Sabbats: more than a moment in time

When is the actual date of the Sabbat?  What do I do if I can't do my ritual on that day?  Do I need to stay up all night or get up at dawn?  What if I only have five minutes?  Oh, no, I forgot, what do I do now?

We have a fixation on dates and times and deadlines in the modern world.  We have this concept that things have a 'right and proper' time, and that in order to honor them properly, we have to do it at that specific moment, or we aren't proper Pagans! 

And sure, there are some Sabbats that have a moment, a specific turning point or time which is the exact moment (equinoxes and solstices).  These Sabbats have a moment of most/least sun or perfect balance. 

Something can also be said for giving something more weight, more importance, by putting forth the effort to do things at a particular time or day. 

However, it's not worth beating ourselves up for!  It's not an all or nothing thing, in my book.  If you can make the specific time and day, and you feel it would be a form of dedication for you, then by all means, do it!  If, however, you really can not manage it, or it would make your ritual feel less like a devotion and more like an obligation, perhaps consider doing it at a time when you would feel the spirit of the celebration better.

I also think of the Sabbats like tides.  Sure, there are specific times for high and low tide, but we also accept that high tide refers to times when the water is higher than average (and the inverse for low tide).  While each Sabbat has specific things it represents, they are also markers of the changing seasons, being either the middle of or start of each of the four seasons.

And, they are definitely symbolic!  Most places in the world don't experience a clear division of the year into four distinct seasons.  The changing of seasons in your area might not line up with the Sabbat dates at all!  You might really only experience two or three proper seasons, or you may have seasons that last for very short periods of time.  If you are near the equator, you might not have a lot of seasonal change at all.

But as spiritual representations of the 'seasons' not only of the earth as a whole, but of our lives and of the year, we can celebrate the essence of the Sabbat, and benefit from the observation, even if we aren't celebrating on the specific day associated with the Sabbat.

In some ways, it makes more sense to spread out our celebrations out.  It helps us stay away from only experiencing our spirituality on specific 'holy' days, and instead bringing our spirituality into our daily life.  By doing smaller bits of ritual and Sabbat activities over the course of several days (or more!), we are working with that energy longer, and keeping our awareness on this time of year and what it means. 

I think it also allows us to take it in easier, allowing our minds time to digest what we are doing and internalize it instead of being overwhelmed.  It also helps us to fully focus on the one part we are doing right now, instead of trying to think ahead and make sure we are 'doing it all'. 

And specifically, in regards to hitting those exact times, if they interfere with our family life, our professional life or our health, I don't feel that I need to make those kind of sacrifices in order to practice my faith.  If a ritual suggests staying up all night, and I have to work the next day, that's not going to be good for me at all!  If the Sabbat happens at 5:23 on a Friday, but my son has an Orchestra performance, I am not going to miss his performance to hit that time mark.

I am very loose in my observance of time and ritual.  For me, it works much better to do rituals at a time when I can devote myself fully to them.  When I don't feel like I need to rush and finish, where I am not going to be interrupted or busy thinking about something else.

Sometimes this means I don't celebrate a Sabbat for several days after the 'actual' date.  Sometimes, this means I push it back even further, when something comes up, and the time I had planned to do my ritual is not longer serviceable.  I have made my peace with this, and have accepted that this doesn't make me any less of a devoted Pagan!

But I am recently also coming to the understanding that my Sabbat observations do not need to be done all at once!  This is sort of a big mental shift for me.  I grew up reading about these lovely, big group rituals, with pagentry, memorized parts, acted out plays (with costumes and props...) and cakes and ale.  Virtually every ritual was put forth as this big production, and getting set up, doing the actual ritual and then the after ritual celebration (not to mention journaling about it after all of that), would take hours, even on your own.

I still love the idea of these grand rituals, but realistically speaking, if I needed to do this for every Sabbat, I probably would only manage a few a year. 

Yet, there is nothing to stop me from breaking up my ritual into different parts on different days!  Or even doing multiple, smaller rituals, so that I can do all the things I wanted to do to honor that Sabbat, over the course of several days.

One of the easiest things to start with is setting up or decorating your altar.  I love the idea of changing my altar decorations to match the Sabbat. Not only does it help keep me grounded in the energy of the time (because my main altar is in the bedroom, I walk past it several times every day, and at the very least I see it in the morning when I wake and at night before I go to bed, so it is constantly being brought into my mind), but it brings me joy to break out my decorations and see what I am going to use to honor the season.

Often, altar decorating is listed as ritual preparation.  When you are ready to do a ritual, you gather up all your supplies, decorate your altar with the appropriate representations, do your purification and dive right into the ritual.  Why not have set your altar up ahead of time, especially if you are going to be leaving your seasonal decorations up after your ritual is over (and even if you are only using some items for one specific ritual, you can still set up your altar ahead of time, if it's better for you).

I also like to refresh my mind on the Sabbat and what it means.  While I am pretty familiar with them, I have a decent amount of notes, which often explore aspects or variations on the Sabbats, that I am not as familiar with.  Even if I am not planning on using any of those less common associations this year, I like reading them over.  I also enjoy reading articles about the Sabbat or resources that other people have shared online, again irregardless if it is something I think I will ever do myself, I enjoy seeing how other people experience the Sabbat.

Doing this over the course of the week leading up to the Sabbat not only allows me to let that information really sink in, so it's fresh in my mind when I do my own observations, but if I read something that inspires me, it gives me time to figure out how to add it into my own ritual, if I desire!  Plus, steeping myself in all the lore and information surrounding the Sabbat, really puts me in the proper mindset to honor and celebrate it!

I love Sabbat related crafts and activities.  And this is another thing that often takes up a big chunk of time!  Sometimes with times that you aren't actively doing something (waiting for things to dry, or simmer or heat/cool).  I have started looking at any involved crafts, and instead of actually doing the crafting as part of my ritual, I craft before and then bless my finished product, or I bless my ingredients and then craft after. 

This lets me tie it all together still, but in more manageable time chunks.  It also has the added benefit of allowing me to do messy craft things in the appropriate places, but do my ritual in a place that feels more special.  I'm not opposed to kitchen (or outdoor) rituals, but I also like being able to step away from it all, and create a private sanctuary...which isn't as easy for me to do in mess-friendly places (excepting the bathroom).

I think it is a bit of a change from how things have been done, but I think it offers a lot of flexibility in a world where many of us have so many responsibilities and different aspects of our lives that we are trying to weave together and make work.  When the whole community banded together, it made sense and worked to have one whole evening or day to celebrate, or to time your celebration to harness the exact moment of change, but since we don't live in that world anymore, we need to adapt and make our celebrations work for us.  And if that means you spread it out, there is no shame in that! 

If you find that trying to work a traditional Sabbat observance into your life is stressing you out, why not try breaking it up and doing different parts at different times?  Make it manageable, make it personal and make it work for you!