The Wheel of the Year

The eight seasonal festivals that colour the context of a dream.

In wicca and many other modern pagan traditions the Wheel of the Year is the cycle of eight seasonal festivals, the sabbats. Together they follow the course of the sun and nature through the year, from birth and growth to harvest, dying and rest. The Wheel of the Year as celebrated today took shape in the twentieth century, but builds on older Celtic and Germanic festivals.

There are four solar festivals: Yule at the winter solstice, Ostara at the spring equinox, Litha at the summer solstice and Mabon at the autumn equinox. Between them lie four festivals with Celtic roots: Imbolc in early February, Beltane on 1 May, Lughnasadh in early August and Samhain at the end of October. Each festival has its own theme, such as light returning at Yule, fertility at Beltane and the dead at Samhain.

The Wheel of the Year is often also seen as an inner cycle. Like nature, a human life knows times of sowing, growing, harvesting and letting go. Many practitioners use the sabbats as moments to pause at where they themselves stand.

For dream interpretation the Wheel of the Year is one of the things that makes wicca special: the moment of the year colours the reading of a dream. A dream about a child or a seed around Imbolc or Ostara is read sooner as a new beginning; the same dream around Samhain perhaps as something that rests and waits in the dark. Dreams of fire suit Beltane, dreams of harvest Lughnasadh and Mabon.

That is why many wiccans note in their dream journal not only the moon's phase but also the nearest festival. Wicca has no central doctrine; what a festival means to you differs by tradition and person.