Pagan Portals - Rounding the Wheel of the Year: Celebrating the Seasons in Ritual, Magic, Folklore and Nature

Every month is full of magic, each day has its own energy, and the seasons rotate as part of the cycles of nature. Pagan Portals - Rounding the Wheel of the Year looks at ways to honour each month with folkloric customs, herb and plant lore, traditional crafts, spells, visualisations, and pagan rites that go beyond the eight festivals of Imbolc, Spring Equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lammas, Autumn Equinox, Samhain, and Winter Solstice. The wheel of the year turns smoothly, it doesn't bump over eight cogs, and that's the meaning of the title of this book. Inside these pages you will find the history behind some much-loved folklore and modern pagan customs, as well as practical suggestions for ways to celebrate the turning of the year.

About the Author :
Lucya Starza is an eclectic witch living in London, England, with her husband and cats. She writes A Bad Witch's Blog at www.badwitch.co.uk and is the author of Pagan Portals - Candle Magic, Pagan Portals - Poppets and Magical Dolls and Pagan Portals - Guided Visualisations. She edited the community book Every Day Magic - A Pagan Book of Days and also contributed to Weathering the Storm, Naming the Goddess, Essays in Contemporary Paganism and Paganism 101.

Review :
In writing Rounding the Wheel of the Year Lucya Starza brings into focus the idea that magic pervades the entire year, every day, and it does just not just aggregate into eight isolated clusters, eight bulges spread on the circumference of a wheel. Through the research material, stories, and the materials offered for practical purposes, the author conveys not only the message, but the feeling that celebrations follow along seasonal changes rather then with the dates set in the calendar. An eclectic practitioner herself, Starza proposes ideas to suit a broad audience: her book is thus not a simple collection of rituals from a variety of traditions, but a complex resource meant to assist everyone interested in personalizing their spiritual practice and harmonize with the flow of seasonal energies. In writing Rounding the Wheel of the Year, Lucya Starza weaves together style, practicality, and thorough research. Right from beginning, the book debunks the myth of Wheel of the Year as an ancient, pan-Celtic tradition; instead, the author documents the modern origins by tracking back the sources that lead to the emerging of a Wheel of the Year concept, cycle made up of eight holy days. In explaining how appreciation of source materials have changed overtime, the author highlights people's changing relationship with the Wheel of the Year as a concept. This is a book for the individual as much as it is a book for the whole family: aside from bits of lore that reference deities and spirits related to seasons, the “Rounding the Wheel of the Year” is filled with delightful meditations, arts and crafts ideas, and activities to keep the joy alight every single day– whatever the time of the year.