A CELTIC WOMAN’S WHEEL OF THE YEAR
The traditional Wiccan wheel of the year is very well known, and takes the majority of its festivals and symbolism from old Anglo-Celtic practices. These eight festivals, known as sabbats from the Greek sabatu, meaning “to rest,” are divided into two categories: the Greater Sabbats and the Lesser Sabbats.212 The Greater Sabbats are those thought to be Celtic originally: Samhain, Imbolg, Bealtaine, and Lughnasadh.
The Solar Year
The solar wheel of the year was the basic framework on which the Celts hung their eter, nal Goddess and the reborn/dying God. The Goddess moves through the year from the virgin who gives birth to the God in winter, to the time she mates with him in spring, to birthing him/his son at the harvest, to watching him die at Samhain.
Though the solar cycle dominates the modern Celtic wheel of the year, I have read many arguments about which of the solar sabbats were original to it and which were later additions. Later in this case is a relative term, with some sabbats being added to the calendar in Ireland rather than Gaul. Each time I think I have it all figured out, I read a new study that presents good evidence for another version, and feel compelled to change my mind. I have read that in Gaul only Imbolg, Bealtaine, and Lughnasadh were used. But since Lugh was a God of the Tuatha De Danaan, and not part of the Celtic pantheon until the Celts reached Ireland, this assertion seems suspect. It is also assumed by many scholars and Pagans that the solstices and equinoxes were not part of the Celtic wheel of the year until the invading Norse and Normans made it so. This too is suspect. The two solstices are easily the oldest solar festival dates known to humankind, recognized in some form by virtually every ancient culture and by many modem ones. The fact that we call these solstices by the names Midsummer and Midwinter tell us that these were placed at some point into the Celtic year, or these designa tions make no sense. On our modern calendars they serve as the starting point for the summer and winter seasons, not as “mid” points. Midsummer is halfway between Bealtaine and Lughnasadh, and Midwinter is halfway be tween Samhain and Imbolg. Only when placed in the context of the Celtic year do they become true halfway points in the seasons.
Today we have set firm—or fairly firm—dates for the Greater Sabbats. This too is a modem affectation. The original festival dates were based on agricul tural times. For example, Samhain would have been celebrated when the last of the harvest was in, and Bealtaine would have been celebrated when the planting was done and the cattle were ready to be taken to summer pasture. Sometime in the early middle ages these dates were fixed according to astrological phenomena, criteria that would push forward the date of each Greater Sabbat by five to seven days if it were used today.
Having precise dates set aside for holidays seems to be important to our modem minds. We are so removed from agricultural cycles that we need these firm markers in place. We have conceptualized these festivals into what we call a wheel of the year, a paradigm of the eternal cycles of life, death, and rebirth. There are two basic schemes used by Celtic Pagans to symbolize the wheel of the year, one a perfect circle and the other a rough rendering of Brighid’s Cross.
The Great Sabbats in Ireland were once linked to special sites and to Goddesses who were sovereign over those landscapes.213 Samhain festivals were held on earth sacred to Tlachtga, an underworld Goddess; Imbolg was held at Tara, on earth sacred to Tea, a founder and guardian of this stronghold; Bealtaine rituals were held on ground sacred to Eire, the Goddess for whom Ireland is named; and Lughnasadh was held near Tara, on ground sacred to Taillte, a Goddess of competition, on whose land special games of skill were held each year.
The Celtic emphasis on the solar year has led some researchers to believe that this meant the male deities were more important to the meaning of the festivals. While this is true in several European cultures, it is not true of the Celts, who did not neatly divide their divine archetypes neatly into male = sun, female = moon categories. There were numerous Celtic Goddesses associated with the sun or with fire, a solar attribute. In Ireland, several bear the name Grainne or Greine, which roughly means “sunny.” One Grainne was the mother of nine daughters, who each lived in shelters called griannon, or “sun houses.” She was probably a twin of Aine, a sun Goddess who represented the waning year, while Grainne was the deity of the waxing year, in much the same way we celebrate the Holly and Oak Kings today.214 Even in modern Irish the word for sun, grian, is a feminine noun.
The Lunar Year
The machinations of the lunar year are not without their controversies. Today, many Pagans are aware of the Celtic Tree Calendar, based on lunar cycles, each cycle being given a tree name that represents its energies. Some say that this calendar was originated by the Druids, others say it was the invention of author Robert Graves for his book The White Goddess.215 The truth probably lies somewhere between these two extreme viewpoints.
We have evidence of a lunar year being observed in Romano-Celtic Gaul. This is known today as the Coligny Calendar, because the bronze plate on which the calendar was engraved was unearthed near the present-day French town of Coligny in 1897.216 The year was divided into twelve or thirteen units, which we assume to be lunar. The fact that one of the months, Mid Samonios, appears to be on standby in case it is needed217 further underscores this since they are more than twelve, but less than thirteen, lunar cycles in the standard 365-day year. A solar year can have either twelve or thirteen lunations.
With or without Mid Samonios, the Coligny Calendar still does not break down into handy units when compared with solar time. Complex mathematical calculations bring it in at about 363 days, leaving the solar year about one and a quarter days short. Other scholars have tried to make a case for a 366-day Celtic year, to correspond with the Celtic year and day unit of magickal time, but none of these have matched our solar year any better than other lunar calendars have done.
The arguments may go on forever. All we are certain of now is that the Coligny Calendar began its year in October with a moon that bears the same root word, sam, of the festival of Samhain, the solar festival that begins the Celtic year. The Coligny months are:
|
Month Name |
Translation |
|
Samonios |
Seed Time |
|
Dumannios |
Time of Darkness |
|
Riuros |
Cold Time |
|
Anagantios |
Unable to Get Out Time |
|
Orgronios |
Time of Ice |
|
Cutios |
Time of the Winds |
|
Giamonios |
Sprouting Time |
|
Simivisonios |
Time of Brightness |
|
Equos |
Horse Time |
|
Elembios |
Claiming Time |
|
Edrinos |
Time of Justice |
|
Cantlos |
Time of Song |
|
Mid Samonios |
Center of Seed Time |
Modern Celtic Pagans enjoy their lunar tree calendar in spite of its controversy, which is as it should be. Many of the festivals that have been added to Pagan calendars are not ancient, though the concepts behind them are. The Tree Calendar has two forms, one that begins its year at Samhain, and the other at Midwinter. Midwinter became the new solar new year due to the influence of the Norse between 700–1100 ce. The order of the Tree Calendar also varies slightly due to different interpretations of the Ogham Alphabet, a system of lines and slashes that made up an old form of Celtic writing. That the oghams relate to trees and bear tree names is a given, but whether they were applied to months of the year before very recent times is likely an issue that will never cease to be debated.218 The tree month names are included in the listing of Celtic festivals and holidays in this chapter for those of you who wish to begin using them this way.
A Celtic Woman’s Calendar of Festivals
The model I suggest for a Celtic Woman’s Wheel of the Year may not appeal to all women on the Celtic path. I can only suggest the festivals I feel have the greatest meaning for women, and offer my own ideas of creative ways to celebrate them. Some of these ways are ancient, others are based on ancient concepts, and some are modern interpretations.
Some of the festivals in this model are wholly modern in origin. I have seen them listed on Pagan calendars, often with conflicting dates. We can begin to work with these to create meaningful Celtic festivals for women, and we should always feel free to create our own festivals, either for our own use, or for that of our family or women’s spirituality groups.
I can hear the traditionalists among you shudder in horror at the thought of us mere mortals creating new festivals. But the fact remains that someone, sometime, had to create the old ones. Trust that our deities did not hand them down to us on stone tablets, as the Gods of some other religions were wont to do. The Greater Sabbats we celebrate today do not follow the same format they did two thousand years ago. Spirituality just doesn’t thrive in that sort of static environment. Spirituality and its expression has to evolve and grow with the people it serves, and who serve it, in order to keep it meaningful. True, many of the deeper aspects of these festivals have remained intact, and that has been their strength, but their outer forms have changed.
An Irish proverb says, “Neither make nor break a custom.”219 Yet in the course of only a century we can see changes in Irish celebrations. The old festivals, where everyone stopped working to join in the communal celebration, are on the wane. Some old customs are kept alive even though the original meaning is no longer clear to those who follow the customs; this is the perfect way to ensure their further demise or alteration. Only by making a concerted effort to embrace meaningful celebrations, old or new, will they continue to be an inherent part of Pagan spirituality.
My scheme for a Celtic woman’s wheel of the year embraces nearly thirty solar and lunar festivals. For each of the major festivals discussed in this chapter, I offer some practical suggestions for its observance. But please don’t let my concept inhibit you. That is not my intent. You should always feel free and able to try your own hand at creating special rituals and celebratory ideas, and you should never feel that you cannot add to or subtract from this wheel model as you see fit. Any idea given for group work can be adapted to solitary practice, and solitary ideas can be made workable for groups. If you are still unfamiliar with Pagan ritual forms, you can either look at the other rituals in this book for guidance, at Appendix C on circle casting and closing, or obtain one of the other books on the market that delve into this subject in more depth. While there are not too many ways you can go wrong, there are certain ritual markers that are inherently a part of Pagan practice, and their observance is important for helping impress the purpose of specific rituals on our psyches.220
As you will see by this listing, we can find women’s mysteries in most any Celtic festival, old or modern. Feel free to adapt others or create your own as the spirit moves you. There are no limits other than those of your imagination and desire to stretch your potential as a woman and as a Goddess incarnate!
As it harms none, do what you will!
Samhain
October 31
So much has been written about this popular festival that it seems redundant, as well as daunting, to try to compress it all into a brief description emphasizing the women’s aspect. This is primarily a celebration of the new year and a feast of the harvest’s ending, and a reaffirmation of our beliefs in the eternal cycles of death and rebirth. On Samhain we celebrate the spirit world and honor our ancestors. This festival may even have roots far back into pre-history, to a time when unity through mother blood bound tribes together, and worship of female ancestors formed the basis of their spiritual orientation.221
There are two possible sources for the origin of the word Samhain. The most remote is that it is derived from the name of an Aryan death God called Samana; another is that it is from the Irish Gaelic word samhraidhreadh, which literally means “the summer’s end.” Still another is that the word may have originally meant “one together,”222 which would accurately echo the meaning of this festival as a time when the veil separating the world of the living from that of the dead is parted, and our ancestors are permitted to walk among us.
The crone, as Goddess and ancestor, is the supreme deity of this festival. Samhain is the night when the old God, her son and lover, dies, and she goes into mourning for him until she can transform herself into the virgin who gives him rebirth. The image of her as the Halloween hag stirring her bubbling cauldron comes from the Celtic belief that all dead souls return, like the God, to her cauldron of life, death, and rebirth to await reincarnation.
To celebrate this sabbat you can follow an old Irish custom and place candles in your windows to illuminate the spirits’ travels; host a Dumb Supper, a meal eaten in total silence, which the spirits of the dead are invited to; or make and give away Soul Cakes. These treats made to nourish the wandering spirits were handed out to Scottish and English children who came begging for them door to door, one of the origins of our modern trick-or-treat custom. You might also consider hosting a costume party to which women must come dressed as women of great strength and power from the past.
Because the doors to other times and places are wide open on this night, it is a good time to try some past-life work. This can be done alone or with a group. If you are not familiar with any of the methods for doing this, now is the season for discovery.223
Your Samhain rituals can feature Soul Cakes. They’re not just for trick-or-treat anymore! Pass them out and have everyone make a wish on them for the new year. The communal breaking of bread was considered an act of good faith in many cultures, and can serve to help strengthen the bonds of your Celtic women’s spirituality group.
You can also mourn the dead God with the traditional women’s keening wail, and offer comfort to the grieving Goddess.
Bring photos or mementos of your female ancestors to your circle and honor their memories. Call upon the crone to assist the spirits of the newly dead to the Otherworld. Allow all present to share memories of passed-over women.224 You might even want to host a memorial ceremony for all the women executed as Witches.
It is also a nice touch to allow part of the ritual to honor a crone within your group, a woman who is wise or who has recently entered menopause. Or take time to honor the crone within yourself.
The Day of the Banshees
November 1
This festival, which appears occasionally on Pagan calendars, is neither wholly modern nor wholly ancient. The banshee, or beansidhe, is a spirit from the Otherworld who is attached to a particular Celtic family. On the night before a death is to occur, her lamentations are heard over the countryside. Many do not find the wail of the banshee to be disturbing at all, but find it strangely comforting.
The banshee represents the Otherworld realm of women, known as Tir na mBan, or the Land of Women, a world where all dead souls must go in order to be reborn. The womb of the Goddess, as represented by the bottomless cauldron, is the essence of this realm.
The precise origins of the banshee have been lost in time, but it is reasonable to assume that she represents a mother-form from the Otherworld. She may also be derived from the keening of the Goddess Brighid, who was said to wail uncontrollably and fearfully about the death of her son, Ruadhan.
You can celebrate this festival by following an old Irish equinox custom, now practiced in some rural areas as Garland Sunday, and place apples on the graves of loved ones. Apples represent the Celtic Otherworld, rebirth, eternal life, and the crone Goddess. Alone or in a group you can meditate on the meaning of the word banshee (ban= woman, sidhe =faery). Though this word is Irish, the banshee is known in other Celtic countries as well, usually by names that roughly mean “one who keens.”
Consider creating a ritual to honor the spirit guardians of your family, or host an all-women memorial ritual for passed over loved ones and engage in lots of banshee-like keening.
Birch Moon
November or December Full Moon
Called the Moon of Inception on the Celtic tree calendar, this is a lunar cycle in which to celebrate new beginnings and fresh starts. Think of this as a bonus New Year’s Day.
The Feast of Potential
November 23
This festival is another that appears on modern Pagan calendars for which I can find no ancient roots, yet the concept is appealing. The holiday is sometimes referred to as the Secret of the Unhewn Stone, referring to the potential inherent in all that is yet unformed.
More specifically, to hew something means to strike it repeatedly with an axe, or other cutting or shaping tool, to make it take on a desired form. Another meaning of “hew” is to force something to conform, particularly in regard to abstractions such as ideas or principles.
This holiday is a solemn one for me, a time for the solitary to force herself to introspection and face what is not easy to face. It is a day for examining difficult ideas, mulling over changes, and eliminating the root causes of our resistance to them, a day to hack away, blow by blow, at our fears and insecurities. It is a day for facing those blockages to our spiritual progress that are spoken of and written about repeatedly, but for which few actually meet the challenge: the terror of the threshold, the shadow self, and the co-walker (see Chapter 13–CHAPTER 15). Decide now to define as a blockage to spiritual progress anything that keeps you separated from fully knowing and connecting with the divine.
Prior to any feasting, force yourself to face up to something you do not want to think about. This can be a spiritual goal, a personal hurdle, or a current problem you must work through. Allow the feasting afterward to be your reward. Work a ritual, meditation, or guided journey that has always been difficult for you, perhaps one with imagery you have always found disturbing. Allow yourself to face this terror of the threshold and move past it. If you cannot face it, make an attempt to get closer than you have before. Call upon your warrior self for courage (see Chapter 4 and Chapter 5). Or take a guided meditation or astral project into a world where you must face the shadow self or co-walker.
Perhaps you might want to make a list of all the things you know in your heart you have the ability to do but have not done either out of fear or lack of confidence. Pick at least one and vow to accomplish it by the end of winter. If your women’s spirituality group is having internal difficulties, take this time to retreat together to discuss the potential within the group as a whole and how each woman contributes to this. Consider using this untapped potential to take your group into new and more satisfying directions.
Consider creating a solitary ritual to honor and give thanks for your own will power and talents. Align yourself with a powerful Goddess and allow her strength and resolve to blend with yours. If you are in a group situation, go around the circle and allow everyone to tell each woman about her strengths. Sometimes we display them to others but are unaware of them ourselves. After this, you may want to chant each other’s name out loud to make a verbal chain of power linking your group members to one another.
Rowan Moon
December Full Moon
Sometimes called the Moon of Vision in the Celtic tree calendar, this is a moon on which to travel inward to bring out inner strengths. This has also been called the Astral Moon, a good time to try your hand at the art of astral projection, or to try to contact the spirit world.
Midwinter
Winter Solstice
The winter solstice is the oldest of all the sabbats, perhaps as much as 12,000 to 20,000 years old. In the distant past, when winter was much more dangerous than it is now, this holiday marked the rebirth of the sun as it began to wax again, and it was greeted with joy and relief. Many legends abound of Celtic priestesses and Druids who arose early so as to be able to greet the sun as it rose. Most assuredly this reverence carried over into Midwinter, the day on which she again began to grow stronger and more powerful.
In most Pagan traditions, Midwinter is seen as the birthday of a male God/son/lover from the virgin Goddess. This is true within modern Celtic traditions as well, and there are many, many rituals to be found in print to give you ideas for celebrating from this perspective. Yet, with the preponderance of female Celtic sun deities, there is no reason that Celtic women should not mark this date as the return of the Goddess of sun and fire.
At this sabbat most Wiccans enact or pay tribute to the eternal battle between the waxing and waning forces of the year. Celtic mythology and folklore gives us many names for these archetypes: the Holly King and Oak King, the Red Dragon and the White Dragon, and others. All represent a reversal of universal energy patterns toward their polarities. The battling figures are usually portrayed as male, though occasionally they battle over a sovereign Goddess, like Wales’ Creiddylad, who was fought over by the Gods Gwyn and Gwyrthur.
Though the idea of Goddesses battling for rulership of the year is not a. common image, the idea that one would rule and the other vanish—or go to the underworld—for half the year is not unheard of. Aine, who has a festival occurring just after Midsummer, and Grian, whose name means “sunny,” are likely the same Goddess showing a different face during different halves of the year. During the “dark half’’ of the year, Irish folk legends say that Grian lives under a hill called Pallas Green (underworld?) in County Tipperary. Therefore it can be said that Grian rules the light half of the year (Midwinter to Midsummer) and Aine rules the dark (Midsummer to Midwinter).
In your Midwinter rituals, consider enacting Grian’s return from the underworld to rule over the waxing half of the year, rather than focusing on the battling of two male archetypes, or stage a birthing ritual to welcome back the newborn sun/son as a daughter.
To further celebrate this sabbat, consider rising before dawn and going outside to greet the rising sun on the day it starts to wax again. Or host a Midwinter party and bring into it Christmas customs, most all of which were borrowed from European Pagan traditions. Decorate your home with ivy, evergreens, holly, and mistletoe, as the old Celts once did. If you have children or pets you may want to consider artificial decorations, since many parts of these plants are highly toxic. Show your faith in the waxing year by making some tentative plans for summer.
Hogmanay
December 31
This Scottish New Year’s Eve festival was once called Hagmenai, or Moon of the Hag, and honored the crone Goddess in the depth of her winter time mourning for her lost God. Though the modern festival is celebrated with divinations and sweet treats, much as in the past, the Goddess links have been forgotten.
Festival of the Threefold Goddess
January 6
I have seen this festival listed under several dates, including one in April and one in July. The January date corresponds to Twelfth Night on the common era calendar, a holiday taken from the Teutonic Pagan traditions that marked the end of the twelve-day Midwinter celebration that focuses on their mother Goddess. April and July have no other sabbats or major festivals within them, and moving this holiday could spice up an otherwise ritually dull period of time. The day is not as important as the intent.
Clearly the Festival of the Threefold Goddess is modern in origin, the brainchild of someone or some group who wanted a special day set aside to honor the Triple Goddess. Celtic women should be especially interested in celebrating this Goddess who is so intimately connected with us.225
Because there is no ancient precedent set for celebrating this holiday, there should be no conflicts—within yourself or a·group-about observing it, and there is lots of room for experimentation. Enjoy!
The Feast of the Morrigan
January 7
A feast day to celebrate the power and majesty of the Triple Goddess of death and destruction. Remember that with death there is rebirth, and that what she destroys, she revives.
Ash Moon
January Full Moon
A lunar cycle for connecting with the flow of all life and crafting magickal tools. Ash wands are often used in healing magick.
Imbolg
February 2
lmbolg is one of the Greater Sabbats, a fire festival that celebrates the strengthening of the young sun and his waiting bride, the earth Goddess. It is also a festival that honors Brighid,226 a Goddess with many attributes and correspondences, including fire. The fact that fire is linked to the heat of the sun makes Brighid a natural focus of this festival. Her festival was so deeply a part of Irish culture that the church could not banish it, and was forced to name it as St. Brighid’s Day, in honor of an apocryphal saint who is in reality the old Goddess. 227
Imbolg has also been referred to as a festival of women’s mysteries, with many ritual practices having been reserved for women,228 or at least for the leadership of women. This acceptance is probably modern in origin—modern here being a relative term—having to do with Brighid’s female followers, who became the nuns who guarded her sacred flame at her shrine at Kildare for hundreds of years. The rites that took place within that cloister were a blend of Pagan and Christian ways whose precise forms remain a mystery.
As late as the early twentieth century, it was customary for young women in Irish villages to dress themselves as Brighid/St. Brighid in old clothing and carry her image with them through the streets. The girls would go from door to door begging alms for “poor Biddy,” a nickname for Brighid. A good share of the money or food collected went into the community, either through the local parish church or directly from the girls or their families. Giving to Brighid was thought to bring good luck, particularly in matters of the coming harvest.
On Imbolg you can honor Brighid in the old way, by making a bed for her in a small doll’s cradle, and dressing her as the waiting bride of the sun or as the young sun itself. You can follow another old Irish magickal custom by leaving a white cloth, called Brighid’s cloak, out overnight to collect dew. When retrieved the next morning, it is believed to contain healing properties. Wear it during the coming year when you need healing, or when you are doing healing magick for others.229
This is also a traditional time for augury practices, or divining the future by reading naturally occurring signs. Birds, wolves, and snakes230 have been used as February divination devices. The use of birds and wolves came to western Europe from Rome, where they are associated with the mating festival known as Lupercalia (February 14–15). Snakes are more in keeping with the Celtic world view, and represent a link between our world and the underworld, a symbol of the renewal of the earth in spring.
In your rituals you can honor Brighid or any other sun/fire Goddess you feel moved to honor. The Christianized name for this festival is Candlemas, a name taken from the old Pagan practice of lighting many candles on this festival to symbolize the growing power of the young sun.
The Feast of St. Blaize
February 2
In France, particularly in Celtic Brittany, the Goddess Brighid, or Brigindo, be came a minor saint known as St. Blaize. She is a patron of healers and a source of protection through bad winters. The name Blaize is a cognate of our English word blaze, clearly underscoring her place as an old fire and sun Goddess.
Alder Moon
February or March Full Moon
A moon of action as spring nears. This lunar cycle quickens with the awakening earth.
Whuppity Scoorie
March 1-3
The festive rituals designed to awaken mother earth from her long winter’s nap are a much cherished part of Pagan practice today as they were in the past. In Scotland this celebration was known as Whuppity Scoorie, the very name vaguely suggesting the sort of racket inherent in the holiday.231 Both Anglo-Saxon and Celtic custom teaches that we must go out and ritually tap the earth three times with a staff or wand, then call out to mother earth by name, telling her it is time to stir from her slumber.
Bonfires were lit at random sites around villages and farms, symbolizing the rewarming of the earth. As the communal procession of flame bearers passed from fire site to fire site, lots of drinking and rowdy merrymaking accompanied them. Noise was everywhere—pan banging, drum beating, chanting, and so on, all designed to stir mother earth awake again.
To celebrate this festival on your own turf, take your staff or other long stick and move from place to place, tapping mother earth while entreating her to awaken. Pay special attention to areas in need of rejuvenation: fields, gardens, or places where the earth has been ravaged.
The Feast of Rhiannon
March4
Honors the Welsh horse, moon, and ancestor Goddess. Celebrate with horse imagery, lunar rites, and the honoring of your foremothers. The horse also symbolizes the ability to move at will between worlds, making this feast day a prime time to shamanically explore other worlds.
Rhiannon shares many similarities with two other horse Goddesses: Epona and Mare. Mare is the bringer of dreams and Epona a Goddess of transformative power. Libations offered to them may bring them into your dreams.
An old folk custom from western Ireland says that if you light fires just before dawn at each corner of a perfectly oriented crossroad (one that runs directly east, west and north, south), then sit down quietly at its side, you can see Epona ride by, fleeing west from the approaching sunrise.
Day of Sheila-na-Gig
March 18
This festival is another that occasionally appears on Pagan calendars, but for which no ancient source can be found. It honors the mysterious Goddess of thresholds and women’s mysteries. This is a good day to scry into or meditate on her image, allowing her to open the portal to her secrets for you (see Chapter 2 and Chapter 3).
Eostre
Spring Equinox
This Teutonic festival is celebrated in modern Wicca and in many Celtic traditions as a day of balance and sexual awakening. Eostre is a Teutonic Goddess of spring and fertility who has been welcomed into the modern Celtic pantheon.
Tea and Tephi Day
Spring Equinox
The origins of this festival are hazy, and no clear case can be made for its antiquity. It is a celebration of the twin Goddesses of Tara, the old physical and spiritual stronghold of the Irish High Kings. Tea and Tephi were women of the Tuatha De Dannan who, as sovereigns, blessed Tara with protection and legitimized its king to rule over Ireland.
Lady Day
March 25
Lady Day, a festival from Cornwall and southern Wales, has been linked to several Pagan spring festivals and, occasionally, to Lughnasadh. Some sources date the festival to April 24, and others to mid-July, though the spring dates seem to dominate.
Like Whuppity Scoorie, Lady Day celebrates the return of the Goddess, “Our Lady,” from her winter slumbers. Even in modern Cornwall many old Pagan practices are still observed on this day, including burying eggs to fertilize fields, decorating with spring flowers, and dancing and feasting. Any woman who gives birth on this day is thought to be blessed of the Goddess/Virgin Mary, and the afterbirth from this event was treated as a sacred object, often used as a sacrificial offering back to the Goddess.
For Cornish women who were having trouble conceiving, Lady Day provided a perfect opportunity to go to the famous standing stone formation known as the Men-an-Tol. This consists of a large, circular stone through which a natural hole had been formed (representative of the Goddess/woman) and one tall, upright, phallic stone (representative of the God/man). It was customary for the women to pass themselves nine times clockwise through the holed stone while weaving magick for their own fertility.
Modern Pagans often view Lady Day as a time of sexual awakening, when the virgin Goddess goes in search of her mate, the young God. This concept has roots in older Pagan beliefs about predestined matings, of the physical reunion of the two gender-halves of the divine in human form, which is why divination concerning romance is traditionally a part of this festival. Scrying for the face of one’s future mate in pools of rainwater while drinking fresh milk is one popular exercise. As with most of the Celtic spring festivals, dairy products are a main feature of the ritual feast.
Like many Pagan holidays, Lady Day has been given its sinister aspects as well by the modem world. During the Middle Ages in southern England, Lady Day was moved to April 4 and renamed in honor of St. Mark, a saint who is often portrayed as shepherding souls to the Christian heaven. In southern England, there was once a folk custom that taught that if you sit inside the front door of a church at midnight on St. Mark’s Eve, all the souls of those destined to die within the coming year will stroll past from east to west, towards the Otherworld.
Willow Moon
March Full Moon
Because willow is a feminine tree that thrives on the feminine element of water, and because its boughs were traditionally used to make magickal tools, this cycle of the Celtic tree calendar has been called the Witches’ Moon.
Hawthorn Moon
April Full Moon
Blooming hawthorn is a faery flower, one said to have been gathered by sovereigns such as Guinevere on Bealtaine morning.
Bealtaine
May 1
The Bealtaine sabbat is one of the most popular festivals of the Wiccan year. In modern Celtic traditions, it has become the traditional time for handfastings (Pagan marriage rites). This comes from the sabbat’s main purpose: the celebration of the sexual union or marriage of the Goddess and God. In truth, Bealtaine was the traditional time for divorce in old Ireland (known as handparting in modern Wicca), and marriages were made in November.232 This makes sense in a herding culture. In November the cattle would all have been brought back to the village or tribal stronghold from their summer pasture, and the women who had gone with them to see to their care would be back with their clan.
As with Samhain, there is a great deal of controversy about how this sabbat got its name. One possibility is that it was named for an Irish death God called Beltene (probably a spurious addition to the pantheon). Another is that it came from the name of a Scottish God called Bel, or a Gaulish fire God called Belanos. The most likely etymology of the festival is that it simply derives from the word balefire, meaning a sacred bonfire. Even in modern times balefires are lit all over Britain and Ireland on May Eve. In Ireland, these fires were lit only after the one at Tara was ignited. In Scotland, each community lit its own from a source known as the tein-eigin, or “need-fire.” This was a small fire kept burning out of necessity, either for home heat or for cooking. Because all winter fires had to be extinguished before this first official day of summer, relighting these fires was a sacred task, one often given to a highly ranking priestess or Druid. Within their own homes, it was women who had the honor of relighting the household fire, and it was women who would tend to it all year long.
To celebrate Bealtaine on your own, look into the many books on basic Wiccan/Pagan practice that provide either raw outlines or complete texts of rituals. The union of the male and female principles—an act known as the Great Rite—will be at the center of all of them. Light fires as you choose, setting aside a piece of burned wood as a talisman of protection against unwanted spirits.
You can also purify yourself before your rituals by anointing your body with morning dew from a hawthorn tree. Ritual purification was and is an important part of Pagan ritual practice, one that seems to have a healthy following in women’s traditions. The Arthurian legends tell us that Queen Guinevere rode out early on Bealtaine morning with her handmaidens to gather white hawthorn, but if hawthorn is not available to you, any dewy tree whose energies you enjoy can work as well.
In a group setting, you can dance the May Pole, another old custom from Britain and Ireland whose roots are shrouded in mystery. The May Pole has had three periods of popularity, a number modern Celts can appreciate. The first was in the years prior to the outbreak of the Black Plague in Europe (early fourteenth century), the second was after the plague and before England’s Commonwealth period (1648–1660) when all Pagan practices were banned, and the last was in the post-Commonwealth period when the old customs were revived with joy.
White and red ribbons are attached to the pole’s top. There are two interpretations of these traditional colors. One is that the white represents the virgin Goddess and red represents the God, the other is that the white stands for the virgin Goddess and the red is for the mother. The May Pole is a phallic symbol that symbolically impregnates the birth canal being woven around it by the dancers weaving in and out with their ribbons. Again, there are two interpretations of this symbolism. One is that the blending of white and red represents the union of Goddess and God, and the other is that it represents the virgin passing into the mother aspect by her union with the God.
Veneration of the Thorn
May 4
This is yet another festival for which no ancient origination can be pinpointed, though it was likely part of an older festival known as the Night of the Lunantisidhe (see later in this chapter), which honored the old faery guardians of the thorn trees.
Many Irish holy wells were once Pagan sacred sites, and thorn trees—usually whitethorn—are still found around them in larger numbers. Many modern Irish still believe that these trees are protected by faeries, and are not to be disturbed for any reason not in keeping with the holy traditions of the well site.233 When near holy wells, we usually find small scraps of white cloth tied to the trees, to symbolize wishes made by pilgrims at the site.234
The blackthorn is another type of thorn tree, one that has two uses. In English traditions, it is a wood used to level curses. In Irish tradition, it is one of blessings, the same wood used to make shillelaghs, or walking sticks, by the Irish faeries known as the Leprechauns.
Night of the Lunantisidhe
May 16
Because the date of this celebration is so close to that of the Veneration of the Thorn, they were probably once the same holiday. Since thorn trees are used to make petitions to the deities in modern Irish pilgrimages to holy well sites, it can be surmised that the Veneration of the Thorn was the Christian version and the Night of the Lunantisidhe the older, Pagan one.
This is a night to pay homage to these fearful guardians of the Irish blackthorn tree. The Lunantisidhe have a wizened appearance, like stick figures, and possess long arms and fingers so they may easily climb through the blackthorn trees in which they live. Modern folklore says these faeries hate humans, but this may be a guilt projection for the way we have treated nature. One legend says that they leave the trees only on the nights of the full moon.
Oak Moon
May or June Full Moon
On the Celtic tree calendar this is a tree of strength associated with Midsummer rituals. It is also a masculine energy tree, but its symbol of strength and endurance is one women can share.
Midsummer
Summer Solstice
In Celtic Paganism we are usually taught that Midsummer marks the time of the sun at its peak, and that image is one of a male deity. As mentioned when discussing Midwinter, the Celts have many, many sun Goddesses, as well as Goddesses who have sun imagery within their archetypes. All of these can be used to create Midsummer rites meaningful to Celtic women.
Celebrate the full flower of woman-power at Midsummer: dedicate yourself as warrior, learn more about Celtic sun Goddesses, host a feast featuring hot foods, and revel in her warm face at its zenith.
The Feast of Aine
June 25
This fire festival was once a part of Midsummer rites. Aine is an Irish fire and cattle Goddess whose day has been taken over by St. John. Holy well pilgrimages are popular features of her festival. Aine’s name has been linked to Midsummer Eve torchlight processions in her native Munster which took place well into the twentieth century. It was once an old Irish custom to wave her torches over growing fields of crops at Midsummer to bless and protect them.
Festival of Cerridwen
July3
This is another festival with varying dates; July 3 is the one given by author Zsuzsanna Budapest.235 Cerridwen is a sow Goddess of knowledge, wisdom, and plenty. Use her holiday to celebrate all you have learned.
Holly Moon
July Full Moon
A lunar cycle that emphasizes polarities, particularly that between male and female.
Rowena
July 15
Author Nigel Pennick236 says this holiday was created in honor of Rowena, a Cornish Goddess of knowledge. In the Celtic traditions, the rowan tree has protective powers, and amulets of protection made from its bark and leaves were crafted on this day.
Amulets can be made in any number of ways. One simple method is to tie up some leaves and bark in a cloth of white or gold while visualizing the goal of the spell, then tying it off with red thread. White and gold are traditional colors of protection and red is a color of warning and defense. Carry it with you, or keep it in a prominent place in your home.
Lughnasadh
August 1
Lughnasadh is an old Irish word that now simply refers to the month of August in modern Ireland. The old Irish word may have meant “Lugh’s wedding,”237 which links Lugh, as a harvest lord, to the land or Goddess. This festival, which celebrates the first fruits of the harvest, is also known as Lammas (“loaf mass”) in Wicca. The first harvest sets in motion the events that will lead to the sacrifice of the sacred king (see Chapter 12). This acceptance of the Goddess as his mate, her giving him the authority to be the harvest lord, makes him a sacred king.
In many Pagan traditions, this is the sabbat on which the king is slain, symbolically cut down with the harvest. In others it is the wedding of the sacred king only, and his sacrifice will come at Samhain, when the last of the grain harvest is taken in.
Celebrate Lughnasadh with a harvest or wedding feast. Focus your energies on the power of the feminine to bring forth the harvest from her womb (the land) and to grant sacred status to her harvest lord.
Taillte’s Day
Early to Mid-August
The myths surrounding this Goddess of competition were the inspiration for Irish games of skill and endurance similar to the Greek Olympics. These were held annually in Ireland for several centuries, and had some successful revivals in the late nineteenth century. Celebrate Taillte’s Day by hosting your own games, or by testing the limits of your own physical endurance.
Hazel Moon
August or September Full Moon
This is a lunar cycle to honor the crone and to celebrate wisdom.
Mabon
Autumn Equinox
Though many argue that the equinox was not celebrated by the Celts until the coming of the Saxons and Norse, today the sabbat bears the name of the Welsh God, Mabon, the “young son” of Modron, the “great mother.”
The sabbat is the second of the three harvest festivals, Lughnasadh being the first and Samhain the last. It is primarily the harvest of berries and a time for making wines. Irish custom says that blackberries, sacred to Brighid, must be picked between now and Samhain, or left on the bushes for the pookas, the nasty cloven-hooved faeries who lay claim to unharvested foods after November 1.
Mabon is the time when the Goddess enters cronehood, and when it is proper to adorn graves with symbols of rebirth. It is also a time of balance, when light and darkness are equal, but after which the dark is dominant. Rituals that celebrate sacred burial space, the croning of the Goddess, and hopes for regeneration are appropriate.
Vine Moon
September Full Moon
A celebration of the harvest, particularly of products used to make alcoholic beverages.
The Feast of Brewing
September 28
Celebrates the making of alcoholic beverages for festivals and sacred purposes. This is a good time to honor the Breton Goddess of heather and heather wine, Uroica.
Garland Sunday
Late August or Early September
An old communal celebration in which people took garlands adorned with apples to local cemeteries. There they tossed the apples about and mourned the dead, then repaired to a communal gathering spot for dancing, drinking, and feasting. For the Celts, apples are symbols of the crone, and of both death and eternal life. One of the Welsh names for the Otherworld is Avalon, meaning “land of apples.”
Ivy Moon
October Full Moon
Called the Moon of Resilience, which addresses our beliefs in rebirth, our triumph over death.
Reed Moon
October or November
A cycle of completeness, of home and hearth and looking inward.
212. The sabbats are explored in depth in several books, including Laurie Cabot’s Celebrate the Earth (New York: Delta, 1994), Pauline and Dan Campanelli’s Ancient Ways (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1991), Janet and Stewart Farrar’s Eight Sabbats For Witches {Custer, WA: Phoenix, 1988), and my own The Sabbats (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1994).
213. Matthews, John and Caitlin. The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1994 ), 198–199.
214. These figures represent the waning and waxing halves of the year respectively. They are conceptualized as two halves of the same being. At the two major turning points of the year they battle, with one emerging victorious.
215. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.
216. Rees, Alwyn and Brinley Rees. Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1961), 84.
217. Matthews, Caitlin. The Elements of the Celtic Tradition (Longmeade, Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1989), 92.
218. There have been numerous books exploring these connections. Three that can get you started in this study are Robert Graves’ The White Goddess (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966); Pattalee Glass-Keontop’s Year of Moons, Season of Trees (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1991); and Edred Thorsson’s The Book of Ogham (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1992).
219. Delaney, Mary Murray. Oflrish Ways (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 149.
220. For those unfamiliar with ritual format and purpose, I highly recommend Lady Sabrina’s Reclaiming the Power (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1992) which explores Pagan ritual practices in depth.
221. Walker, Barbara G. Women’s Rituals: A Sourcebook (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990), 116.
222. Raftery, Joseph, ed. The Celts (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1964 ), 89.
223. Try Raymond Buckland’s Doors to Other Worlds (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1992), or any books published by the Spiritualist Churches for a beginner’s overview of these arts.
224. The term “passed over” is synonymous with “deceased.” In Wicca, it refers to our belief that the soul has passed on into the Otherworld.
225. This is not to imply that the Goddess is not connected with men, or that the God is not connected with women in any way. But no matter how much we feel connected, or how many invocation rituals we do, there will always be some barriers, some large and some small, to fully understanding someone/something of another gender while we are locked into a physical incarnation of a member of the opposite sex. Making the effort is important in Paganism, or any tradition, because it helps make us whole beings better able to contact the universal divine which is, ultimately, genderless.
226. Brighid is her Irish name. In England and Wales she was Brigantia or Brittania, and in Gaul she was Brigindo.
227. See Seamas O’Cathain’s The Festival of Brigit: Celtic Goddess and Holy Woman (Dublin: DBA Publications, 1995).
228. Blamires, Steve. Glamoury: Magic of the Celtic Green World (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1995), 244.
229. Delaney, 150.
230. Blamires, 238.
231. In Cornwall, this festival was put on hold until after the passing of these “Blind Days,” the first three days of March when it was considered unlucky to do any work. These are also called the “Borrowed Days,” and their confusion probably comes from changes in the calendar made in the eighteenth century. In Cornwall, and in some parts of Scotland, this is celebrated on March 23.
232. Power, Patrick C. Sex and Marriage in Ancient Ireland (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1976), 27.
233. MacManus, Dermot. The Middle Kingdom: The Faerie World of Ireland (Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire: Smythe, 1973 ), 52–57.
234. Pennick, Nigel. The Pagan Book of Days (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny, 1992), 67.
235. Budapest, Zsuzsanna. The Grandmother of Time (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 141.
236. Pennick, 89.
237. Blamires, 277.