The Modern Pagan’s Relationship to the Wheel
Modern Pagans take inspiration from many pre-Christian spiritual traditions, exemplified by the Wheel of the Year. The cycle of eight festivals we recognize throughout modern Pagandom today was never celebrated in full by any one particular pre-Christian culture. In the 1940s and 1950s a British man named Gerald Gardner created the new religion of Wicca by drawing on a variety of cultures and traditions, deriving and adapting practices from pre-Christian religion, animistic beliefs, folk magick, and various shamanic disciplines and esoteric orders. He combined multicultural equinox and solstice traditions with Celtic feast days and early European agricultural and pastoral celebrations to create a single model that became the framework for the Wiccan ritual year.
This Wiccan ritual year is popularly followed by Wiccans and witches, as well as many eclectic Pagans of various stripes. Some Pagans only observe half of the sabbats, either the quarters or the cross-quarters. Other Pagans reject the Wheel of the Year altogether and follow a festival calendar based on the culture of whatever specific path they follow rather than a nature-based agrarian cycle. We all have such unique paths in Paganism that it is important not to make any assumptions about another’s based on your own; maintaining an open and positive attitude is what makes the Pagan community thrive.
Many Pagans localize the Wheel of the Year to their own environment. Wicca has grown to become a truly global religion, but few of us live in a climate mirroring Wicca’s British Isles origins. While traditionally Imbolc is the beginning of the thaw and the awakening of the earth, it is the height of winter in many northern climes. While Lammas may be a grateful celebration of the harvest for some, in areas prone to drought and forest fires it is a dangerous and uncertain time of year.
There are also the two hemispheres to consider. While it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere. While Pagans in America are celebrating Yule and the Winter Solstice, Pagans in Australia are celebrating Midsummer. The practitioner’s own lived experiences are more important than any dogma written in a book when it comes to observing the sabbats.
In that spirit, you may wish to delay or move up celebrations so that the seasonal correspondences better fit your own locale, or you may emphasize different themes for each sabbat as you experience it. This series should make such options easily accessible to you.
No matter what kind of place you live on the globe, be it urban, rural, or suburban, you can adapt sabbat traditions and practices to suit your own life and environment. Nature is all around us; no matter how hard we humans try to insulate ourselves from nature’s cycles, these recurring seasonal changes are inescapable. Instead of swimming against the tide, many modern Pagans embrace each season’s unique energies, whether dark, light, or in-between, and integrate these energies into aspects of our own everyday lives.
Llewellyn’s Sabbat Essentials offer all the information you need in order to do just that. Each book will resemble the one you hold in your hands. The first chapter, Old Ways, shares the history and lore that have been passed down, from mythology and pre-Christian traditions to any vestiges still seen in modern life. New Ways then spins those themes and elements into the manners in which modern Pagans observe and celebrate the sabbat. The next chapter focuses on Spells and Divination appropriate to the season or based in folklore, while the following one, Recipes and Crafts, offers ideas for decorating your home, hands-on crafts, and recipes that take advantage of seasonal offerings. The chapter on Invocations and Meditations provides ready-made calls and prayers you may use in ritual, meditation, or journaling. The Rituals and Celebrations chapter provides three complete rituals: one for a solitary, one for two people, and one for a whole group such as a coven, circle, or grove. (Feel free to adapt each or any ritual to your own needs, substituting your own offerings, calls, invocations, magical workings, and so on. When planning a group ritual, try to be conscious of any special needs participants may have. There are many wonderful books available that delve into the fine points of facilitating ritual if you don’t have experience in this department.) Finally, in the back of the book you’ll find a complete list of correspondences for the holiday, from magical themes to deities to foods, colors, symbols, and more.
By the end of this book you’ll have the knowledge and the inspiration to celebrate the sabbat with gusto. By honoring the Wheel of the Year, we reaffirm our connection to nature so that as her endless cycles turn, we’re able to go with the flow and enjoy the ride.