212 | The Wheel of the Year 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Seasonal Living

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In this solo episode of Wild & Waking, I’m sharing a beginner-friendly introduction to the Wheel of the Year - a seasonal calendar shaped by the solstices, equinoxes, ancient traditions, and natural rhythms of the Earth. After spending the past year learning about and experiencing each seasonal celebration for myself, I’m walking you through all eight sabbats: Mabon, Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, and Lughnasadh.

As a farm wife living in rural Illinois, so much of the Wheel feels deeply familiar: planting, growth, harvest, release, dormancy, and beginning again. It offers a framework for noticing what is happening in nature and considering how those same cycles are unfolding within our motherhood, work, creativity, relationships, identities, and personal evolution.

This episode is an invitation into seasonal living, nature-based spirituality, and a more intentional relationship with time without requiring elaborate rituals or any particular spiritual identity. The Wheel of the Year reminds us that nature doesn’t bloom all year, and neither do we. There are seasons for beginning, growing, gathering, releasing, grieving, resting, and waiting for the first spark to return.

In this episode, The Wheel of the Year 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Seasonal Living, I cover:

• What the Wheel of the Year is and how its eight seasonal sabbats connect us with the natural rhythms of the Earth

• The solstices, equinoxes, and ancient Gaelic festivals that form the modern Pagan calendar

• A beginner-friendly overview of Mabon, Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, and Lughnasadh

• The history, folklore, themes, symbols, colors, foods, rituals, and seasonal intentions associated with each sabbat

• How modern traditions overlap with ancient seasonal customs

• Which familiar Wheel of the Year names, stories, and traditions are ancient, modern, or a blend of both

• Simple ways to honor each seasonal threshold without elaborate rituals, expensive supplies, or claiming a particular spiritual identity

• How seasonal living and nature-based spirituality can deepen our relationship with the Earth, our intuition, and the passage of time

• What the cycles of planting, growth, harvest, release, dormancy, and rebirth can teach us about motherhood, creativity, identity, and personal evolution

• Why we were never meant to bloom, produce, expand, or feel the same in every season

If this episode resonated, please share it to a friend, on socials, or shoot me a DM! I absolutely love continuing the conversation beyond the mic!

Wheel of the Year Resources:

If you’d like to explore the Wheel of the Year more deeply, these are a few of the resources I used and recommend:

• The Wheel of the Year: An Illustrated Guide to Nature’s Rhythms by Fiona Cook and Jessica Roux — A beautifully illustrated, family-friendly introduction to the eight seasonal celebrations, with stories, meditations, scavenger hunts, crafts, recipes, rituals, and simple ways to connect with nature throughout the year.

• Llewellyn’s Sabbat Essentials Box Set — A collection of eight books—one for each sabbat—offering a deeper look at the history, lore, rituals, recipes, crafts, correspondences, prayers, and traditions associated with Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh, Mabon, Samhain, Yule, and Imbolc.

• Your Spacious & Seasonal Year by Ashley Burnett, with contributions from Lela Shields — A beautiful guide and workbook for living more intentionally alongside nature’s rhythms, featuring seasonal rituals, reflections, recipes, and practices designed to bring greater connection, meaning, spaciousness, and joy to everyday life.

• Demystify Magic Podcast — A grounded, approachable podcast exploring magic and spirituality in ways that feel practical and accessible. Their Wheel of the Year holiday deep dives are especially helpful if you want to learn about each sabbat individually as it arrives.

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Emily is a speaker, facilitator, and host of the Wild & Waking podcast, creating spaces for women to unravel conditioning, reconnect to their truth, and rise in alignment with who they’re becoming.

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Related Episodes:

• Episode 158 | You Are Nature: Reclaiming Your Rhythm Through the Sacred Cycles of Body, Moon & Earth

• Episode 173 | Embracing the Dark Half of the Year: Rest, Reflection, and the Wisdom of Wintering

About Wild & Waking: 

Wild & Waking is more than a podcast—it’s a sacred return to who you’ve always been.

This space is for the woman standing at the edge of everything she’s outgrown. The one who’s checked all the boxes, followed all the rules, and still feels the quiet ache for something more honest. More alive. More hers.

She’s begun the unraveling—of roles, expectations, identities that no longer fit. She’s remembering the voice beneath the noise, the rhythm beneath the hustle, the truth beneath the performance. She’s reclaiming her joy, her intuition, her fire. And she’s rising—not as a version of who she was told to be, but as the truest expression of who she already is.

Hosted by soul expansion coach Emily Reuschel, Wild & Waking is for the spiritual entrepreneurs, coaches, rural changemakers, and conscious leaders dismantling old paradigms and creating new ways of living, leading, and becoming. Through raw conversations, deep reflections, and embodied wisdom, we explore what it means to awaken a life of abundance, authenticity, and purpose.

This is for the woman who holds both sacred rage and radical joy. Who moves with reverence for the seasons of her life. Who isn’t afraid to break cycles, speak truth, and dismantle what no longer serves—not to destroy, but to create. To rebuild a world rooted in the celebration of difference, the beauty of nuance, and the power of sovereign, embodied leadership.

If you’re ready to come home to yourself—fully, fiercely, and without apology—welcome.

We’ve been waiting for you.

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