Hi guest! As you can see, the new Wizard Forums has been revived, and we are glad to have you visiting our site! However, it would be really helpful, both to you and us, if you registered on our website! Registering allows you to see all posts, and make posts yourself, which would be great if you could share your knowledge and opinions with us! You could also make posts to ask questions!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
Great post . I live down south too and dealt with this decades ago .
What is your location ? Mine is around the middle of the east coast of Australia , I worked with various pagan and Wiccan groups .
It works with and connects to nature , environment and location ... I feel that has got to be a distinctive element in paganism . You can work with the raw energy at hand ... or someone's ideas out of a book from a foreign land .
We threw out the northern stuff right at the beginning, so I am surprised to read that people are still doing that or ignoring the wheel of the year ... it sounds like they do not understand what they are doing . And all that oak tree and holly tree change over stuff ???
Where I live the seasons are obvious and in a different cycle ; wet season - water is in autumn , followed by dry earth winter , followed by air , southerly winds .stir up, nature and animals then comes the fire and warmth of late spring early summer fire and then sometime late summer early autumn water again . Futher north they have 6 seasons and all have a wheel of the year and other places variations ;
we did a lot of work on this and made our own wheel of the year .
Here is another dynamic ; invoking summer ; '' We turn the wheel to bring the light ... O Sun bring heat and might ! '' yeah, maybe after a long winter in Scotland ... we would jokingly change it too '' We turn the wheel to speed up winter coming ! Its too damn hot in summer ! ''
The same with elemental directions ; most change fire to north but then have the east west as in north hemisphere ; I use water east - because the biggest ocean on the planet is closely in that direction, fire north due to Sun;s path , earth west due to the mass of the 'Great Island ' and huge ancient continent being 'out that way ' and south air, again due to the prevalence of southerly winds and ' Antarctica south pole magnetic energy ( coming from there and flowing north and into north pole )
If you LIVE ON IT - use it ... that is if you want to follow a real living dynamic system ... if you are interested in a text book copying a ritual with not understanding WHY things are done ... then t does not matter .
Post automatically merged:
... and another bitch ; movement in circle 'deosil and widdershins' changes ..... but not if one thinks it is 'clock-wise ' and 'anti clock-wise '
