The World, The Flesh and The Devil.

Part one of my talk at The Crystal Chalice, 17/05/2023: Part two:

The Goddess Cycle on the Wheel of Virtue

In the scheme of the Wheel of Virtue (WoV), the God of the Craft is the divine manifestation of Humanity. The Goddess of the Craft is the divine manifestation of the World. The interaction of the God and the Goddess is symbolic of the interaction between Humanity and the World/Universe. The Goddess, the Great Mother, is eternal and lies behind all. Her nature appears to change over the duration of the cycle because the nature of the God changes over the cycle, and the Goddess presents to the God according to His stage of evolution. The Goddess never manifests as a child. Her most youthful aspect occurs at Beltane, when She appears as a young maiden in the first flush of womanhood, beautiful and virginal, an image of the highest good which the God can perceive. When the young God unites with Her, she begins to age. At Litha She is a mature, queenly woman, maternal and nurturing toward the new creation which the God has brought into being with Her. She continues to age along with the God until Lammas, when She becomes the Crone, and Her youthful beauty is gone, replaced by stern and bleak Wisdom arising from the experience of the new creation fully actualised, an image of the flaws and hardness of it revealed in practice, as Her youthful beauty was an image of the promise of it before it was manifested. Seeing the World thus created in that image of beauty in all its ultimate consequences with its glories and its failings both, the God recognises His fate, and the Goddess strikes the sacrificial blow at Lammas. As the God descends to the underworld, the Goddess begins to age in reverse. She descends to the underworld at Samhain as a woman in late maturity, an image of wisdom not unmixed with comeliness. The harsh aspects of the world which They created are transfigured to an image of remediation of those negative aspects, and this it is that inspires the God as Death to unite with Her again in Her guise as the more severe and compassionate Beauty to bring forth His replacement and begin the next cycle. The Goddess continues to age in reverse until She appears in the form of the young mother of the newborn God at Ostara, and finally is fully renewed as the surpassingly beautiful virginal Maiden at Beltane. Her image at this time is never identical to any previous image of Her in any previous cycle. She shows the characteristics of Her ongoing evolution as She changes under the influence of the God in cycle after cycle. The challenges of each cycle are never identical to any prior cycle, and the answers to those challenges, embodied in the beauty of the Maiden, are thus never identical to those of any prior cycle. The Maiden at this point is virginal because she is symbolic of a path not yet taken.

Connected and Disconnected Qualities on the Wheel of Virtue.

 

In my previous work, ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Meditations on Mapping the Wiccan qualities onto the wheel of the year’, I outlined the scheme linking the Qualities to the sabbats and described their progression in a dynamic cycle. I stated that it was not possible to work the WoV in reverse, and not possible to use the opposites of the qualities either, as they do not make for progression. There is, however, a different form of variation which can be made to work for the duration of one cycle, although it does not lead to a renewal of the cycle at its termination, for reasons which will become apparent. This variation is made by considering whether the root of the Quality of the sabbat is expressed as a connection of the God with the rest of the world (or the king with the community) or if there is no such connection and the round is being worked for the sole selfish ends of the God/king without reference to the world/community. The sabbats/connected qualities/disconnected qualities are as follows:

Sabbat              Connected Quality      Disconnected Quality

Yule                   Compassion                  Indulgence

Imbolc                Humility                         Indifference

Ostara                Mirth                              Mockery

Beltane              Beauty                           Narcissism

Litha                   Power                           Tyranny   

Lammas             Honour                          Conceit

Autumn              Reverence                     Idolatry

Samhain            Strength                         Brutality

 

The connected and disconnected Qualities can appear to be quite similar on the surface in some cases, but they lead to the opposite outcome. The connected Qualities are essential for the healthy development of the interconnected community served by the Gods. The disconnected qualities are perversions of these, compromised to the service of the individual embodying the God role, and inimical to the greater good. The disconnected wheel proceeds as follows:

 

Yule/Indulgence:

The motivation of Compassion should lead to the formation of a fresh cycle of the God’s rule, addressing and correcting the problems of the prior cycle. Unwillingness to do this leads instead to the decay of compassion to indulgence. Rather than being an active quality seeking to improve on previous practices and correct the flaws of the previous rule, Indulgence is oblivious to the flaws and instead turns a blind eye to the injustices of that rule. Both qualities address the issue of justice, but whereas Compassion transcends justice, Indulgence suppresses it.

 

Imbolc/Indifference:

The Quality of Humility allows a proper formulation of the situation which the God is moving into. It is, in a sense, passive, but it is not static. There is an ongoing absorption of information and establishment of context in preparation for active consideration. With Indifference there is no novel consideration to be made. The details of the situation are instead irrelevant, as there is no intention to change anything or to act in accordance with new data. Rather than being informed by the truth of the situation, there is a wall protecting the ongoing ignorance of the operator from any hint of a need for things to change.

 

Ostara/Mockery:

The Quality of Mirth is an activation of the faculty of perceiving value and discerning the good as a precondition for the pursuit of that good and its enactment. Mockery is a perversion of that faculty in the service of actively rejecting the fresh good, preferring to retain the old. Mockery focuses on any and all perceived or imagined faults and inconsistencies in the good in a hyper-critical rejection of any possibility of change to the status quo.

 

 

Beltane/Narcissism:

The Quality of Beauty points to the path that needs to be taken to establish the new paradigm of the reborn God. It is an embodiment of that which is fittest to grant the necessary agency to found the new order. In the case of the disconnected Quality, there is no new order to be established. There is just the continuation of that which has gone before, and the image which embodies that sort of stasis, the image of one’s highest ideal, is the image of the self. There is no path beyond what is, no love higher than self-obsession and a dread of change and anything which might lead to it.

 

Litha/Tyranny:

The Quality of Power is the capability to act in the service of the world and the community which you embody and represent. It is used to create and manage the sort of world and the sort of order which has been mandated as an improvement on or the next step from the previous cycle. The disconnected quality is Tyranny. There is no thought of service toward the world or the community. Power is wielded for the sake of the wielder. No general improvement in things is contemplated. The general good is instead diminished as resources and activity are devoted to satisfying the personal and private demands of the tyrant.

 

Lammas/Conceit:

The Quality of Honour is essential for the acceptance of the need for sacrifice and the termination of the reign of the God-king. It is a recognition of the true nature of One’s function and purpose and of the proper limits of One’s authority and agency. The God incarnated for a purpose, and when that purpose is achieved, He must relinquish His hold on the world. The disconnected Quality recognises no such limitation. What should have been Honour, a principled recognition of the appropriate limits of action becomes Conceit, a limitless self-regard which will accept no restriction ever on what has become rulership for its own sake, divorced from any concept of the common good. The duty of sacrifice is eschewed, and the rule of the King becomes predatory, consuming His own people.

 

Autumn Equinox/Idolatry: (Flattery).

The Quality of Reverence gives proper acknowledgement to the accomplishments of the God after his passing. If this does not occur, the disconnected Quality is Idolatry, honouring outward form of the virtues which the King should have embodied but failed to do. This Idolatry is demanded by authority, but the object of veneration is an empty shell. None may acknowledge the truth lest the illusion be shattered. The mantle of virtue resting upon His shoulders is a lie, but it must be maintained as part of the machinery of Power.

 

Samhain/Brutality:

The ‘connected’ Quality of Strength is similar to Beauty insofar as it is a Quality imposed on us from outside rather than displayed by ourselves, but as with Narcissism, the disconnected Quality is one which is displayed by us. The disconnected Quality of Samhain is brutality. Death’s overwhelming Strength not only draws all things into its realm in the end, it also offers reflection, healing and renewal. In order to fulfill the final function of commencing a new cycle of the wheel, the Descent of the Goddess is a necessary element. Beauty performs the same function in the Underworld as in the manifest world. It points to the direction of renewed life and betterment of that which has gone before. The new cycle is not the same as the old. The experience gained provides new material from which to fashion the new paradigm for the founding of the new order of things. Beauty opens the capacities of Strength beyond what Strength alone can achieve. What happens in a round informed by the ‘disconnected’ Qualities? Beauty cannot point to the external good when the only good recognised is narcissistic self-regard. The elements of the cycle which were deemed not useful to the selfish purposes of the ‘disconnected’ God remain rejected. They remain ‘damned’ in the underworld, with no possibility of redemption and new creation. The system is locked in stasis, and for all practical purposes, the wheel turns only once with no path leading beyond. The Strength which should be wielded in the service of new creation is instead locked into the perpetual persecution of whatever is rejected, and is thus properly recast as Brutality. The disconnected Qualities thus lead to a one-shot universe of the Christian sort, with eternal damnation as the chief feature of the Underworld, rather than the healing and renewal in preparation for new life which is the feature of the Summerlands of the craft.

The Wheel of Virtue: Meditations on Mapping the Wiccan qualities onto the wheel of the year.

Two years ago I gave a talk at the 2017 AWC outlining a new interpretation of the Wheel of the Year. The premise was to regard the progression of the Sabbats as the stages of a project. In the course of this I provided a few correspondences for each sabbat to show how various elements of the craft fit in with this idea. One set of correspondences I gave are not usually given to the sabbat wheel, but they did seem to me to fit it quite well. This was the association of the qualities listed in the Charge of the Goddess. The relevant portion of the Charge reads as follows:

“Let my worship be within the heart that rejoiceth, for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. And therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honour and humility, mirth and reverence within you.”

The qualities are assigned as follows:

Samhain – Strength

Yule – Compassion

Imbolc – Humility

Ostara – Mirth

Beltain – Beauty

Litha – Power

Lammas – Honour

Mabon – Reverence

It is notable that the qualities are expressed in the charge in complementary pairs, and that the natural assignment to the sabbats put each pair of complements at the opposite sides of the cycle. Now we’ll go through the justification for each correspondence.



Samhain (Strength).

 Samhain is a working which addresses people and things which have gone before us and passed away. It focuses on death and the impact of death on our lives. It also points to a foundational mystery of the craft as embodied in the legend of the Descent of the Goddess, in which the Goddess descends to the underworld to challenge Death, who overwhelms all things in the end, and therefore is seen as the strongest of all things. The assignment of Strength to Samhain is made on this basis. There is nothing stronger in the universe than the tendency of all things in the direction of entropy.

Yule (Compassion).

Yule is the midwinter sabbat, and as such shares many of the features of the celebration of Christmas. Being at the darkest point of the year, it celebrates the end of the decline and the beginning of the renewal of the light. In Christianity this is symbolic of the birth of the Saviour into the world. In the Craft, it is symbolic of the return of the Sun and the renewed hope for life on Earth. In both cases it is perceived as an act of divine generosity, and therefore of compassion. This is the basis of the assignment of the Quality of Compassion to Yule.



Imbolc (Humility).

Imbolc is celebrated at the start of the last month of winter. Its title means ‘in the belly’, referring to the gestation of the God. The embryonic God is developing within the Womb of Night. The sabbat is said to mark the descent of spirit into matter, or perhaps to put it in more modern terms, the embryonic consciousness of the God begins to stir, ever so modestly. Being embryonic, the God has no preconceived notions, but is subject to the influences of that which is prior to his being. He has no basis as yet to make judgements and decide on courses of action. To do so would lead to error and disaster. It is essential that He keeps himself completely open to what is going on. The Quality appropriate to His condition at this stage is Humility, particularly intellectual humility.



Ostara (Mirth).

Ostara is celebrated at the spring equinox. In the tradition I follow, it is symbolic of the birth of the God (logically enough, following Imbolc). The time of day symbolic of the sabbat is dawn. The Sun rises in its glory, and the world is revealed to the light of consciousness and the eyes of all creatures. That which lies before us is shown clearly, and we may begin to formulate our own thoughts and plans concerning what has been revealed. With the light of revelation comes joy of perceiving and knowing, and the Quality embodied by the sabbat in the delight of the infant Deity is Mirth.



Beltain (Beauty).

Beltain is celebrated at the beginning of the final month of spring and is symbolised by the midmorning Sun. It is a celebration of the core of the act of creation and its manifestation in human life in the act of sexual reproduction. The young god unites with the goddess in ecstatic union and the Earth is thereby made fertile, All nature bursts with new life.



There are deeper significances to this process. Beltain is a celebration of love inspired by beauty to bring forth the good, and this occurs on many levels. To understand how deep this process goes, we can examine the ‘ladder of love’ as explained by Socrates’ speech in Plato’s dialogue ‘The Symposium’. Socrates recounts a conversation with the priestess Diotima of Mantinea. In it, Socrates learns that love is the need for beauty, and that beauty is experienced by people in an ascending hierarchy of virtue, starting with the desire of physical beauty and expanding to include ever more abstract notions. It goes from appreciation of physical beauty in people to appreciation of spiritual beauty in people, then to appreciation of the beauty of morals and art, then to appreciation of the beauty of truth and wisdom, and finally to an apprehension and appreciation of pure archetypal beauty in and of itself. Along the way we learn that every desire for the good is love, that love is the desire for the perpetual possession of what is good and that the object of love is both beauty and the procreation of beauty. Understanding this, it becomes easy to slot our interpretation of the wheel into an expanded concept of Beltain, insofar as we are honouring a creative process whereby we seek the good.

It will not have escaped people’s attention that the term ‘Beauty’ is thrown about a lot in that description. The assignment of the Quality of Beauty to Beltain is probably more certain than for any other sabbat.





Litha (Power).

Litha is celebrated at the summer solstice and is symbolised by the Sun at midday. The god is at the height of his power, fully enthroned as ruler of the world, the divine god-king, warrior and lawgiver, protector and defender of His realm and all who look to him, consort of the goddess. He has married his beloved and is fully established as the ruling power, fully conscious and capable in His control. Life is at its peak. The creative phase of life has been achieved and fulfilled. The god is now dedicated to managing His creation. There could not be a better sabbat to embody the Quality of Power.



Lammas (Honour).

Lammas is celebrated early in the final month of summer, when the warmth of summer is at its height. The Sun at mid-afternoon is the symbol for this sabbat. The king has ruled since summer solstice, the warmth of the year and of the day is at its peak and is set to decline from here on. The impulse which started His journey has reached its fulfilment and now faces its conclusion, for Lammas is the sabbat of the sacrificed god.

The God has attained to Power, and now, to continue the cycle, that Power must be renounced. Ultimately there can be no perpetual power for any entity, because wielding that power to affect the world changes the basis upon which that power rests. Choice is granted, however, in the manner of renunciation. Does the God cling on to His high office after all has turned toxic and decadent until the very world itself crumbles in his grip, or does he wisely accept fate at the appropriate time? To do so requires a degree of willingness to sacrifice for the good of those in whose name power has been taken. The Quality associated with this sabbat is therefore very properly Honour.



Autumn Equinox (Reverence).

The Autumn sabbat is celebrated at the autumnal equinox and is symbolised by the setting sun. This is a ceremony of remembrance and a celebration of the end results and consequences of the life of the god. Traditionally it honours the results of the harvest, and it is the same in modern times. The god has performed His work. We now partake of the fruits of those labours. It is, in a certain sense, the fulfilment of the whole round. It is the final stage of the process, the end-result to which we have been working.

The energy of Autumn is the energy of crystallised results. It is the energy of ultimate, actualised consequences to actions, grounded in reality and established in the realm of time, beyond possibility of change. The choices we make in the early part of the round are critical to where we end up, and working the round as an exercise in empty form will not save anyone from their poor choice of content. The sabbat is a celebration of the ends toward which the God has led us, and it is appropriate that the Quality being expressed is that of Reverence.





We are used to thinking about the wheel as a cyclic progression in time, which of course it is, but when applying the Qualities to the wheel, there is the implication of another model for it. In the Western ceremonial tradition, the Cabala envisions the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life emerging as ‘emanations’. Using the Qualities as the bedrock of the wheel can give us a similar perspective. How would that work?


The Greater Sabbats:

The Axis of Compulsion:

The most fundamental sabbats from which the others derive are Samhain and Beltain. Strength and Beauty. Death and sex. Before anything else in the universe, these two factors dance their dance and generate the myriad forms of existence. The arrow of entropy flies ever on into the future. While it does, the infinite potentialities of the cosmos are whittled down until an infinitesimal amount of them are actualised. Beauty is fitness to purpose, and Death culls that which does not fit the purpose. Because the characteristics of Beauty are determined by function, they are objectively set by the nature of the universe. We can respond to the experience of Beauty in different ways, but what we find beautiful is not subject to our volition. It is rather an objective external compulsion, no more subject to our choice than the arrow of entropy. These two Qualities are the fundamental factors of evolution.


Strength and Beauty, the primary complementary pair of Qualities, form the primordial axis of the Wheel. There is no choice as to their action. No manifested entity can escape dealing with them. They are fundamental to the origin, operation and fate of all manifested entities. I therefore label this pairing the Axis of Compulsion. This axis forms the basic challenge which the universe throws down to all manifested existence. To survive, to flourish, to reproduce, to exist in the first place, these must be dealt with.



The Axis of Volition:

As was said previously, the Axis of Compulsion throws down the basic challenge of existence. The Axis of Volition frames our response to that challenge. The sabbats on the volitional axis are Imbolc and Lammas, and the qualities embodied therein are Humility and Honour respectively. In both cases, the primary choice is to embrace acceptance and renunciation, which might make the lessons of this axis seem decidedly Christian. This should not be a deal breaker. Christianity does have valid lessons to teach the world, and they are not abrogated by its less useful features.



Imbolc represents the God in His embryonic stage. At this point, He has no basis for assessment of the world and is entirely dependent on and defined by the external influences acting on Him. The lesson we should draw from Imbolc is scientific detachment from our own prejudices and desires and an open-minded willingness to look at things anew with an active transcendence of our own biases and tendencies. Of course, humans cannot really escape their own nature and character with absolute success. The best we can manage is to downplay or ignore our known biases by actively watching out for them and countering them. The extent to which this can be done is the extent to which we are able to give ourselves a fighting chance of understanding the world we are confronted with.

Lammas marks the end of the growth phase of the God’s life cycle and is essentially about the renunciation of power. The God expends His being in one turn of the wheel. He is in a certain sense finite in a manner that the Goddess is not, for His story is about action in the manifest world. Given that His being is finite, there must come a time when His work is complete and his impulse is fully discharged into the world. To retain power beyond this point not only serves no purpose, it becomes a negative influence, toxic to everything it impacts. A modern parable expounding this principle is the story of the Paperclip Maximiser, a fictional AI system tasked with maximising the production of paperclips. The story is intended to illustrate how poorly managed artificial intelligence could go disastrously wrong. The AI examines the world and devises its strategy for following its program. It has no other goals than to fulfil its programmed objective. As a result, it ends up taking over the world, exterminating all biological life and establishing ever-larger manufacturing systems whose ultimate purpose is making as many paperclips as possible. In the fullness of time it launches spacecraft for the purpose of converting all the mass in the universe into paperclips. This is an extreme example which illustrates the point. Any finite objective will turn toxic if it is pursued beyond its proper bounds, destroying everything of true value and even undermining whatever point there once was to its existence. The God must wisely sacrifice his being for the sake of continued evolution.



The Axis of Compulsion and the Axis of Volition define the Greater Sabbats, which are magical workings intended to create an effect. The Lesser Sabbats are celebrated at the astronomical quarters, the solstices and equinoxes. They are more of the nature of celebrations of works achieved than workings to get something done. We shall examine each pairing of the Lesser Sabbats and their Qualities in turn.  





The Lesser Sabbats:

The Axis of Agency:

Yule and Litha are expressions of Compassion and Power respectively. These Qualities relate to the agency of an entity, that is, its ability to act on the world. At yule, the God’s agency is zero. His very existence is determined by outside influences. The impulse which creates him and establishes Him in the world is a reaction to the elements of the old cycle which do not serve the cause of life for everyone and which cry out to be amended. It thus arises from the desire of the gods to ease suffering and heal breaches in the world. The conception of the new God is therefore an act of divine compassion to ultimately enable agency to deal with these problems. At Litha the God has reached his supreme potency and thus has the greatest agency possible for dealing with the universe.



The Axis of Desire:

The final pairing I term the Axis of Desire. The Qualities expressed are Mirth and Reverence, the associated sabbats being Ostara and Autumn Equinox. At Ostara, the spring equinox, the God starts to perceive the world and thus begins the capability of formulating plans. But plans won’t be formulated without motivation. Motivation is born with the stirrings of desire, the perception that one thing is preferable to another. The God thus begins to experience joy and conceives the desire for more joy. The quality appropriate to this newborn perception of the world is Mirth.

Autumn Equinox is a celebration of the fulfilment of desire, the symbolic crowning of the efforts of the whole cycle of the wheel with the actualised results of all that striving, the satiation of the impulse which motivated the whole drama. The God passed at Lammas and is now of the Mighty Dead. The bounty provided by His work has earned Him His due in Reverence, the Quality I have associated with Autumn.



Astute folk might have noticed that my attribution of the Qualities is not precisely as Doreen Valiente sequenced them. Recall that the Charge runs “let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honour and humility, mirth and reverence within you.” If we regard this sequence as canonical, then we have Beauty (Beltain), Power (Litha), Honour (Lammas) and Mirth, which I have assigned to Ostara, but which if that sequence is followed, should be assigned to Autumn. I have high confidence that my correspondences for three of the four paired complements of Qualities with the sabbats are valid and defensible. The Axis of Compulsion is virtually certain. Few would dispute that Beauty is a perfect match for Beltain and Strength goes with Samhain. The association of Yule and Litha to Power and Compassion on the Axis of Agency is likewise solid. Humility and Honour are similarly suitable for the Axis of Volition. My only real concern is the correspondences on the Axis of Desire. Of the four pairings, that is the one I still struggle with. I can construct arguments For Ostara being an expression of either Mirth or of Reverence, and the same goes for the Autumn Equinox. Therefore, if someone wants to argue that I’ve got that bit wrong, I’m happy to hear them out, and I might even be convinced to switch them around, especially as my chosen correspondence for the Axis of Desire seems to contradict Doreen’s sequencing. Unfortunately Doreen is no longer with us to consult, so if anyone sufficiently skilled in mediumship or necromancy wants to pursue the enquiry, please let me know the results.



The Wheel progresses in logical succession, each stage flowing from the previous one and proceeding to the next with inevitability. Each Greater Sabbat is a working resulting in an attainment which is embodied in the following Lesser Sabbat. Each Lesser Sabbat thrusts the God into a situation which necessitates the working of the next Greater Sabbat.

At Samhain we see the God enthroned as Lord of Death in his role as the Comforter and Consoler of those who have passed beyond the veil. As such, his role is clearly the easing of suffering and the healer of the broken. In the depths of the underworld we find the wellspring of compassion and the formation of the next impulse to right the wrongs of the expired cycle. The conception of the new God at Yule is the result of that compassion, and the solar hero whose task it is to right those wrongs takes shape from his father’s concerns as He gestates in the Womb of Night.

Imbolc sees the spirit of the God informed by those concerns. The reaction to the established situation prepares and grows within His nature. Possessing perfect Humility, He is not misled by any misplaced passion for the accomplishments of old and knows no temptation to valorise the errors of the past. Perceiving all things, He sees them as they are. The revelation of that vision to full conscious sight at Ostara triggers delight in the vision and Mirth leads the God to the next phase of the journey.

With conscious vision and the discernment of value, the God becomes entranced by Beauty and its compelling call to action. His purpose motivates Him to seek the greatest means to His ends, the truest path to the accomplishment of His Great Work. In the pursuit and fulfilment of this desire to possess Beauty, He attains to the Power He needs to accomplish His destiny.

Having attained Power and accomplishing that for which He was called into being, the God must discern the values he holds dear and make a conscious choice to recognise when the Great Work is complete, and not undermine it by overstaying His time. His Honour serves to protect him from the temptation of Power to ensure the fulfillment of his destiny to its completion. In renunciation He achieves immortality and becomes truly worthy of Reverence as the Mighty Dead from those who are the beneficiaries of His labours.

At last The God returns to the underworld wherefrom He was conceived to take up the role of Lord of Death and to assess the consequences of His cycle and see beyond it to formulate the direction and character of the next.

The Nature of the Wheel of Virtue:

This envisioning of the Wheel has certain distinct features. For instance, it cannot be worked widdershins. Reversing the direction does not result in an alternative Left Hand Path which could be used for one’s personal gain without regard for the wellbeing of others. There is no pathway, for instance, from Lammas to Beltain through Litha. There is no purpose to sacrificing oneself and renouncing one’s power back to the peak of attainment of that power, and back to formulating the means of attaining that power. It simply will not work. There is no pathway from Imbolc backwards to Samhain, and no conceivable profit from attempting it. The direction of entropy cannot be reversed, and the response to entropy cannot be undone.


There is no division in the nature of the masculine divine, no Holly King and Oak King, no conflict between the light and dark halves of the year. The Wheel is unitary. It is not divided against itself and cannot be. The Gods are not in conflict. They respond to the situation as it is and move forward in the only manner which is logically possible.

The paired complements of Qualities are not opposite to each other. Compassion and Power are not opposites. Strength and Beauty are not opposites. Humility and Honour are not opposites. Mirth and Reverence are not opposites.

A ‘dark’ or ‘evil’ version of the Wheel cannot be worked to selfish ends by using the opposites of the Qualities. The opposites to Strength, Compassion, Humility, Mirth, Beauty, Power, Honour and Reverence are weakness, cruelty, arrogance, misery, ugliness, helplessness, betrayal and scorn. None of them will bring anyone to where they want to be. It is possible to attain selfish ends by, say, holding on to Power beyond its proper bounds, but in order to get that power in the first place, you must follow the Wheel of Virtue to that point. You never get there by starting from weakness and moving through cruelty and arrogance to misery and ugliness.

We Spin The Wheel

We Spin The Wheel – Bringing the Sun down to Earth; an exploration of the meaning of the Sabbat Cycle in mundane life.

Introduction:

Wicca is many things to many people. One of its aspects as a religion is its function as an ethical system. The mythical origins of the craft suggest it is a resistance movement characterised by strategies for circumventing and undermining a dominant and hostile paradigm, but the modern experience is more that of a framework for expressing certain and progressive ideals of the dominant culture rather than opposing it utterly. Still, we have not usually considered the case of how a society would be structured if the craft itself were the dominant paradigm or how that position would act to impose modifications in our formulation of ethics and conduct. This field is far too large to make significant inroads today, but I would like to suggest an approach by which we can consider the issue.

The wheel of the year is the story of the cycle of the Sun, and therefore in Wiccan understanding, of the god. Behind all lies the Great Mother who underpins the very existence of the universe within which our solar system has its being. The goddess also has her part in the wheel of the year. The wheel itself is determined by the course of the Sun, and the goddess’ role in it is ancillary. It is the life story of the god we will be focusing on in this talk.

The wheel being seasonal is usually understood in an agricultural, environmental or astronomical sense, or as the cycle of a life. These are all valid interpretations, but they are ubiquitous to the point of obscuring alternatives. It is one such alternative I shall outline today.

The gods are our vehicle for relating our human experiences with the cosmic whole, so it behoves us to examine that which defines us as humans. We are physical animals and self-aware perceivers of our internal and external realities as well as possessing high intelligence, but those features are not unique to us, not even the high intelligence. What truly sets us apart is our mode of survival, which is founded on active restructuring of the world around us in accordance with our will. The truest manifestation of our nature in our worship of and interaction with the gods will recognise this reality and incorporate it. The wheel of the year provides an ideal opportunity to express this.

My idea for examining this understanding of the wheel and how we can best engage with the gods through it is to treat it as the embodiment of all stages of a project. The life story of the god is mapped onto the experience of a person attempting to organise and execute a specific act of creative will, as well as their experience of what ultimately becomes of that effort. This is highly atypical, but I believe it offers a fresh approach for engaging people who are not usually intimately connected with the cycles of nature or the practicalities of traditional agriculture and who might not have more than a vague notion of astronomy or astrology, but who are used to seeing the world, especially in their work environment, through a task-oriented lens. Such people are the overwhelming majority in our high-tech urban age, and if the craft is to continue to grow much beyond its current level, those people must be able to find something within it they can understand and connect to. Such engagement will eventually also lead to a greater appreciation of the natural cycles the wheel draws inspiration from.

Getting to the meat of the topic, we need to select a starting point for our journey around the wheel. We shall commence our journey through the life stages of the god with Yule.

                                         Yule:

-Read ‘The Second Coming’.

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”. With these insightful words, W, B Yeats captures a vital aspect of the essence of Yule. The cycle must be, for stasis is impossible and inherently unstable. There is no staying in the moment, however much we may wish to. The present is a fragile platform, forever collapsing beneath us.

Yule marks the commencement of the round and is symbolically considered to be the moment of conception of the god. His father is the god of the previous cycle, and the world which has been left from the action of that cycle forms the very circumstances, the DNA so to speak, which shapes the form and potential paths the new god must take. The old order of things established a particular way of doing things and a particular pattern of consequences of this. Those consequences form the new dialectic which gives rise to the new cycle.

The ritual exchange between the High Priestess and the god through the High Priest is as follows:

HPS: "Great god, new star in the hidden firmament,

Lord of light and life and fire,

Naked energy, nascent lord,

Bringer of new life, torch glowing upon untrodden paths,

Descend we pray thee, upon thy servant and priest here."

God Speech:

"The past is the father and eternity is the mother of the future. Whatever we do, there comes a time when it is done, and what has been done is over. Promises, hopes, victories, defeats, achievements, losses, joy and bitterness, the rising and falling of the wheel. The present is fragile and we cannot remain in it. It cannot sustain us. It breaks beneath our weight. The new impulse must emerge from the death of the old. Now in the time of the dying of the past light, the world is left pregnant with the hopes of the future. A secret flame has been kindled in the darkness, new light for the world."

At Yule, the god is as yet just a growing potential without awareness of the world around him or of himself and his own nature. This stage should be considered that of the unfolding of the consequences of the previous cycle and the development of the conditions which will shape the new cycle. This is the time in which the existential basis of the future consciousness and existence of the god is being founded.

The tool associated with Yule is the pentacle. The stage of the god's life cycle is conception. The associated quality is compassion. The associated virtue is to remain silent.

                                        Imbolc:

Imbolc celebrates the descent of spirit into matter. In terms of this round, it marks the first emergence of blind awareness of the developing god of his internal and external reality. This consciousness is as yet embryonic, reacting to the circumstances of His existential situation, allowing the established conditions of the old order of things to shape His orientation to the world and the future. In spite of this reactivity, there is a sense of open possibility and new paths awaiting. The form of the god is set by the circumstances of His ancestry and emergence, but his choices are not. What he must respond to, the world as it is, is set, but the nature of the response is fluid.

In keeping with the theme of the round as emblematic of the execution of a project in accordance with will, at this point, participants are asked to begin consideration of an individual project of their own to work on as the wheel progresses. The project should be substantial enough to require work and devotion not trivial in terms of an effort of several months or a year, but not so involved and demanding that there isn’t a reasonable prospect of completing it within the year either. Participants are instructed to formulate their plans in silence until Spring Equinox, when they may reveal their ideas to others if they so desire.

When I first worked this round and set the task of formulating a project to work on, but before I got to the bit about doing so in silence, one of our participants immediately shouted out “Chicken run!” In honour of her enthusiasm, that project will be used as our example for demonstrating what happens at each stage.

For a sense of how the themes of the sabbat are woven into the ritual, consider the invocation and god response for Imbolc, as follows:

HPS invocation:

“Feel the pulsing, beating rhythm

As your forming heart awakens,

Indwelling Spirit quickens Your Being.

Your presence, still nascent, yet guides us

On an unwritten path, awaiting the light.

Appear to us now so that we may know.

Great Lord bring enlightenment to us tonight,

Descend, we pray thee, upon thy servant and Priest.”

-HP God Speech.

“Oh, star in dark of frigid night,

From heaven’s limit shines the light,

Upon the frosty ground so white,

Blank as the unwritten page,

Empty as untrodden stage,

The story of our will to write.”

The intent here is to draw a comparison between the white frosty ground of a cold Imbolc pre-dawn night and a blank slate waiting for a new history to be written in accord with the choices of the new god. The page is blank, the slate is clean. Darkness still abides, however, and the time has not yet come for those choices to be made. Will is not yet formed. At this time, the foundations of the mind are being laid for the rise of the first informed thought.

In terms of our project for the round, we have just started to think about what we might want to do. The back yard has been nagging at you to do something with it. You have all that empty space. What could be done? What might interest you or enhance your life? How about a vegetable patch, or a flower bed? What about a gazebo? Or an ornamental maze? Or perhaps you could keep chickens, or maybe ducks, or goats. Each choice involves a different set of requirements, of levels of effort and commitment, of expense and hassle and ongoing maintenance. Each has its own kind of reward. Each choice, if made, will involve sacrificing other potential uses, with some doors closed while others open. These are all aspects to consider as you ruminate on a plan.

The tool associated with Imbolc is the wand. The stage of the god's life cycle is the descent of spirit. The associated quality is humility. The associated virtue is to know.

                                        Ostara:

Ostara takes place at the spring equinox and is ably symbolised by the rising sun and the dawning of the light. This represents the birth of the god into true sight and perception of the brilliant light of day, and marks the dawn of active conscious thought and enlightened perception. With the advent of sight, knowledge becomes clear and thought works with that certainty toward its goals. With sight and knowledge come the potential for power over the world, but also a keen awareness of the constraints and limits of the world’s various potentialities, and as a consequence, an encounter with limitation. The main themes, however, are light, sight and knowledge. These are expressed and reinforced several times in the course of the ritual banter, as shown with the following:

Sabbat Speech (SM):

      “Spring is symbolic of the first touch of light, hence of understanding, of engagement with the world. The dawning of the mighty Sun reveals that which has been hidden, and lights our path. This is the birth of the God into manifestation and action, the breaking of the seedling through the surface of the Earth, the first opening of newborn eyes and first mindful grasp of the way ahead.”

Coven Chant:

      “Hidden fire, wrapped in night,

      Rise in glory, bring the light!

      The God is born, now is the day,

      Reveal the vision, show the way!”
  

      HPS God Invocation:

      God Response:

      “The Sun is risen, the world is created anew. As Above, So Below. The slumbering spirit awakens ambitious and knows itself in full for the first time. Fate and destiny wait upon Me. Inner sight informs the outer path! Marshall your wisdom! Go forth with Knowledge!”

In terms of our project, you’ve considered all your options since Imbolc, and settled on a chicken run. You may now reveal this to others if you wish, or remain silent on the matter if you prefer. It is time to face what this means squarely, to begin planning your finances and time, creating a design for the structure, calculate the building material you need, decide if you have the necessary skills yourself to see it through or if you have to get some help or hire someone to do the work for you, research what the local council requires of you, check regulations on keeping livestock, look into what sort of chooks you want, where to source feed and so on through all aspects of this mission. This sabbat is deeply tied in with the functions of sight and thought and research preparatory to action.

The tool associated with Ostara is the scourge. The stage of the god's life cycle is birth. The associated quality is mirth. The associated virtue is to know.

                                       Beltain:

Beltain is celebrated at the beginning of the final month of spring and is symbolised by the midmorning Sun. It is a celebration of the core of the act of creation and its manifestation in human life in the act of sexual reproduction. The young god unites with the goddess in ecstatic union and the Earth is thereby made fertile, All nature bursts with new life.

There are deeper significances to this process. Beltain is a celebration of love inspired by beauty to bring forth the good, and this occurs on many levels. To understand how deep this process goes, we can examine the ‘ladder of love’ as explained by Socrates’ speech in Plato’s dialogue ‘The Symposium’. Socrates recounts a conversation with the priestess Diotima of Mantinea. In it, Socrates learns that love is the need for beauty, and that beauty is experienced by people in an ascending hierarchy of virtue, starting with the desire of physical beauty and expanding to include ever more abstract notions. It goes from appreciation of physical beauty in people to appreciation of spiritual beauty in people, then to appreciation of the beauty of morals and art, then to appreciation of the beauty of truth and wisdom, and finally to an apprehension and appreciation of pure archetypal beauty in and of itself. Along the way we learn that every desire for the good is love, that love is the desire for the perpetual possession of what is good and that the object of love is both beauty and the procreation of beauty. Understanding this, it becomes easy to slot our interpretation of the wheel into an expanded concept of Beltain, insofar as we are honouring a creative process whereby we seek the good.

How can we express these ideas in ritual exchange? To my mind, we can still use the traditional model of interaction between the HP and HPS performing as the god and goddess. The god is still representative of an impulse conceived in the realm of linear time seeking to make a mark in the realm of eternity, symbolised by the goddess. A suitable sabbat speech introducing the action might be as follows:

Sabbat Speech:

“This is the time of year we come together to celebrate that touch of the god upon our spirit which strives toward the highest and greatest beauty we can perceive, whatever that might be and in whatever manner we do so. The young god is transported by the beauty of the goddess and yearns above all to unite with Her in ecstasy forever, for through that union lies the door of immortality wherein eternity dwells in a moment.”

Goddess Speech:

“I am the circle of the world,

The All-Encloser,

I hold the seed of all within me,

I am perfect as the silver moon,

What need have I of thee?”

God Speech:

“Perfect thou art, but what of this?

Perfection is sterile as marble,

But I am the fire which quickens the seed.

Through me your potential shall come alive,

Made manifest in the world of time and action.

You cannot deny me the prize.”

In terms of our project, now is the time to begin putting our plans into action. We’ve done our research and laid our plans. Now we apply to council for all the permits and approvals needed. Now we begin the purchase of materials, lay out the groundwork in the back yard, start digging postholes and gathering nails, chicken-wire, cable-ties and whatever else we need. Now we approach chicken breeders and negotiate the purchase of our chooks. All the work needed to establish our project as a real thing commences at this point. The act of creation has begun and our will is being actively worked in the world.

The tool associated with Beltain is the censor. The stage of the god's life cycle is sexual maturity. The associated quality is beauty. The associated virtue is to will.

                                   Summer Solstice:

Summer Solstice is celebrated at the summer solstice and is symbolised by the Sun at midday. The god is at the height of his power, fully enthroned as ruler of the world, the divine god-king, warrior and lawgiver, protector and defender of His realm and all who look to him, consort of the goddess. He has married his beloved and is fully established as the ruling power, fully conscious and capable in His control. Life is at its peak. The creative phase of life has been achieved and fulfilled. The god is now dedicated to managing His creation.

Some thought might be given for each sabbat to appropriate music to set the mood for what is going on at that time of year. In the case of Summer Solstice, I’ve often thought that ’Stay’ by Australian band ‘Undermines’ would make a good introduction. It contains elements both of the attitude appropriate to a king as well as a reference to the test to come which shall be the true proof of kingship.

-Play ‘Stay’.

The ritual will include references to the king’s role as protector and lawgiver, and emphasise his rulership over the Earth. The narrative might include the following:

Sabbat Speech:

“After long striving the god has reached His goal and reigns enthroned as King of the Earth. Hail to the King, protector, master, giver of law! The land is fruitful beneath the brilliant midday Sun and the Lady is fulfilled of promise!”

HPS Invocation of the god:

“Lord of the Earth, Master of the world of nature and the world of women and men, Father of Law, come to us! Protector of the land, warrior valiant, benevolent one, Come to us! Oh King beneath whose hand the people grow and prosper, come to us! Oh Lord of shining countenance, light-bringer, come to us! Descend, we pray thee, upon thy servant and priest!” 

God Response:

“Oh path well-trod! Oh striving sated! Will has mastered the waiting world and shaped the life of all. Inner vision is put forth and the outer realm is formed as clay on the potter’s wheel. The light of hope once so dim and fickle shines with daystar might and sheds largesse upon the world from the throne of noon. Rejoice in victory! Revel in the high days of bliss and plenty. Take what I have provided and go forth with wisdom, taking thought for the days to come.”

In terms of our project, the chicken run has now been built, the chooks have been introduced and the eggs are flowing steadily. Things have been established and are running smoothly. You are large and in charge and rule the roost, so to speak.

The tool associated with Summer Solstice is the sword. The stage of the god's life cycle is mature manhood. The associated quality is power. The associated virtue is to will.

                                      Lammas:

Lammas is celebrated early in the final month of summer, when the warmth of summer is at its height. The Sun at mid-afternoon is the symbol for this sabbat. The king has ruled since summer solstice, the warmth of the year and of the day is at its peak and is set to decline from here on. The impulse which started His journey has reached its fulfilment and now faces its conclusion, for Lammas is the sabbat of the sacrificed god.

Lammas reminds us that everything has its price and all actions have consequences. The gods inspire us to be the most we can be, and thus incorporate extremes and absolutes in their life cycle. For a journey which has no set finite limit to how much can be achieved, there is only one possible price, and that is everything you have and everything you are. At this point the god willingly pays that price.

Sacrifice is entrenched in our cultural understanding of the world at many levels, from the Christian idea of the sacrifice of Christ (who is also held to have died at 3pm) to the concepts of duty and honour which motivate and obligate the sacrificial spirit from our warriors and other defenders and protectors commissioned to place themselves between harm and the rest of society. In a wider sense, any action we undertake has as a necessary consequence the closing of some options, referred to as the ‘opportunity cost’ in economics. As such, sacrifice is an inherent property of life itself, and it is right to acknowledge this reality of our world. Beyond this necessary choosing and culling of potentials, there is the spirit which goes above and beyond, offering the ultimate price for the achievement of the supreme good.

People’s vision of the good and the desirable varies greatly, of course, and not all will agree on a given path. Some of the finest expressions of the dedication needed to risk all are found in countercultural expressions of determination and defiance. In that spirit, I propose the following song as an appropriate expression of the main theme of Lammas. Within it we find not a celebration of victorious heroism and sacrifice with confidence of inevitable victory, but a stark look at doubt and difficulty in the battle for self-mastery in the face of uncertainty. This is an old punk/folk band called New Model Army, first active in the 80s, and the song is called ‘The Attack’.

-Play ‘The Attack’.

The ritual exchanges for Lammas of course reflect the themes of the sabbat, as follows.

Sabbat Speech:

“With every choice we make, something is gained and something is lost. We gain that which our chosen path leads us to. We lose the status quo of the aspect which the decision impacts. That which we were is no longer what we have become. That which we could have been before we chose is no longer available to us. For everything we undertake, a sacrifice on some level is implied. We come together now to acknowledge and celebrate that which has been surrendered so that we may move forward on our quest.”

God Invocation:

"Great god, Stag of the woodlands, lover of the Goddess,

Master of destiny and giver of law, ruler of all under the Sun,

Come as the Soldier, come as the Pioneer, come as the Scientist, come as the revealer and bestower, come to your fate. Come as the Rebel, come as the Heretic, come as the Bringer of Light in a darkened world, come as the Fulfiller of Oaths.

For your day has had its zenith and your light has guided the Hidden Children's labours. The impulse is discharged into the world and the lives of women and men. Come to us, Oh King! Come we pray thee, and descend upon thy servant and priest here!"

God Response:

"Passage of time and ken of things undone

lay heavy on a mind in the westering Sun

But the work of labouring for the light

will ease the heart as it faces night.

As the children revel in largesse of day

I willingly kneel, the price to pay."

As the god lays stricken upon the Earth, the coven chants in anticipation of the new adventure awaiting the fallen king, as a presentiment of the journey to the underworld and the ongoing role of the slain king.

Chant:

"Sun is falling on its way,

Darkness follows on from day,

Praise the god who'll sow the light,

In darkness deep and womb of night."

Looking to our project, this sabbat gives us pause to reflect on that which has been lost or turned aside or destroyed through the particular choice you made. You love those chooks, but they sure make a mess of the garden. The special mobile chook run you have for them needs to be moved often or they’ll turn that patch of ground into a desert. You can’t leave home for extended periods of time without imposing on others to help, because the chooks aren’t going to feed themselves. Some things you wanted have been put off while you absorb the financial cost of setting the chicken run up. While they have certainly enhanced your life in some ways, they have also imposed a price.

The tool associated with Lammas is the athame. The stage of the god's life cycle is the point of death. The associated quality is honour. The associated virtue is to dare.

                                    Autumn Equinox:

Autumn Equinox is celebrated on the astronomical occasion and is symbolised by the setting sun. This is a ceremony of remembrance and a celebration of the end results and consequences of the life of the god. Traditionally it honours the results of the harvest, and it is the same in modern times. The god has performed His work. We now partake of the fruits of those labours. Autumn Equinox is, in a certain sense, the fulfilment of the whole round. It is the final stage of the process, the end-result to which we have been working. In terms of the project we’ve been following, this is the omelette.

The energy of Autumn Equinox is the energy of crystallised results. It is the energy of ultimate, actualised consequences to actions, grounded in reality and established in the realm of time, beyond possibility of change. The successful businessman retiring with great wealth into a life of leisure, the scientist whose patient work has at length resulted in a great breakthrough in understanding now foundational to human understanding, the lifelong alcoholic now facing death from liver failure beyond any medical hope of cure and the vicious serial killer whose crimes have finally caught up with him and now will spend the rest of his days behind bars, all these are equally partakers of the energy of the autumn equinox. Their fates and the desirability of enjoying or enduring them are radically different. The choices we make in the early part of the round are critical to where we end up, and working the round as an exercise in empty form will not save anyone from their poor choice of content. This is reflected in the sabbat speech which introduces the theme of the ritual.

Sabbat Speech:

“The long striving of the God is over and we live in the shadow of His life and the bounty of His efforts. Rejoice therefore for His life, and the memory of the light we have known. Contemplate where our striving has bought us, and look back, whether in satisfaction or regret, seeking the guidance of the Gods. Discern the seeds of the future now achieved, that we might benefit from our hard-won wisdom in time to come.”


As I said, in terms of our project, this is the omelette, that is, this is the point at which we enjoy the results of our efforts and gain the rewards of our labours. Your chooks are producing a regular supply of eggs, enough for you to make yourself an omelette whenever you please, and even swap some with friends and neighbours for things you want or need, or just give them away out of generosity if you so wish. Your situation also provides the basis for future opportunities. One of your neighbours is a beekeeper and provides you honey and beeswax in return for your eggs. Another grows great fresh vegetables and has fruit trees. Yet another is a computer geek who is willing to help build that website you want.

While the celebration of this crystallisation of results proceeds, in the back of our minds awareness stirs that as we rejoice in the ultimate fruits of the god’s labours, the story of His spirit is not yet done, and while we take our repose in the world He created for us, He has embarked on another journey.

The tool associated with Autumn Equinox is the boline. The stage of the god's life cycle is the aftermath of death. The associated quality is reverence. The associated virtue is to dare.

                                      Samhain:

Samhain is in something of a unique position in the cycle (although all the sabbats are unique in their way) in that it deals with the actions of the god beyond the veil, and in that the traditional function has more to do with fellowship with the dead rather than the specific actions of the god in relation to the wheel, which actually form the basis of a foundational Mystery of the craft. Although Samhain is the sabbat which most closely matches that Mystery, it does not usually present its working. In this case I will briefly discuss how we might understand the progress of the wheel at this time in relation to the paradigm we’ve been looking at.

As stated in the discussion about Yule, the residue of the old cycle forms the impetus for the development of the new. At this point, the god dwells in the underworld, the realm of the dead, the discarded, the ignored and the damned. The established order always has its particular set of the damned, be they people, things, ideas, behaviours or whatnot. Now the god dwells amid the discarded, the ignored, the outcast. The established order inevitably generates the seeds of a reaction to and possibly against it as the paradigm it has established generates a new set of issues to be dealt with that lay beyond the scope of the capability of that establishment.

The Samhain ritual will properly deal with the covener’s personal relation with Death and those who have passed beyond. Text for the critical part may be something such as follows:

Sabbat Speech:

“Darkness has fallen and we enter the realm of winter. In the deep of the night of Samhain, the Lord of Shades and of matters finished has the power to reach those who have the courage to call. Tonight, we face the veil as it shivers with the longing of those on both sides to bridge the gulf.”

Invocation of the God:

HPS: “Here in the stillness, in the darkness and the cold, I call unto Thee, O Lord of the Underworld, Lord of the Shades, O Horned One, Visage of Terror, Bringer of Rest, Comforter and Consoler. Come forth and be with us, O Guardian of the departed! Descend, we pray Thee, upon Thy servant and priest here!”

God Response:

HP: “Dwell not in regret of the wall separating the realms of Life and Death. Be glad of the lessons, the wisdom and the growth born of the strivings of those now gone. Their works echo still in the texture of life. I bid you commune in silence with the Mighty Dead, and listen for the promptings of the inner voice of the spirit.”

And meanwhile, back on our side of the veil, you have become quite fond of your chickens with their ability to charm and relax you with their quirky little ways. Originally you just wanted to do something with the yard, and you rather liked eggs, but now your research into these birds, inspired in part by your own growing love for them as unique and interesting, as well as useful creatures has brought you to thinking about the plight of those caught up in factory farming, and a new direction is slowly building within you.

The tool associated with Samhain is the cords. The stage of the god’s life cycle is the Lord of Death. The quality associated with it is strength. The associated virtue is to remain silent.

                                  Summation:

Looking at the wheel in this way reveals some interesting patterns and symmetries. First, a key to understanding the nature of the wheel is understanding the difference between the Greater Sabbats (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltain, Lammas) and the Lesser Sabbats (Yule, Ostara, Litha, Mabon). The Greater Sabbats are those where actions are performed. The Lesser Sabbats celebrate the outcomes of those actions.

The tools associated with the Greater Sabbats can be classified as ‘active’ and those with the Lesser as ‘passive’. When we examine the nature of the action of these tools with regarding the direction of the influence of the power, an interesting thing is revealed. Those associated with the Lesser Sabbats (pentacle, scourge, sword, boline) are conduits of power or influence directed from the higher to the lower. Those associated with the Greater Sabbats (wand, censor, athame, cords) are primarily intended to transmit influence or power from the lower to the higher.

The qualities associated with each sabbat have their own interesting symmetries. For instance, strength and beauty have been assigned to Samhain and Beltain respectively. These qualities are the only two out of the eight referenced in the fivefold kiss. In the case of Beltain, it is the beauty of the goddess which compels the god to the chase to attain the prize. In the case of Samhain, it is the strength of the god in his role as Lord of Death which compels the goddess to undertake the descent which results in their union in the underworld. Humility is important at Imbolc and ties in with the association of Imbolc and Ostara with East and Air, symbolic of thought, intellect and enlightenment. It is only with deep and thorough humility of truly knowing that we do not know that we can clear away all preconceptions and set out on the search for truly useful knowledge. Reflection on each of the qualities mentioned in the Charge of the Goddess as they have been assigned to paired sabbats at opposite sides of the wheel should reveal many truths and symmetries.

Although the wheel is presented as a progression through time, some of the issues associated with a particular sabbat can occasionally appear out of sequence with that progression, such as the loss of alternative options as soon as a decision is settled on, implying an element of the sacrificial even within the contemplations of spring. This also happens in real life and thus does not invalidate the model.

That concludes the lecture. Thank you all for your attention. The floor is now open to questions until the close of this session.