Eight...is enough? - RealPagan- Paganism for the Real World

Awesome resources...thanks fo…

2012-06-18T13:17:44.421Z

Awesome resources...thanks for sharing. And I completely get the two-cycle idea. One other place where I lived had three cycles Hot-Wet, Hot-Dry, Cold-Dry. :)

Her point about human cycles is also a really important one. I think that retail salespersons do far, far, far more work turning the wheel of the year than most pagans!

Lark said:

Good question, and I don't have time right now to do it justice with discussion. So I thought I'd point you at two articles that Judy Harrow wrote on the Sabbats and also the tides between the Sabbats. Her point about "Uncle Wicca" is particularly germane to this conversation I think.

http://proteuscoven.com/sabbats.htm

http://proteuscoven.com/Season-0.htm

Remember that our ancestors celebrated the seasons of the year depending on where it was that they lived. Since Wicca originated in Britain where there are four clear seasons the Wheel revolves around that fact. But if one was Egyptian then the celebrations were focused around the cycles of flooding of the Nile. Only two cycles there, flood and dry...so no eight-spoked wheel.

I can get behind the axial ti…

2012-06-18T13:00:02.207Z

I can get behind the axial tilt aspects of solstices and equinoxes, but when it comes to their implementation in modern pagan practice, aside from a bit of quippy aside "solstice = sun stand still, equinox = equal day and equal night" (when we all know that neither of those is actually true for where we live!) and those who do decide to go with the whole celestial/terrestrial dynamic, the way a sabbat is celebrated is all about environmental concerns if it is done "by the book" for most 101 material. Where I grew up, we had seasons, but not four equally spaced ones in the year. The "cold season" was January and February. Harvest season was November through April. Wet season was May through September. Hurricane season was June through November. Tourist season was April and June through August (skipping May). Snowbird season is November through May. Migratory season is September through December. Up where I'm currently living, half of those seasons don't occur, and the ones that do occur don't quite overlap right.

Oakthorne said:

Yup - the energetic Tides. Patricia Crowther talks a bit about the Tides and their importance in Craft in her book Covensense. And while not always immediately obvious, there are always seasonal changes, no matter where you are. They're just sometimes really not obvious.

The seasons aren't a matter of environmental effects - what happens around you is a result of the seasons, not the other way around. The seasons are based on how close our planet is to the sun, taking into account axial tilt, and that distance is nuanced enough to affect the subtle energies of our planet (giving us the energetic/celestial Tides Crowther talks about).

Awesome conversation, by the way. :)

Good question, and I don't ha…

2012-06-18T12:56:25.244Z

Good question, and I don't have time right now to do it justice with discussion. So I thought I'd point you at two articles that Judy Harrow wrote on the Sabbats and also the tides between the Sabbats. Her point about "Uncle Wicca" is particularly germane to this conversation I think.

http://proteuscoven.com/sabbats.htm

http://proteuscoven.com/Season-0.htm

Remember that our ancestors celebrated the seasons of the year depending on where it was that they lived. Since Wicca originated in Britain where there are four clear seasons the Wheel revolves around that fact. But if one was Egyptian then the celebrations were focused around the cycles of flooding of the Nile. Only two cycles there, flood and dry...so no eight-spoked wheel.

Yup - the energetic Tides. Pa…

2012-06-18T12:13:33.847Z

Yup - the energetic Tides. Patricia Crowther talks a bit about the Tides and their importance in Craft in her book Covensense. And while not always immediately obvious, there are always seasonal changes, no matter where you are. They're just sometimes really not obvious.

The seasons aren't a matter of environmental effects - what happens around you is a result of the seasons, not the other way around. The seasons are based on how close our planet is to the sun, taking into account axial tilt, and that distance is nuanced enough to affect the subtle energies of our planet (giving us the energetic/celestial Tides Crowther talks about).

Awesome conversation, by the way. :)

For us our lore (which is ver…

2012-06-18T12:07:13.652Z

For us our lore (which is very much backfill) is that the solstices and equinoxes are when energetic shifts between seasons occur in the heavens, and then then cross-quarters are when they occur on land. I like the Lamond reason for why there's eight sabbats, though. Originally there were just the four majors, but that didn't provide enough times for fun parties in the year, so ol' Gerald said "Well, if you want more parties, we all know that the ancient witches always celebrated the solstices and equinoxes, so we could have parties on those days, too." ;)

Part of the challenge for me with the idea of four seasons is that I grew up in (and will be moving back to) a place where there aren't four seasons on an environmental level--the seasons are very much secular designations based on activities and imagery that has little to nothing to do with what is actually physically going on in the natural world.

Oakthorne said:

The Sabbats, as we teach them, celebrate the height of the four seasons, and then the transitions between them (liminal times).

The Sabbats, as we teach them…

2012-06-18T00:37:43.674Z

The Sabbats, as we teach them, celebrate the height of the four seasons, and then the transitions between them (liminal times).