Depicting the eight Pagan holidays or Sabbaths, the Wheel of the Year is laid out as a traditional wooden wheel. Each pie-shaped section is a carved representation of a particular holiday. The Quarters: Yule, Ostara, Midsummer, and Mabon focus mainly on the movement of the sun and contain alchemical symbols for the seasons. Each of the Cross Quarters: Samhain, Imbolg, Beltane, Lughnasadh feature one of the four tools and portrays the transition of our relationship to the Earth as the year progresses. Zodiac signs depict the movements of the stars throughout the year and illustrate how they relate to the holidays.

Artist's Note:
Carving this piece taught me a great deal about the pagan holidays. When I designed the wheel of the year, I made sure the equinoxes and solstices balanced each other aesthetically. However, I designed the cross quarter days of Samhain, Imbolg, Beltane and Lughnasadh were all designed separately. I didn't really try to balance them or make them fit together in any way. I was well into carving the project when I realized how these four designs still connected with and balanced each other.

I carved Beltane first because that design seemed obvious, a man and a woman dancing the maypole. Carving Samhain proved much more difficult. Everything I came up with seemed like a cheesy ad for Halloween. Finally, I gave up and settled on an image that was relevant to me personally, ensuring that at least one person would be happy. The design depicts the symbolic marriage between the goddess Morrigan, represented by the cauldron and the Dagda, represented by the stang or forked staff; this is a union I always celebrate at Samhain. Okay, so a very Halloweeney Jack o’ Lantern still made it in there. What I didn't expect was that when the Samhain image was placed opposite the Beltane image, the stang seemed to run right through the ground and come out on the other side as the Maypole, creating a sort of central axis through the earth. This was entirely unintentional.

Lughnasadh’s image, that of two figures holding up a loaf of bread to the rays of the sun, was simple to create. When placed opposite to the image of Imbolg, however, the sun's rays seemed to run right through the center of the wheel and come out of the fire, illuminating two other figures holding up Bridget's cross, which like the bread, is made of wheat. This balance was also unintentional.

Overall, I tried to depict the solstices and equinoxes as natural events of the earth and sky. The cross quarter days are, to me, about human experience. As I look at the piece, it strikes me that the solstices, together with Imbolg and Lughnasadh, seem to be all about light; the equinoxes, together with Samhain and Beltane are all about the earth. --PB

Copyright © 2007-2008 Images by artist Paul Borda