Druidcraft is a term coined by Phillip Car-Gomm, the former Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids to describe the common practice of combining the paths of Druidry with Wicca, Witchcraft or simply the “Craft”. These paths share much in common, but one especially prominent shared aspect is the eight fold wheel of the year.
These eight seasonal celebrations are solar in nature, yet many people also follow and celebrate the cycles of the moon. Unlike the sun, the moon is not so easy to follow on the Gregorian calendar we use everyday. The Druidcraft Calendar then is a wheel of both the sun and the moon, or the year and the month. But more than that it is a calendar that reconciles the movements of the moon and sun over a period of 19 years called the Metonic cycle, which is also the basis of the most ancient calendars known to us.
And so a modern perpetual ritual calendar for practising Druids, Wiccans, Witches and Pagans was born. The Druidcraft Calendar.
The calendar is a peg and hole system known as a parapegma, and is inspired by the Aubrey holes at Stonehenge and the 19 year Metonic cycle of the sun and moon. Together these two systems allow this calendar to mark all the major pagan celebrations and astronomical events. You simply start by moving 3 pegs each day and the calendar will indicate:
- Each of the 4 Celtic fire festivals, or cross quarter days. (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh)
- Each of the 4 annual solar events (Summer and Winter solstices, Spring and Autumn equinoxes)
- The current moon phase, including full and new moons.
- Current position of the sun and moon in the (sidereal) zodiac
- Solar and Lunar eclipses
- Lunar standstills
- Blue Moons
- The current day, month and year of the Metonic cycle.
This calendar gives the modern practitioner a mechanism by which to time rituals and attune to the seasons and cycles, in a simple observable manual way without resorting to complex charts, tables and computer applications. And indeed, the very act of moving the pegs can easily become a small daily ritual of attunement, perhaps at dawn and dusk.
This web site contains detailed information about the system the calendar uses and how it was developed, as well as instructions on building your own calendar, and a digital online version that you can use to setup or check your own calendar.