People have all sorts of ways of marking time. In our culture, we surround ourselves with clocks and watches that tell us the clock time. Our walls, refrigerators and PCs constantly remind what the date it is on the calendar. Sometimes students in school will even star at the wall clock and wonder if time itself has stopped!

Spiritual people have ways of marking time too. This kind of marking time might be called "ritual time" or "liturgical time." It is a way of marking the progression of days, or months, or seasons, or a year or even a lifetime in spiritual terms. The Wiccan way of marking liturgical time is called "The Wheel of the Year."

The Wiccan Wheel reflects the cycles of nature and the many stories peoples have developed to explain them. For Wiccans, Deity is both male and female, and Wiccan ritual routinely reflect this, calling Deity Goddess and God, Mother and Father, Maiden and Lord, or Crone and Sage. It must said, however, in Wicca, the Goddess who bears all of creation is the constant. As we will see, throughout the Wiccan Wheel, the God comes and goes. The Goddess changes, but she is always present.

Wiccans divide the year into two major halves based on a light half and a dark half of the year.  Four major high holy days celebrated throughout the year tell the story of Goddess, God and creation. Within these two halves, the Wiccan Wheel also honors the equinoxes and solstices. The spring and fall equinoxes are hailed as days of balance when the sun and moon rule the skies equally. The spring and fall solstices are commemorated as days where in the spring the light enjoys its longest day, and in the fall the darkness has its longest night. The result is eight festivals called Sabbats that make up the Wiccan Wheel.

The Wiccan New Year starts at Samhain (pronounced sow-en) on November 1, related to secular Halloween (from Samhain Eve). Wiccans are an incredibly diverse lot, drawing our lore and celebration from a wide variety of traditions. This variety is often reflected in the celebrations for each holy day and the season that follows it. Samhain is a good example of this. It is, on the one hand, the last of three harvest festivals, a sort of final Thanksgiving Day to give thanks for the bounty of the Earth as the last fresh fruits and vegetables are picked and people in the Northern Hemisphere begin to settle in for winter. At the same time, the Goddess is celebrated as a wise old Crone who knows the mysteries of death and life. She rules this night, and the God who has ruled the day is old and dying; in some traditions God is in fact ritually dead by this time. The thanksgiving theme of this Sabbat is often dwarfed by a focus on recent loved ones who have died. With the end of the harvest, the death of the God, and celebrations of a New Year, Samhain is sometimes a time for Wiccans to ponder decisions and actions of the past year and look for ways to grow in the year ahead.

Yule follows at the Winter Solstice, usually near December 21. As the longest night of the year, Yule is a natural time for quiet reflection, but also a time to hope for the return of more light and warmth in the months ahead. The Goddess is celebrated especially as Mother on this day as she gives birth to the God. In some traditions, the God at Yule is called the Oak King, and he is born and then fights the aging and dying Holly King for the right to rule the light half of the year. 

Yule is followed by Imbolc on February 1 or 2 (secular Groundhog’s Day). To Wiccans, this is the first celebration of Spring. Even in the midst of cold and snow, birds begin their migrations north, many birds and animals start their springtime mating rituals and others are born around this time. In lore, the God born at Yule is now a young boy on the verge of adolescence. For her part, the Goddess has taken on her Maiden aspect and is also on the verge of adolescence. Both are becoming aware of their sexuality; they are looking, curious, testing, but still innocent. The Goddess in particular is aware of the creative spark the God will bring. She beckons him to maturity in the same way we beckon spring to arrive and melt away winter’s chill.

Ostara is the next holy day and comes at the Spring Equinox, near March 21. The pre-adolescent Maiden and Lord of Imbolc have grown into young adults by Ostara. Life and love are ripe within them and will begin to overflow in due time. The seeds that stirred at Imbolc start to sprout at Ostara. Spring is in the air, and the earth wakes with potential. The air smells of wet earth and early spring flowers. Ostara is also one of the two times of yearly balance between light and dark. On Ostara, night and day equally divide the 24 hours and then, starting the next day, the dark half of the year gives way to the light until Midsummer when the dark Lord begins his rule on to Yule.

These earthly and cosmic themes are also reflected in peoples’ daily lives, so Ostara is often seen by Wiccans as an excellent time to seek balance in our lives, to honor both dark and light however those find expression, and to celebrate hope in the potential of all people to grow and flourish. The young Maiden and Lord of Ostara then court their way to Beltane (May 1) where their love begins to overflow. In nature, the seeds that started to sprout at Ostara now ripen, revealing new life, new colors, new hope, new creation. This is the start of summer. Beltane is a time when many Wiccans focus especially on the creative power of the Goddess. Though the God plants the seed, it is the Goddess who conceives, bears and nurses the new life. The God remains faithfully at her side, until at Midsummer he is defeated by the Holly King only to be replaced once more at Yule. But through the competitions of the rival Gods, the Goddess remains, changing yet ever present.

The Wiccan Wheel turns next at Midsummer. Midsummer is celebrated on the Summer Solstice (around June 21) and marks the longest day of the year. From this point forward the nights will gradually get longer and longer, even though the real heat of summer has yet to begin. This changeover is symbolized ritually by the death of the Oak King at the hands of the Holly King who was slain at Yule. The Goddess is pregnant at Midsummer, symbolic of the farms, gardens and animals who are pregnant with new life. This day is set aside to celebrate and honor the Sun God who is crucial to the successful harvest in autumn. Hope is at the core of this day and this ritual, hope for us to enjoy the fullness of life yet to come. Of course, with that hope comes an element of risk and danger that the Goddess may not bring forth her child at Yule, that the farms, gardens and animals may not bear fruit, that our hopes may be dashed. For many Wiccans, fire is a key and fitting symbol at Midsummer. It relates to the Sun God being honored. It also calls to mind the double-edged aspect of Midsummer and of life. Fire holds great promise for heat, cooking, and energy; it also holds great potential danger if allowed to grow out of control.

Two more high holy days round out the Wiccan Wheel. Today most Wiccans celebrate three harvest festivals that really form a great extended time of thanksgiving that stretches from August through October and take us through the season of fall. Lughnasadh marks the first of these and the start of fall. It is celebrated on or about August 1 or 2. The name "Lughnasadh" comes from the Celtic God "Lugh" about whom there is a great deal of mystery. Most sources list Lugh as a Sun God, and many consider him one of the major ancient Gods of the Irish people. Whatever the historical truth about Lugh, this festival gives thanks for the first harvest of sun-ripened fruits and vegetables. The next harvest festival is Mabon. Mabon is related to the English “harvest home” celebrations of old and is often referred to as “The Witch’s Thanksgiving” for its attention to giving thanks. Mabon also falls near the end of the harvest in the Western Hemisphere, and is often especially associated with the harvest of grapes for wine and jelly. In addition to the harvest/thanksgiving theme, Mabon falls on the fall equinox (around September 21) and carries with it a focus on balance similar to Ostara.

In a sense, the Wiccan year does not end! Where Samhain marks the beginning of the year, it also marks the last of the three Wiccan harvest festivals. In this way the Wiccan year really does resemble a wheel that continues to turn from one season to the next. It serves to remind us that our lives too never end. We exerpience times of great change, new beginnings, endings, even death and rebirth, but through it all, we see the hand fo the Goddess with us, guiding us, speaking to us along the way.

© Wayne S. Haney, all rights reserved