GETTING STARTED 6:

EIGHT DAYS TO HOLD SACRED – PART ONE

By Rev. Todd Covert, Chief of the Fellowship

Much of what has come before in these short lessons in modern Druid practice has focused on the work of the individual alone and so it is appropriate that we now consider a means of refocusing on the community and the larger cosmos.  To do so, we will once more embrace the customs of Neopaganism and begin a system of observances of seasonal festivals, occasions which can be marked alone if need be, but which provide opportunities to come together and celebrate with others in the community.

These eight festivals are divided into two sets of four:  the so-called “Fire Festivals” or quarter days of the ancient Gaelic peoples and the solar solstices and equinoxes.  As with so much of this work, this two-fold division reinforces the presence in the cosmos of both social order and external forces beyond human control, as well as the individual psyche’s need to hold and embody the existence of both.  At the same time, embracing this system of seasonal observances leads us once more into acceptance of the communion of the Folk with the Land.  While the solar holidays—the solstices and equinoxes—are determined with implacable mathematical precision by the shining bodies of the Sky, the Fire Festivals are tied to the rhythms of the Land and the activities of the people upon her.  Indeed, it is widely believed that the timing of the Fire Festivals was determined by such factors as weather, vegetation, or the birth of stock animals.

And so we may consider for our own purposes that the solar holidays mark out the endlessly repeating cycle of the year by a yardstick beyond the keeping of mankind, an implacably turning wheel of precisely defined occasions that will come when they will whether we wish it or not.  At the same time, the Fire Festivals represent holidays defined by mankind to honor the seasons of labor on the Earth.  Honoring both these cycles—as so many modern Pagans do—allows us to see time through the prism of both human enterprise and the great mysteries of the universe at one and the same time.

One way of understanding the two interlocking cycles—from the perspective of the Sun’s journey through the year—is as follows:

Samhain:  The Coming of the Dark

Winter Solstice:  The Interment of the Sun

Imbolc:  Creation in the Winter

Spring Equinox:  The Sun Returns

Beltaine:  The Coming of the Light

Summer Solstice:  The Exhaltation of the Sun

Lughnasadh:  Harvest in the Summer

Autumn Equinox:  The Sun Descends

This is by no means the only way of looking at the Fire Festivals; indeed, it is probably best that one seek as many associations for each as possible (just as it is worth seeing the gods and goddesses as multifaceted and not reduce them to single qualities).