Sabbats

Spokes on the Wheel of the Year

Within this page you will find information on the Pagan Sabbats as a whole well as links to the individual Sabbats.

Nearly every Pagan of European background celebrates the turning of the Wheel of the Year. Other Pagans from different cultures may call it by different names, but they too honour the changes in the season in their own ways.

Pagans celebrate two types of holidays, the Esbat and the Sabbat. The Sabbats can again be divided into the Lesser and Greater Sabbats.

The Greater Sabbats are based upon the changes on the earth and mark the turning of the seasons in an agricultural society. The Lesser Sabbats are Solar festivals and mark the movement of the Earth around the Sun.

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The Lesser Sabbats.

The Greater Sabbats

Three Witches Eating at the Sabbat

The Lesser Sabbats

The Cross-Quarters

These Lesser Sabbats were probably not Celtic in origin as they were not part of the earliest Celtic calendars. These feast days were more than likely brought to the Celts and the British isles by invading Angles and Saxons.

The Lesser Sabbats are Solar Festivals marking the turning of the earth round the Sun. They come at more or less the same day each year and can be predicted. It is speculated that early cultures as diverse as the Mayans in South America and the Druids in Britain built great edifices to better be able to predict when the Solstices and Equinoxes would fall each year.

The Lesser Sabbats

Full Moon Pentacle

Pagan Sabbats: Mabon

The Wheel turns once again. Summer gives way to Autumn. The leaves are starting to turn colour from vibrant green to golden browns and oranges. Days are becoming cooler. The Earth is balanced between light and dark once again. This is the 7th Sabba...

Pagan Sabbats: Litha

Litha, another way of saying the Summer Solstice, comes on the longest day of the year and is at the opposite side of the year from Yule, the Winter Solstice. This Solar Festival marks the day when the Sun God is at the height of power. It is a time...

Pagan Sabbats: Oestara

I love it when I start to notice the beginning signs of Spring. Leaf buds are on the trees. Snowdrops and crocuses have peaked through the earth and are starting to bloom. Here and there you can spy primroses in the undergrowth. The days are, finall...

Pagan Sabbats: Yule

Yule, also called the Winter Solstice, comes halfway around the Wheel of the Year from Litha, the Summer Solstice. This is the shortest day of the year. The Sun God is at His weakest. The pregnant Goddess reaches Her time, and at Yule she gives birt...

The Greater Sabbats

The Quarters

While the Lesser Sabbats had more or less set days on the calendar each year, the Greater Sabbats did not.

The days for these Sabbats were determined not by the position of the earth in relation to the Sun, but by the changing of the seasons, the ripening of the fruits and grains, and the fertility cycles of the animals.

Today, they are celebrated by most Pagans at a static point on the calendar, this was not always the case. These are the celebrations of a fully pastoral-agricultural society, dependent upon the successful propagation of crops in the fields and animals in the meadows for their own survival. The focus of the Greater Sabbats is that of fertililty, sex, birth, life, and death.

In this age when we can go to a grocery store and buy food year round, this dependence that people once had on Mother Earth is not fully appreciated.

The Greater Sabbats

leafy pentacle

Pagan Sabbats: Samhain

Of all the Pagan Sabbats, Samhain is perhaps the best known and the least understood. Samhain (pronounced sow-ain) is the 8th Pagan Sabbat in the Wheel of the Year. It marks the end of Summer and the Beginning of Winter. It is time to honour those w...

Pagan Sabbats: Beltane

Summer has returned to the land. The Goddess has grown to womanhood, the God to his manhood. Their courtship that began at Oestara is consumated marriage. The grass is growing, flowers are blooming, and the trees are coming into full leaf. It is nea...

Pagan Sabbat: Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh marks the time of the first harvest in the calendar year. The corn, and all grains were once called corn in Britain, is ripening in the fields and must be harvested. The God, at the height of his power at Litha, is now weakening, and with...

Three Witches Eating at the Sabbat

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Learn More About the Sabbats

Wooden Pentacle

Wheel of the Year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In many forms of Neopaganism, natural processes are seen as following a continuous cycle. The passing of time is also seen as cyclical, and is represented by a circle or wheel. The progression of birth, life, decline and death, as experienced in human lives, is echoed in the progression of the seasons. Wiccans also see this cycle as echoing the life, death and rebirth of their Horned God and the fertility of their Goddess.
Pagan and Wiccan sabbats and holidays: Pagan and Wiccan sabbats and holidays, the wheel of the year from Yule to Samhain
Pagan Festivals - The Sabbats: Sabbats are special days of the year to Pagans. Unlike most religions, the Pagan calendar is based on the Celtic 8 fold Wheel. It is closely attuned the the natural rhythms and cycles of nature and the passing seasons

Writings on the Sabbats from Other Lensmasters

Litha-Summer Solstice Sabbat

On the Sabbat Wheel, Litha falls directly across from Yule. Yule is considered to be the shortest day of the year, whereas Litha is considered to be the longest day. Litha and Yule are considered a lesser Sabbat because they fall on Quarters. Samhain...

The Wheel Of The Year

"The Wheel Turns, The Power Burns..." The Wheel of the Year is what Wiccans, some Pagans and Witches call the cycles of the seasons that are eternally turning. Each spoke on the wheel marks a special time. These times are the quarters (the two Solst...

Ostara: The Sabbat with the Rabbit

Just what is a sabbat anyway? According to the Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary, a sabbat is "any of eight neo-pagan religious festivals commemorating phases of the changing seasons." In the case of Ostara, it refers to the celebration of the Sprin...

Pagan Holidays - Summer Solstice

It is the time of Midsummer, the point between May Day and Lammas, when modern Pagans celebrate the sun god in all his glory. Yet, as he shines brightly, we know that his light will begin to dim. The sunlight begins to give way to darkness until the...

Pagan & Wiccan Festivals. May 1st Beltaine

The design features a prominent representation of the Sun, as Beltaine is known to be a festival of fire. The Sun is the fire that gives this planet life. The background is made up of colours that I feel represent summer, from the hues of straw to t...

Wheel of the Year

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KimGiancaterino KimGiancaterino Oct 28, 2009 @ 4:53 am

Beautifully designed lensography. Blessed by a Squid Angel.

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enslavedbyfaeries enslavedbyfaeries May 25, 2009 @ 11:33 am

It has been a pleasure learning about your passions and interests. This is a beautiful lensography!!

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Spook Spook May 23, 2009 @ 4:02 am

Excellent and I love your graphics also

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LakeMom LakeMom May 22, 2009 @ 9:39 pm

Nan - great lensography! I love your graphics! Truly inspirational!

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