Pictured: wheel of the year/seasons
The following is a mishmash of several sources about the cyclic nature of paganism in world, then a video on the religious reincarnation in paganism.
http://www.isle-of-avalon.com/pagan.htmhttps://paganfed.org/index.php/paganism/pf-wheel-of-the-yearPagans revere the cycles of Nature through rituals or ceremonies of various kinds. Pagans of the western traditions celebrate up to eight festivals or Sabbats each year (not all Pagans celebrate all of them). They comprise the four solar quarters i.e. the two solstices (longest and shortest days) and the two equinoxes (day and night are the same length) plus four Celtic 'fire' festivals. All these mark important events in the cycle of life and also symbolise changes in the Goddess and God. They are:
Samhain - 31st October (pronounced Sow-in):
The Wheel of the Year is seen to begin at Samhain, which is also known as Hallowe'en or All Hallows Eve. This is the Celtic New Year, when the veil between the worlds of life and death stands open. Samhain is a festival of the dead, when Pagans remember those who have gone before and acknowledge the mystery of death. As Pagans we celebrate death as a part of life.
Yule - 21st December (archaic form Geola, pronounced Yula):
Yule is the time of the winter solstice, when the sun child is reborn, an image of the return of all new life born through the love of the Gods. The Norse had a God Ullr, and within the Northern Tradition Yule is regarded as the New Year.
Imbolc - 2nd February:
Imbolc, also called Oimelc and Candlemas, celebrates the awakening of the land and the growing power of the Sun. Often, the Goddess is venerated in her aspect as the Virgin of Light and her altar is decked with snowdrops, the heralds of spring.
Spring Equinox - 21st March:
Now night and day stand equal. The Sun grows in power and the land begins to bloom. By Spring Equinox, the powers of the gathering year are equal to the darkness of winter and death. For many Pagans, the youthful God with his hunting call leads the way in dance and celebration. Others dedicate this time to Eostre the Anglo- Saxon Goddess of fertility.
Beltane - 30th April:
The powers of light and new life now dance and move through all creation. The Wheel continues to turn. Spring gives way to Summer's first full bloom and Pagans celebrate Beltane with maypole dances, symbolizing the mystery of the Sacred Marriage of Goddess and God.
Midsummer - 21st June:
At summer solstice is the festival of Midsummer, sometimes called Litha. The God in his light aspect is at the height of his power and is crowned Lord of Light. It is a time of plenty and celebration.
Lughnasadh - 1st August (pronounced Loo-nassa):
Lughnasadh, otherwise called Lammas, is the time of the corn harvest, when Pagans reap those things they have sown; when they celebrate the fruits of the mystery of Nature. At Lughnasadh, Pagans give thanks for the bounty of the Goddess as Queen of the Land.
Autumn Equinox - 21 September:
Day and night stand hand in hand as equals. As the shadows lengthen, Pagans see the darker faces of the God and Goddess. For many Pagans, this rite honours old age and the approach of Winter.
Samhain - 31st October:
The Wheel turns and returns to Samhain, the festival of the dead, when we face the Gods in their most awesome forms. This is not a time of fear, but a time to understand more deeply that life and death are part of a sacred whole.
This wheel is sometimes called the Gardnerian Wheel because it is a combination of two ancient wheels (acknowledgements to Kenny Klein). The hunting wheel, the oldest, has two God births: The Oak King is born at midsummer and rules through to Yule when he dies and the Holly King is born. The agricultural wheel has the young God born at Ostara, symbolic of the sun/son rising in the East. He dies in the second harvest, Mabon.
>Christian linearity and Pagan CyclismHere Augustine pontificates on the differences between religious views on history. Note; he attempts to debunk Pagan cyclicism:
>All these words depict history as a continuous process as distinct from the cyclical view prevalent at that time. Karl Lowith, a distinguished theologian of history, acknowledges the Christian view of history as the innovation against the classical cyclism. It is only the breakthrough by the Christian view of history that makes possible the necessary condition for a philosophy of history.28 Ancient people influenced by the eternal rotation of the natural world tend to understand the world as a cycle of life and death. History is likewise a cycle of ascent and decline, of progress and regress. Man is caught in this vicious cycle and is at the mercy of the course of history. It is Augustine who boldly refutes this cyclical view of history in De Civitate Dei:"But what wonder if these men run in their circular error, and find no way forth, seeing they neither know mankind's origin nor his end, being not able to pierce into God's depths, who being eternal, and without beginning, yet gave time a beginning, and made man in time whom He had not made before, yet not now makes He him by any sudden motion, but as He had eternally decreed?" Therefore the concept of creation completely negates the idea of recurrence and the eternity of the world. This world has a definite beginning and end that is destined by God. Augustine goes on to caricature those men as Psalms 12:8 describes, "the wicked walk in a circuit". The roots of this linear conception of history can be traced back to the Old Testament prophets who strongly emphasis the sovereignty of Yahweh over the history of mankind. But it was Augustine who first elaborated this concept fully and produced a theology of history worthy of this name. Thus Augustine determined the whole course of development of the philosophy of history throughout the Middle Ages and continued to exert his influence down to the present day.