The Folk Practices I Grew Up With and The "Wheel of The Year"
If you follow the path of being a folk witch or folk practitioner, you will likely find that some but not all of the so-called "Wheel of the Year" is embedded in the historical traditions of your community. Most cultures have honored the changing of the season (as their seasons happened) in some way or fashion but if you are from a non-Eurocentric culture or live in a zone without the concrete four-season shift, the practices might be quite different.
Unless you are in on a tradition that demands that you follow the Wheel of the Year, you don't have to. Don't let the internet - or witch books - tell you any differently.
It is completely okay to forge your own path. It is completely okay to celebrate the changing of the seasons when they change for you. It is completely okay to pick a couple of local festivals of historical significance and carve your own holidays or traditions out of them.
I live in Southern New England and, as such, I have been exposed to 6/8 of the "Wheel of the Year" holidays for my entire life. The Hallows should be obvious as I am an American. My Nana taught me to celebrate Mayday by making baskets for people that I loved and leaving them at their doors. (I also think that I learned a maypole dance in preschool but I digress) My elementary school had two major festivals for Yuletide and the Spring Equinox where the whole school put on a seasonal celebration for our parents and friends.
As I began to study astrology as an adult - the immediate significance of the equinoxes and solstices became evident: they are the beginning of 00 Aries (Spring equinox), 00 Cancer (Summer solstice), 00 Libra (Fall Equinox), and 00 Capricorn (Winter Solstice). They demarcate the year and the seasons - each being the start of a new season being led by one of the Moveable/Cardinal signs.
As such, they are important days to me and I will keep celebrating them. I choose to call them Yule and Midsummer (what I was taught that they were called as a child) but don't have better names than the Spring and Fall Equinoxes.
The dichotomy of Mayday/Hallows Eve is important to me - in particular - likely because it is strongly represented in my birth chart. I am a double Taurus (Sun conjunct Ascendant) with my Sun tightly opposed to Uranus in Scorpio. I live this contradiction in all parts of my life - all flowers and bones like the good little goth kid I will always be.
But that's just me - that's my path. My whole life has led me here.
The question is: what is yours?
