Ok so I'm sat here listening to Beltane by Jethro Tull (no witty comments about my music tastes please )

The first lines got me thinking

"Have you ever stood in an april wood and called the new year in?"

Got me thinking as to when people celebrate new year. I mean there's obviously the new year on the Gregorian calendar, which I do celebrate. Also to me Beltane and Samhain are the major festivals. To me they're kinda both new year, Beltane marks the begining of the light half of the year (or the death of the dark half) and Samhain the opposite. I have to say though that Samhain is "new year". Death and rebirth and all of that good stuff. Someone pressing the giant cosmic reset button. Everything ends, everything begins.

Anyone else view new year at a different time?

My new year starts when I can see the first signs of growth, it doesn't necessarily tie in with any calendar date - tends to be at the start of March

Thats another good one I hadn't thought of

I'm not a great observer of festivals in geneal. I see around me that nothing happens at the same time, death and birth especially. It's happening all the time to everything and new growth is happening all the time too. Because of this the idea of the New year separate from the sun and moon cycles has always mystified me.
So more or less like Pomona, when new life in such large quantities as we get here bursts forth then i tend to acknowledge it and celebrate it, but usually when i feel it personally when the birth part is over. Don't know if that makes sense.

yep Woozle, makes perfect sense, I guess the question should be do you judge it by astrological observances or happening in the world around you?

Whenever you like.

For me personally, I suppose it's Samhain, on the same principle as the Day starting at sunset. But I can't be arsed to be doctrinaire about it. Tomorrow is New Years Day for the next Current Year, if you like. If you say it's Bealtaine, that's fine with me, I won't argue, and if you say it's Imbolc, I won't argue there either.

The year is a circle or a spiral, and neither of those have an obvious beginning. It's a convention, is all. And we don't exactly have a consensus. Any date you say is fine by me. Barring 29th February.

I almost have tweo times. I really start to feel like its a new year when the first flower like crocus's and daffodils start coming through but i celebrate it on samhain but on the astrological date rather than the 31st ie when the sun reaches 15 degrees in scorpio

Hahaha, so true, I remember going to mates 5th birthday, he was born on the 29th!

I feel that the year is kind of divided into two. I sort of give myself 2 "fresh starts" or periods of planning. I see the Solstices as my main festivals so one is at Litha, and one is at Yule. That's how my head works anyway.

Practically my husband sees it as Samhain so our family year begins then. His family aren't Pagans and celebrate on January 1st so if we're there we'd join in and we usually give them a call if not.

My new year is November 2nd - the festival of the dead in Vodou. Sort of like Samhain but with more rum.

October 15th (my birthday) to Hallowe'en. October 15th is the end of the year, when I consider what has happened in the year that's past. October 31 is the beginning of the year, the night to think about the future and what I want to try to make happen, and what I cannot possibly predict. I have no problem with the fact that there are two weeks between.

Of course the calendar year starts when the calendar year starts, and I pay attention to that, but I'm really not very celebratory then. Unfortunately it's been a bit difficult since I started being a social creature to fine the time to really celebrate on Hallowe'en-- year before last we had to go to a club to check out the stage we'd be playing on two weeks later, last year was my friends' goth night and my fiance and I had just announced our engagement, and this year I'm working the door at a club that night, so I can't even go in late. But, sokay, I will figure it out.

My New Year festivals are solitary. Perhaps this is something to do with the fact that I am basically an introvert, and winter is the season of introspection for me, so I am celebrating the coming of the coolness and dark after the noise and heat and activity of summer.

Various different times, depending on context.

Calan Gaeaf/Samhain is the date I regard as being the beginning of the religious year.

January 1st is the start of the secular year.

April 1st is the start of the new year in work.

Funnily enough though, the time of year when I actually feel "new-yearish" is round about September time - must be the eternal student in me!

Have the same problem with when the day actually starts, too.

Although officially the day starts at midnight, mine doesn't and I suspect yours doesn't either.

Can never quite make my mind up about whether the day starts when I get up in the morning or when I come home from work in the evening and switch from work mode to life mode!

gwyn eich byd

Ffred

I tend to think of time and the seasons as being cyclical rather than linear, and so having a 'beginning' or 'ending' seems like an artificial construct. For simplicity's sake though, I regard the new year as starting when the first signs of renewed life appear at the end of winter. Too simplistic to say at Imbolc, the way the weather is becoming, if Imbolc were celebrated to mark the first snowdrops for example, you could well find yourself doing it straight after Yule!

The Winter & Summer solstice for me, the Waxing & Waning Year

Depends on what part of me you ask.

Most of me considers Jan 1st to be the start of the new year. Yeah yeah.. not very pagan but "do I look bovered?"

If you ask my internal clock... well its when the light starts to change, which is usually around spring. It moves from being that soft winter gold to the bright white light of the spring.. thats usually when my inner clock goes "boing".

If you mean the circle of the year then, to quote Charles Fort, "One measures a circle starting anywhere"

In regard to the seasons I usually just wake up one day and feel Springish and enjoy the feeling. I don't celebrate it as such.

New year however is mid January or whenever i naturally remember the date has changed without having to go and change things

I generally go by the solstices. In my religious calendar there are only two seasons.

I usually go by the solstices.,as well but i like the sound of "the festival of the dead in Vodou." anything that calls for more rum is fine with me

Samhain. With uisge beatha, naturally!

You mean uisce beatha?

Either way it's a strange way to spell bobbing for apples

24th December, at the end of the "dark days". Its an agarian thing with me. I live out in the pampas.

For me personally (and nothing to do with any religious cycle, as I'm not sure when the official new year of Heathenry might be) it begins when the Blackthorn blossoms, and culminates when i see the Hawthorn. But, if pushed, I'd say the Blackthorn.



I've always had problems with which part of the year presaged new life. If I got by the pastoral, rather than the agrarian, cycle, then wouldn't it begin in January, when the new lambs appear?

My year ends at Halloween, and then there is a time of 'no time', of resting and sleeping. The year begins to awaken again on the Winter Solstice (with a lot of partying between then and the calendar New Year), becoming fully awake around Candlemas when the trees, plants and animals begin to come out of hibernation.

Rhiannon

This is one of those complex ones... as in which bit of me are you asking.

Secular is Jan 1st
I also get sucked into Samhian celibrations with a few friends,
Then there is the School year starting in Sept
and the tax year in April - something I have to keep an eye on due to being a sole trader.

I am not a gret follower of the 'classic' 8 wheel festivals more marking the changes of seasons as I see them. And as a result I don't really have a new year and if I did it would not be a fixed calander date.
I do though tend to celibrate the start of new life in spring and as part of that do a spring clean / house protection / dedication thing. I also mark the the change of leaves and leaf fall, the first frostAnd various other markers shown by the seasons... any one of these could be my 'new year'.

Be bright, be bold
Fillionous

I have difficulty knowing what year it is, can usually think it through because it is in the world around me on newspapers and TV but I don't see much of either. Easier to walk into the kitchen and look at the calendar then I notice the month and wonder when I last turned the page over.

I live in the bush so I know if it is cold or getting colder etc. by nature, not that I have any great witchy cyclical awareness or agrarian timing either. It is still weird being transplanted UK to Aus., can get a sort of shudder got through me at times as something doesn't feel quite right! One day though I will just feel the greening or the local birds' behaviour or find a puddle of warmth to sit in and at some point know it is a new year and that usually makes me smile. Grateful too. I suppose that is a celebration!

Most of us just use water to bob for apples.

But now you mention it...

gwyn eich byd

Ffred

93
My new year starts on March 20 at the Equinox of the Gods.
This is the anniversary of the beginning of the Aeon of Horus which started in 1904ev.
93 93/93

I have 2, the magikal one starts / ends at Samhain, then theres the ordinary one everyone else has too 31st dec.

My other one is fast approaching. Tis the Scottish "Teachers' New Year" and happens on Friday 27th when the term ends!

All the Glasgow pubs are awash with ratarsed teachers!

OK, but what do you do to make it different from any other Friday night?

Was going to write this, but you beat me to it, CS


Minty. xx

me too,i always feel newyearish at the beggining of september,it just reminds me of skipping off to school with my new satchel when i was a kid