Seeing as i live in the southern hemisphere, is there any change to that dates of the sabbats? or do they all stay the same? Like for Yule, would it still be around my usual christmas time- even if it may be summer???
Re: sabbats dates for... By: lindacash420 Moderator / Adept
Post # 2 May 18, 2012
i think you need to consider what the sabbats actually are. For example...yule is the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year. For those in the southern hemisphere Dec. 21 would be the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
Because this calendar is based on the equinoxes and solstices the North and South will celebrate opposite holidays on the exact same day. This means you and I will always celebrate on the same days, but be having opposite holidays.
This means that if you want to know the date you'll celebrate Yule, you can look up when the Northern hemisphere celebrates Litha. This is pretty convenient since you don't need to recalculate anything, you just need to take information from a Northern site or book and just slide everything forward.
The Southern hemisphere sabbat dates this year are...
Lughnasadh – 2 February 2012
Mabon – 20 March 2012
Samhain – 30 April 2012
Yule – 20 June 2012
Imbolc – 1 August 2012
Ostara – 22 September 2012
Beltane – 31 October 2012
Litha – 22 December 2012
Other seasonal pagan holidays can be similarly changed to be Southern hemisphere appropriate.
all the solstices are equally separated so the only thing in the southern hemisphere you need to remember is we celebrate the spring equivalent while you celebrate the winter. so our next one is midsummer, so yours will be yule.
Re: sabbats dates for... By: Lark Moderator / Adept
Post # 5 May 18, 2012
In the Southern Hemisphere the Sabbats are reversed so the dates would be:
Yule - June 21-23
Imbolc - Aug 1
Oestara - Sep 21-23
Beltane - Oct 31
Midsummer - Dec 21-23
Lammas - Feb 1
Mabon - March 21-23
Also, many in the Southern Hemisphere also reverse the way that a circle is cast so that it remains with you turning in a sun-wise direction. So in the Southern Hemisphere you would cast a circle while turning in a counter-clockwise fashion.
The directions associated with the Elements are likewise reversed to represent their southern associations:
East - Air
South - Earth
West - Water
North - Fire
There is an excellent website on Wicca in the Southern Hemisphere at http://www.applegroveonline.com/ You'll probably find the articles there particularly helpful to your practice.
