{"id":379,"date":"2009-09-22T18:48:03","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T18:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/of-sabbats-wheels-and-place.html"},"modified":"2009-09-22T18:48:03","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T18:48:03","slug":"of-sabbats-wheels-and-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/of-sabbats-wheels-and-place.html","title":{"rendered":"Of Sabbats, Wheels, and Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our Mabon and Samhain discussions have prompted this post.  Wicca’s roots are in northwestern Europe, a land of strong
\nseasons like those in much of the US. 
\n<\/span>It was easy to integrate the agricultural cycle in the British Isles, and the solar cycle
\nwith the symbolism of birth, growth, adulthood, old age, death, and rebirth,
\nthat characterizes our own existence. 
\n<\/span>Further, they all harmonized with the phases of the moon.      <\/span><\/p>\n

Wonderful.
 <\/p>\n


\nThe fit is not so good when we move to the West coast of
\nNorth America, especially California. The rainless summer and scorching fall is
\nfollowed by the cold but hardly frozen rain of winter, and everything starts
\nturning green again.  <\/span>By Beltane
\nthere are often hints of summer’s golden brown in the meadows.   <\/span>           <\/span><\/p>\n

Or
\nthe far north or higher elevations, where May Day is hardly a day of
\nflowers.  <\/span>When I taught in far
\nupstate New York, north of the Adirondacks, it could snow into late May.  <\/span>Less than a day’s drive further north,
\nin Canada’s “Near North” somewhere up above Ottawa, maple trees disappeared for
\ngood, and winter became the overwhelmingly dominant season.  <\/span>Where I was in New York, it was only
\nthe dominant season, with snow falling as early as Samhain.             
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the West and North the Solstices and Equinoxes are still anchors
\nof more than abstract importance. 
\n<\/span>We experience the lengthening and shortening of day and night in a
\nsyjmbol fitting easily into the shorter rhythms of the waxing and waning
\nmoon.  <\/span>These rhythms are
\nuniversal.  <\/span>Or are they?  <\/span>               <\/span><\/p>\n

Many
\nof us have joked about Australian and Kiwi Wiccans and other NeoPagans
\ncelebrating the Sabbats upside down.  <\/span>There the
\nseasons are reversed, with our Samhain falling in their Spring.  <\/span>But the temperate Southern hemisphere
\nhas it fairly easy.  <\/span>You just
\ninvert the wheel and things still fit.            
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

What about the greater part of Australia that is tropical or subtropical?  <\/span>Not so many Wiccans there (yet?), but
\nhopefully its future has a strong NeoPagan component. (I do not mean just
\nWiccans, as I hope is clear.) And Hawaii? 
\n<\/span>Or the seasons as experienced by the Gardnerian community in Nigeria?             
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In the tropics and near tropics the days are mostly the same
\nlength.  <\/span>Solstices and Equinoxes
\nare not particularly noticeable. 
\n<\/span>The growing season is year long, unless there are cycles of rain and
\ndrought.  <\/span>These different seasonal
\nrhythms, are not in clear synch with those of the temperate zones.  <\/span>The  <\/span>dance of seasons is polyrhythmic.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Wicca’s ritual symbolism is a wonderful fit with temperate places with
\nfour strong seasons, and nowhere else. 
\n<\/span>Until then our celebrations will be rooted in abstract symbols rather
\nthan concrete energies.  <\/span>Anyone who
\nreads this blog knows I have no problems being abstract – but Spirit does not
\nmanifest abstractly in my experience. 
\n<\/span>It is extremely concrete.  <\/span>                  <\/span><\/p>\n

To
\nconnect with the spirit of where we live, I think we need to try and connect
\nwith its concrete manifestations. 
\n<\/span>Here on the southern end of the North Pacific coast, and farther on up,
\nthe salmon is the totem animal of the region.  <\/span>Native tribes long had their “First Salmon” ceremonies, when
\nthese wonderful fish returned from the ocean, to mate, spawn, and die,
\nenriching the land with their deaths. 
\n<\/span>       <\/span><\/p>\n

Here in Sonoma County we
\nalso have wonderful vineyards, with abundant grapes and wine, and the best
\napple juice anywhere from our Gravenstein apples.  <\/span>Grapes and apples are plants with venerable Pagan symbolisms in the West.  <\/span>Hopefully the day will come when our
\nSabbats incorporate these plant and animals of place and similar elements. And when the elements do not
\nfit easily into our Sabbats, hopefully we will have additional celebrations and
\nhonorings.  <\/span>        <\/span><\/p>\n

Indigenous Pagans
\nwere sensitive to the rhythms of their place as well as to the universal rhythms of life
\nand death.  <\/span>I think we will not
\nhave truly made our path a grounded path until we have done the same. We cannot
\nhave too many days where we are reminded of the Sacredness of our home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Mabon and Samhain discussions have prompted this post.  Wicca’s roots are in northwestern Europe, a land of strong seasons like those in much of the US.  It was easy to integrate the agricultural cycle in the British Isles, and the solar cycle with the symbolism of birth, growth, adulthood, old age, death, and rebirth,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,4,21,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-culture","category-pagan-holidays-and-sabbats","category-pagan-rituals-and-festivals","category-pagan-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nOf Sabbats, Wheels, and Place - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/of-sabbats-wheels-and-place.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Of Sabbats, Wheels, and Place - 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