Alternative Wheel: Other seasonal cycle stories

When this column started, it was all about exploring different ways of thinking about the wheel of the year, reflecting on aspects of the natural world to provide Pagans alternatives to the usual solar stories. It's still very much an alternative wheel, but there's a developing emphasis on what we can celebrate as the seasons turn. Faced with environmental crisis, and an uncertain future, celebration is a powerful soul restoring antidote that will help us all keep going, stay hopeful and dream up better ways of being.

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Nimue Brown

Nimue Brown

Nimue Brown is the author of Druidry and Meditation, Druidry and the Ancestors. Pagan Dreaming, When a Pagan Prays and Spirituality without Structure. She also writes the graphic novel series Hopeless Maine, and other speculative fiction. OBOD trained, but a tad feral, she is particularly interested in Bardic Druidry and green living.

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Celebrating the rowan flowers

It is of course the rowan berry that most Pagans will think of when considering this tree. The bright, orangey red berries of the rowan or mountain ash have a traditional use in protective magic. However, you don’t get berries without flowers, and the flowers are out now.

It’s a good opportunity not just to celebrate this moment in the life of a rowan, but to also consider the beginnings of things whose ends we engage with. Many trees are in flower - as I write this post the horse chestnut outside my window is resplendent with bright candles of white flowers.

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  • Nimue Brown
    Nimue Brown says #
    Mmm, that's an evocative sort of smell. I'll add the musky smell of fox wee to my list of good-stinky things! I realise there's mo
  • Claudia Priori
    Claudia Priori says #
    Yes! Sometimes it's the stinky things that remind us of the wildness of this earth. I love to walk along the beach where the seawe

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Celebrating the Dawn Chorus

Most usually people talk about the dawn chorus at midsummer – that’s when events to experience it seem to be organised. It is the case that the midsummer dawn chorus is the longest and loudest. However, you also need to be awake by four in the morning here in the UK, and that’s not easy, nor is it practical for some of us.

There is always a dawn chorus. In winter it’s brief, but even so I usually hear something. However, now in early spring is a great time for encountering and appreciating dawn bird song. Firstly it’s often warm enough to have the windows open a bit at night. If there are any trees in your vicinity, there’s a fair chance of birdsong, and of being able to lie in bed and hear it. Otherwise, it means being out at about six am, which is a good deal more feasible.

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  • Nimue Brown
    Nimue Brown says #
    Thank you for sharing this, Deb, that's gorgeous.
  • Deb
    Deb says #
    Each day I am fortunate enough to hear the Dawn Chorus, living in central Florida in the USA the weather is fairly warm even in wi

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Celebrating Tree Flowers

Early spring brings the blossom – blackthorn, cherry, and other fruit trees. Suddenly, hedges and gardens erupt with scent and blossom, and it’s a sure sign that winter is behind and sunnier days are coming.

One of the great joys of seeing wild fruit trees in bloom is the promise of wild fruit later in the year. What you can see in the photos, are wild plum flowers. The photos in this blog are mine – I’ve recently become acquainted with a camera, so these are very much ‘learner shots’ but enough to give the idea... The flowers are on a wild plum tree that grows beside a cycle path. The cycle path in question used to be a railway line so I wonder if the plum trees (there are three) started life as stones thrown from a train.

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Celebrating blackthorn

Imbolc tends to be associated with snowdrops – which is reasonable enough because they do reliably turn up at this time. We don’t talk about blackthorn much, but for me it is the tree of the festival. Blackthorn can come into flower around this time of year, too (in my experience) and it’s an ogham tree as well.

The Woodland Trust site has blackthorn down as flowering between March and April so it may be in part about where you live. The Woodland Trust covers the whole of the UK, and I’ve never lived further north than the Midlands. There are significant regional differences. I’ve always seen blackthorn as one of the first flowerings in the year. There was a roadside tree on the way to my Midlands ritual place that always came into flower around the time of Imbolc rituals, which gave me the association. At present I’ve got a wild plum locally that flowers very early and is likely to open any day now. It points to the way in which tree events can be very specific and local, depending on microclimates, and the unpredictable nature of trees.

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  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Yes!

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Celebrating Colour

The grey skies and the angle of the sun in a British January often conspire to wash the colour out of the landscape. Whatever colour remains, that is, after the leaves come down, and the grass dies back. Sometimes we get frost and snow – pretty at first but rapidly greying as well. Our winters tend to lack visual drama. What we get instead is drab, and demoralising. This is why celebrating colour in January is so very important.

There are of course brighter days, when the lower angle of the sun can produce surprising effects. Intensely bright blue skies are always possible. I walked on Christmas day this year, and the combination of cloud and low light conspired to create soft light, filling the woods with unexpectedly warm tones. When there’s any kind of decent daylight, it is important to get out there and experience it, especially if you are someone prone to winter blues.

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Celebrating winter trees

For those of us who live in landscapes with deciduous trees, winter creates opportunities to appreciate them in different ways from summer. The loss of leaves means that tree shapes become truly visible. This is especially true of field trees, whose solitary positions make them easier to appreciate. Field trees have much rounder forms than their woodland counterparts, but in the woods, winter reveals the patterns of branches and the sky above.

Trunks and bark become more visible in the winter – and there’s such an array of textures, subtle colours and surfaces. Fungi on trees are more present at this time of year, and resident moss and lichen is easier to spot. I’ve blogged over at Druid Life about my favourite winter tree exposure.

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  • Sheila Dorsey
    Sheila Dorsey says #
    It is important to notice nature in all times of the year. Things are ever changing and it is important to get a good close up lo

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Celebrating the first frosts

Here in the UK, the first frosts can turn up any time in the autumn, but represent a significant shift towards the winter. In terms of being something to celebrate, I admit to mixed feelings. The coming of the frost is an important part of the wheel of the year, but it means moving into cold and hardship.

 Frost is of course beautiful. It sparkles on grasses, leaves and spiderwebs, creating delicate beauty and catching the first light of the day. Today, with the first frost in my little corner of the world, the fields were iced at first light, giving them a sheen of mystery and otherworldliness.

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  • Sue
    Sue says #
    What a refreshing change to see another viewpoint! I sympathise very much with your thoughts on the first frost. I have an elderly

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