The Wheel of the Year is far superior to the calendar year, and it’s great for people with BPD, and I’ll tell you why!

Anyone can celebrate the Wheel of the Year. You don’t have to believe in a “God” or a “Goddess” to celebrate the Wheel, and you don’t have to be some kind of pagan,’cause it’s the year, which is the same for us all – no matter what your spiritual/religious beliefs. The God and Goddess can just be analogies to think about the Wheel turns, or you can ignore them completely.

It’s related to the seasons, rather than the calendar date, which means it works in both the Northern and the Southern Hemisphere (where it’s reversed); so no celebrating a Winter festival at the height of Summer in Australia.

It’s related to solstices and equinoxes, which means that each celebration either has some celestial significance, e.g., days/nights getting shorter/longer, or marks some change in nature – all of which has an effect on us. The Wheel’s Winter festival, Yule, is at the Winter Solstice, for example; rather than being on the seemingly arbitrary date, 25th, December, like Christmas. So, at Yule, you can think about the significance of longer days – rather than what a lot of people who celebrate Christmas think about, who aren’t practising Christians, which is largely Bailey’s.

Having said that, many of the Christian holidays that a lot of us celebrate are largely based on, and are largely in line with, the Wheel of the Year celebrations, e.g., Yule/Christmas and Ostara/Easter. A lot of the symbols and celebrations are very similar as well, e.g., the Yule log, Christmas trees, holly, and Easter eggs, and many more. So it’s an easy switch to make.

It’s a great way to feel “in sync” with the seasons, because each period has an ideology attached to it, i.e., things to think about, and to meditate on how these things relate to your own life. It follows (very loosely) a cycle of: rest, growth, abundance, and letting go. It’s all about collecting the positives and discarding the negatives. Each celebration is a time of reflection, and the Wheel as a whole gives you a very strong, and yet forgiving, structure for growth. When you live your life in sync with these seasons, or the Wheel of the Year, it gives you a sense of positive continuity, or a positive forward momentum, and a sense of being connected to the world – which can escape people who struggle with dissociation. You can go outside and see the nature around you being one massive, positive example of pathetic fallacy for your own life – and this can really help you to keep on track with your goals, and to be mindful of the world around you.



Personally, I think we should all give up the calendar year celebrations and switch back to the Wheel of the Year. It’s well better. I’ll see you at Imbolc, fam!