The Celtic Wheel of the Year

For the end of every movement is its beginning:

that from which it was first moved,

and to which it always longs to return,

so there it may rest and be at peace.

-Eriugena

The Celts saw time as a great wheel that was continually turning. The sun and the moon served as their calendar, dividing time's circle and marking the changing seasons as they circled around. Each day, each season, each moon was sacred in its own way. The Celts celebrated each turning of wheel of time with feasting and fire, ritual and prayer. Through these celebrations, the Celts experienced their harmony with a larger, deeper world. Fertility, birth, growth, and death were repeating patterns that waxed and waned-and prayer and ritual allowed the Celts to weave these patterns into their consciousness, finding hope and comfort in their repetition.

This book gives modern readers their own prayers and seasonal rituals to celebrate the turning year. The prayers included are both ancient and modern, both Pagan and Christian, for Celtic spirituality serves as a flexible bridge that can connect faith traditions, as well as past and present.

May the turning wheel of the year help you to find a sense of rest and peace,

even amid the chaos and catastrophe of our modern world.