Pagan / Earth spirituality question

[urbpan]

I know the various names for the days in between the equinoxes and solstices, but are there names for the half-seasons that occur within? Is there, for example, a different name for the part of spring that begins March 21st (or thereabouts) and comes to an end in a couple days to distinguish it from the time period that begins on the First of May

Comments

[kryptyd]

You can be pretty sure that a lot of these have pre-christian origins.
http://www.namenerds.com/irish/feastday.html
Sorry I don't have specifics. I know some Irish pagans and I could ask them for you. I'm pretty sure country people in Ireland would have vague oral traditions about this stuff too, though they probably would balk at the description of "pagan" and I wouldn't ask them about it in those terms. I'm sure old farming folk would have had a lot of these days. You might get them in a farming almanac.

Sorry for being vague. I lost my (vague even at stage) faith years ago.

[urbpan]

Thanks for this. That seemed to name just about every day of the month, whereas I'm looking for a list of 8 names, for the 8 half-seasons. I tried googling "the 8 seasons" and mostly came up with stuff about television. This is an interesting dilemma, I appreciate your resource.

[kryptyd]

Even AT that stage, I meant.

The limitations of google is a thing I'm constantly discovering myself these days. I'm going to ask my mate Katie for you, who is my go-to gal for all things mystical. She'd know. She's wise.

[kryptyd]

Katie, the witchy one, says:-

Didn't the bloody wiccans pluck festivals from every calendar to make 8 (sabbats) in total.

I can't remember what they all are exactly. But I remember being disgusted at how bastardised the Wiccan calendar looked. There were the Celtic festivals/equinoxes, plus some other unnecessary congestion (in my opinion)

Ill see if I can find something to remind myself what I'm on about

[lizziebelle]

I've been Pagan/Wiccan for more than half my life, and we've never had specific names for the seasons in that way. We just use the regular ol' spring-summer-autumn-winter thang. I'd be interested if you find anything out!

[urbpan]

I will definitely let you know if I learn anything! Seems really weird, since the neopagans have fifteen names for August first that there wouldn't be a name for the time period between August first and Autumnal Equinox. "Late Summer" doesn't carry any spiritual weight.

[kryptyd]

Sorry, I hope that I/we don't sound snobby. Of course modern wiccanism is "reconstructed" in many ways. I have a lot of respect for all kinds of paganism, even the types that have a certain amount of modern additions.

[kryptyd]

Obv you know this
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_the_Year

[urbpan]

Indeed I do, that's kind of my jumping off point. What's the word for the time period between Samhain and Yule? What do you call the time between Ostara and Beltane? (and so on)

I guess since our seasons in New England are so extreme, it seems very useful to me to break up the year in more-than-a-month less-than-a season units. Maybe I'm alone in that.