[Help] What order do I follow to celebrate the Wheel of the Year?

[Darwin Orion]

I've only recently started studying witchcraft in general. I live in the Southern Hemisphere, very far south, and I've been wondering about this because the books and content creators I've read and watched are from people who live in the Northern Hemisphere and celebrate the Wheel of the Year according to their seasonal changes (as it originally was, since the Wheel of the Year has Celtic and Germanic origins). So, when I find practitioners from the Southern Hemisphere, I've noticed that they either don't celebrate it at all, or they study it but don't perform rituals or offerings on those days. Those who do celebrate it do so according to the Northern Hemisphere's seasonal changes, or they celebrate it according to the Southern Hemisphere's. So my question is, do I have the right to celebrate these Sabbats if I don't have Celtic or Norse ancestry (nor do I have ancestry from any Indigenous people of my country, if anyone was wondering)? And if I can celebrate it, do I follow the Northern Hemisphere's seasonal changes (as it originally was) or the Southern Hemisphere's?

 

[Keldan]

Yes, you can celebrate the Sabbats without Celtic or Norse ancestry. Ancestry isn’t a requirement for honoring seasonal festivals. The Wheel of the Year most people refer to today includes 8 Sabbats and is a modern Wiccan tradition popularized in the 21th century. It isn’t a single intact ancient religion that only descendants can access. Many people celebrate in covens, and many solo practitioners celebrate too, it just depends on their practice.

If you want the festivals to match the seasons the way they’re intended to, you can celebrate them according to Southern Hemisphere seasonal changes by flipping the Wheel. That generally means swapping the Sabbats by about 6 months. So the winter solstice falls around June, the summer solstice around December, and so on. This way, the harvest Sabbats feel like harvest where you are, and the winter ones feel like winter where you are.

But in my opinion, it’s best to follow the tradition’s calendar even if it’s Northern Hemisphere based. If you’re doing large rituals, you’ll notice a huge difference when you keep the same dates the tradition uses.

 

[Darwin Orion]

Thank you so much! I wanted to know if there was any difference, also if it was better to change them or keep them, because it felt a bit contradictory to keep them the same as in the northern hemisphere, because as you say, Yule here should be celebrated in June and in the north it's celebrated in December, when here the temperature is over 35 degrees Celsius. I'll take into consideration that perhaps it's more effective as tradition dictates.

 

[Keldan]

It really comes down to personal preference whether you want to flip the Wheel or keep the traditional dates. People in the Southern Hemisphere who flip it usually do so to match their local seasons. Others keep the dates because they want to follow the established calendar.

These days aren’t just seasonal markers, they’re also tied to planetary timing that happens alongside or soon after the season changes.