Magical Almanac: Practical Magic for Everyday Living - Lauryn Heineman 2018
Rethinking the Wheel of the Year by Stephanie Woodfield
Earth Magic
I very distinctly remember when I realized my seasonal practices no longer made any sense. It was at a Beltane ritual a few years ago when the priestess began talking about how we were welcoming the warm weather once again, and the joining of the lord and lady would bring the fruitfulness of the coming months ahead. Makes total sense, right? That’s textbook Beltane to most Pagans.
Yet all I could think was how ridiculous it was. Because we were in Central Florida. We were outside and it was in the seventies, the land already green and lush around us. Winter in Florida is when a good chunk of the year’s produce is grown, so the land had been anything but dormant for “winter.” The fruitfulness the priestess was talking about had already reached its height. I wasn’t looking forward to the brutal heat to come at all—I was mourning a bit for the cooler days we would soon move past. We were in the dry season, and with the heat that was beginning to grow stronger and the grass and plants that were beginning to turn brown, there has been several wildfires in the area. What we should have been asking the gods for, I thought, was rain. We should be welcoming in the rain of the wet season and asking for an end to the wildfires. We should be respecting that the destruction of the wildfires is needed and not deadly, a part of the life cycle in this part of the world.
I realized in that moment that even though by most Pagan standards we were celebrating Beltane as we should, all we were really doing was repeating what we had been told or read was “correct” for this holiday instead of actually connecting to the changes in the land around us. I thought about other Beltanes in New England, ones when there was still a chill in the air and we were all elated that we were no longer stuck indoors from the winter weather. I thought of how I was wearing shorts and sweating more on Beltane in Florida than I even had during the peak of summer in Connecticut. The traditional dance of the seasons made sense there, but what about the land I now lived on? How could I honor this place and its cycles? Could the traditional Wheel of the Year even make sense here? If part of being a Pagan was moving with the cycle of the land, then I would have to create new ways to honor my new home, to learn to truly listen to what the land was telling me about itself.
Honoring the Cycles of the Land
Having lived most of my life in New England, I had never really needed to question how I celebrated the seasons. What we think of as the traditional Wheel of the Year comes to us from practices across Ireland, the United Kingdom, and parts of central Europe with climates and seasonal shifts that fall fairly in sync with the seasons in New England and parts of the central United States. Honoring the cycles of the seasons was always a meaningful part of my spiritual practices living in Connecticut. Winter was harsh and there was a joyfulness to welcoming the warmer weather back. But when I moved to the South, I quickly understood that how I had been celebrating just didn’t fit any more. I was at quite a loss for what to do. Since the gods that are my primary dedication are Irish and several important mythological events happen on particular holidays, such as Lughnasadh, Beltane, and Samhain, I started off by simply celebrating the event related to the myths I held dear. They were meaningful to me, but still remained divorced from the land.
And so, it became a challenge to understand the landscape I now called home, because if I didn’t learn how to connect with it, I wouldn’t know how to honor it. It doesn’t have four seasons, but it does have its own unique cycles. There is the wet season that begins around Beltane and the dry season, when the weather is more moderate, even chilly at times, and crops are grown. February marks the local strawberry festivals, when the fruit is harvested and there is outdoor entertainment. Summer is brutal, almost in the way winter in New England is harsh. It is when people stay indoors, and the afternoons are marked with lightning and magnificent thunderstorms.
Although most people connect Florida with hot weather, what truly defines the landscape is water, from the freshwater springs and the aquifers that keep the lush landscape vibrant and alive and help form the Everglades to the afternoon downpours in the wet season. What shapes the land the most is water. Most of Florida used to be an ancient coral reef, and part of the land still remembers. And so, I learned to listen to the land and celebrate the cycles I saw in the land around me. I took time to explore the wild places, to understand what the land and the spirits ensouled in it wanted and cared about, and how I might honor them.
Analyzing Traditional Dates
So how do we begin rethinking the seasons? The first thing we must consider is why we are using the traditional Neopagan dates we know today in the first place. Are these the dates our ancestors would have celebrated? Do they work for the environment we live in? In today’s world, we like things to run on schedule, to be set in stone. But how our ancestors would have celebrated the land around them would have been more fluid. They would have looked at nature to tell them when it was Beltane or Lughnasadh. When this particular plant started to bloom or when that particular thing began to happen upon the natural landscape. What we think of as Samhain is not quite the date the ancient Irish celebrated on; it would have been closer to November 10. Some Celtic Reconstructionist Pagans still celebrate this date as Old Samhain. Because the Irish did not use the Gregorian calendar we use today, slowly over time the dates for their celebrations stopped lining up with the natural cycle. For a society that relied on planting and harvesting at the correct times to survive, this would have been devastating, and so the dates were moved. Similarly, in Ireland Lughnasadh was celebrated throughout the month of August. Trade, commerce, horse races, and religious festivities marked the gatherings for this holiday. In today’s terms, it would have seemed akin to a country fair, minus the deep-fried Twinkies. So that begs the question, is Lughnasadh really on August 1? Is it the entire month? A certain portion of it?
But what about holidays that are marked by astrological events? Those are set days, right? Well, yes and no. When I visited Ireland this past Samhain, one of the places we went was Newgrange. The tour guide brought us into the mound and using a light bulb simulated how it would have looked lit up on the Winter Solstice. It was an absolutely amazing experience, but perhaps the biggest takeaway from the visit was what she told us afterward. She spoke about how people interested could enter the lottery to be one of the special few who got to witness the light enter the mound on the day of the solstice, but she also told us that the light didn’t just enter the inner chamber only on December 21 (or whatever date the astronomical solstice fell on) but for about ten days total, a few days before and a few days after the actual astronomical event. So, she asked, when was the actual solstice? December 21, or all the days the chamber was lit up? Which day or days did the Irish celebrate?
Ultimately, this reminds us that there are no set rules for seasonal celebrations. Just because we celebrate on a particular day doesn’t mean the Pagans of the past did. And truthfully, it doesn’t matter. At the heart of these celebrations is the idea that to become one with the land we must listen to it and see its changing cycles, whether they are subtle or dramatic. And those cycles will not be the same everywhere, so our celebrations should reflect that.
A friend of mine has started celebrating the Wheel of the Year in a very similar way: Beltane has arrived when a certain bush in her yard begins to bloom, and part of her family’s celebration involves harvesting the berries from the bush. Sometimes it is around the first of May, sometimes a week earlier or later, but the point is she listens to the land itself, connecting to the cycles around her, which is in the end the very reason we celebrate seasonal cycles—to connect with the land itself. For me, Beltane is wildfire season, a time to call the rains, and begins when the magnolia trees bloom. Imbolc is the strawberry harvest.
Make a New Wheel
I challenge you to rethink what you have been taught about the Wheel of the Year. Grab a pen and notebook, spend some time in the natural world, and really look at the changes that happen around you. Write these questions in your notebook for each holiday and take your time figuring out the answers.
• What change in the landscape where you live marks the holiday?
• What date would you use?
• What are the major shifts in the landscape?
• How can you celebrate those changes? What meaning do you find in them?
You may decide to completely change how you celebrate some holidays, simply tweak others, or even add holidays based on what you discover.
Whether or not the place you live in reflects the traditional cycles of the Wheel of the Year, I encourage you to rethink how to celebrate the land around you. Build a deeper relationship with the earth you walk upon, and honor the unique ebb and flow of the land around you.