to celebrate this time? For example, here in Chattanooga, the area was inhabited by the Cherokee long ago.  The time of Lughnasadh corresponds to the Cherokee Green Corn Festival.  As part of our celebrations this year, the coven is taking a weekend field trip to Cherokee to learn more about the culture and to attend an outdoor drama about the Cherokee removal.  We will be doing our coven Lughnasadh as part of our activities one evening at the campground.  This connects us to both the land’s culture as well as the Wiccan Wheel we follow due to our (mostly) Caucasian heritage.

There is so much information available to you about holidays and traditions.  It is my fervent opinion that the Craft (actually, any viable spiritual faith) must adapt to the Age and the challenges of the Age.  That which does not change and evolve is primed for elimination.  Reconstructionist pagans will heartily disagree with me on this point, and that is fine.  However, I look to Nature as my final authority on the practice of my faith.  And as nothing in Nature remains exactly the same without adaptation of some sort (even the Stars shift over long periods of time), I acknowledge that changes can and should be made to traditional celebratory expressions in moderation.

If we use Nature as our guiderule to say that we must adapt with the Wheel, then we must equally say that we must adapt our celebrations slowly and carefully, as Nature would.  I don’t expect anyone to go out on Beltaine, build two fires, and drive their cats between them because people used to drive their livestock between the bel-fires and, well, cats are the closest thing you’ve got — but hey, if you decide to try that, please send me pictures, okay?  However, you probably could, at the very least, learn to start a fire without matches, have a bonfire, jump over it or make two fires and walk between them, or send tealights lit from that fire home with everyone at your ritual to spread the light to all their homes.

Remember to be respectful as you choose traditions for your Sabbats.  If you come up with something new, do NOT say that it’s some ancient tradition when it isn’t.  It’s okay if it’s not ancient if it works for you for your intended purpose.  Just don’t misrepresent another culture because you think it will make you look more authentic.  It actually just makes you look dumb and disrespectful.  If you come up with something for a Sabbat celebration one year, I suggest trying it for at least one more year to see if it is “tradition worthy”.  See if celebrating it that way means something for you and others, if you can feel the change in yourself and your energy when you work that ritual.  There’s a reason that rituals are repeated when they work:  it’s because they work and it feels right.

I hate to say it, but reading this article was the easy part.  Now you have research to do!  Enjoy!

Next entry in New to Wicca? -  We Are A Circle Within A Circle

Photo by R C Photographic (via Flickr).