The Wheel of the Year and the zodiac on one wheel, with the Sun, Moon and planets where they are.
The tree: .
JanDec
Drag through the year to watch the tree and the sky change. The year runs counterclockwise, as the zodiac does on
an astrology chart, with Yule at the top. The Sun sits in the middle with Earth on its little orbit; the dashed line
from Earth through the Sun carries on as the gold hand, pointing to the sign we see the Sun in. Small gold
dots mark the fire festivals' traditional dates.
At noon, Fri, 06/05/2026,
in UTC.
The Sun is at 14°50′ Gemini, on the stretch from Beltane to Litha.
The Moon is a waning gibbous in Aquarius.
Next on the wheel: Litha, Sun, 06/21/2026.
Western astrology's zodiac (the tropical zodiac, used throughout this site) starts where the Sun crosses the
equator in March, so its signs are tied to the seasons: the solstices and equinoxes are the first degree of
Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. Those are the Wheel of the Year's four quarter festivals. The four fire
festivals fall halfway between, when the Sun is at 15° of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. Their traditional
dates (May 1, August 1, October 31 and February 1 in the north) come a few days before those astronomical
midpoints, which is why each one has two dates in the table.
South of the equator the seasons are reversed, so the festivals move half a year: Yule is the June solstice and
Samhain falls around May 1. The signs don't move, because they follow the Sun, not the weather. On this wheel the
festivals and seasons stay in place and the zodiac turns half a circle when you switch hemispheres.
Positions are worked out the same way as the Planet Tracker and the
Birth Chart, and checked against NASA JPL's Horizons system. The festival dates match the
calendar.