Wheel of the Year

[nia-ceridwyn]

So, I have a question. We've just celebrated the change of a new calendar year, and it got me thinking about this.

When does the new year begin? Some schools of thought say the year begins at Samhain, but others say it begins at Alban Arthan. Most websites I've found start the Tree Month cycle at Alban Arthan, but a few sources say it originally began at Samhain. What is the OBOD definition?

[minerva5]

Don't really know enough about Druidry yet to comment, I've still a long way to go, but I tend to hibernate both metaphorically and nearly in reality between December and February unless the weather is especially warm and sunny. This has been happening for years , which presented a problem when I was working. I only really come alive again at Imbolc. I've found that even if I try to be busy it doesn't work, I have to slow down. I call it "Living in tune with the seasons". Perhaps I have hedgehog genes! I believe that if you are in tune with nature your body will find its natural rhythms and it's better to stick to it. There are probably Winter and Summer people, just as there are Morning and Night people. XX Min.

[Whitemane]

I don't think there is an OBOD definition, but the practice is to recognize Alban Arthuan as the turn of the year. It works nicely because it is the Solstice and blends in well with all the other merry stuff going on.

The Celts are believed to have used Samhain to mark the end of the harvest, so perhaps using a more utilitarian agricultural calendar than an astronomical one.

[Corwen]

Historically, the wheel of the year as celebrated by contemporary Pagans is a collision of two systems, the old Celtic calender and the equinoxes and solstices celebrated by the ancient Mystery Cults, by medieval Alchemists and other Occultists and brought into Druidry via Crowley-Gardner-Ross Nichols. So I think you could argue that there are two New Years, the one celebrated by the Celts (Samhain) and the one celebrated by the old Mystery religions (including the Western Mystery Tradition) which is the Winter Solstice.

[DaRC]

Well I guess it depends upon your focus.
The modern thought that the Celtic year begins at Samhuin is from the knowledge that the Celtic day started at dusk - so a day ran from sunset to sunset. This has been extrapolated by modern pagans to mean that Samhuin would be year end.

The Celtic supposition that Samhuin would be the start of the year is disputed by scholars looking at the Coligny Calendar - whether Samonos means Samhuin or Summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coligny_calendar

Also see this
http://www.imbas.org/articles/samhain.html

As I live in the modern world I use the modern timings for New Year and the day. Although I am attracted to the idea that the day starts at sunset.

[GreenOak51]

It is accepted that the Celts recognized their new year at the end of Samhuinn (moving into the first day on November 1). An easy response - or so I thought. This has made me wonder why as well. Why would they not start their new year with action or renewed energy as would happen with Alban Arthuan and the returning strength of the sun? Why would their days, as DaRC pointed out, not also start at sunrise?

I will speculate here, basing these speculations on the Northern Hemisphere.

Samhuinn has a tangible, visible end that is unlike the other seasons. At Imbolc, we celebrate the first rite of spring. Yes, we may have cold, cold times ahead. Yes, we may have metres of snow to shovel out from. But the earth has started its growing. Greens are in evidence.
As we move on to Alban Eiler, we notice a difference but not one that we can mark and say "here, this is where it begins".
From there we celebrate Alban Hefin. While the world is certainly greener than it was at Imbolc and there are many things to harvest, it's warmer and filled with colour, that doesn't define the season.
Heading towards the Autumn Equinox, our world is full of bounty. She has donned her robes of colours and hues much different from Imbolc-Spring Equinox-Summer Solstice and we are in full harvest time. But that is not a definitive time either. Harvest has been occuring since the late spring and many 'autumn' foods are harvested starting in August when Earth had starting changing colours.
Yet Samhuinn -- Samhuinn says 'this is all I have'. It isn't possible to move into another time of growing or harvesting. At Samhuinn the earth declares herself finished. And we know it without question.
This would also explain (in theory) why the Celts considered sunset to sunset their day. It was not necessarily that sunset was the beginning of a day. Rather it was the end of day.
The Celts used the land to mark the passage of their time instead of looking to the heavens.

Peace,
T
/|\

[DJ Droood]

It is accepted that the Celts recognized their new year at the end of Samhuinn (moving into the first day on November 1).

Not by Ronald Hutton:

There is a wide-spread if unproven modern notion that the pagan 'Celtic New Year' was not in midwinter, which will be discussed much later in the present book. The Welsh sources at least strongly suggest that by the tenth Century at the very latest, a midwinter New Year's festival was being celebrated with a vigour which suggests a long-established tradition. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, page 8

There is, therefore, absolutely no firm evidence in the written record that the year opened on 1 November in either early Ireland or early Wales, and a great deal in the Welsh material to refute the idea. Nor can it be confidently be concluded the even the Irish only celebrated the four quarter-days. The whole argument for a 'Celtic New Year' was originally based upon conclusions drawn from relatively recent folklore, and it has been suggested that these were flawed. pages 410-411

[elementalheart]

It may be a subject for academic debate but in practice in this particular Celtic land the tradition of Samhain/Samhuinn being year end remains respected as the completion day of the end of the agricultural cycle after which most ploughing starts to prepare for the next planting. It makes sense in the same way that the modern Hogmanay is all about the eve of, the completion day of a cycle, not the new year day but the auld year's day that precedes it. Even in the modern office/school environment one celebrates the weekend at the completion of Friday's working day not on Saturday morning, and the last day of office life before Christmas tends to begin either at 4pm instead of 5pm or if you're lucky in your employer, at the lunchtime of Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve in itself has as many traditions attached as Christmas Day, the whole Santa and churchgoing traditions for instance, though as far as I know that has little to do with Celtic ways and has little meaning to me as a non Christian, but Christianity overwrote what already existed so in that context it supports the importance of "eve" over "day".

The academics can enjoy the research and debate and compare ancient texts, but our lands came from an oral tradition and practices tend to be handed down through generations before being eventually recorded by a (usually external if not opposing) writer. And since the Romans never really "observed" and conquered as much of Scottish culture as they did of Welsh, there is far less to find in records to be decisive proof. The significance of evening/end cycle may not be classic druidic, I don't know enough of druidry yet and see the relative importance of solstice over Samhuinn/Bealltainn in publicly held rituals, where here we still have strong Bealltainn traditions which elsewhere in the UK appear to have lapsed.

But the Samhain ending of the year suits both the agricultural year and the natural cycle of gestation prior to birth. For whatever reason, however misguided, it'll do me

[clyffmydylltyn]

Don't really know enough about Druidry yet to comment, I've still a long way to go, but I tend to hibernate both metaphorically and nearly in reality between December and February unless the weather is especially warm and sunny. This has been happening for years , which presented a problem when I was working. I only really come alive again at Imbolc. I've found that even if I try to be busy it doesn't work, I have to slow down. I call it "Living in tune with the seasons". Perhaps I have hedgehog genes! I believe that if you are in tune with nature your body will find its natural rhythms and it's better to stick to it. There are probably Winter and Summer people, just as there are Morning and Night people. XX Min.

I also experience this lull. I start to come alive again at the end of February, beginning of March.

[Aphritha]

I'm noticing I tend to go through a doom and gloom stage around Jan/Feb, both caused by my mentality, outside circumstances, or both. Fortunatly, I tend to get just as down as I possibly can, and out of nowhere something happens, and I feel like a new person again. Kind of the death/rebirth idea, though I'm not sure the timing of this fits on the wheel...it is what it is.

[katie bridgewater]

I don't really think there is one single 'New Year'. Seasons are cyclical, and as such you could say there are many beginnings, or maybe none. I think the concept of one single 'New Year' comes with a farming economy - ie a system that requires property and land ownership, and eventually, money and tax and centralised religion, and specialisation including education systems and mass production. Hence we have the Tax year starting in April, the School Year, starting after the harvest is in, the Church 'New Year' (which gives rise to our calendar new year). All these 'new years' competing for our attention and our money.

Cultures where people still live largely by collecting food and hunting or herding tend to have a more cyclical view of time. I think it's sometimes useful to step outside of our measuring and counting, linear and ascendent worldview and play with the language we use.
What if we learnt to see Samhain not as a date on a calendar but as the time of year when the fire is lit in earnestness, and keeping warm round a fire switches from being a nice sociable time to a life necessity? It is the time when the firewood pile needs to be full by. It isn't 'new' it's just what you do when the time arises for it. And December 31st is the night when I meet with my friends at the same party each year and get riotously drunk for fun. It could just as easily be on the 12th August, but we just make use of the fact that the banking economy historically stopped for the day so everyone could take time off working. And Midwinter is the time when I ponder the fragility of survival in cold climes for my ancestors. In some places this is celebrated in January or February. And what if we stopped seeing winter as the time of symbolic 'death' followed by the spring 'rebirth' ( classic Pagan terminology), but instead thought of winter as a time when the trees are just as busy doing other stuff than photosynthesising, that we can't see, indoor stuff for trees. The days get Rapidly lighter or darker around the equinoxes, my first freckle appears when the sun does, the day of my birthday is a time to think about the time since my last birthday and make plans to do before the next one, but then so is every festive time. Every day is a new year, and none and I rather like seeing the world like that.

At the Equator, where there aren't really seasons and changes in daylight, there is no new year. Our oldest human ancestors had no need of one. Only when people moved North did the need to differentiate between seasons because of fluctuating food supplies, become necessary. Wheels of the year are human constructs, and as such can be whatever humans want them to be.

I read a really interesting book called 'The History of The Calendar' which made me realise how differently time can be measured depending on one's culture and how the measuring of time, and the definition of years is subjective, impossible to measure accurately, and how easily those who control the measuring of time, control the economy, the wealth, and the minds of a people.