The Wheel Of The Year – Pagan Holidays

The Wiccan Wheel of the Year is a calendar that divides the year into 8 special days. This calendar is a reconstructionist/revivalist invention that was created in the 1950’s by Ross Nicholls. The holidays are based on pre-Christian Celtic and Germanic festivals that were celebrated to mark the changing of seasons and were a way to keep track of certain events in the agricultural cycle (planting, harvest, etc).

In the Wheel of the Year, there are 8 holidays: 4 quarter days (sabbats) and 4 cross-quarter days (esbats). There are also many other Pagan holidays that are not part of the Wheel of the Year. Some Pagan festivals are still celebrated, some were absorbed into Christianity, some have been lost and forgotten, and some have experienced a revival.

I try to observe these 8 holidays when I can – there are ones that speak to me more than others. I tend to pay more attention to the solstices and equinoxes, but I still try to do at least a little something on all the days. Also, I have many Pagan friends and we often have parties – one friend always has a Halloween/Samhain party, one friend always does Yule, and I usually throw a Summer Solstice party.

Even though I am an atheist, I really love the fact that these holidays are based on natural phenomena – the changing of the seasons, the life/growth/death cycle, the movements of the Sun and Earth. I think observing and marking the seasons is a great way to help someone get back in touch with nature and the earth. I read a book called Spinning in Place: A Secular Humanist Embraces the Neo-Pagan Wheel of the Year that really helped me understand the Wheel of the Year from a secular point of view, and I strongly recommend it.

It is important to remember that the Wheel of the Year is a modern interpretation, and not all of these holidays were celebrated in the same way, on the same day, or at all by any given pre-Christian society or culture. It’s also good to remember that these holidays are fairly specific to a certain region of Earth, mainly Northern and Western Europe, and the timing and length of seasons can differ depending on your location. (Where I live it starts to feel very autumn-y at the beginning of September, about 20 days before the Equinox.) Another thing to remember is the calendar we use today in Western society is different from the calendar pre-Christian Europeans would have used.

Let’s go over the 2 main categories, sabbats (quarter days) and esbats (cross-quarter days).

Sabbats/Quarter Days/Solar Festivals

These 4 days consist of the 2 Solstices (Summer & Winter) and the 2 Equinoxes (Spring & Fall). These are solar events that divide up the year into mostly equal quarters. We have Yule (Winter Solstice, ~Dec 21), Ostara (Spring Equinox, ~Mar 20), Litha (Summer Solstice, ~Jun 21) and Mabon (Autumn Equinox, ~Sep 20). These dates are not exact because the day of the event changes slightly depending on the year. (If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, advance the dates 6 months.)

During the Solstices, the Sun is at its highest position in the sky. At the Summer Solstice, the North Pole is tilted toward the sun. Because of this, the length of daylight on that day is the longest out of the whole year. At the Winter Solstice, the South Pole is tiled toward the sun, therefore; the length of daylight is the shortest. (Reverse these for Southern Hemisphere.)

The word solstice comes from Latin – sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still). The solstice is where/when the Sun “stands” before reversing its trajectory.

During the Equinoxes, the plane of the Earth’s equator passes through the center of the sun, putting the tilt of the Earth’s axis neither towards nor away from the Sun. This happens twice a year, and causes mostly equal amounts of daylight and nighttime for those days.

The word equinox also comes from Latin – equi (equal) and nox (night).

Here is an article with a great diagram that really helped me visualize the relative positions of the Earth and Sun during these events.

Esbats/Cross-Quarter Days/Fire Festivals

These 4 days are not based on solar events, rather, they are based on the change in seasons. The modern Wheel of the Year places these days just about midway between a Solstice and an Equinox. Historically, they may have been celebrated earlier or later than what is done now. The modern esbats are Imbolc (~Feb 1), Beltane (~May 1), Lughnasadh (~August 1), and Samhain (~Oct 31). Again, advance these dates 6 months for Southern Hemisphere.

These festivals were very important to the ancient Celts, who were an agricultural society. The Celts depended on knowing when these changes were going to happen in order to plow the fields, plant the right seeds at the right time, and harvest the right plants at the right time. The breeding, birthing, milking, feeding, and slaughter of livestock also followed this cycle. Learning and marking the patterns and signals of weather, climate and season was important for the Celts' survival.

Individual Holidays

Yule * Imbolc * Ostara * Beltane * Litha * Lughnasadh * Mabon * Samhain

Additionally, here is the list of resources I used to write this post and all of my Wheel of the Year posts.