The Celtic Calendar and the Wheel of the Year – Literal vs. Spiritual Truth
What type of calendar did the ancient Celts use? Many people today believe that the Celts used a calendar made up of thirteen months that was based on Ogham, or the tree alphabet. Robert Graves helped popularize this view in his book The White Goddess.
This idea has since solidified into the popular (among Neopagans) Wheel of the Year, sometimes called the Celtic Wheel of the Year. This is a circle divided into eight parts, with a festival to mark each section. The eight festivals are:
Samhain (or Halloween) – October 31
Winter solstice – (approx.) December 21
Imbolc – February 1
Spring equinox (approx.) March 21
Beltane – May 1
Summer solstice (approx.) June 21
Lughnasa – August 1
Autumn Equinox- (approx.) September 21
This Wheel of the Year calendar is extremely popular with both Wiccans and Neopagans and has an understated elegance. However, there is a high probability that it is not historically accurate.
Most academic historians and archaeologists believe that the Celts used something called the Coligny Calendar, a complex (at least to us today) lunar calendar of 62 months. A bronze plaque depicting this calendar was found in France, so there is actual evidence that this calendar was used.
Robert Graves attempted to prove the truth of his calendar theory by deciphering a poem called The Song of Amergin. Each stanza of this poem is supposed to be a code for a month and for a tree whose name marks the name of that month. The White Goddess goes into this in great detail in a complex, somewhat convoluted (but still fascinating) discussion that spans many cultures and myths.
My goal in mentioning all of this is to address a certain gap that often occurs between scholars and followers of popular movements like Wicca and neopaganism. At one extreme, we have scholars who simply dismiss the other school as ignorant and perhaps naive romantics who believe things without evidence.
On the other hand, there are those who argue that scholars are simply authoritarian representatives of the patriarchy who are trying to continue their centuries-long suppression of Goddess culture. I am addressing this particular subject of the Celtic calendar at the moment, but similar arguments arise on many other subjects.
I would propose another way of looking at it (not very original, I must confess from the outset) that probably won’t please many members of either camp. That is, we can see notions like the Wheel of the Year as having poetic, archetypal, or symbolic truth, regardless of how “authentic” they are. In fact, by insisting that every aspect of his spiritual point of view be true in a literal and historical sense, he is actually trying to justify himself to the rationalistic mindset, which operates on a completely different frequency.
This, of course, also occurs when fundamentalists of various religions try to claim that their religious text represents a perfect historical record. The fact is, it probably won’t, nor was it meant to. The same is true for people who follow the traditions of the Goddess or the neopagan type.
So if a symbolic system like astrology, the Tree of Life, or the Celtic Wheel of the Year has meaning for you, then you can use it and enjoy it without having to justify it academically, historically, or rationalistically. Truth itself has many faces.
