Wheel of the Year

8 stations of the Celtic solar year

Merrivale processional Bronze Age stone row on Dartmoor, leading to a stone circle with a single menhir (standing stone). For many years I led daylong silent writing pilgrimages starting at this spot each solstice and equinox, no matter what the weather.

Following and celebrating the traditional ‘turning points’ of the year can be profound practice, connecting you with the land, your inner life and its annual (perennial) seasons, and ancestral wisdom.

To come in this section for paying subscribers: what will follow for each festival are its general details and my own personal relationship to it, accompanied by some or all of the following: relevant poems, stories or myths; plants, trees or flowers connected with this time; vegan recipes; and suggestions for creating your own ritual celebration for each turning point of the year. There will also be writing tasks. I have yet to decide if we will have a zoom meeting on each date.

My own life, and my writings, for most of my adult life, have been underpinned by the old native British pre-Christian calendar and its eightfold festival rhythms. Many of my courses take this into account, one way and another, too, so I would like to share these quarter-dates and cross-quarter dates here with any of you who would like to follow such a soul-deepening rhythm in your life.

Each date is basically a solar festival: the equinoxes mark the times when day and night are of equal length, the solstices where there is maximum daylight or maximum dark.

The equinoxes, unlike the solstices, vary a little each year. This is because basically the earth’s orbit around the sun takes 365¼ days. This is why we have a leap year every four years, otherwise there would be a gradual drift of date through the seasons. Generally, the equinox occurs about six hours later each year for four years, when it will then ‘jump’ backwards by a day to create a leap year.

In between solstice and equinox, and arguably of more significance in the old British calendar, are the cross-quarter Fire Festival dates exactly midway between the solstice and the equinox.

The year in the old pre-Christian calendar traditionally began with Samhain, what we now call Hallowe’en, over the 24 hours of October 31st to November 1st.

The Christian church, in converting the pagans, adopted their solar festivals but moved them just a little. In the Celtic tongue, the names of the 8 festivals, the quarter and cross-quarter dates, beginning with Samhain, are below:

November 1st Samhain (All Souls/All Saints in the Christian calendar)
December 21st Alban Arthan, Yule, winter solstice (Christmas Day, 25th December)
February 2nd Imbolc (Candlemas, February 2nd)
March 21st–23rd Alban Eilir, Ostara, spring equinox/Oestre (Easter; and Lady Day, Annunciation, 25th March, with Mothering Sunday falling on nearest Sunday)
May 1st Beltain or Beltane (May Day)
June 21st Alban Hefin, Litha, summer solstice (Midsummer Day, June 24th)
August 1st Lughnasadh (Lammas)
September 21st–23rd Alban Elfed, Mabon, autumn equinox (Michaelmas Day September 29th)

More coming soon; please come back!

Autumn equinox mandala by Ali Walters