Is the Wheel of the Year still relevant to us in modern times? The Wheel of the Year is a pagan solar calendar that celebrates the cycles of nature that governed our ancestors’ lives. Their very survival depended on this knowledge. Is it still relevant to us? Read on to find out!
In modern times, not all of us are fortunate enough to be able to witness and experience the beautiful shifts in the natural world, to feel part of these rhythmic transitions and transformations.
“Humans evolved in alignment with the movement of the sun and the moon. As the sun moved, so did human camps of hunters and gatherers. As the sun moved, so still move many birds, fish, and mammals as they migrate to avoid the biting cold. As the moon moves, so do the cycles within our bodies, the tides and flows, and wildlife.”
The Druid’s Garden
Our lives are not as linked to the seasonal changes as our ancestors once were. The knowledge and timing of when to plant what, when to harvest, when and how to start storing and preparing, was once critical to survival. But the modern world, with its 24/7 convenience of supermarkets and electrical lighting and heating, has rendered it all but irrelevant.
And so some ask if the Wheel is still valid to us, if it offers us anything of use?
The Wheel of the Year is much more than a seasonal calendar. The Wheel is the very pattern of existence, it is the web of life, the re-beginning and the never-ending sacred journey. Regardless of modern life, this rhythm can be felt, observed, appreciated and celebrated. And perhaps because of modern life, it is more important than ever to do so.
Our separateness from the natural world is a vulnerable illusion. Living in a concrete jungle cannot sever your inextricable connection to nature. You are of Mama Gaia, every particle of your body from Earth. Every drop of water in your body, part of the water of Earth – the same water that has cycled from sky, to earth and river, to living beings, to sky, since life began. The air you breathe, each inhale from the lungs of ancient forests into your own, each exhale out of your lungs back into theirs. Your very existence is proof of your connection.
“Whatever happens, I know. There’s nothing that can happen that will ever separate me from the living body of the earth. Nothing. It’s who we are. And that’s so vast…. Nothing can ever remove me from the living body of the Earth. So we’re already home.”
Joanna Macy
We are all of us inseparably, intimately part of the great rhythms of life. The Earth turns, the Moon pulls, and our little Earthship glides gracefully around and around our great fiery star, part of a greater dance of the Cosmos. Everything cycles. From day to night, child to elder; seedling to towering tree, apprentice to master; winter to summer, unconsciousness to consciousness – repeating cycles. Our circadian clocks guide our bodies in the rhythm of waking and resting. Our heart beat pulsed out by its oscillator in metronomic cadence. Our entire life from birth to death, a great cycle. We are part of the Cosmic Universe; rhythmic, cyclic beings.
When we attempt to live outside of nature’s rhythm, a creeping dis-ease sets in to our bodies and spirits. We become out of sync, out of step. While the more we lean back into these natural rhythms, the more we find flow – the merging of action and thought, of stepping in balance. The more we find our natural vitality and energy, health and groundedness. The more we explore both our inner and outer worlds, and move towards a joyful and fulfilling existence.
“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.”
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
The Wheel of the Year is visible and physical. It is the cyclic rhythm of Father Sun’s journey across the great blue sky, Mama Earth as She wakes and slumbers, and all beings naturally sync with this rhythm.
It is also deeply spiritual, full of greater meaning and significance. For underneath the visible is a spiritual journey and energetic cycle that flows through each year. As always, there is the reflection of sacred geometry and representation of micro to macro, macro to micro – “as above, so below; as within, so without”.
We can see this in the first broad stroke of the Wheel’s form: The year is divided into the Light half (warm, sunny Spring and Summer) and the Dark half (cold, bleak Autumn and Winter). Tracking the movement of the Sun as it seemingly moves away from us in the sky, then back towards us.
In the Dark half of the year we turn inwards and our work becomes more internal – we think, we dream, we mend. We stay home more, focus on close interpersonal relationships, our energy goes towards our nest. And there is more ‘downtime’ that naturally lends itself to contemplation and rest.
In the Light half of the year we face outwards, we work outwards – we build, we explore, we create. We spend more time outdoors, we engage with the world around us, we move outwards and take action. We are energised and social.
In the dark, we retreat; in the light, we expand.
For those living around the equator, the Dark Half of the year – those cold, dismal Winter months where nothing stirs and food is scarce and the cold can kill you if you haven’t sufficiently prepared during the good months – may seem distant. You may not have experienced anything like this, even in your ancestral lineage.
While the changes may be much more subtle in a temperate zone, changes do still occur. A slowing down, a ramping up, the seasons of storms or winds. Everything on Earth is rhythmic, so while the stories may not match your exact experience, if you look hard enough you will find the essence of the seasons within your environment.
There are eight festivals that make up the Wheel. Four in the Dark half of the year and four in the Light half, marking seasonal and solar waypoints. Each festival, beautifully intertwined with the web of life, has its own significance and associations that reflect the inner and outer journey both. Symbolism and themes that we can work with to enrich our own life experience of and in each turn.
These eight festivals represent to us, in our modern world, eight invitations to tune into Mama Earth’s rhythms, part of the greater Cosmic rhythm of the Universe. To recognise the changes and transitions of life. Each one is an opportunity to look both outwards and inwards, to take note, to be present, to connect. Each one offers us a Divine moment to swim out into our spiritual world, to be in ceremony, to find the sacred in our ordinary life. To open to the Mystery and let a little of the Wild back in.
“I live my life in ever widening circles,
Translation from Das Studenbuch, Rainer Maria Rilke
each superseding all the previous ones.
I may not achieve the very last,
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God,
around the ancient tower;
I’ve been circling for a thousand years
and still I don’t know:
am I a falcon, a storm,
or a continuing great song?”
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