Celtic Wheel of Life
The Celtic Wheel of Life is a map of our cyclical nature, from the shortest experiential cycle of the breath, to the longest experiential cycle of our life, and the cycles of the day, month and seasons in between. By overlapping these sacred rhythms and cycles of life, we can better understand who we are and how to live more in rhythm with our body, the earth and the cosmos.
Celtic Wheel of Life 2.0 (webpage) by Brenda RyanWorking with the Celtic Wheel of Life returns our worldview from linear to cyclical, restores our embodied connection to nature, and realigns us with the sacred rhythms of reality.
Brenda Ryan
Our modern industrial world and its education system propagates the perception that we are linear, mechanical beings, who’s meaning and purpose is found through activities of trade and commerce. We are expected to be at a somewhat constant level of productivity, and if we achieve this perceived “norm” we are validated as being “successful”. But the truth is we are not linear, mechanical beings, destined for continuous productivity until we die. We can see all around us, this model of linear reality and relentless “growth” (and so-called “progress”) is not serving humanity or the planet we live on. We are more stressed, depressed and anxious than ever before, living on a planet that we are trashing and destroying. We have lost meaning and true direction in our lives, and are literally killing ourselves (suicide), each other (homocide, genocide) and the earth (ecocide). The symptoms clearly imply there is something extremely out of balance in our current industrial model. The cause of this insanity is that we’ve severed ourselves from the natural flow of life. We have become dangerously stagnant and disembodied because we have cut ourselves off from the flow of cyclic reality.
As we can see in the Celtic Wheel of Life, the rhythm of life at all levels include phases of creativity, productivity, and doing – yes. But this is only one of 4 phases or seasons. Of equal importance, there are the seasons of rest, dreaming and being; exploration, risk-taking and play; reflection, releasing and dissolution. These 4 phases together create an integrated system of sustainable, regenerative, and flourishing living, in balance with itself and all life. The ancients knew this. They knew we were not linear machines, but cyclical beings. That is why there are circles and spirals etched into the oldest of our temples and sacred sites on this planet.
As a society, we hyper focus on the inner and outer seasons of growth, productivity, and doing: the masculine or yang qualities of life, while the feminine or yin qualities of life are minimized if not altogether sidelined: decay, rest, and being. No wonder we live with dysregulated nervous systems.
We live in a world that believes in perpetual Spring and Summer, while actively denying the cycle phase equivalents of Autumn and Winter. We resist maturity and old age, trying to remain youthful at all costs. We have little value for the elders, sidelining them in our community. Death and dissolution of any type are denied and seen as the opposite of life, and is our main driving fear. We have literally demonized the dark phase of our natural cycles.
These attitudes are reflected in our menstrual cycle too. We taboo aspects of our female monthly cycle not associated with radiant fertility and abundant energy, namely the pre-menstrual (Inner Autumn) phase, and most definitely our menstrual (Inner Winter) phase. However, these are the very parts of our cycle where we have the most opportunity to journey inwards, deepen into wisdom and connect with our own inner guidance.
The denial and repression of these parts of our life cycle and menstrual cycle has created a highly imbalanced and dangerously immature society. We do not value the journey into elderhood and deepening wisdom. Our society remains devoid of wise leadership as a result. And as women, we have lost personal leadership in our own life by denying the parts of our monthly cycle that hold the greatest keys for insight, visioning and truly knowing ourselves.
Reclaiming our cyclic nature, reestablishing our initiatory journey of embodied wisdom, and reintegrating ourselves back into the fabric of nature is the revolution our world needs.
Brenda Ryan
Reclaiming the fullness of who we are as cyclic beings is indeed a revolutionary act. It is an act against the industrial model of reality, against the controlling patriarchy, but most of all is it an act of self-care for ourselves and one of the biggest gifts you can gift the world at this time. It is true “progress”, and the medicine we and our world needs at this crucial time of transition.
Priestesses of the Spiral Path
The Celtic Wheel of Life is a guide to living the sacred spiral path of the priestess, where we, as women, reclaim our feminine spiritual path of cyclic living, reestablish our initiatory journey towards embodied wisdom, and reintegrate ourselves back into the fabric of nature.
Join Our Priestess Facebook Community
You are invited to join our Priestesses of the Spiral Path online community, as we traverse this sacred wheel together, and share how working with our menstrual cycle, the cycle of the seasons, and the cycles of our lives including the powerful female archetypes, can transform our relationship with ourselves and the world around us, and is vital medicine for these times we are living in.
Gather In Our Priestess Circles
Deepen your journey with the rhythms and cycles of life by joining our Priestesses of the Spiral Path Women’s Circles here in Austin, Texas or online via zoom. Our circles follow the cycles of the seasons and the Irish Celtic Wheel of the Year. We gather on the Wednesdays closest to the Celtic festivals throughout the year, and explore the transformational themes of each season as we journey through them together on this sacred spiral path. Circle themes include working with the Divine Feminine in the form of powerful Irish Goddesses, and are anchored in a sense of place within the ancient Irish landscape. Visit our women’s circle page to RSVP for our latest gathering!
Let’s Collaborate on Events, Retreats & Pilgrimages
I would love to co-create powerful, potent and transformative events and retreats both here in the US and in Ireland based on the Divine Feminine themes within the Celtic Wheel of Life. I’d also love to lead transformative pilgrimages home to Ireland visiting the sacred sites aligned with the Celtic Wheel of Life.
My Journey Creating The Celtic Wheel of Life
My work with the Divine Feminine and the rediscovery of my own Irish Celtic and preCeltic wisdom traditions have led me on this profound journey of exploring the sacred rhythms and cycles of life. I’m fascinated with how the various cycles of our life and the rhythms of nature overlap, and how all these patterns can inform us in how we live our lives in a more natural, balanced and flourishing way.
In 2020 I embarked on a Journey of Young Women girls mentorship course, which introduced me to a deeper way of thinking about the cycles of life, especially the menstrual cycle. This understanding went much deeper a few months later when I opened the glorious pandora’s box of menstrual cycle awareness through The Red School’s paradigm-shifting Wild Power book. Here, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer connect the energies of each of the 4 menstrual cycle phases to the seasons of the year, with menstruation being the energy equivalent of Winter and ovulation being equivalent to Summer. My worldview changed with this insight, and set me on the path of reorienting my life to live more in tune with the cycles in my body and the rhythms of the world around me.
“As a woman you are coded for power, and the journey to realizing the fullness and beauty of that power – your Wild Power – lies in the rhythm and change of your menstrual cycle.” – Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power
In 2021 my growing call to the Divine Feminine path led me to an Irish Celtic and preCeltic wisdom community called Moon Mná (“Moon Women” in Irish) led by Dr. Karen Ward. I signed up for their 13 month online course on facilitating Women’s Irish Celtic Circles, and started facilitating women’s circles soon after. What a powerful full circle spiritual journey – after all my soul seeking adventures out East, to return to the heart of my own indigenous culture, and to the embracing depths of the Irish Celtic and preCeltic goddesses, lore and wisdom. Tuning into the rhythm of the Irish Celtic Wheel of the Year has brought me a much deeper sense of connection to the natural world. It has been particularly exciting to work on mapping the menstrual cycle phases to the Celtic Wheel of the Year, deepening my understanding of both cycles, and informing my path towards more aligned, organic and cyclical living.
Throughout this exploration, my husband and I were and continue to be avid followers of the work of unified physicist Nassim Haramein and the Resonance Science Academy. Engaging in their monthly zoom calls and Q&As, we found Nassim’s scaling law and discoveries on the holo-fractal nature of reality truly captivating. He and his team are literally writing the math proving that the nature of physical existence is comprised of sets of repeating patterns and geometries that hold true at every scale – from the very smallest (quantum scale) to the very largest (universal scale). From Nassim’s ground-breaking work, I understood that overlapping all the various patterns and cycles of our lives, and finding direct relationships between them all, at all levels, was not some kind of poetic or metaphorical exploration, but a scientific reality. The cycles of nature simply have to mirror themselves, resonating the same pattern from the smallest to the largest scale. It’s not a coincidence that they repeatedly tell the same story. It simply is how things are. This is the structure of our natural world.
The keys and codes for life are not hidden. They are not some elusive teaching we have to seek. They are everywhere, all around, and within – built into the very fabric and flow of life itself.
Brenda Ryan
With this awareness, I was on a mission to layer as many cycles and aspects of nature with each other as possible to uncover what the earth, our bodies and the cosmos are trying to communicate to us. Our breath cycle, the daily circadian rhythm, the life cycle of plants, and our own life cycle as humans mapped seamlessly with each other and overlaid profoundly with the lunar, menstrual and solar cycles of our month and year. I also overlaid these cycles with the 4 directions, the 4 elements, and related chakras, creating what I now call “The Celtic Wheel of Life.” Continue to scroll down for more in depth discussion on the Celtic Wheel of Life.
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Let’s Connect
I would love to hear any thoughts, insights or feedback you may have on this ever-evolving Celtic Wheel of Life, as well as any ideas on collaborations. I’m happy to discuss it more in-depth and share about it with your community.
5200 Year Old Sacred Site of Newgrange, Co. Meath, Ireland
Celtic Wheel of Life Discussion
Mapping the Elements to the Directions & Cycles
I’ve gathered in many shamanic circles here in the US since moving here in 2012 (with both Native American and Celtic themes) and was familiar with calling in the directions and the elements associated with each direction. What I’ve mostly witnessed is the calling in of air in the East and water in the West. However, when I started to work with mapping the cycles onto the directions and elements, the East and West elements seemed to me, to be opposite. The more cycles I overlaid, the more it seemed like the East, which embodies the energies of rebirth and growth, is the natural place for the water element, and the West, which embodies the energies of release and death, is the natural place for the air element. In the Celtic Wheel of Life, you can see the inclusion of the elements (paired with the chakras), on the rung second out from the center.
It was important for me to feel like the elements aligned with the energies of the corresponding cycles, as I’ve been creating personal and collective ritual for each cycle phase, involving the sacred elements. In fact, we can already witness the prominent use of the water element in many rites of passage traditions associated with the east direction, for example baptismal water at a baby’s christening, and the prominent use of the air element in rites of passage traditions associated with the west direction, for example funerary incense.
Here’s a deeper exploration of the relationship between the East and the Water element, and West and the Air element, in relation to the daily, monthly, seasonal and life cycles.
East + Water: Morning dew at sunrise; Increase in hormones and moisture at the follicular (pre-ovulatory) phase in the menstrual cycle; Sap rising in plants at the time of the waxing moon; Spring showers and the burgeoning growth of the season; Waters of birth and the flowing blood at menarche.
West + Air: Evening breezes at sunset; Drop in hormones and increase in dryness at the luteal (pre-menstruation) phase; Receding moisture in plants during the waning moon; Autumnal winds, dryness and release of leaves; Termination of our menstrual flow at menopause and the desiccation of the body at death (“ashes to ashes, dust to dust”).
In addition, when I overlaid the chakras with these cycles and elements, it also seemed to confirm the position of the water element in the east and the air element in the west. From the north and spiraling clockwise, the root chakra aligns with the earth element to the north, the sacral chakra aligns with the water element to the East, the solar plexus aligns with the fire element to the South, and the heart chakra aligns with the air element to the west.
Irish Terms Used in the Celtic Wheel of the Year
The Celtic Wheel of the Year is on the rung second in from the outside of the Celtic Wheel of Life, embedded in the green Celtic knot pattern. In the Celtic Wheel of the Year, it is common to see a selection of languages drawn from different cultures to name the parts of the seasonal wheel, as well as various spellings of terms.
For example, you may be more familiar with seeing the cross-quarter day festivals with alternate spellings, like “Imbolc”, “Beltane”, and “Lughnasadh”. In my wheel, I use the spellings I am more familiar with, having grown up in Ireland: “Imbolg”, “Bealtaine” and “Lughnasa”. These are words belonging to my own native Irish language, whereas some of these derivations may belong to the closely related Scots Gallic language. Both our ancient cultures and beautiful languages have suffered greatly under centuries of colonialism, so it’s good to be mindful about the terms we use and their origin.
I’d like to mention here that “Celtic” is not a language and neither is the so-called Celtic culture homogenous across Celtic nations. The Celtic and preCeltic way of life is intrinsically connected to place: to the land, its people and their language. That is the indigenous way. In Ireland, these festivals of Imbolg, Bealtaine, Lughnasa and Samhain have meaning and are often associated with actual physical locations in our country. “I mbolg” translates from Irish into English as “in the belly”, and associated with Goddess Brigid and more recently, St. Brigid and her holy wells in Co. Kildare. “Bealtaine” translates as “mouth of fire”, with fires been lit at the Hill of Uisneach in Co. Meath for centuries if not millennia, to mark the entrance into the Summer season. In the Irish language, “Bealtaine” is also our name for the month of May. “Lughnasa” celebrates the start of the harvest honoring the sun god Lugh, and is traditionally marked throughout the country with pilgrimages to sacred sites. In the Irish language, “Lughnasa” is also our name for the month of August. “Samhain” translates as “Summers end”, and marks the entrance into the Winter season and the Celtic New Year. It is the time of year when the veil is the thinnest between this world and the otherworld, and is associated with many liminal sacred sites in Ireland including The Mórrígan’s cave at Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon, and the Hill of Ward in Co. Meath. In modern times, this festival has become what we know as Hallowe’en. “Samhain” too, in the Irish language, is our name for the month of November.
Additional terms you may have also seen used in the Celtic Wheels of the Year, include “Ostara” for the Spring Equinox, “Mabon” for the Autumn Equinox, “Lammas” for Lughnasa, and others. These words are Anglo-Saxon in origin, derived from old English, and not included in this wheel. I use the modern English descriptions of the quarter days of the Equinoxes and Solstices.
If you’d like to work more directly with these Irish Celtic festivals and the Wheel of the Year, you can join our Priestesses of the Spiral Path Women’s Circles in Austin Texas and online. In sisterhood, we work with the Divine Feminine themes of each Celtic festival throughout the year and anchor them in a potent sense of place within the ancient Irish landscape.
Including Death in our Life Cycle
The Maiden, Mother, Crone is often depicted as the main female archetypes in the Celtic tradition. However, when working with the complete life cycle of the female, as illustrated on the outer rung of the Celtic Wheel of Life, the Maiden, Mother, Crone does not encapsulate the entirety of our life cycle. If we are shifting our worldview from linear to cyclical, and following the regenerating patterns of nature and the cosmos, our life cycle includes our death and that time of the sacred pause before rebirth. “Death”, in the words of spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, “is not the opposite of life, it is the opposite of birth”.
In the female life cycle and female archetype wheels that I’ve seen, the crone is often placed in the north, and associated with the season of Winter. However, at the time of our death (the energy equivalent of Samhain, in the wheel of the year), if we die at old age, it is our crone self that dies. Hence her place is in Autumn: that time of reflection, release and completion just before the dissolution of our physical form. Winter is representative of the time of transition between our actual death and rebirth. The time of the sacred pause. While this time may remain somewhat of a mystery, what is clear is that after the death of our body we become an ancestor. And indeed, Samhain and the month of November is the month we honor the ancestors in ancient Irish Celtic and preCeltic tradition. Perhaps too, the ancestors meet us at death and assist us in our onward journey.
The Winter phase of our life cycle happens behind the veil of this physical world, but being the energy equivalent of menstruating, composting and seeding, nighttime and dreaming, we know that it is a time where we are held in the fertile darkness of the dark mother, under the energies of transmutation and transformation.
The Winter Solstice heralds the time when light returns to our world once more – a sacred event enacted in the light of the Winter Solstice sunrise penetrating the womb tomb of 5000 year old sacred site Newgrange in Co. Meath. This represents the energy equivalent of our own conception, and the start of our gestation in our mother’s womb before our birth at the seasonal equivalent of Imbolg, and the start of Spring.
Illuminating our Initiatory Journey & Rites of Passage
Through overlapping the seasons and cycles of life with each other, and the emergence of the transitions between each of the 4 overlapping phases (depicted by golden arrows), the Celtic Wheel of Life charts our initiatory journey towards embodied wisdom, on a monthly, yearly and lifetime scale.
“The journey to realizing your calling is made possible by the process of initiation, which is encoded in your menstrual cycle. Essentially, initiation is something that happens to you: you can’t control it and by its nature it forces you to change. Initiatory change happens through the archetypal pattern of death and rebirth – which is exactly what we experience each month at menstruation.” – Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power
Initiatory change happens through the archetypal pattern of birth, death and rebirth, and this archetypal pattern occurs within each of the overlapping cycles, and are especially experientially relevant in the menstrual, seasonal and life cycle.
For the Celtic peoples, the cross-quarter days, or the days of transition within the Celtic Wheel of the Year, were the most significant. The transition from Winter to Spring (Rebirth) at Imbolg, from Spring to Summer (Fertility) at Bealtaine, from Summer to Autumn (Release) at Lughnasa, and from Autumn to Winter (Death) at Samhain were the biggest festivals of the year. These transition days correspond to our menstrual cycle crossover days, and some of our key life cycle rites of passage.
Imbolg, the start of Spring, is analogous to the cross-over day from menstruation to the follicular phase (our own inner Winter to inner Spring), and the sacred transition of birth in our life cycle. Bealtaine, the start of Summer, is analogous to the cross-over day from the follicular phase to ovulation (our own inner Spring to inner Summer), and the rite of passage of sexual initiation and maturity in our lives; Lughnasa, the start of Autumn, is analogous to the cross-over day from ovulation to the luteal or pre-menstrual phase (our own inner Summer to inner Autumn), and the rite of passage of menopause; and Samhain, the start of Winter, is analogous to the cross-over day from pre-menstrual to menstruation (our own inner Autumn to inner Winter), and the sacred transition of death.
“Menstruation is a deeply shamanic experience of death and rebirth; we are releasing and rebirthing in one profound bio-spiritual journey.” – Seren Bertrand, Womb Awakening
Our journey through each menstrual month, each seasonal year, and the cycle of our life, is a profound spiritual initiatory pathway. If we don’t engage with this initiatory journey, we never mature as a species. By ignoring or working against the natural cycles, and not actively passing through the initiatory gateways of each new phase in our month, our year and our life, we never grow into the wisdom that our bodies and nature have encoded for us. Instead, we continue to circle around the same territory, looping back on ourselves continuously, with no true forward momentum.
If we consciously participate in this initiatory journey, we begin to not just keep repeating reality, literally going “round in circles”, but we move onwards, traveling the spiral path of embodied natural evolution – growing in understanding and wisdom, as we traverse this eternal path.
Visit my Menstrual Cycle webpage for information on working with the initiatory pathway of your sacred monthly cycle.
Visit my Women’s Circles webpage for information on our Priestesses of the Spiral Path gatherings, where we work with the seasonal cycles of birth, death and rebirth throughout the year.
Visit my Rites of Passage webpage where I facilitate events celebrating and honoring the traditional female rites of passage from menarche to motherhood to menopause (the blood mysteries), as well as baby showers, bachelorette parties and birthday celebrations.
5200 Year Old Sacred Site of Newgrange, Co. Meath, Ireland
Celtic Reading
Anam Cara: A Book Of Celtic Wisdom, John O’Donohue (Harper Collins, 1998)
Ever Ancient Ever New: Celtic Spirituality in the 21st Century, Dolores Whelan (Original Writing Ltd., 2011)
If Women Rose Rooted: A Journey to Authenticity and Belonging, Sharon Blackie (September Publishing, 2016)
Island of the Setting Sun: In Search of Ireland’s Ancient Astronomers, Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore (Liffey Press, 2009)
Listen to the Land Speak: A Journey into the Wisdom of What Lies Beneath Us, Manchán Magan (Gill Books, 2022)
Out of the Darkness: A Sacred Journey into the Origins of Indigenous Irish Spirituality, Lar Dooley (self-published, 2020)
The Mist-Filled Path: Celtic Wisdom for Exiles, Wanderers, and Seekers, Frank MacEowan (New World Library, 2002)
To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest, Diana Beresford-Kroger (Random House Canada, 2019)
Publishing
Under the guidance of Earth Mother Danu and the Tuath Dé Danann lineage, I am in the process of drafting a book based on this Celtic Wheel of Life and The Spiral Path of the Priestess.
If you are a publisher and interested in working together: