Wheel Of Fire, Rolling through the Year

Is yours a wheel of fire or cheese?

Hmm ... I will try and stop this from devolving into a rant and try to keep it optimistic and informative (let me know how it goes lol.)

So I have made a few observations. The first is that many modern witches today identify as Pagan and celebrate a number of festivals linked to the wheel of the year. As we now know due to much research coming to light that much of what modern pagans celebrate in regards to the 8 Sabbats is absolute made up bollocks. That is to say it wasn’t what our ancient ancestors did.

We know that certainly in Britain most people would have celebrated the Summer and Winter Solstice, but that all the ‘Mabon’ stuff is crap and that it mainly comes from a bunch if Wiccans and Neo Pagans in the 20th Century pulling things out their asses and trying to convince a bunch of seekers that they were part of some sort of underground Witchcraft Priest(ess) cult, going back Centuries.

You may be thinking to yourself that this is going to be a rant about authenticity and that I'm going to say all these modern day Pagans that celebrate such things are foolish for doing so, but I MOST CERTAINLY AM NOT saying that. Who cares when things originated. You could create a festival, magical system or ritual tomorrow and providing it works I would say it is just as valid as one that's thousands of years old.

The rant I'm actually going to have is all about magical practice and the lack of innovation within wider public Pagan practices. The reason why i’m referring to the wheel of the year is that, when it comes to a lot of people's magical practices, well all they seem to do is celebrate the sabbats. I have met so many people belonging to covens these days who lack even the basic knowledge of magic and so all they can do is follow some cookie cutter routine and ritual. The same old shit year after year, cycle after cycle.

I should say that there's nothing wrong with that and if that's what you want to do then you go do that. That is what I know, I should say but … well .. I just can’t. I mean for FFS can we mix things up a bit. And no by mixing things up I don’t mean change the ritual wording or change the pantheon of spirits you're calling into those quarters you think are elements (because it’s always a Wiccan circle they use isn’t it). I mean start from scratch.

If you want to use a yearly cycle to hang lore and rituals upon then why not change from a solar one to a lunar one for a bit. See what happens. Instead of doing something for marriage or fertility at Beltane then why not hold a ‘Dumb Supper’ and welcome in the spirits of the dead instead of at Samhain. Shock horror, yes I actually insinuated doing Halloweeny type things in spring by holding a Necromantic Ritual. Why? Well the veil is also thin at this time so why not take advantage of that lol.

These festivals that modern witches tend to hold, there are magical currents that they are designed to tap into. Why not understand the currents and design something unique to take advantage of that instead of doing the same stuff over and over again. All that does is lead to stagnation and the worst mistake of thinking that you’ve learnt all there is to learn about the energies and currents at play during parts of a cycle.

Here's a thought: why not try something no one has ever done before. Why not make a breakthrough. Why not try some experimental magic and go down the path not least traveled but the one that is, within the Pagan community at least, seems to be so less traveled that you can hardly see it anymore through all the overgrown brambles and crap, overgrown brambles would be the ridiculous amount of info out there covering up a different path to the one all the popular authors copy and past … I mean write about lol.

This blog post was supposed to be comparing and contrasting the lunar wheel of the year cycle with the Solar one but well maybe I can do that another time because at this point well I don’t think we need to make this post any longer than it already is lol.

So do any of you guys do things outside of the norm or do you not celebrate any form of yearly cycle or Sabbats (like me lol?)