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Wicca has eight major festivals. These start at sunset and last to sunset the next day. Four are solar festivals whose timing is determined by the relationship of the Sun to the Earth. These are the Winter Solstice or Yule (the shortest day), the Summer Solstice or Midsummer (the longest day), and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes when the hours of darkness and light are equal. In the northern hemisphere, Yule is around December 21/22, Midsummer around June 21/22, the Spring Equinox around March 20/21 and the Autumn Equinox around September 21/22. I say ‘around’ because due to various idiosyncrasies of the Earth’s orbit, the solstices and equinoxes can occasionally fall a day before or after the days I have given. In the southern hemisphere, in Australia for instance, the seasons are reversed. The Winter Solstice is on June 21.

The four other Wiccan festivals are Celtic in origin. These are Imbolc, absorbed into the Christian calendar as Candlemas, February 1/2; Beltane or May Eve, April 30/May 1; Lughnasadh, also known by its Anglo-Saxon name of Lammas or Loaf Mass, July 31/August 1, and Samhain (pronounced sow-in), also known as All Hallow’s Eve, October 31/November 1.

Ideally Witches celebrate their festivals on the correct date, but there is flexibility here. If the correct day is impractical we can have our celebration as near the date as possible.

Here is a brief description of some of the themes we can celebrate in the seasonal festivals. If you live in a temperate climate, whether north or south of the equator, then the sabbat cycle described here will be meaningful for you. If you live in hotter or colder climes, or regions of the world which do not have four distinct seasons, you will need to look at your own folk customs and traditions to discover the traditional festivals, when should they be celebrated, and how can you make a seasonal cycle that is meaningful for you. However, wherever you live, you will find the same themes of conception, birth, mating, maturation, death, rebirth, hidden beneath the surface of your folk traditions. These are cosmic and human realities and it is these which are at the root of our Wiccan traditions.

Imbolc Books about Wicca often describe Samhain as being the beginning of the Wiccan year. This idea originates in Irish Celtic tradition and works well when talking about the journey of the God as I do in Chapter 6. However, it was not part of British Witchcraft until relatively recently. For most people, it is easier to think of the year starting with the awakening of the life force. In the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere, this means Imbolc or Candlemas when the first green shoots of bulbs appear; sometimes, as with snowdrops, coming up through the snow itself. This is a hopeful time. Life is stirring again. The forces of creativity are beginning to awaken.

The days grow noticeably longer. We know now that even if difficult times are still to come, hope is abroad in the land. In parts of the world where sheep are farmed, new lambs are born. One source of the Gaelic word Imbolc or Oi-melc is ewe’s milk. Another idea is that the word means ‘in the belly’. Traditional English Witches still call this festival by its name in the Christian calendar – Candlemas, the feast of candles. The Christian festival celebrates the Purification of Virgin Mary. The idea was that childbirth was polluting and women were not allowed into churches until they had undergone a purification ceremony. This is very different from Wicca where childbirth is a holy act. However, it does reflect an inherently Pagan idea – that this festival is about the Virgin Goddess.

What does this mean? Think of the power of Nature and of all green and growing things as the Goddess. With the onset of autumn, the green vegetation disappears beneath the Earth. Symbolically we say, ‘The Goddess is in the Underworld.’ With Imbolc and the first signs of Nature’s return, we say, ‘The Goddess is returning to the land.’

Magically, Imbolc is a good time to plan new enterprises and to make the first moves towards bringing them into actuality. Candle magic and magic for new beginnings are traditional at this time. However, it is best to proceed cautiously. It is time to design and plan, to dig foundations rather than to build. Imbolc is the first glimmering of the year’s increase, but only the first glimmering. Frosts and snows may still come and nip new life in the bud. In North America, February 2 is Groundhog Day. This was unfamiliar to us in Europe until the film of the same name was released. A groundhog is a rodent and if it can see its shadow, then there is still much long cold winter to come.

The Spring Equinox is the turning of the year, the point when light overcomes darkness. The hours of daylight grow longer than the hours of night. Lengthening days bring new growth. The sap rises in the tree. The sexual urge awakens in the animal world and in our own. Spring is the season of daffodils – blazes of golden yellow signal that the Sun grows stronger. Where we live in Brittany, in the north-west Celtic corner of France, along the roof ridges of the older thatched houses, people plant daffodils which come out around the Spring Equinox. It looks rather crazy – all these little houses with daffodils growing out of their heads, but it’s a true sign that Spring has come.

A more delicate flower for Spring is the primrose. This is best not picked; it withers too quickly. Pots can be sown with primrose seeds earlier in the year however and brought into the house to flower at the Spring Equinox. They have the most beautiful and gentle light yellow colour. Customs from Spring have been woven into the Christian festival of Easter.

The Spring Equinox celebrates the fertility of the land. It is a time to sow seeds both literally, in the sense of gardening or farming, and symbolically. Often seeds are sown at the Spring Equinox which are imbued with magical intents. This is a piece of sympathetic magic that requires us to carefully nurture the seeds. You can see on a psychological level as well as on a magical one how the watering, potting out and protection of young seedlings is a constant reminder of the magical wish that we have made with their planting.

One of our students told us that where her father came from in Eastern England there was a tradition that parsley should be sown on the first Friday of Spring by a blind man. Her father, not knowing a blind man, did this himself wearing a blindfold. Here we have a magical truth. Throughout our lives, our deeds and actions are sowing seeds. We do not see where they fall or how they will grow, but grow they will.

The Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere is when the Sun goes into the astrological sign of Aries. Aries is a Fire sign. Impetuous Ariens leap in feet first and then wonder how they got there. The urge of Spring is to do, create, change, to get rid of the old and bring in the new – hence the old tradition of Spring cleaning the house. This is a valuable energy and we need it in our lives, but we also need to treat it with caution, balance and common sense.

Beltane is another word derived from Gaelic. It means ‘bright fire’. In Ireland, bonfires were lit and cattle driven through the smoke and flames to rid their hides of parasites that had snuggled there through the cold winter. To leap the bonfire was to take the flame inside yourself. The flame of light, life and sun would bring new life; so even today Wiccan couples who want to conceive will leap the Beltane fire. With the stimulation of the pituitary gland by longer days and sunshine, sexuality is also stimulated – as of course Nature intended.

A heavily pregnant woman cannot till the land and just after giving birth is not an ideal time either. To bear children during the winter months after a well-fed spring and summer, when there was little to do but keep indoors and stay warm, was not such a bad idea. If a woman was not already pregnant by Beltane, this was a time for fertility magic. May Day ceremonies included men and women dancing together around phallic may-poles with women garlanded in flowers and strong ale flowing. If that did not help, some other May Eve customs might. Puritans in seventeenth-century England wrote disapprovingly of how many virgins who went in the woods to gather May Eve blossoms did not come out that way the next morning.

In European folklore traditions, the God appears at May Day in the guise of Jack-in-the-Green or the Green Man, the consort of the May Queen. In English country customs, the Green Man was disguised by his garment of leaves and in the freedom of anonymity could do what he willed. Similar customs are found in Germany and Austria in the form of masked celebrations which take place a little earlier in the year. This might also have solved some couples’ fertility problems.

Hawthorn blossom, also known as May blossom, may be brought into the house to decorate it at Beltane. There are many superstitions about May blossom. Only Witches could bring it into the house with impunity, my mother told me, and let me bring it in. In Germany, where everything happens a little later than in Britain and Ireland’s Gulf Stream climate, children make crowns of dandelions on May Day. For a few hours anyway, they really do look like angelic rays of sun.

The Summer Solstice, the Longest Day, is the season of oak leaves and roses, symbols of God and of Goddess. Although both God and Goddess are present at Beltane and Midsummer, Beltane seems much more a Goddess festival; whereas Midsummer celebrates the God. In North America, Mother’s Day falls in May near Beltane and Father’s Day is near Midsummer. It seems to make sense to celebrate motherhood before fatherhood. It can take men a bit longer to become used to the idea.

Midsummer rites are often dedicated to the crowning of the solar king and the dedication of his male energy to the service of the Goddess, her people and her land. Paradoxically, this time is both the height of the sun and the beginning of its decline. After the peak there is nowhere to go but down.

This is a time when grass is cut for hay and the beautiful meadow smell of cut grass is everywhere. A natural instinct is to get up and watch the dawn on Midsummer Day and to celebrate the Sun in its fullness before its decline. Midsummer is a good time for men to do magic to help them in their everyday lives and for both sexes to do magic to help them with worldly matters – careers, houses, money. These are all the worldly but essential things we need for our material existence.

Lughnasadh is the Irish word for the August Eve festival and means the Games of Lugh. Lugh the God of Light instituted these games in honour of his mother-in-law which may be a poetic metaphor for the Mother Goddess. The alternative name, Lammas, is a Saxon word which means Loaf Mass. At Loaf Mass, the first loaf of bread was baked with the new wheat of the year.

What seems on the surface a simple thing – an ear of wheat – has many powerful connotations. Human invention of agriculture, like the discovery of fire, was one of the great stepping stones in the advance of civilization. Once we learned to cultivate crops, our lives became much easier. We did not have to spend so much time searching for food as when we were hunter-gatherers relying on meat, fish, wild roots, leaves, berries and nuts for our sustenance.

In the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece, an ear of wheat was shown to the initiate as the final revelation. What did this mean? Try going out into the countryside at this time and picking an ear of wheat. Hold it in your hand and meditate upon it. What does it tell you? How does it feel? The ripened ear of wheat has not the smoothness of youth, but the ripeness of age. It is dry, but has the promise of transformation. New life can spring from it; for within it is the seed. Within the seed is the promise of reincarnation and rebirth. This was the secret revealed to the initiate: we are born, live, die and live again.

Another message of Lammas is sacrifice. In ancient times in some societies, the king was considered Divine. He must die at the peak of his powers so that his strength and energy might pass to the new king. There is a message here for us all and it is about facing up to change. Middle age and death are part of life’s realities. We must accept that, whatever our worldly achievements, at some point we are going to have to let them go. We will have to take a step forward into the unknown – the realm of death and the after-life. This involves an inner sacrifice; letting go of all that we have gained in life and detaching ourselves from the past.

Lammas magic can be magic of detachment. It is a time to let go of past griefs, hates, angers and injustices and to move forward. This is a good time for divorce. It is also, paradoxically, a good time for marriage for people who intend being spiritual partners as well as intending to have children or to pursue material lives together. This is not a good time for founding material enterprises: Imbolc is a better time to lay foundation stones. However, Lammas can be a good time to found spiritual enterprises.