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witchynyx · 3 years

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Southern Hemisphere Witchcraft: Seasons & Sabbats

With seasonal celebrations being an important part of most folks' practices (whether you follow the Wiccan/neopagan Wheel of the Year, observe just the solstices/equinoxes, or even stick with more mainstream religious and cultural holidays), living somewhere that doesn’t follow a Euro-centric seasonal model can make the question of “how do I approach these here??” a common stumbling block.

Having put a lot of thought into this question myself, and participated in a lot of discussions on the topic, I’m going to suggest getting at least some basic understanding of your areas seasonal (and possibly agricultural) patterns first, and then looking at how you might approach it.

Southern Hemisphere Seasons

One of the most obvious and well-known difference between the hemispheres, that even most folks living in the Northern half are aware of, is that our seasons occur at the opposite time of year.

Obviously this is an over-simplification, as seasonal patterns are affected by far more factors. This idea of “opposites” is also largely based on a Euro-centric seasonal model, which awkwardly sits over the calendar in some places, and in others - like the tropics - is almost entirely absurd.

I feel like it’s beneficial for most of us to try to learn about the actual natural weather patterns of our own areas. It might be pretty similar, and most of the differences are down to the different flora and fauna, or it might not divide into four distinct seasons at all. For Aussies: I’ve found Indigenous weather knowledge to be a useful place to start researching, because that’s going to give you much more reality-based information in a colonised country than modern science, which is still often interpreting data through a foreign lens.

It’s hard to try to adapt a system built around the patterns of another place to where you live, if you don’t really know what the patterns are here. Once you have some idea of the seasons, you can look more into what might be the best approach to celebrate them.

So When do I Celebrate the Sabbats?

Ok, so there are a number of different ways to approach this, depending on how quickly you want to make a decision and how much effort you want to put into said decision.

Approach #1: Follow the “Traditional” (European) Dates

An easy option, that requires zero real thought, is to just follow the dates as they’re celebrated in the Northern Hemisphere, as they’re presented in pretty well every witchy/Wiccan/Neopagan book you’re likely to get your hands on.

Pros:

Follow the dates in most books/resources;

Celebrate at the same time as the majority of the (international) community;

Sabbats will thematically match the European seasonal holidays that have made it into our secular calendar (Yule/Christmas, Samhain/Halloween, Ostara/Easter);

If you follow European pagan beliefs, particularly any that the Wiccan/neopagan wheel has borrowed traditions from, you’re celebrating those holidays at the same time as they were/are celebrated in that land;

Does your environment come alive in winter (when the NH are celebrating the height of vitality at Beltane and Midsummer) and die/go into hibernation over summer (when the NH are focusing on the quiet/hibernation of winter)? Because that might match up well!

Cons:

Celebrating Summer Solstice when it’s Winter Solstice where you are (and vice versa, and the same with the Equinoxes) can just be.. weird?

The imagery and symbolism is likely to be double-out: Not only do you have the disconnect, for example, of Yule/Christmas symbolism being heavy on foreign flora and fauna like pine trees, holly, and robins, but it can also cause some cognitive dissonance decorating with snowflakes and heavy roasts and mulled wine when it’s the height of summer and you can see heat rising off the road outside.

Approach #2: ‘Flip/Rotate’ the Wheel

Another easy option, and probably the most popular, is to just flip/rotate the Wheel of the Year so that the solar events (solstices and equinoxes) match up. This shifts the dates by 6 months, and “swaps” the Sabbats. It’s version that you’ll see in almost any book/resource you look at that acknowledges those of us in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Southern Hemisphere Wheel of the Year above by Jenwytch (2004) shows the flipped/rotated version, with the Sabbats on both images arranged synwyse (and thus anti-clockwise for the SH)

Pros:

Follow the Southern Hemisphere dates in most books/resources;

Celebrate at the same time as the majority of the Southern Hemisphere community;

Sabbats will thematically match the Eurocentric view of the seasons: You’re celebrating mid-winter at Winter Solstice, and midsummer at Summer Solstice;

Does your environment come alive in summer (when Beltane and Midsummer are celebrating the height of vitality) and die/go into hibernation over winter (when the focus of Yule is on silence and scarcity)? Because that sounds like a match!

Cons:

Celebrating opposite the international community can be alienating, especially when so many people/spaces don’t acknowledge that their experiences and practices aren’t universal;

If you follow any European pagan beliefs that the Wiccan/neopagan wheel has borrowed traditions from, you’re celebrating those holidays at the opposite time as they were/are celebrated in that land;

Sabbats will thematically oppose the European seasonal holidays that have made it into our secular calendar, and might make you extra-aware of how weird it is decorating for “autumn” Halloween themes at the height of spring and “spring” Easter themes when it’s autumn. How do you decorate for Halloween AND Beltane, or Christmas AND Midsummer? If you have children, how to you explain that dichotomy?

As listed above, this approach can leave folks pretty confused and frazzled as to how to reconcile celebrations with “energies” so different to what folks in the other half of the world are celebrating, or especially how to reconcile these celebrations with the European holidays in our calender. One of the things worth noting is that the planet is a constant state of balance: what’s happening in one place is a balance to that which is happening in another. The other thing to note is how the “opposing” celebrations relate to each other: eg Samhain and Beltane both have a focus on the ‘thinning of the veil between worlds’, with Samhain on its way into winter lending itself to a closeness with the dead, and Beltane at the height of spring holding a focus on the Fair Folk - one gives thanks for the bounty of harvest and the other to the bounty of life flourishing (which will later lead to the harvest), and both traditionally focusing on divination and relationships. They can easily be seen as different sides of the same coin.

Approach #3: ‘Flip/Rotate’ the Wheel and then Customise it

This is where the work starts to come in. Again, one of the more popular approaches is the flip the wheel (as above) and use that as a framework to customise your own Wheel of the Year.

Usually the names and dates will remain intact (although aligning with the timing of the astrological events might become more important than celebrating on the same calendar date each year), but then how much you stick with the ‘traditional’ vs how much you customise things is completely up to you. Maybe you keep the themes and mythologies but add in/swap out seasonally-appropriate local flora and fauna? Maybe you add in some extra days that are important to you as well, because they’re important to your religious path, or because they hold great personal significance to you. You really can take this where you like.

Pros:

Following the Southern Hemisphere dates from most books/resources, either exactly or close enough;

Celebrating the same things at the same time as most other folks in the Southern Hemisphere community, or pretty close to;

Great for forming a connection with your local seasons and environment;

Flexible and customisable: If something doesn’t gel, explore why, change things, try stuff;

Interactive and dynamic: Your relationship takes priority over the information written in a book, and being forever-changing rather than fixed can be interesting and engaging.

Cons:

You might never be “finished” building your wheel;

It takes active thought and involvement. Particularly if you’re new, this can be incredibly overwhelming;

If you follow pagan beliefs from elsewhere in the world (especially any of those that the Wiccan/neopagan wheel has borrowed traditions from), you’ll have to decide whether it makes more sense to celebrate events by the seasons or the calendar.

I think probably the easiest way to approach this is a little at a time. Start with just flipping the wheel, and as the wheel turns, work on your relationships with both the sabbats as they’re presented and the seasonal shifts happening around you. Maybe set one goal to focus on for each revolution: Get a feel for the ‘traditional’ wheel, get a feel for the seasons where you live and how they compare, notice what the local flora and fauna are doing, meditate on what colours/energies are prominent, learn about what your local agricultural cycles are doing and what food is in season. The fact that there’s no time limit on it means that you can just do a little at a time, and you can tweak it each time it rolls around.

One book which uses this approach is Dancing the Sacred Wheel (2012), by Adelaide witch/author Frances Billinghurst. Frances presents her approach to the Sabbats in this book, and it’s highly influenced by both the natural cycles around Adelaide, and her path as a Celtic Wiccan.

Approach #4: Create Your Own Wheel from Scratch!

The final approach is to completely throw the Wicca/neopagan wheel straight in the bin and build your own wheel/calendar from scratch. No guides and no preconceptions! Is that exciting? Terrifying? Maybe some of both?

Pros:

You’re starting from zero with no existing frameworks or ideas!

Ultimate freedom and flexibility;

Cons:

You’re starting from zero with no existing frameworks or ideas!

Enormous job: starting from zero with no framework or guide;

For a great example of this approach, check out Australian Druidry (2017) by Julie Brett, who takes this approach creating a Wheel of the Year for her area in Sydney (pictured).

My own Wheel of the Year is probably somewhere between approaches 3 & 4. I’m still working on it, but here’s where I’m at as of late 2020.

#southern hemisphere witch #aussie witchcraft #seasonal celebrations #witchcraft #original content #witchynyx

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