Wheel of the Year

I love the term “Wheel of the Year”. In reality, as well as in metaphor, it speaks so much to the nature of all things and their journeys. Everything moves along a loop which begins with creation, travels though being, and transforms into something else at it’s end, ultimately beginning anew in the next turn of the wheel.

We and our planet, we and our sun, always tied together. Our feet first walk in the winter’s darkness and cold, then the sun arcs across the sky and warms us into spring, it’s heat graces us throughout the summer, and then comes the coolness of autumn when the weary sun seeks its rest from it’s long journey through our yearly lives and gathers it’s strength to begin the cycle again.

Gifts come to us from each spoke of the wheel, and lessons from hardships as well. In winter we begin sparsely and shiver in the cold, but hopfully find rest in long dark nights. We learn to appreciate the coming light and warmth all the more as a result of this, and come the light will. For it was the promise made to us. With spring our faith is rewarded and the promise is kept. Nature awakes and begins to pour forth its abundance little by little. Then at the end of long busy days we can enjoy the short warm nights of summer under bright stars which look down upon us. The fall brings the bounty of harvests and another reason to give thanks for the nature of the wheel. Having known good and bad along the way the closing year brings the promise of something new in the year to come. Always a cycle, and a reason to keep hoping, because with each ending comes a beginning.