Wheel of The Year

The Sabbats are the witches' way of celebrating, and putting themselves in tune with the tides and cycles of the "Natural Year" and are key points for Wicca or Witchcraft since it  is a nature religion.  For witches the natural year is a many leveled reality... with many aspects such as agricultural, pastoral, wildlife, botanical, solar, lunar, planetary, and psychic. The Sabbats are divided in two categories; Greater and Lesser. There are eight witches sabbats and I have listed them in the groups of Greater and Lesser:

Greater Sabbats

Imbolg:  Celebrated on February 2nd, and is also known as Imbolc and Candlemas. Imbolg is a fire festival, it's emphasis is on the light not on the heat of the fire and celebrates the quickening of spring in the womb of the Great Mother, the growing light that will soon pierce the gloom of winter.

Bealtaine: Celebrated on April 30th, and is also known May Eve. Bealtaine  celebrates the union, mating, or marriage of the Goddess and the God, and is the beginning of summer. Normally, a Bel-fire is lit to celebrate the return of life and fertility to the world and is associated with the re-birth aspect of the God known as the Oak King.

Lughnasadh:  Celebrated on July 31st, and is also known as Lammas. Lughnasadh is associated with  the harvest and is actually the "festival of Lugh", the celtic  God of Light and the sacrificial aspect of the God known as the Holly King or the the death of the Corn King appropriate with the harvest season.

Samhain:  Pronounced SOW-in is celebrated on October 31st and is the beginning of winter and  the Celtic New Year.  Samhain is associated with the early herdsmen and their cattle, it was impossible to keep the herd fed through winter, so the breeding stock were kept alive and the "weaker"  were slaughtered, salt, and kept for winter food. Also all the crops needed to be harvested,  anything left in the fields was abandoned for fear of a hobgoblin that would destroy anything unreaped, the veil of the worlds is thinnest during Samhain night and the souls of the dead are free to find warmth of the  fire and communion {The Dumb Supper} with their living kin.

Lesser Sabbats:

Spring Equinox:  Celebrated  March 21st  and is a time of the  cycle of the year where the  light and dark are in balance... but light is ruler instead of darkness, it is a solar festival and the fertility aspect of spring. The Christian traditions shows the death and resurrection of Christ,  the spring is the resurrection of the earth after it's "death" during winter.  Spring Equinox is a time of sowing or planting.

Midsummer:  Celebrated June 22nd and is a solar festival and the Sun God is at it's Highest peak, and his day is the longest of the year. It is associated with the Goddess and her Dance of Life as she greets her Sun God Lover.

Autumn Equinox:  Celebrated  September 21st and is a time when the cycles are in balance, days and night are matched, it is associated with the completion of the harvest and thanks for the abundance and a salute to the waning sun, for winter is coming.

Yule: Also known as the winter solstice and is celebrated December 21st and is associated with the death and rebirth of the Sun God known as the Holly King.  A fire again is lit with the old custom of the yule log, a fire to light the way for the Sun God.  The yule tree is a prettier form of the yule log, the fir tree is decorated with lights to show the God his way, later candies, and ornaments were bestowed and the christian tradition replaced the entire theme with the Birth of Christ  " the son of God" opposed to the re-birth of "The God of the Sun"



 
 

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