In comments below, Marcellina asks:

[W]hile I remain a happy atheist, your (always interesting) blog has got me interested in the various Pagan markings of the seasons and other celebrations of nature. Can you (or your readers) recommend any kind of online calendar that would take me through the year and explain ceremonies as they approach? Is there anything like that on the nets? I don't want a book or treatise to read all at once, but something I can check in on. Thanks!

I'm not aware of an online calendar of the sort that Marcellina describes (although it sounds like a great idea). Readers?

There is a quarterly ezine called Living in Season, published by Waverley Fitzgerald, who used to run School of the Seasons. It's a bit like the discussion I was having the other day with Son about my house. If I close the door to the ritual room, most people wouldn't know that it's a Witch's house. But a Witch would walk in and know immediately. Living in Season has a Pagan flavor without appearing too overtly Pagan.

It's not online, but We'Moon publishes really wonderful calendars; I get one every year. You can take the information in in bits, not feeling the need to read the whole thing through.

Googling "Wheel of the Year" will turn up dozens of web sites, some better than others. But you can get the general idea of the 4 Solar holidays and the 4 Cross-Quarter days and how they relate to the seasons.

One caution I'll offer for sites on the web and many Pagan books (although Marcellina's not looking for a book): They tend to say, often quite definitively, "This holiday is associated with these Goddesses and Gods. The following colors, stones, plants, etc. are to be used to decorate the altar. Etc." And then you go to the next web site or book and it will say, just as definitively, that the holiday is associated with different Goddesses and Gods and that different colors, stones, plants, etc. are to be used. And then, if you visit a public Pagan ritual, you'll see them doing something else, instead, or mixing elements from both sources.

And that's what keeps this interesting.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions that my wonderful readers can post in comments here.

Picture found here.