Druid Festivals & the Wheel of the Year
In Druidry as well as other pagan paths we honour eight particular festivals during the yearly cycle which are significant to us.
Of these eight festivals four are attributed to the Sun and are solar and four to the Moon which are lunar. This helps to create a balance of masculine and feminine. It seems that the solar festivals are the ones that most people link to Druids especially because of the Summer Solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge & Avebury.
At the Solstices, the Sun is revered because of its apparent death during winter when the night is longest and of its power during summer when the days are longest.
Differently during Equinoxes day and night are more balanced. At the Spring Equinox the Sun is getting stronger so we start to sow our crops ready for the bounty that comes with Summer. When we get to the Autumnal Equinox, although day and night are equal the Suns power is starting to wane so we start our harvest ready for the darkness and cold that comes with Winter.
So these four festivals are astronomical and we can be fairly sure our ancestors would have marked them with ritual because many of the stone circles are oriented to their points of sunrise or sunset.
But i said there were eight festivals well as these four are Solar festivals, there are four times in the year which are also considered sacred. These were the times which were more associated with the livestock cycle, rather than the farming cycle.
At Samhuin, October 31st and November 2nd, animals were slaughtered and their meat salted and stored. At Imbolc February 1st lambing season would start. At Beltane, May 1st, it was the start of the mating season and farmers would pass their livestock through the two Beltane fires for purification. Lughnasadh, August 1st, the harvest began and both human food and animal fodder were reaped and stored.
These festivals represent far more than just times which our ancestors chose to honour. They show our connections with both the animal and plant realms.
Festival wheel of the year
We will go into more detail about each festival on other pages.
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