Sabbats

The first grain of the year falls at Lughnasadh, cut low with a curved blade. The sabbat comes at the beginning of August, when the fields have burned from green to gold and the air carries dust. It is the first of three harvest festivals. Bread is baked and thanks are offered over the steam....

There is one day in the falling year when neither the light nor the dark will give way. That day is Mabon, the autumn equinox and the second harvest. The fields are heavy and the orchards smell of bruised fruit. The nights are lengthening, and the year has begun to lean under the weight of...

There is an hour in late June when the light forgets to go. The hedges hold their heat long after the sun has dropped behind them. The grass has gone pale and dry at the tips. In the north the sky keeps a bruise of gold in it until almost midnight. Then the sun stops,...

There is one dawn in the turning year when light and dark weigh exactly the same, and neither one leans. Morning comes up grey over cold ground, hesitates at the edge of the fields, and then holds — the hours of sun set level against the hours of night, still as water in a bowl....

On the last night of April the hills begin to answer one another. A flame stands up on one crest, then a second far off, then a third, until the dark between them is stitched with small points of gold. Below, the hedges have gone white overnight, heavy with blossom, and the herds are gathered...

Under the frost, in the black soil where nothing can be seen, the year turns over in its sleep. The ground is still hard. The hedges stand bare and dark, and nothing has bloomed. Yet something beneath the surface has already turned toward the light. Imbolc is the first crack of light in the year,...

The year holds one night longer than all the others. It comes at the bottom of December, when frost has taken the window glass and the trees stand black against a sky the color of cold iron. That night is Yule, the winter solstice, the deepest point of the dark half. The sun rises late...

Go out at dusk in any month and stand still for a moment. The year is moving past the door. It does not travel in a straight line. It turns. Eight festivals mark that turning, and together they are called the Wheel of the Year. Four of them fall on the solstices and equinoxes, when...

There is a morning in the deep of winter when the light does not seem to move at all. Frost keeps to the north side of the wall long past noon. The sun travels the hedge-tops without ever climbing free of them, low and coppery, and by four the windows have gone blue. Somewhere inside...