Following the Wheel of the Year

On a dark, gloomy weekday afternoon, I’m rapidly tapping my foot while stuck at a red light. The smell of exhaust is creeping into the car while the radio plays generic indie rock in the background. I’m looking at all of the drivers around me, silently judging both the size of their cars and how quickly they respond to traffic signals turning green. I’m feeling a bit anxious. I haven’t had a single bite of food all day, and the impacts of that are becoming apparent. My mind is weary and my stomach is growling with concerning intensity. To be honest, I feel like a toddler who needs a snack. In just ninety minutes from now, I will have a huge crew of people arriving at my door that I am expected to feed and entertain. But I have no food to prepare because these clueless people in front of me aren’t keeping traffic moving the way it should be. This is becoming a disaster.

And the worst part is, this entire situation is all my fault. So much for a nice, relaxing celebration.

There’s a funny thing about the changing of the seasons: They don’t seem to change that much when we spend our lives indoors. Which is, in my opinion, one of the reasons why time seems to move so fast.

I’ve always loved the little intricacies that come with each part of the year. The first plants bursting through the frosty ground. A much-needed string of bluebird days to break the stretch of gray that dominates the winter. A sudden burst of color in the trees that had been lifeless and dull for so long. These moments can be euphoric and all-encompassing, if we allow them to be.

I vividly remember, when I was fifteen, walking to my deceased friend’s house one sunny April day. It was finally warm enough to be in just a t-shirt and shorts. As I made my way up the hill, trees began rustling from the wind coming in from the west. Instinctively, I braced myself and tensed my muscles to deal with another wintry, icy blast. What came was unexpected. Once the wind hit my back, my muscles softened and a huge grin burst onto my face. It was warm. Finally, it was warm. Long summer nights were just around the corner, I could feel it.

The opposite can be just as beautiful. One late August morning in my mid-20s, I woke up early and ventured out for a sunrise paddle board session as a way to start the day off peacefully. As I set my board into the water and pushed off from shore, there was once again an incoming breeze. I welcomed its warm embrace around my body and basked in the beauty of the late summer landscape. But this breeze was hiding something. Gently tucked underneath its warmth and comfort was a slight but noticeable chill. Invisible, almost, if I wasn’t fully aware of my body and my surroundings. Fall was coming, colors and all. I could feel it.

Lately, though, the coming of the seasons have been harder to notice. Which makes sense seeing that I’ve been living an increasingly indoor existence.

Think of how easy the following scenario is to follow:

Wake up in a 70-degree box (aka our house/apartment). Get into a 70-degree box with wheels. Take it to our box of work, which is usually either an annoying 68 or 72 degrees. Maddening. Return to our 70-degree box with wheels and make it back to our primary 70-degree box. Stay there until we fall asleep. Repeat until we die.

And what do I do while in these boxes? I stare at screens. Phones, computers, TVs, it doesn’t matter. Whatever is on the screen becomes my reality. The only way to mark the changing of the seasons is noticing the subtle differences in the streaming lineup, whether dramas or game shows are on network TV in the evening, or keeping an eye on which sport happens to be in season. Often, the kickoff of football season or a new episode drop from my favorite show is the strongest sign of a change in the calendar. 

This manicured existence means that I, and I assume many others, often only notice the big changes of the seasons. It’s impossible to miss the explosion of color in autumn leaves, a big snowstorm, or an oppressive heat wave in summer. All that is well and good. But if we only pay attention to the natural world when we’re forced to pay attention, there are entire universes that we miss out on experiencing.

The realization that I no longer notice the first subtle changes of the seasons hit me after my friend’s death, when I thought about how much time had passed since we last got together. That observation led to a downward spiral and made me feel like I was losing my mind. It suddenly dawned on me that I couldn’t exactly remember when I noticed the first leaf change in last year’s fall, or the first bud of spring emerging from a delicate branch. It had been a couple years since I recognized the cool undertones in a breeze near the end of summer. Heck, the sun is constantly shifting position around the sky and yet I have a much better handle on the position of the sun in my phone wallpaper than I do the real thing outside my window. For some reason, I’ve become less observant of the beauty that surrounds me each moment.

This is one of the main reasons why I feel like time has been moving so quickly over the past few years. When everyday feels kind of the same, it’s easier for all the days to meld into one lifeless blur. A few things of note here, a big weather event there, a seasonal festival on occasion — these checkpoints are few and far between. What happens during all the time in-between while I’m staring at my screen in my climate controlled box?

With this understanding, I decided that one of the main ways I could slow down this year would be to put a concerted effort into noticing, and recording, the changing of the seasons. If moving quickly meant allowing the year to pass me by without much notice, then moving slowly would mean being as mindful as possible of all the subtleties the world had to offer each day. This, in turn, would slow down the relentless march of Father Time — at least I hoped. With a set list of seasonal rituals, I could make sure that too much time wouldn’t pass before I looked up and realized what was happening outside my window. I wanted to feel each part of the year, and honor it, in some way. And if it happened to be inside my box for a time, then so be it, but I’d at least attempt to make that time meaningful and seasonal.

When humans relied on noticing the changing of the seasons for survival, and responding accordingly, there was much more fanfare regarding these subtle observations. Most of the festivals we celebrate today have their roots in seasonal celebrations that our ancestors used as a way to mark the passing of time and find something to celebrate in what was a much more brutal way of life. Christmas, for example, takes many of its more modern traditions (besides the obsessive and sometimes violent consumption) from the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, which was a celebration of the winter solstice. The symbols adopted for Easter come from many springtime rituals of the Northern European pagan traditions. Halloween, in many respects, as well. Although, in my extensive research, I’ve yet to find a natural connection for blowing up fireworks and downing hot dogs on the Fourth of July. Maybe something to do with the phase of the moon?

I personally love the idea of marking the changing of the seasons with a dedicated celebration, even if it is a bit contrived on my end. With something to look forward, to I become more inspired to look inwards at how I am changing and outwards at how the world is shifting. If I know a mid-season celebration is approaching, I will be more apt to look for signs of change. And I will appreciate these hints of beauty found in my seemingly generic suburban world.

To make this vision a reality, I committed to a year-long observance of the neopagan Wheel of the Year (in a nod to my early adolescent interest in all things Wicca and witchcraft, spells included). The Wheel of the Year was put together in the mid-20th century as a way to combine various astronomical and fire festivals that had been celebrated throughout time by various pagan groups throughout Europe. There are eight main holidays: four for each change of season (spring equinox, summer solstice, fall equinox, winter solstice) and four fire festivals that honored the midpoint of each season. The Wheel symbolizes the cycles of life, both of the sun’s changing strength throughout the course of the year and the cycle followed by all life on earth: birth, growth, decay, death. In other words, it’s a mindful observance of the subtle changing of the seasons meant to connect us more to the natural world through slow, intentional, observant living.

Exactly what I am after this year.

By recognizing these celebrations, it ensures that too much of the year isn’t mindlessly frittered away behind drywall and in front of a screen. Instead, it will provide good reason to look closely at the world beyond my window, notice how it shifts from season to season, and to anticipate what’s to come while honoring what is already here. Essentially, an acknowledgement of these daily rhythms will bring me closer into the present moment. A place that I appear to lack the ability to visit for more than a second at a time. 

With a deeper understanding of the Wheel, I began planning celebrations and rituals to mark the year. Each holiday celebration/ritual needed to be intentional and fit the overarching historical theme of the day.

First up on the calendar:

Imbolc.

Imbolc, traditionally, recognizes and celebrates the halfway point of winter. Spring is in the womb, the sun is getting brighter, and we are on the downswing of the dark days. Originally recognized as an important day by ancient pagans in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, the day became Christianized later-on as a celebration of St. Brigid, the Patroness Saint of Ireland. The importance of the date aligned with the lambing season, as this was a time in the year when food stores were running low and the coming of precious milk could be potentially life-saving (or, at the very least, provide some comfort) as winter wore to a close. I find myself fascinated by the fact that many deep celebratory roots across cultures align with moments of plenty in a scarce and uncaring natural world.

Beyond the literal need for extra food in mid-winter, Imbolc is also important for recognizing that spring is on the way. According to local naturalists, this is the time of year when certain flowers and plants begin pushing through the cold mud in England, exposing beautiful bits of color after months of gray, drab landscapes. Which must be nice, because in my part of the world there are no flowers pushing through anywhere beyond grocery store aisles for Valentine’s Day. Just frozen, dormant, gray tundra devoid of any activity. 

While reading about the history and significance of Imbolc on my comfy couch in a climate-controlled living room, it becomes clear that this celebration is exactly what I need. We are currently in the depths of a long winter and have gone about three weeks without seeing the sun peak through the clouds for more than a fleeting moment. January began with Nanny’s funeral, and the weight of all the troubles from the end of the year has finally been settling in as we’ve burrowed back into our normal routines. So many ideas for adventures and beautiful experiences fill my mind, but the weather, the schedules, and the general malaise are preventing those from becoming a reality just yet. Once again much of my time is being spent watching people do beautiful things online while I gripe about how hard it is to get going when it’s cold, gray, wet, and dark outside.

And so what better way to break out of that than with a celebration?

Without much thought I whip out my phone and send a text out to our closest friends, asking if they’d be willing to come over for a mid-winter celebratory feast. The response is almost immediate: everyone announces that they are clearing their schedules and agree to come. Apparently I’m not the only one who needs something to celebrate. Excited, I think about how we could celebrate the coming of spring and bring some light into these dark days. Visions of a feast come to mind, where we can share delicious dishes and desserts around a table. It will be a beautiful day that will surely bring light into this dark time.

Then Gab, ever the pragmatist, cuts right through my fanciful vision:

“So we have a bunch of people coming over, right?” she asks with excitement.

“Yep! Wednesday night.”

“Okay,” she continues, “Wednesday night. After work?”

“Yeah” I respond, with slightly less enthusiasm.

“And you have an after school meeting that day, right? So you’ll be getting home later than normal?”

“Uh-huh” I murmur. Her concerns are becoming more valid by the second.

“So,” she begins, “what are you making for everyone to eat that can be bought and prepared in less an hour and a half?”

I’m embarrassed to admit that…well…I didn’t even consider that!

I like to think that my excitement is a positive personality trait, and that my tendency to jump into things head first without much thought or planning is a sign of vitality. However, I can see how that might be an issue when other people are counting on me to actually pull through. Thankfully Gab married me in spite of this visible flaw.

“I’ll figure it out. I always do!”

It is now Wednesday morning and I have prepared absolutely nothing. But there is anticipation in the air. The pressure of putting on a celebration for our friends turns this drab, gloomy, mundane day into a spark of excitement in the middle of an otherwise forgettable week. I have just a few hours to pull everything together and make sure my friends can actually have dinner tonight.

Because putting on a full party on a moment’s notice apparently is not enough of a challenge, I decide to make the day even more strenuous by fasting for 24 hours leading up to our feast. This not only serves to keep me focused on becoming a tougher person, but it also gets me thinking about food. A lot. All day I see tasty treats, smell delicious wafts of air and crave to put some taste in my mouth. The toughest point of the day, by far, is lunch. Walking by the lunchroom and seeing all my smiling colleagues stuffing their faces with hot, tasty meals makes me wish I could be in a food commercial and do the same, but with multiple takes to make sure I get my fill. 

I escape past the lunch room and head into my classroom, where there is no food and no temptation. As my class begins filing in all I can think about is the hunger pangs encompassing my being and the delicious meal that is going to solve all of my problems. There is a key advantage to this fast, though: my cravings make it clear what I want to make for everyone. After some (tantalizing and agonizing) thought during one of my classes (when I am supposed to be teaching), I commit to lemon-garlic pasta, seared salmon, and roasted potatoes. Which, in the midst of my hunger, sounds like an unheard of ecstasy as I begin my fourth hour chewing the same stick of gum. Just thinking about it makes my eyes widen and my mouth salivate in anticipation. At least until I realize that a student has been standing in front of me, for how long I don’t know, in need of help. Sorry kid — when salmon is on the mind there is nothing that breaks that train of thought.

After work brings the most challenging moment of the whole experiment: grocery shopping. The thought of being surrounded by food is overwhelming, and I’m sure that any free sample within reach will break my fast. In an effort to keep everything seasonal, even though it is the middle of winter, I plan to shop as locally as possible. Produce from the mid-week farmer’s market. Fish from the local market that gets their supply regionally. Pasta from Milwaukee, Wisconsin sold at my nearest Wal-Mart. You know, keeping it close to home.

Our town, though, has other plans. For some reason the roads are marred by gridlock in every direction. What should be a five-minute drive from school to the grocery stores is turning into a much longer excursion; something I absolutely do not have time for. As I tap the steering wheel while feelings of anxiety start bursting from my chest up to my throat, I start to become the worst version of myself. I label everyone around me as a selfish jerk for getting in my way when I have plans to attend to — which is exactly what a selfish jerk would say. Eventually I finally get through the first of six traffic lights in a half-mile span, but my car can only travel a few feet before I have to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting the gray SUV in front of me, which stops short for no apparent reason (at least that’s what I tell myself to justify my annoyance). When looking out the window, I immediately recognize where my car is: I am now idling on the exact opposite side of the road from where my car got totaled the night before our wedding.

This realization brings me back to reality. Today is supposed to be a celebration. It’s supposed to mark the coming of longer days while expressing gratitude for our friendships; not throwing a temper tantrum because I missed a few lights and other people also have places to be. The absurdity and immaturity of my mood are now too obvious to ignore. Letting go of the wheel, I close my eyes for a moment and take a few slow, deep breaths. Apologizing to no-one in particular, I vow to relax and enjoy the moment, annoying as it may seem. It’s just traffic, and a few months ago an accident could have prevented me from even being alive to experience sitting at this intersection. This, right here, is a miracle. Appreciate it, I tell myself.

As if on cue, once my mind relaxes and my mood softens, the traffic begins to clear up. Within just a few minutes I’m walking around the local farmers’ market surrounded by kind people providing nourishment for their community. The blood-pressure spike I just put my body through seems ridiculous now that I’m exactly where I planned to be, and only a few minutes later than expected.

Upon returning from the grocery shopping I feel a joy that doesn’t normally hit me in the middle of a workweek. I am stoked to see my friends and to open our home. While preparing the meals, I take time to both be in the moment, reflect on the winter so far, and consider what lies ahead. At this point in the year I feel like I’ve disappeared to an extent. Holed up in my little nest, working on my projects, forgetting to call friends and family with my usual frequency. But this hideout has been necessary. I have been living more intentionally than I have in as long as I can remember. Most importantly, I have been enjoying a simple existence in our home in the presence of my beautiful wife. Slow and strenuous living are shining their first faint rays of light into my life.

And things, presumably, will only get better moving forward. The birds are coming back, and soon I will be woken up by the songs I desperately miss in the depths of the winter season. Days are getting noticeably longer, and the snow isn’t sticking for as long. Soon it will be warm and bright enough to embark on the adventures I have planned for spring and summer, in hopes of truly living life to the fullest. Things are finally settling into an effortless balance as the Earth moves towards the same. Sure, there will still be traffic and bad drivers (myself among them). There will be gloomy days and annoyances at work. And feelings of frustration will certainly arise. The key is that I have given myself time to assess what a balanced life can look like and am working on creating it in this darkness. Like the world outside my window, this beautiful reality is slowly coming into the light, as well as the bits of peace that come with it. This meal is the first outward sign of that growth.

The food comes out of the oven just as the doorbell rings — perfect timing. A delicious scent wafts through our home that feels like the equivalent of a warm hug. Unlike my drive to the grocery store, now a deep sense of peace overtakes what could have been a hectic situation. The smell of fresh food permeates the entire house, the pasta tastes exactly as I’d hoped, and we are all sharing the dishes that everyone brought on their own. While Gabby tells stories to our friends in the living room, I slip away to the kitchen for a few moments to plate the food and appreciate where we are. With everything that has happened over the past few months, all the death and near-death experiences, it feels so incredibly lucky to be in this space, right here, right now.

The night wares on under candlelight with laughter echoing throughout our home. We talk about life, plans for the summer, next steps and phases, and share childhood stories. I know I could have made it easier by ordering takeout for all of us to share, which would have been just fine. But sitting around a table together with a meal I put my heart into for the people that I love just hits differently — a benefit of the slow and strenuous life. It is a reminder of what truly matters, and that whatever stressors come from work or random circumstances are fleeting. Throughout everything we went through our friends were by our side, even in the worst times. Thankfully, tonight is certainly part of the best of times. Internally, I recognize this little feast as a quiet way to thank them for the help, support, and love they provided us through our most difficult days.

In the spirit of the celebration, I feel renewed in every sense of the word. Spring is coming with more light, color, flavors, and scents to enjoy. That will all be nice. But it is also nice to remember the joys we can create for ourselves even in the midst of the darkness.

The day after our ritualistic feast I take a stroll into our backyard and find solace under the branches of an eastern spruce, the only tree that holds its color amidst the dull landscape. Around the house I notice something I haven’t heard in months: birdsong. Suddenly it seems like there are dozens of birds all chirping away above me. I imagine what they are saying. Perhaps they are wondering who I am, or maybe they are commenting on the increasing light throughout the day. Most likely, they are probably shouting out some variation of, “Hey y’all, who wants to mate with this stud in a few weeks? I’m here and ready to party!”

As I emerge from under the warm embrace of the spruce something stops me in my tracks. Outside the spruce, unnoticed until now, are roughly a hundred little green plants shooting out from the frozen leaves covering the ground. The plants are as green as springtime and I cannot believe what I am seeing. Upon further investigation with my Seek app (which magically identifies plants with just a phone camera and some radically complex coding), it turns out these plants are in fact evergreens imported from Japan. Presumably these little guys have been in my backyard the entire winter, doing their thing, and yet this is the first time I am actually seeing them. All this time I spent griping about the gray days, and yet there has been a burst of beautiful, resilient color for me to take solace in the whole time, just beneath my gaze. I take a few more minutes to stare at the little miracles before returning to the cozy warmth of my home.

The Wheel of the Year is spinning, ever so slowly. And I am thrilled to finally be taking the time to notice.