Jail Breaking the Wheel of the Year

There was a time that I was into the whole do the wheel of the Year by the planet's. Meaning I took the time to find the holidays based on the half way mark of the appropriate zodiac sign. Click here for a blog post on it. Then the practicality of have to calculate when certain Sabats were going to be set it. It's just not practical for me to sit and spend time on it.

There was a time that marking the wheel of the Year set forth by Wica was important to me or in reality it was important to mark it for some reason. Then I realized those people and I do not share much in common. Where I value certain things like honor and honesty, they seem to value the opposite. So my whole motivation to attempt to follow that wheel of the Year evaporated.

Yet I still love and am drawn to the pictures of the wheel of the year, so I had a good think about it.

Life is a cycle. The Wheel of the Year happens wether or not we want it to. Meaning we humans have no control over the Wheel, we can merely hope to learn it's ways so to make a better life for ourselves. As witches we are supposed to be in tune to the Wheel of the Year; noticing the small changes that happen that show a change is coming.

I am a witch. I can notice these things. I have noticed these things.

It's time to jail break the Wheel of the Year from man made constructs and let the Gods be free. Some people might also call this deconstructing, but Jail Breaking just sounds more fun.

So I have decided to jail break the Wheel of the Year, but respect has to be paid to those things that built it. Namely respect must be paid to the Sun, Moon, and Earth. There are many other planets out there that influence our lives, but the easiest to visually measure is those three.

The Sun.

For the most part the Wheel of the Year is based off of the Suns path in the sky as the Earth moves around it. There are equinoxes and solstices and cross quarters. The Sun also dictates the growing season and the hunting season. As the Earth moves around the Sun it spins, it is this spinning and changes in sun light levels that cause weather patterns. When the weather conditions are not good for growing crops and food is needed prior to supermarkets who have a reach around the world humans turned to hunting. It is no wonder then that it is worshiped as a God.

The Moon

The Lunar calendar is not set on the Wheel of the Year, yet the Moon plays a subtle yet powerful role in the Wheel of the Year. Planting the seeds for above ground crops three days before the full moon will give better yields off of the mature plants. I did a whole growing season of planting on the quarters of the moon to prove this wrong; it was proven correct. When I planted according to the Moon those plants had a quarter higher yield at the minimum than those plants whose seeds were planted at other times. The Moon also dictates the tides of the sea and as such also effects the weather conditions. It is no wonder then that it is worshiped as a Goddess.

The Earth

Our species personal space ship with all of our needs provided for; Earth. When you are standing on the Earth and have not had a modern education, it appears that the Sun and Moon orbit the Earth. The reality has been found, provided you are not a one of those who doubt it, that the Moon orbits the Earth and the Earth orbits the Sun. The Earth allows us to build and grow things that were or are fueled by the interactions of the Sun and Moon upon it.

So we have these three gi-enormous masses that dictate a lot of our lives. These masses are called planets and a gas giant; I think. Either way it is these three that dictate the Wheel of the Year; which is a calendar of sorts based on the Sun for the most part. This is shown in the minor Sabats getting some of their names from the occurrences; equinox and solstice.

Half of the Sabats on the Wheel of the Year are named after sun occurrences: equinox and solstice. The other half come from a mix of places. What I had always found rather … odd … was that the High Sabats were not the ones that fell on the equinoxes or solstices, but rather were on those points when the sun is at 15 degrees of another sign. But then the High Sabats happen on the fixed signs of the year which are the ones who also dictate the elements for the season; for me anyway.

It seems that the Sun would be the only component of the Wheel of the Year. How does this Moon concept fit into all of this? Well the Moon is only visible and how much is illuminated is determined by the Sun and the position of the Earth. The Moon also dictates the tides as it is its course around the Earth that draws the waters and like I had said earlier the Moon also has an effect on the growth of plants. The Moons through out the Year are given different names based on what the culture primarily experienced at that point in a year. An example can be found here. The moon was a means to keep track of the Sun's movement and what season was coming next. With each full moon named and the sequence passed on it ensured that from year to year people knew what to expect as well as when to plant, harvest, hunt, etc.