Introduction: The Wheel of the Year

What is known as The Wheel of the Year is a modern depiction of Nature’s yearly energetic cycle, divided into eight holidays or sabbats that are observed by Wiccans and many other Neopagans. Those eight sabbats are called Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lammas, Mabon, Samhain, Yule, and Imbolc. Four of them, Ostara, Litha, Mabon, and Yule fall on the start of the four seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter), this group being known by some as the Lesser Sabbats. What are known by some as the Greater Sabbats are observed at the midpoint of the seasons with Beltane in mid Spring, Lammas in mid Summer, Samhain in mid Autumn, and Imbolc in mid Winter. This way of depicting Nature’s cycle through observing eight sabbats was created by the British founder of Wicca Gerald Gardner in the 1940s and there is no known historical culture that observed all eight holidays before this time.

Though observing the eight sabbats in this way is a modern creation, historical cultures all around the world did in fact celebrate or observe their own holidays and feast at or around these points of the year. Take for example the sabbat Samhain. It is the holiday of the year where the veil between the worlds is thin and the ancestors are highly venerated and people communicate with them. It falls on October 31st which is known to most as Halloween, but also goes into November 1st which is observed as All Saints Day by Catholics who also observe All Souls Day on November 2nd. Those dates are also the dates of the traditional Mexican festival known as Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) in which the ancestors and the dead are celebrated. The origins of this Mexican festival are said to possibly date back to 3,000 years. November 2nd is also the Feast Day of Baron Samedi, the head Loa of the Dead in Hatian Vodou.

In an older video I made about the sabbat Lammas which is observed on August 1st, I gave the example describing the Iwa Ji (New Yam) Festival of the Igbo people in West Africa which is observed in the first week of August. Both are celebrations of the first harvest. The Spring equinox on which Ostara is observed has many examples throughout history and within different cultures as being of importance in which I’ll go more in detail about within this article. The modern conception of The Wheel of the Year and the eight sabbats are simply the syncretism or the coming together of many different culture’s seasonal festivals from all around the world. Therefore, these eight sabbats can be observed either by going along with the traditions that are associated with the historical holidays that share these names, by observing the traditions based on your own culture that may have similar festivals or holidays at or around these eight points of the year, or by completely creating traditions of your own based on your personal interpretation of the eight points in Nature’s annual cycle. It’s all about personal taste and choice.

By acknowledging and observing the eight sabbats you can use the energy that is associated with that time of the year to flow with everything else that is around you, instead of going against the current or rushing into the rapids unprepared. With this series I will be writing about each of the sabbats, their origin, the traditions and rituals based around them, and the related holidays and festivals of different cultures around the world. My hope is to acquaint more people with them and show the beauty in Nature’s cycle, lifting the stigma some have of the holidays not worthy of being observed due to being “pagan” and therefore “evil” or “satanic”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ostara

The end of Winter and the triumph of light over dark is marked by the Spring equinox, celebrated by Wiccans and Neopagans as Ostara. Starting on either March 20th or 21st (or September 20th or 21st if in the Southern Hemisphere), it is the time of rebirth and renewal, symbolized and seen by the budding of trees, the sprouting of plants from the ground, and the animals coming out of hibernation. The name “Ostara” comes from the name of a proposed goddess “Ēostre” in which the Christian holiday “Easter” also gets it’s name. There is no hard evidence however of a goddess named “Ostara” or “Ēostre” ever being venerated or worshiped by anyone, having only been solely attested to by English monk Saint Bede in his written work “The Reckoning of Time” where he writes:

“Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.”

The name “Ēostre” has it’s etymological origin in the Proto-Indo-European root *aus- which means “to shine”, especially of the dawn, and is linguistically cognate with numerous dawn goddesses including the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurōra, the Vedic goddess Uṣás, and the Lithuanian goddess Aušrinė, all who share very similar attributes and mythologies as well. This suggests that a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess did in fact exist from which the other dawn goddesses descend from, though the reconstructed name for this theorized goddess is “Hausos” rather than “Ostara” or “Ēostre”. The historical record shows that the tradition of Ostara/Ēostre being associated with hares and eggs developed over time and is actually quite recent rather than ancient. Bede, the sole earliest source of the idea of a goddess Ēostre in 725 AD makes no connection to her and the hare. Rather, only as recent as 1874 AD does German professor Adolf Holtzmann become the first to speculate Ēostre’s/Ostara’s association with rabbits and eggs. Ukrainian folklore from this period further adds that the goddess came across an injured bird, and in order to save it’s life she turned it into a hare. The transformation was incomplete however, so the hare was still able to lay eggs. As a thank you for saving it’s life, the bird/hare gave the goddess some decorated eggs. Despite the fact that there may be no hard evidence of an ancient Spring goddess named Ostara or Ēostre that’s associated with rabbits and eggs, one can still choose to venerate such an archetype if they wish, for her attributes of fertility, rebirth, new life and beginnings are still valid regardless if her historical existence can be validated or not. Rabbits are a symbol of fertility due to the fact that they can give birth every month thanks to their gestation period running from twenty-eight to thirty-two days, and eggs are a symbol of fertility due to the fact that chickens can lay eggs everyday which when fertilized only takes twenty-one days to become a chick, which in six months will be a grown hen laying it’s own eggs.

While there may be no hard evidence of a historical Spring equinox goddess named Ostara, there exist plenty of evidence and examples of the Spring equinox being observed all over the world. Just right here in the United States a 12,000 year old Paleoindian site was discovered in 2009 in Clarke County, Virginia where there is a formation which when stood in during the equinox, the Sun creates a halo effect above the person. Other ancient sites in America marking the equinox include Vermont which has a stone structure known as “Calendar One” which has stones marking where the Sun rises on the equinox; Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico has the Fajada Butte which uses stone slabs to cast shadows on the equinox; and in Salem, New Hampshire there exists a 4,000 year old site referred to as “America’s Stonehenge” which has five standing stones on top of Mystery Hill pointing to the sunrise and sunset on the equinox. The actual Stonehenge in the United Kingdom is said to have been used (though not constructed) by the Druids to observe the equinox and other astronomical events, but constructed by an even earlier people for the same purpose. The Maya celebrated the Spring equinox for at least over a 1000 years, there in Mexico existing the pyramid El Castillo in which when the Sun sets on the equinox it creates the illusion of a serpent descending down it’s stairs, in which the Maya honored the return of their sun god. Sham el-Nessim is a holiday that is celebrated in Egypt marking the start of Spring. Though since the Christian Coptic period of Egypt’s history the date has changed to be celebrated now on Easter Monday, historically before then it was celebrated in Ancient Kmt (Egypt’s ancient native name) on the Spring equinox and dates as far back as at least 2700 BC. Other examples exist even within places like Cambodia and Malta showing that cultures on every continent except Antarctica observed the Spring equinox.

The Christian holiday Easter’s association with Ostara goes beyond just the origin of the name. While decorative eggs and rabbits may not have anything to do with Christ, the story of his Resurrection goes right along with the theme of the season. Christ’s Resurrection out of the tomb and triumphing over death can be likened to being born out of the womb into a new life. Mainstream Christianity believes that Christ died for people’s sins, so that through his sacrifice they can be “born again” through him. As you can see, even within the Christian traditions exist the idea of a new life and a new beginning that comes with this season. The archetype of a dying god who is later resurrected is seen in the Mainstream Christian interpretations of Christ, but is also seen in the mythology of the Greek god Dionysus, a deity of wine, fertility, and religious ecstasy. Though having little association with the equinox other than timing, his festival Bacchanalia is celebrated in March in his honor.

Before the switch from the Roman Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar occurred in 1752, March 25th was known as the date of the New Year for majority of the world at that time, hence the reason Aries marks the beginning of the new Astrological Year. This also explains the anomaly in the naming of the months. For example, the root of September “septem” means “seven”, yet September is the 9th month. However when you start the year in March, April would be the 2nd month, May the 3rd, June the 4th, July the 5th, August the 6th, September the 7th, October (octo meaning eight) the 8th, November (novem meaning nine) and December (decem meaning ten) the 10th. The Spring equinox being the start of the New Year dates back at least 3,000 years to the Ancient Persian celebration called Nowruz, a holiday so important that the King of Babylon was only considered legitimate after participating in the rituals of the day. This day is still observed as a secular holiday within the Shia Islamic world and is recognized as an international holiday by the United Nations.

In essence, Ostara is a time of new beginnings and the start of Nature’s yearly cycle. Now would be the perfect time to start new adventures, launch new projects, make new connections with people, and even find new love. This is also the time when a lot of pagans decide to make their New Years resolutions, rather than most who do it on January 1st. If you’ve made resolutions then and haven’t lived up to them, now is the time to start fresh again! While this is also the time to start tilling fields and planting new seeds, that also extends to tilling your internal fields and planting new seeds within your mind. Those old habits, worries, regrets and heartbreaks are a thing of the past and do not need to hold you back now. It’s a new day, a new year, a new you. Ostara and Aries season brings along with it hope, growth and anticipation. Carpe diem!

A final note, though the day of the equinox is a bit about balance as well, it’s very important to always keep in mind that like all things in life, balance is fleeting. True balance rarely ever exist in this Universe, as the very nature of It is imperfection and imbalance always working towards perfection and balance, but never quite getting there. Even on the day of the equinox, the further away you are from the equator, the less equal day and night actually are, the more important aspect of the equinox being the Sun hitting it’s zenith rather than balance or equality between day and night, light and dark. In reality, it truly represents for now the triumph of light over darkness, leaving the passive part of the year and entering the active.

Peace, Love, Balance, & Blessings to you all this season!

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