The Turning Year of the Veiled Moon

Seasonal observances and holidays are foundational to living spiritual traditions. They create shared moments in time that help anchor practice, memory, and meaning. Whether marked through ritual, gathering, reflection, or simple personal observance, these celebrations provide a rhythm that shapes both individual spiritual life and communal identity. They offer opportunities to pause, to mark change, to honor transitions, and to consciously step into the cycles of growth, decline, rest, and renewal that define both the natural world and human experience.

At My Cousin’s Coven, we honor the Sabbats as key points in the turning of the year, while also recognizing the importance of lunar rites and other sacred observances as distinct but related practices. In addition, our community often aligns Pagan holy days with broader cultural and seasonal celebrations where meaningful overlap exists. Yule may be observed alongside Christmas for many in our community. Samhain may coincide with Halloween. May Day traditions may naturally intertwine with Beltane. While these are the observances we tend to recognize and work with most often, they also reflect a wider, pan-Pagan seasonal language shared across many traditions, even where theology, symbolism, and practice may differ.

This page offers an overview of the major seasonal celebrations observed within MCC, providing a framework for understanding how the sacred year is marked, honored, and lived. These observances serve many purposes: supporting ritual work, strengthening community bonds, offering devotional structure, and helping individuals stay aligned with the deeper currents of the year. Practices and dates may vary by tradition, land, and local custom, and we encourage readers to adapt these observances in ways that honor their own place, lineage, and spiritual relationships. Whether approached through formal workings, shared gatherings, or personal reflection, seasonal celebrations remain a vital way of participating consciously in the living cycle of time.

The Ritual Year

The Living Cycle of Sacred Time

As with all seasonal observances, practices and timing may vary by land, climate, and tradition. We invite you to adapt what follows to your local environment and your own spiritual path.

Samhain – The Thinning of the Veil

Beginning of the Dark, Introspective mystery, engage with spirits and shadow work. Welcoming the Crone, Trick-or-Treat.

October 31-November 1

Yule — The Longest Night

Rebirth of the Sun, returning light, renewal and hope. A festival of hearth, evergreen, candlelight, and the promise that light and life will return.

December 20–23

Imbolc — The First Stirring

Purification, awakening, and new beginnings. A time of cleansing, dedication, and the first movements of spring beneath the soil. The spark of new life.

February 1–2

Ostara — The Spring Balance

Celebrating the balance of light and dark as the land awakens. A festival of seeds, eggs, flowers, and the expanding force of life.

March 19–22

Beltane — The Fires of May

Honoring balance and gratitude, the bounty and the hunt. A day of reckoning and remembrance, death and rebirth, thanks

April 30 – May 1

Litha — The Crown of the Sun

Honoring the Sun at its height and the fullness of life. A time for blessing, protection, and celebrating strength, growth, and radiant energy.

June 20–23

Lughnasadh – The Waning Sun

Prepare for the dark half of the year, harvest offerings such as corn dolls or sharing of loaves, first harvest and abundance

August 1-2

Mabon – The Harvest Moon

Honoring balance and gratitude, the bounty and the hunt. A day of reckoning and remembrance, death and rebirth, thanks

September 22

• Seasonal Rituals & Observances • Seasonal Altar Guides • The Turning of the Wheel • Ancestors & Seasonal Gates • Understanding the Sabbats

Other Common Pagan & Witch Observances

While the sabbats of the Wheel of the Year form the backbone of our ritual calendar, many witches and pagans also observe a wide range of additional holidays, feast days, remembrances, and personal rites. These observances often arise from cultural heritage, devotional practice, folk tradition, or modern pagan community life.

Within our coven, members may choose to recognize such days in ways that are meaningful to them, if at all. Many of these observances reflect centuries of cultural blending, where pagan, folk, and Christian traditions have become intertwined. What follows is offered as a living, flexible overview.

Pagan & Witch Observances Beyond the Sabbats

While the sabbats of the Wheel of the Year form the shared backbone of our coven’s ritual life, they are not the only days that shape how witches and pagans live and mark sacred time. Many practitioners also carry additional observances rooted in culture, ancestry, devotional relationships, folklore, and personal spiritual history.

These additional pagan and witch holidays are not universally practiced nor formally required within our coven. Rather, they reflect the wider, lived rhythms that naturally arise in a spiritual community — where heritage, family tradition, deity devotion, remembrance, folklore, and personal milestones all find their place.

Scholar’s note: Comparative religion and folklore studies consistently show that many seasonal observances across cultures cluster around the same agricultural, solar, and liminal thresholds, even when they are named, narrated, and theologized differently.

Folk Pagan Holidays & Cross-Cultural Seasonal Festivals+ open

These days often live in the overlap between folk culture, seasonal necessity, and inherited tradition. For many witches, they are not approached as formal rites, but as moments when the wider culture is already moving with the season — creating natural openings for hearth magic, blessing work, and quiet seasonal acknowledgment.

“The habit of a midwinter festivity had come by the dawn of history (and probably very long before) to seem a natural one to the British, and not one to be eradicated by changes of political or religious fashion.”
— Ronald Hutton, Stations of the Sun

They are especially powerful because they are communal: even those who do not identify as pagan are often participating in the same seasonal rhythms, creating shared psychic and cultural currents that witches may consciously work within.

Candlemas • May Day • Walpurgis Night • Midsummer Night • Saint John’s Eve • Michaelmas • Martinmas • All Saints & All Souls • Twelfth Night • Christmas • Saint Patrick’s Day

These observances are often held through food, fire, light, decoration, storytelling, and household rites — blending magic seamlessly into everyday seasonal life.

Celtic, Heathen & Druidry Pagan Feast Days+ open

These observances tend to emphasize ancestral continuity, land relationship, and culturally specific spiritual frameworks. Rather than generalized seasonal symbolism, they are often rooted in particular mythic, historical, and devotional lineages. For many practitioners, these days provide a way to honor their spiritual ancestors, cultural heritage, and the gods and spirits of specific lands — creating a deeper sense of belonging and continuity across generations.

Dísablót • Álfablót • Vetrnætr • Sigrblót • Alban Arthan • Alban Eilir • Alban Hefin • Alban Elfed

Such observances are often marked with offerings, feast meals, poetic or devotional recitation, ancestor honoring, and direct relationship with land spirits and local sacred places.

Deity Devotion, Polytheist & Earth-Centered Festivals+ open

For many polytheists and devotional witches, certain days are held not because of seasonal necessity, but because of relationship. These observances arise from living devotional bonds with particular gods, goddesses, and powers — as well as from reverence for the Earth itself as a sacred, living being.

“Devotion is not only prayer — it is attention, repetition, and the slow shaping of a life around a sacred relationship.”

These days often function as points of focused attention: times to make offerings, renew vows, deepen prayer, or consciously tend one’s relationship with a deity or spiritual force.

Nemoralia (Diana) • Saturnalia (Saturn) • Veneralia (Venus) • Thesmophoria (Demeter & Persephone) • Hekate’s Deipnon • Earth Day / Mother Earth Day

These observances are frequently layered over existing seasonal or lunar cycles, allowing devotion to weave naturally into the broader ritual year.

Faery, Fae & Otherworld Threshold Days+ open

In folklore, certain times of year are not only gateways for the dead, but also for the Otherworld — the realms of the fae, land spirits, and the Good Folk. These are moments when boundaries soften and movement between worlds is said to become easier. Many witches and folk practitioners approach these days with a mixture of reverence, caution, and curiosity. They may be marked through offerings, protective charms, avoidance of certain places, or intentional work with land spirits. These windows remind practitioners that the land itself is alive with unseen presences, and that not all spiritual relationships are human-centered.

Solar & Light-Return Traditions (Sol Invictus)+ open

Solar and light-return observances name explicitly what many seasonal festivals already imply: the sacred drama of light’s death and return. Sol Invictus, in particular, highlights the enduring human impulse to ritualize the rebirth of the sun at the darkest time of year.

“The rhythms of the year are timeless and impose certain patterns on calendar customs — to celebrate spring, to make merry in summer, and to draw close at fall.”
— Ronald Hutton, on the ritual year

For some witches and pagans, naming Sol Invictus provides a way to speak about ancient solar traditions beneath later religious overlays, honoring solar symbolism as part of a much older and wider seasonal heritage. These observances emphasize renewal, resilience, and the promise of returning light — themes that echo across cultures and millennia.

Ancestor, Spirit & Remembrance Days+ open

Ancestor days center relationship over calendar. They are less about fixed dates and more about the ongoing presence of those who came before — human and otherwise.

“The dead are not gone from the circle of life; they are woven into it, shaping the living through memory, story, and blood.”

These observances provide structured moments to tend memory, honor lineage, and maintain bonds with beloved dead. For many witches, ancestor work forms one of the deepest and most grounding aspects of spiritual practice. They are often marked with food, photographs, names spoken aloud, candles, and quiet acts of gratitude — weaving the dead gently into the life of the living.

Personal & Coven Milestone Rites+ open

These are the days that belong uniquely to a practitioner or community. They mark thresholds of identity, commitment, belonging, and transformation that cannot be found on any public calendar. Such observances often carry profound emotional and spiritual weight, serving as anchors of memory and intention. Over time, they become part of a coven’s living mythology — the story of how a group came to be, and what it continues to choose. Founder’s Day, in particular, honors origins, lineage, and shared purpose, offering space for reflection, gratitude, and renewed commitment to the values that hold a community together.

May these observances — whether widely shared, culturally inherited, or quietly personal — remind us that sacred time is not only a calendar we inherit, but a rhythm we cultivate: in the hearth, in the land, in our relationships, and in the many names by which the turning of the year is known.

The Sacred Ways

Paths of Practice and Tradition

Solar Sabbats

Discover the significance and customs of the eight Solar Sabbats celebrated throughout the year.

Explore

Lunar Practices

Uncover esoteric lunar traditions that guide spiritual growth and reflection in the coven.

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Pagan Traditions

Learn about diverse pagan customs from cultures around the world and their unique celebrations.

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