Following the Wheel of the Year

The modern Pagan has discovered that following the Wheel of the YearTM as laid out in the books is full of problems and predicaments. Historically there is no evidence to support the idea that our ancestors followed the wheel of the year or gave it any particular significance. Certain celebrations evolved into their Christian versions that we are more familiar with over the years. The original Pagan meanings of these festivals would have been diluted beyond recognition, so to claim that one is following the ancestors is at best naïve and at worse ill researched.
The Greater Sabbats, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnahsah and Samhain were better known as Candlemas, May Day, Lammas and All Hallow’s Eve (later Halloween). These celebrations were based on seasonal changes such as what the weather was doing, and what the plant growth was like. However as time went on, each celebration became associated with a particular date and these dates have become standardised for the modern Pagan to follow.

In these modern times of climate change, seasonal drift and erratic weather patterns has meant that using specific dates for the Greater Sabbats seems to have lost it’s relevance. To follow a seasonal Wheel of the Year would imply that those seasonal changes would dictate when they were celebrated. But if Spring has started weeks before the 2nd February, or the Hawthorn has bloomed too early or too late for the 1st May, then what is the modern Pagan to do? If our ancestors followed anything like the Wheel of the Year, then they would not have followed a specific timetable, so why do we?

Yet another factor to consider is that we no longer an Agrarian society. Our lives are not bound to working the land and we are not reliant on the erratic whims of nature for our survival. Even agriculture today is not subject to the same conventions as in the past. It seems incongruous for the modern Pagan to try and fit around an idea that is factually erroneous in the first place, and doesn’t work for today’s society.

However, does this mean that we should drop the Wheel of the Year? The average Pagan seems to place a great deal of significance on some of the Sabbats if not all of them (depending on what system of belief they follow). The Sabbats seem to answer a need for a system of celebration. So perhaps that is all that they should be considered to be? Since it is fairly standard knowledge that the Wheel of the Year as it is known today was made up in the last hundred years or so, how should a modern Pagan follow such a system? Should they follow it at all?

Rather than looking at the Wheel of the Year as most perceive it, perhaps it should be seen as standard points of the year where we can stop and contemplate their associated meaning. Using them as specific dates and setting aside time like other set holidays, would mean that our lives would have the time to reflect that we don’t tend to have in a modern world. It gives our lives a pattern to follow that our frenetic lives no longer have. Humans like patterns and systems, so even artificially created ones can be beneficial to us.

Perhaps it is time to step away from the insistence that something must be historically correct to have spiritual relevence. We are modern Pagans, no matter what we claim, we cannot look back on our ancestors' day to day lives and try to make them fit our own. The best we can do is take inspiration from them, and live our lifes as true to ourselves and the world we live in.