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In Neopaganism, the Wheel of the Year is the natural cycle of the seasons, commemorated by the eight Sabbats.
Because one tenet of Neopaganism is that all of nature is cyclical, the passing of time is also seen as a cycle, a wheel which turns and turns.
The course of birth, life, decline, and death that we see in our human lives is echoed in the seasons.
The eight Sabbats are religious holidays that celebrate the passing of the year.
Each Sabbat also symbolizes a time in the life of the God, who is born from the Goddess, grows to full manhood, mates with her, and reigns as king during the summer.
He then declines and dies, rising anew the next year.
The Sabbats, with the traditional dates of their celebrations, are:
This calendar follows the seasons of the northern hemisphere, where the celebration of Sabbats originated.
Neopagans in the southern hemisphere usually celebrate the Sabbats on the opposite dates of the year (6 months apart from the northern dates), in order to follow the cycle of seasons where they live; i.e. an Australian Neopagan would celebrate Samhain on May 1, when a Canadian Neopagan would be celebrating Beltane.
There are similarities between many Christian holidays and the Sabbats that predated them in northern Europe.
It was not at all uncommon for Christian missionaries and priests to adapt local Pagan practices for Christian use.
For example, many pagans claim that Christmas is today celebrated on December 25 because that was once the date of the winter solstice and hence the date for the celebration of Saturnalia, a Mediterranean pagan festival that has been claimed to be connected to Yule. There are however alternative explanations for this date, including the belief in the ancient world that people would die on the same day of the year as their conception; since the date of Jesus's death was known to be approximately at the spring equinox, the date for celebrating his birth was set at the winter solstice. It is likely that the dates of festivals were set by the early church for a number of reasons, including but not exclusively the need to compete with existing pagan festivals. However it needs to be realised that these dates were set in the Mediterranean region, whereas the Sabbats that Neopaganism celebrates mostly originate in northern Europe.
Cross-quarter points on the Gregorian and astrological calendars
Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasadh are sometimes defined as cross-quarter points and their dates seem to betray anachronistic respect for the Gregorian calendar. Unlike the astrological calendar the Gregorian is not aligned with particular astronomical events in the wheel of the year. Both the cross-quarter dates and the Gregorian calendar may represent however some ancient (now forgotten) practice in the alignment of a twelve-month calendar, practice in which the alignment is deliberately one-eighth of a circle (45 degrees) out of phase with that of the astrological calendar.
The astrological calendar has twelve months of equal length and can be described as follows:-
- Months from solstice (winter in the northern hemisphere, summer in the southern) to equinox: Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces;
- Months from equinox (spring in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the southern) to solstice: Aries, Taurus and Gemini;
- Months from solstice (summer in the northern hemisphere, winter in the southern)to equinox: Cancer, Leo and Virgo;
- Months from equinox (autumn in the northern hemisphere, spring in the southern) to solstice: Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius.
In the Gregorian calendar four boundaries between months are close to but several days earlier than the true midpoints between solstices and equinoxes. If the Gregorian calendar had equal-length months and were accurately aligned with the true cross-quarter points then the solstices and equinoxes would fall halfway through the months of December, March, June and September, and the true cross-quarter points would be on the boundaries between October and November, January and February, April and May and between July and August.
Gregorian months in the wheel of the year
- January ends at or near to Imbolc in the northern hemisphere and a few days before the midpoint between winter sostice and spring equinox. In the southern hemisphere it has a corresponding position with respect to Lughnasadh, between summer solstice and autumn equinox.
- February begins at or near to Lughnasadh in the southern hemisphere and a few days before the midpoint between summer solstice and autumn equinox. In the northern hemisphere it has a corresponding position with respect to Imbolc, between winter solstice and spring equinox.
- March spans the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. It has a corresponding position with respect to the autumn equinox in the southern hemisphere.
- April ends at or near to Samhain in the southern hemisphere and a few days before the midpoint between autumn equinox and winter solstice. In the northern hemisphere it has of a corresponding position with respect to Bealtaine, between spring equinox and summer solstice.
- May begins at or near to Bealtaine in the northern hemisphere and a few days before the midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice. In the southern hemisphere it has a corresponding position with respect to Samhain, between autumn equinox and winter solstice.
- June spans the winter solstice in the southern hemiphere. It has a corresponding position with respect to the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.
- July ends at or near to Lughnasadh in the northern hemisphere and a few days before the midpoint between summer solstice and autumn equinox. In the southern hemisphere of it has a corresponding position with respect to Imbolc, between winter solstice and spring equinox.
- August begins at or near to Imbolc in the southern hemisphere and a few days before the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. In the northern hemisphere it has a corresponding position with respect to Lughnasadh, between summer solstice and spring equinox.
- September spans the autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere. It has a corresponding position with respect to the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere.
- October ends at or near to Bealtaine in the southern hemisphere and a few days before the midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice. In the northern hemisphere it has a corresponding position with respect to Samhain, between autumn equinox and winter solstice.
- November begins at or near Samhain in the northern hemisphere and a few days before the mid point between autumn equinox and winter solstice. In the southern hemisphere it has a corresponding position with respect to Bealtaine, between spring equinox and summer solstice.
- December spans the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere It has a corresponding position with respect to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.
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