Your all-around guide to understanding the wheel of the year! Correspondences, pronunciations, and more.
– What are the sabbats?
The sabbats are eight secular festivals that follow the cycle of the earth’s seasons via the wheel of the year. The festivals are at approx. even intervals throughout the year.
– Who can celebrate them?
As previously mentioned, sabbats are completely secular as well as completely open. Anybody can celebrate them! While the festivals are mainly celebrated by Wiccans and various other branches of Paganism, this does not exclude atheists, Hellenics, Christians, and various other religions from celebrating them.
– What is the wheel of the year?
The wheel shows in what order the sabbats go in, please keep in mind that for the southern hemisphere (we’ll get to that in a second) they are reversed!
The southern hemisphere dwellers can still most certainly celebrate sabbats! Since the seasons are reversed, the wheel looks a little different and the times of celebration are a little wonky.
Meanings: honor, rebirth, transformation, light out of darkness, creative inspiration, the mysteries, new life, regeneration, inner renewal, reflection/introspection(source)
Customs:
lights, gift-exchanging, singing, feasting, resolutions, new fires kindled, strengthening family & friend bonds, generosity, yule log, hanging mistletoe, apple wassailing, burning candles, Yule tree decorating, kissing under mistletoe, bell ringing/sleigh-bells (source)
Incense & Oils: vanilla, black cherry, dragon’s blood.
Crystals & Stones: amethyst, bloodstone, garnet.
Animals: bear, dragon, deer, eagle, robin, sheep.
Decorations: white flowers, marigolds, plum blossoms, daffodils, candles, grain/seed, red candle in a cauldron full of earth, doll, broom, milk, birchwood, snowflakes, snow in a crystal container,evergreens, orange candles.(source)
Meanings: First stirring of Mother Earth, lambing, the middle of winter. (source)
Customs: cleansing, purification, renewal, creative inspiration, purification, initiation, candle work, house & temple blessings, feast of milk & bread, lighting candles, seeking omens of Spring, storytelling, cleaning house, bonfires, indoor planting, stone collecting, candle kept burning dusk till dawn; hearth re-lighting. (source)
Meanings: the beginning of spring, balance, fertility.(source)
Customs:
planting, welcoming spring, coloring eggs, making/wearing new clothing, fertility rites, rituals of balance, herb work – magical, medicinal, cosmetic, culinary and artistic, spells for prosperity/fertility, new beginnings, potential, action.
Element: Air
Food: jelly eggs (jelly beans), chocolates, lamb, eggs, seeds, leafy green vegetables, spiced or flower cupcakes, fruits, hot cross buns, sprouts, honey cakes, unleavened bread.
Colours: red, white, brown, blue, pink, and green.
Plants & Herbs: Lily of the valley, foxglove, rose, broom, Hawthorne, Dittany of Crete, elder, mint, mugwort, thyme, yarrow, almond tree/shrub, clover, ivy, marigold, meadowsweet, rowan, sorrel, and woodruff.
Incense & Oils: frankincense, lilac, rose.
Crystals & Stones: emerald, malachite, amber, orange carnelian, sapphire, and rose quartz.
Animals: swallow, dove, swan, Cats, lynx, and leopards.
Decorations: may pole, fires, fertility, flowers, growing things, ploughs, cauldrons of flowers.
Meanings: beginning of summer, fertility, joy, abundance.
Customs: fertilize, nurture and boost existing goals, games, activities of pleasure, leaping bonfires, making garlands, May Pole dance, planting seeds, walking one’s property, feasting.
flowers and fresh early garden produce, the spear or sword of the sun god and the bountiful cauldron of the goddess ringed in flowers, solar cross or sun symbols, fireworks, sea shells.(source)
Meanings: beginning of the harvest, midsummer.
Customs: Nature spirit/fae communion/communication, planet healing, divination, love & protection magic, wearing flower crowns, bonfires, dancing, singing, divination, processions, all night vigil, feasting, celebrating with others, cutting divining rods, dowsing rods & wands, herb gathering, handfastings, weddings,gathering of mistletoe in oak groves, needfires, leaping between two fires, mistletoe(without berries, use as a protection amulet), enjoying the seasonal fruits & vegetables.
corn, cornucopias, red, yellow flowers, sheaves of grain (wheat, barley, oats), first fruits/vegetables of garden labor, corn dollies, baskets of bread, spear, cauldron, sickle, scythe, threshing tools, sacred loaf of bread, harvested herbs, bonfires, bilberries, God figures made of bread or cookie dough.
Meanings: honouring the first harvest, first harvest festival.
Customs: astrology, prosperity, generosity, continued success, good fortune, abundance, magical picnic, meditate & visualize yourself completing a project you’ve started, games, the traditional riding of poles/staves, country fairs, breaking bread with friends, making corn dollys, harvesting herbs for charms/rituals, Lughnasadh fire with sacred wood & dried herbs, feasting, competitions, lammas towers (fire-building team competitions), spear tossing, gathering flowers for crowns, fencing/swordplay, games of skill, martial sports, chariot races, hand-fastings, trial marriages, dancing ’round a corn mother (doll).
Animals: Dogs, wolves, stag, blackbird, owl, eagle, birds of prey, salmon & goat, Gnomes, Sphinx, Minotaur, Cyclops, Andamans and Gulons.
Decorations:
maize, red fruits, autumn flowers, red poppies, hazelnuts, garlands, grains especially wheat stalks, and colorful, fallen leaves, acorns, pine & cypress cones, oak sprigs, pomegranate, statue/or figure to represent the Mother Goddess, mabon wreath, vine, grapes, gourd, cornucopia/horns of plenty, burial cairns, apples, marigolds, harvested crops, burial cairns, rattles, sun wheel, all harvest symbols.
Meanings: balance of light and dark; increase of darkness, grape harvest, completion of the harvest.
Customs: Offerings to land, preparing for cold weather, bringing in harvest, cutting willow wands, eating seasonal fruit, leaving apples upon burial cairns & graves as a token of honor, walk wild places & forests, gather seed pods & dried plants, fermenting grapes to make wine, picking ripe produce, stalk bundling, fishing on the closest full moon (Harvest Moon), harvesting corps by moonlight, making wine, gathering dried herbs, plants, seeds and seed pods, walking in the woods, scattering offerings in harvested fields, offering libations to trees, adorning burial sites with leaves, acorns, and pine cones to honor those who have passed over, protection, security, and self-confidence. Also those of harmony and balance, prosperity rituals, introspection, past life recall.
Apples, autumn flowers, acorns, bat, black cat, bones, corn stalks, colored leaves, crows, death/dying, divination and the tools associated with it, ghosts, gourds, maize, jack-o-lantern, nuts , oak leaves, pomegranates, pumpkins, scarecrows, scythes, waning moon.
Meanings: Death & transformation, end of summer, honoring, thinning of the veil between worlds, death of the year, time outside of time, begin new projects, end old projects
Customs:
Foreseeing future, honoring/consulting ancestors, releasing the old, power, understanding death and rebirth, entering the underworld, divination, dance of the dead, fire calling, past life recall, ancestor altar, costumes, divination, carving jack-o-lanterns, spirit plate, feasting, paying debts, fairs, drying winter herbs, masks, bonfires, apple games, tricks, washing clothes.
Element: Water
Food: Apples, apple dishes, cider, meat; especially pork, mulled cider with spices, nuts, pomegranates, potatoes, pumpkins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted pumpkin seeds, squash.
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