Sabbats
What is a Sabbat?
A Sabbat is a celebration that corresponds to the seasons and celestial events. The four Great Sabbats correspond to the seasons of nature, and are sometimes referred to as the Terrestrial Sabbats, while the other four Sabbats correspond with the Equinoxes and the Solstices are called the Celestial Sabbats.
In many older Traditions of Witchcraft, only the original four Sabbats (Holy days) of Candlemas, Beltane, Lammas and Hallowmas were observed.
Others Traditions will celebrate all eight Sabbats of both the Greater and the Lesser Sabbats. The Lesser Sabbats include both the Solstices and Equinoxes, these are the Winter solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox.
The goal in performing these Sabbats is to harmonize all parts of ourselves: Mind, Body and Spirit, to be in harmony with the changes going on in nature around us. Typically witches will symbolically also organize their lives to be reflective of what is happening in nature and the associated agricultural changes.
Greater Sabbats
Hallowe’en or Hallowmas
Witches consider this to be the Witch's New Year, it is a time of rest and the focus is on reflection and endings.
At this Sabbat we release everything that no longer serves us and we also release our failures of the past year, we release our past faults, hurts and slights are released.
When we let go of what no longer serves us we are able to start the new cycle with a clean slate.
We will also commune and share a feast with those who have passed to the next phase of transition. Often some form of Mediumship will be performed, where we receive messages from those who have passed, our Coven Guides and the Wise and Ancient Ones might also speak to us.
At this Sabbat we also recharge our psychic batteries that will carry us through to the next season when the sun begins to return. In our Traditions this is also typically the time when we perform divinations for the Watchword for the coming year. This is the password for entrance into a ritual, it is also the theme for contemplation at this start of our New Year.
Candlemas or February Eve
At this Sabbat of Candlemas or February Eve, we are starting to come out of the season of rest. We are entering a time where we really need to be thinking about the year ahead and what we would like to accomplish in the coming year. We celebrate the waxing light and the purification of the Earth-Mother as she begins to slowly awaken. Our seed-thoughts are planted, with wishes that they will fall in fertile rich ground so they will sprout.
At this time of year for us in the far North, the ground is still very frozen, but the planting our seed-thoughts is a symbolic act. We spend time focusing on the seeds sprouting, turning to harvestable fruits of our labors throughout the year.
May Eve or Beltane
Beltane is one of the quarterly Fire Festivals. This is the Season of growing, the earth has come alive and as plants begin to grow we need to fertilize them.
We will burn the left-over corn husks or Autumn hens we made at the Autumnal equinox, as these are symbolic of the past previous cycle. We leap the Baal fire or Central Fire for Purification. Symbolically this action clears way the old so that we can make way for the new- purification also occurs through life lessons and the progression towards wisdom. When we leap the Baal fire we also celebrate love, pleasure, joy and to invoke luck.
Once the fire has burned to ashes we use the ashes from the Baal fire to fertilize our gardens. This helps to nurture those "seed-thoughts" with warmth that were symbolically planted during the Candlemas ritual.
During Sabbat we may also adorn ourselves with a Spring-time chaplet of greenery and flowers as another symbol of how we give honor to the Gracious Goddess.
Lammas Harvest Sabbat or August Eve
As we enter this part of our seasonal cycle, we celebrate the fruition of our labors throughout the year. We focus on the outcome of our efforts. The seeds that we nourished in spring, fertilized tended to our “gardens” in the summer as our seeds blossomed and flowered. We now reap the rewards of our labors, we also reflect on those seeds that did not come to fruition.
The Seasons of planting and harvesting are cyclical in nature, there is action and re-action, initiation and response. We also give gratitude and thanksgiving for all we have received.
Lesser Sabbats
The solstice and equinox festivals acknowledge an exact point in time - the moment that the celestial changes occur, which indicate the Sun’ s position in relation to that of the earth. The dates for these are based on solar calculations of the fixed times of the Sun's station in the heavens.
The Winter Solstice
This Sabbat revolves around the symbolism of the light or spark being alive and bright and the return of the light. This is symbolically represented by lighting candles, decorating with winter greenery, thereby letting the nature spirits know that they are welcome to come out from the cold.
The Spring equinox/Vernal Equinox.
At this Sabbat Winter is starting to Wane and the light begins to wax and in some parts the snow starts to melt away. We can look forward to more light during the day and the hope of warmer days ahead.
The theme of this Sabbat is one of rededication to the coven. We will recite the Tenets of our faith and renew our understanding of these, as well as focus on how we can practically aspire to living our tenets.
This is also the time when many covens will perform initiations for Neophytes, Probationers and Dedicants who will become new initiates of the Coven.
The Summer Solstice
At this Sabbat the focus is on the celebration of the power and & strength of the summer season, at this time petitions are burned to be consumed by the light and heat of the flames.
The Autumnal equinox
At this Sabbat we see the end results of the seeds we symbolically planted during the Candlemas Sabbat, we are able to see which of those came to full fruition and which did not. This Sabbat also about accepting our rewords for the work we have done.
Typically we will have huge feast during the Sabbat. Some covens also pay their yearly coven dues at this time. This is a very apt time of year to gather coven dues, because this is the time in which the “Law of Compensation” can most prominently observed; we are able to accept our just reward for what we have achieved during the past seasons.
At this Sabbat in our Coven typically makes an autumn hen, which represents the old Hag of Winter, which is kept over the winter and is then burned during our next Beltane Sabbat ritual.
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