Southern Hemisphere Sabbats and Esbats?

[SnowCat]

Every now and then I wonder abiut the Sabbats and Esbats in the southern hemisphere. Then I forget to actually pursue the idea.


I can wrap my head around Christmas in the summer, because it's very secular. The rest of it kind of confuses me.

Snow

[random417]

I know a few Pagans from the Southern hemisphere. From what I understand, most flip the Sabbats around, and do them when we do their opposite. I do know one who keeps them in the right timings, but most follow the seasons, and flip them.

[Siona]

Yeah, basically they're all flipped, since the seasons are flipped. For example, astronomically when we're having the December solstice, in the southern hemisphere it's the summer solstice, but in the north it's winter, so the south is celebrating Litha, and the north Yule. Then the next holiday in the south would be Lammas, but in the north Imbolc. I know one woman who didn't flip them, because for her it was more about connecting to her ancestor's homeland instead of her local cycles.

The moon cycles are same around the world, but if you're looking more at the different sets of moon names, most of those were very local, and different cultures and areas had different names... a lot of them probably wouldn't really fit somewhere like Australia, for example. I know a small group of Australian pagans who practiced together, and they made their own system of moon names based on local cycles.