Introduction

The wheel is called many things. In popular culture, it is referred to as the sacred wheel, the Celtic wheel or calendar, the Irish wheel, the pagan’s wheel, the witches wheel, and the 8 sabbats. 

It is a solar calendar that marks the time and the seasons, an ancient wheel of connection to each phase of nature as the seeds sprouted, plants budded and bloomed, fruited, turned to seed then went to ground; these cycles repeating in an endless turning of the wheel of our lives.

Among the Insular Celts, the year was divided into a light half and a dark half. As the day was seen as beginning at sunset, so the year was seen as beginning with the arrival of the darkness, at Calan Gaeaf / Samhain (around 5th November in the modern calendar). The light half of the year started at Calan Haf/Bealtaine (around 5th May, modern calendar). This observance of festivals beginning the evening before the festival day is still seen in the celebrations and folkloric practices among the Gaels, such as the traditions of Oíche Shamhna (Samhain Eve) among the Irish and Oidhche Shamhna among the Scots.

QUARTER POINTS: FROM SOLSTICE TO EQUINOX AND AROUND AGAIN

The Quarter Points are located on the north, south, east, and west points of the wheel and are the winter and summer solstice, and the spring and autumn equinoxes. These are also referred to as ‘solar’ days, given that these four points mark the standing sun ‘solstice’ where it reaches its highest point in the sky and therefore longest day, or, lowest point in the sky and therefore shortest day and appears to ‘stand still’ (latin) or the ‘equinox’ when the sun crosses the celestial equator and the days and nights are of equal length. The latin meaning of equinox derives from aequus ‘equal’ and nox ‘night.’

The solstices offer us a time to pause and reflect at the half-year mark and consider where the next half-year may be heading for us. The equinoxes focus on the balance of dark and light as both are equal on these days. They are all times of seasonal transition and offer us an opportunity to mark time in a conscious way as we reflect on the Earth’s cycles and our own cycles woven with hers.

The quarter festivals are:

  • Yule (winter solstice) – NORTH – Earth
  • Ostara (spring equinox) – EAST – Air
  • Litha (summer solstice) – SOUTH – Fire
  • Mabon (autumn equinox) – WEST – Water

CROSS-QUARTER POINTS: THE FOUR GREAT FIRE FESTIVALS

The Cross-Quarter Points are the four festivals that are marked in between the solstices and the equinoxes. They occur at the peak of each season and have been known as the Four Great Fire Festivals. These cross-quarter festivals offer us a time to celebrate the gifts each season offers and invite us to deeply connect with the Earth at the peak of her seasonal cycles.

The cross-quarter festivals are:

  • Imbolc (peak winter)
  • Beltane (peak spring)
  • Lammas / Lugnasadh (peak summer)
  • Samhain (peak autumn)

The origins of the names of the festivals can be traced to Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Germanic origins. It has been suggested that the modern names we use are predominantly from Irish tradition as it is theorised that the Irish were able to keep the early literature safe from destruction during the dark ages (Christian monks recorded these traditions – prior to that all sharing and history was passed down through oral tradition), especially story around the cross-quarter celebrations of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain.

The solstice and equinox names are derived from Norse and Anglo-Saxon origin, with yule being traceable back to traditional norse festivals.

ELEMENTAL CONNECTIONS

In addition to the festivals being located at points on the wheel, the elements are also associated with the quarter points. North for Earth, East for Air, South for Fire, and West for Water.

The 5th element of ether, spirit or source, is located at the centre of the wheel, in honour of all that is unseen and yet surrounds us – the unseen worlds, the spirit at the centre of our being, the fabric of love that connects and unites us all.

The elements play an important role in many spiritual traditions and in Celtic myth and legend, the elements are partnered with and revered for their relationships to Gods and Goddesses, nature spirits, and as sacred sites.

Each of these beautiful festivals also has trees and herbs associated with them, each with their own deep meaning and energy. 

EIGHT SACRED FESTIVALS

Starting with Samhain (Sow-wen), these 8 celebrations are the 8 points on the Celtic wheel of the year. Each year is slightly different so ranges of the dates of each year are provided below:

  1. Samhain – End of October / Beginning of November
  2. Yule (Winter Solstice) – December 20th to 23rd
  3. Imbolc – End of January / Beginning of February
  4. Ostara (Spring Equinox) – March 20th to 23rd
  5. Beltane – End of April / Beginning of May
  6. Litha (Summer Solstice) – June 20th to 23rd
  7. Lammas / Lughnasadh – End of July / Beginning of August
  8. Mabon (Autumnal Equinox) – September 20th to 23rd

Samhain 

Cross-quarter Festival – Ritual threshold of Winter – Celtic new year – Doorway into the Giamos (dark) half of the year – Lifeforce descending into the earth – Death and Darkness – Soul Initiation

Feminine principle becomes dominant

  • The challenge: Loss, death, disruption
  • The invitation: Letting go, shedding, surrendering
  • The gifts: Reclaiming our buried feminine
  • The wisdom: All beginnings start in the darkness
  • The movement: Descent into the fecund darkness
  • Mythology/ archetypes/ symbols: The Cailleach (the Crone) and the Mórrígan

Yule – Winter Solstice 

Ritual threshold of midwinter – Solar festival – The rebirth of the solar masculine from the dark earth – Dormant Earth – Longest Night, Shortest Day – Dark Night of the Soul

Element: Earth

Feminine Principle is dominant

  • The challenge: The dark night of the soul
  • The invitation: To rest and trust the emptiness and darkness of the void
  • The gifts: Resurrecting our deep feminine intelligence, illumination of our Dán (Soul destiny)
  • The wisdom: the mysterious potency of the luminous darkness
  • The movement: Dormant stillness
  • Mythology/ archetypes/ symbols: The Cailleach(the crone), The sun/son child, the womb, the winter solstice wreath, the Christmas tree

Imbolc 

Ritual threshold of Spring – Cross-quarter Festival – The Earth Awakening From Dormancy – New beginnings

Feminine principle is dominant, subtle stirrings of masculine

  • The challenge: Slow intentional emergence
  • The invitation: Gathering our energy, tending the seeds of our Dán
  • The gifts: Strengthening the potency of our feminine
  • The wisdom: The power of focused intention, staying inward, and discernment
  • The movement: Emergence, awakening
  • Mythology/ archetype/ symbol: Brigid, Fiery Arrows, Brigid’s Cross, Fire and Water

Ostara – Spring Equinox 

Ritual threshold of mid Spring – Solar Festival – , a strengthening solar masculine – A Quickening, Life Force Rising – The dance of opposites

Element: Air

Feminine principle dominant

  • The challenge: The creative tension of opposites
  • The invitation: Commitment to our Dán, our Soul’s deepest purpose
  • The gifts: Manifesting from the fertile dance of the opposites
  • The wisdom: Beyond polarity, the alchemy of manifestation, ‘the third thing’
  • The movement: Rising upward
  • Mythology /archetypes/ symbols: Brigid, Fiery Arrow, Infinity sign, Vesica piscis


Beltane

Ritual threshold of Summer – Cross-quarter Festival – Earth Festival – Budding And Flowering, Expanding Into Full Potential – Sovereignty – Doorway into the Samos (bright) half of the year

Masculine principle is dominant

  • The challenge: Taking risks to expand outside our comfort zone
  • The invitation: Sovereignty, to lead with the feminine, execute with the masculine
  • The gifts: Masculine in service to our feminine
  • The wisdom: Living from our sovereign centre
  • The movement: Expansion
  • Mythology/archetypes /symbols: Goddess of Sovereignty, King, Queen,The Fifth Province, The Sacred Marriage

Litha – Summer Solstice

Ritual threshold of mid Summer – Solar Festival – Celebrates the light and the sun without there would be no life – Time of strengths and accomplishments – Gather herbs as “Herb Night” is when they are most potent – Full Blossoming. The Sun At Its Zenith – Shining Powerfully

Element: Fire

Masculine principle is dominant

  • The challenge: To blossom open fully claim our power
  • The invitation: To inhabit our true power and vulnerability in moments of glory
  • The gifts: Rising rooted
  • The wisdom: The vulnerability of full blossoming and shining
  • The movement: Radiating
  • Mythology/ archetypes/ symbols: Áine Sovereign Goddess of the Summer, the sun at his zenith

Lammas / Lughnasa 

Ritual threshold of Autumn – Cross-quarter Festival – Ripeness And Abundance – Reaping what has been sown – Harvest

Element: Earth

Masculine principle is dominant, tempered by the feminine

  • The challenge: Appreciate the abundance of the harvest, to reap what has been sown
  • The invitation: Take time, pause to celebrate the abundance and bounty of the harvest
  • The gifts: Increasing our capacity for joy, craic and pleasure, owning our gifts
  • The wisdom: Joy and sadness co-arising as aliveness
  • The movement: Pulsing
  • Mythology/ archetypes/symbols: Lugh, the Samhaildánach (many gifted one) and his foster mother Tailtiú

Mabon – Autumn Equinox

Ritual threshold of mid-Autumn – Solar Festival – The final harvest – Bountiful Harvest From The Earth – The Leaves Turning – Integrating the Opposites

Element: Water

Masculine principle dominant with the feminine strengthening

  • The challenge: Intentional completion
  • The invitation: Make time for endings. Prepare for the transition from fertility into the fallow and the deepening spiral
  • The gifts: Integration of the polarities as the masculine yields to the feminine
  • The wisdom: The power of conscious completions in a cycle that never ends
  • The movement: Pausing to complete
  • Mythology/archetypes/ symbols: The cutting of the final sheath, circle into spiral, Infinity symbol