Description: Every month is full of magic, each day has its own energy, and the seasons rotate as part of the cycles of nature. Pagan Portals - Rounding the Wheel of the Year looks at ways to honor each month with folkloric customs, herb and plant lore, traditional crafts, spells, visualizations, and pagan rites that go beyond the eight festivals of Imbolc, Spring Equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lammas, Autumn Equinox, Samhain, and Winter Solstice.

Verdict: The wheel of the year turns smoothly, it doesn’t bump over eight cogs, and that’s the meaning of the title of this book. Inside these pages you will find the history behind some much-loved folklore and modern pagan customs, as well as practical suggestions for ways to celebrate the turning of the year.

Aside from the associations with Stonehenge and ‘New Age’ movements, most people would probably confess to knowing little about pagans, or even who they are - modern paganism may refer to several different groups such as Wiccans, heathens, and Celtic neopagans.

So, what are the most important days in the pagan calendar, I hear you ask? Well, starting in December, eight annual festivals spaced roughly six to seven weeks apart are celebrated by pagans. This cycle is known as the Wheel of the Year.

There are such myriad historical and contemporary variations and semantic complexities when dealing with paganism that a book-length article would be needed to fully cover it. The wheel as described here is broadly what is observed today by modern pagans, chiefly of the UK and Ireland.

The first of the eight sections of the Wheel of the Year is Yule, (winter solstice, or Midwinter) one of the four ‘lesser sabbats’, or festivals. It is celebrated on the shortest day of the year, about 21st December.

For many pagans, Yule is a key part of the life cycle of the ‘Child of Promise’, conceived in Ostara and born in the winter solstice as the ‘Sun Child’ who will defeat the powers of darkness in the coming spring, ushering in nature’s triumphant return.

The first day of February is Imbolc. Imbolc celebrates the coming of spring. It is one of the four cross-quarter days (or ‘fire festivals’), and one of the wheel’s four ‘greater sabbats’. The other cross-quarter days are Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain.

The etymology of the word ‘Imbolc’ remains undetermined, but it probably comes from the Old Irish word for ‘in the belly’ or ‘in the womb’, referring to pregnant ewes, a precursor to the lambing season.

Spring equinox (or Ostara, from the Saxon goddess) is one of the four ‘lesser sabbats’. It is celebrated around 21st March when the day has roughly an equal amount of sun and darkness. This solar festival is the opposite point on the wheel to Mabon or autumn equinox.

Beltane is one of the four ‘greater sabbats’ and is the traditional Celtic May Eve/May Day celebration and the opposite point on the cycle to Samhain.

Sources vary on its etymology, from belo-tanos (‘bright fire’) to a connection with the Celtic deity Bel. In Irish ‘mí na Bealtaine’ means ‘the month of May’.

The summer solstice (Midsummer), or Litha, is one of the four ‘lesser sabbats’ and the high point of the solar year. The God has reached the zenith of his power (the summer solstice being the longest day of the year) and the dawn of the 21st June (or thereabouts) is his crowning glory.

This taking on of power by the God as the Sun King and the end of his youthful days running in the greenwood represents the strength and power of the sun over the summer months, though pagans also remember that the God’s path is downhill now (the shortening of days until Yule).

Lughnasadh (‘gathering of Lugh’, in Irish), or Lammas, is one of the four ‘greater sabbats’ and the first of the year’s harvest festivals, along with Mabon and Samhain. Lammas comes from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘loaf-mass’. It occurs at the beginning of August.

The autumn equinox, or Mabon, is the second of the wheel’s three harvest festivals. It is the opposite point on the wheel to the spring equinox (Ostara) and is one of the four ‘lesser sabbats’. It is also known as Harvest Home, and to modern Druids as Alban Elued (‘light of the water’).

This falls sometime between 21st and 24th September.

Though leading Wiccan Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) called this ‘greater sabbat’ Hallowe’en, for many pagans - perhaps wanting to distance themselves from the popular trappings of modern Halloween - it is Samhain.

Samhain is a harvest festival and stretches back to Dark Ages Ireland and possibly into prehistory. It is celebrated from the night of 31st October to the following evening, the ancient Celtic day running from sunset to sunset.

In closing, author Lucya Starza’s dedicated new prose Pagan Portals - Rounding the Wheel of the Year: Celebrating the Seasons in Ritual, Magic, Folklore and Nature encapsulates all of these facts and oh-so many more and thus is a most enjoyable and humbled informative journey (and one on which we are willingly taken).

About the Author Lucya Starza is an eclectic witch living in London, England, with her husband and cats. She writes A Bad Witch’s Blog at www.badwitch.co.uk and is the author of Pagan Portals - Candle Magic, Pagan Portals - Poppets and Magical Dolls and Pagan Portals - Guided Visualisations.

She edited the community book Every Day Magic - A Pagan Book of Days and also contributed to Weathering the Storm, Naming the Goddess, Essays in Contemporary Paganism and Paganism 101.

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