In Neopaganism, the Wheel of the Year is the natural cycle of the seasons, commemorated by the eight Sabbats.

Because one tenet of Neopaganism is that all of nature is cyclical, the passing of time is also seen as a cycle, a wheel which turns and turns. The course of birth, life, decline, and death that we see in our human lives is echoed in the seasons. The eight Sabbats are religious holidays that celebrate the passing of the year.

Each Sabbat also symbolizes a time in the life of the God, who is born from the Goddess, grows to full manhood, mates with her, and reigns as king during the summer. He then declines and dies, rising anew the next year.

The Sabbats, with the traditional dates of their celebrations, are:

• Midwinter /Yule, on the winter solstice
• Imbolc, on February 2 and the preceding eve
• Ostara, on the spring equinox
• Beltane/Beltaine/May Day on May 1 and the preceding eve
• Midsummer/Litha, on the summer solstice
• Lughnasadh/Lammas, on August 1 and the preceding eve
• Mabon, on the autumn equinox
• Samhain, on the eve of October 31

This calendar follows the seasons of the northern hemisphere, where the celebration of Sabbats originated.

Neopagans in the southern hemisphere usually celebrate the Sabbats on the opposite dates of the year (6 months apart from the northern dates), in order to follow the cycle of seasons where they live; i.e. an Australian Neopagan would celebrate Samhain on May 1, when a Canadian Neopagan would be celebrating Beltane.

The Wheel of the Year is a modern construct and derives from Wicca. Historical Pagans did not follow it; some of the Sabbats are, moreover, completely original and appear to be based on modern invention rather than reconstruction. For example, Ostara is a celebration of the Spring Equinox , yet the Germanic peoples from whom the name Ostara is alleged to originate did not celebrate the Equinoxes. Furthermore, Ostara is a version of Eostre, the alleged goddess after whom the month equating to April is named; the Spring Equinox falls in March, not April. March has its own goddess, Hretha.

It seems most likely that modern neopagans named their Spring Equinox festival Ostara in order to identify it more closely with Easter and thus emphasise how much Christianity owes to Paganism.

Similarly, there was no ancient Celtic festival called Mabon, nor is there any evidence that the Celts celebrated the Equinoxes at all. Some neopagans have given this name to their Spring Equinox Sabbat in recent years, with others preferring to call it Harvest Home and others Alban Efed. [1]

Gregorian months in the wheel of the year

• January ends at or near Imbolc in the northern hemisphere and Lughnasadh in the southern hemisphere.

• February begins at or near Imbolc in the northern hemisphere' Lughnasadh in the southern.

• March spans spring equinox in the northern hemisphere and autumn equinox in the southern. These equinoxes coincide on or about March 21.

• April ends at or near Bealtaine in the northern hemisphere, Samhain in the southern.

• May begins at or near Bealtaine in the northern hemisphere, Samhain in the southern.

• June spans summer solstice in the northern hemiphere and winter solstice in the southern. These solstices coincide on or about June 21.

• July ends at or near Lughnasadh in the northern hemisphere and Imbolc in the southern.

• August begins at or near Lughnasadh in the northern hemisphere' Imbolc in the southern. .

• September spans autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere and spring equinox in the southern. These equinoxes coincide on or about September 21.

• October ends at or near Samhain in the northern hemisphere, Bealtaine in the southern.

• November begins at or near Samhain in the northern hemisphere, Bealtaine in the southern

• December spans winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and summer solstice in the southern. These solstices coincide on or about December 21.

Astrological signs in the wheel of the year

• Capricorn begins at winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, summer solstice in the southern hemisphere.
• Aquarius spans Imbolc in the northern hemisphere, Lughnasadh in the southern.
• Pisces ends at spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the southern.
• Aries begins at spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the southern.
• Taurus spans Bealtaine in the northern hemisphere, Samhain in the southern.
• Gemini ends at summer solstice in the northern hemosphere, winter in the southern.
• Cancer begins at summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, winter in the southern.
• Leo spans Lughnasadh in the northern hemisphere, winter in the southern.
• Virgo ends at autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere, spring in the southern.
• Libra begins at autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere, winter in the southern.
• Scorpio spans Samhain in the northern hemisphere, Bealtaine in the southern.
• Sagittarius ends at winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, summer in the southern.

Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasadh are sometimes defined as cross-quarter points and their dates seem to pay anachronistic respect to the Gregorian calendar. Unlike the astrological calendar the Gregorian is not aligned with particular astronomical events in the wheel of the year. Both the cross-quarter dates and the Gregorian calendar may represent however some ancient (now forgotten) practice in the alignment of a twelve-month calendar, practice in which the alignment is deliberately one-eighth of a circle (45 degrees) out of phase with that of the astrological calendar.

In the Gregorian calendar four boundaries between months are close to but several days earlier than the precise midpoints between solstices and equinoxes. If the Gregorian calendar had equal-length months and were accurately aligned with the precise cross-quarter points then the solstices and equinoxes would fall halfway through the months of December, March, June and September, and the true cross-quarter points would be on the boundaries between October and November, January and February, April and May and between July and August.