The Neo-Pagan Wheel of the Year is based on the agricultural cycles of Northern Europe, in particular the cultures of the Germanic/Norse and the Celts.
YULE/WINTER SOLSTICE
The winter solstice occurs in mid-December around the 21st or 22nd. It marks the longest night of the year and so to the beginning of the climb to the longest day, the summer solstice in June. In agricultural pre-Christian northern Europe, these were important events.
IMBOLC
Imbolc is the first spring. The time when the Earth is just beginning to awaken from her winter's sleep. Crocus and daffodils and snowdrops are just starting to poke their heads through the snow. The earliest of newborns are being born to the livestock. It is a time of hope realized. We have made it through the worst of winter and life is returning to the land. The seasonal wheel has turned once again.
OSTARA/SPRING EQUINOX
Ostara is celebrated at the vernal equinox around March 21 or 22 . It marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere. Cultures that depend on agriculture and mark time by the turn of the seasons celebrate the reawakening of the earth. The rebirth that had been hinted at since Imbolc becomes evident. New greenery and blossoms show on the trees and on the ground. Visible signals that the earth is ready for planting crops abound.
The word Ostara is a variation on Eostre, from the Germanic eosturmonath. Our earliest known reference comes from Bede in his treatise, De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time) written in the 8th century. He writes that earlier peoples marked eosturmonath with feasts and month-long celebrations. Bede also states that by the time of his writings, the practice had died out long before and nothing more had survived beside the name.
Neo-Pagans have adopted Eostre/Ostara as the embodiment of Spring and deified her. Rituals and feasts around the spring equinox honoring Eostre/Ostara incorporate newly-budding plants, the bright colors after winter's monochromatic vistas, newborn animals, even the equinox itself as the balancing point between seasons.
BELTAINE
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MIDSUMMER/SUMMER SOLSTICE
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LUGHNASSADH
The August feast,
also called Lughnassadh or Lammas, is the feast of the First Harvest. In agrarian societies, the first harvest is
a particular time of celebration. Months
of planting and cultivation are beginning to, literally, bear fruit. Hard work is rewarded.
But the hard work is
not over. The burgeoning crop must still
be harvested. For those farmers without
strong workers already in their employ, communities would hold fairs with
contests of strength, endurance, and skill for both men and animals. The farmers would then hire seasonal laborers
from among the contestants.
In Celtic
traditions, this is also the Feast of Lugh, the Bright and Shining God,
commemorating the his victory over Balor and consequent marriage to the sovereignty
goddess of the land itself and also the death of Tailtiu, Lugh’s foster mother,
who died of exhaustion after plowing the whole of Ireland and readying it for
planting, sacrificing herself for the good of the Land. The now-gone Telltown in County Meath in Ireland
was named for her, and the fairs and games held there continued through the Middle
Ages and were briefly revived again in the mid-20th century.
In other areas of
northern Europe and the British Isles, this time is also called Lammas, from
the Anglo-Saxon hlafmaesse meaning loaf-mass, the celebration of the first wheat
harvest dating back to pre-Christian times.
Many Neo-Pagans mark the feast day by baking and sacrificing special
loaves of bread.
AUTUMN EQUINOX
There is a crispness in the air, and the woods are aglow with red and gold. Mid-September is the time of the autumnal equinox, the day when the hours of daylight and darkness are equal. The last of the crops are being harvested in the northern hemisphere, although in reality, depending on your latitude, harvest may continue through early November. Traditionally though, the beginning of Autumn marks the time to begin storing for the winter to come. In northern seafaring cultures, it is also the end of the sailing season, and the sailors are coming home. It also marks the time when our northernmost ancestors would come together as communities before the long winter’s enforced isolation. Final offerings of thanks for abundant crops and prayers for surviving the winter were given to the gods. Games, contests of skill, general revelry, and well-earned rest were indulged in between the heavy work of tending the crops during the summer and the struggle to maintain and survive through the harsh winter. These celebrations continue today in the U.S., not only as Fall/Harvest festivals, most notably Thanksgiving in November, but also as county and state fairs with displays dedicated to the best of the crops and livestock and to skills such as canning and preserving that would keep food available throughout the winter months. Even fall football can be thought of as harvest games – warriors engaging in combat exhibitions to show their skills and endurance and possibly work off some extra aggression before being isolated with little to do.
Some Neo-Pagans celebrate the autumn equinox as Mabon as part of the Wheel of the Year. The term Mabon itself comes from Welsh mythology, Mabon ap Modron (Mabon, son of Modron), a figure in the Arthurian tales and truly has little to do with the autumn equinox. It was first used for the autumn equinox festivals in the 1970s by Aiden Kelly, American author and founder of the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn. The autumn equinox or Mabon was probably not celebrated by the ancients with ritual as the “fire festivals” (such as Beltaine or Samhain) were, but it adds a symmetry to the Wheel of the Year as a cross-quarter, making for a sabbat approximately every six weeks during the year.
Autumn equinox, Mabon, or even the Witch’s Thanksgiving – it is a time to come together to celebrate as a community and to strengthen those connections that will carry us through Winter and into Spring.
SAMHAIN
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