Beltain asks us to consider what makes us feel alive. To mark this seasonal festival we brought life and colour to the WeSee Trees Community Tree Nursery, shared a delicious meal, connected with new faces and learned more about the local happenings across Weston.

We marked the Spring Equinox to the sound of the waves and the warmth of a fire on Sunday evening. Creating space for reflecting on what’s beginning to emerge for us as we move through this year. There’s something really special about taking time to pause and reflect, especially in community with others.

Beltain invites us to reflect on what makes us feel alive, what we nurture in our lives and what we steward with care. It feels like the perfect seasonal festival to gather in a place that embodies all of that. We’re teaming up with WeSEE Trees, a community seed nursery in the Maltlands area of Weston-super-Mare. Assisted by Weston Town Council, community members, with Emily Burnell at the heart of the project, are working with North Somerset Council to transform the disused plot next to Maltlands Play Area into a space for growing trees from seed, caring for them and preparing them to be planted across the town and wider region in the future.

The Spring Equinox marks the moment in the year when day and night are held in near balance. In the Northern Hemisphere, it signals the beginning of astronomical spring and the gradual return of longer, lighter days.

After the quieter months of winter, this seasonal turning point offers a natural opportunity to pause and notice the shift taking place around us. Buds have begun to appear, evenings stretch a little further and there is often a renewed sense of energy and possibility in the air.

Imbolc asks us to notice the first stirrings of energy shifting around us, and inside us. As we approach spring with lighter days, more energy and the first sparks of life making themselves known, Imbolc provides a moment to reflect on what is beginning to start within us that we’ll soon bring into fruition in the months ahead?

Most of us live by a calendar that has very little to do with how life actually moves.

We mark time by deadlines, school terms, tax years, and diary appointments. The months pass, the seasons change, and often we barely notice. We feel out of sync, tired in winter when we think we “should” be productive, restless in summer without knowing why, and slightly unmoored from any real sense of natural rhythm. The Wheel of the Year offers a different way to mark time. One that is rooted in the earth, the seasons, and the steady, reliable turning of nature.

One thing I find endlessly fascinating is learning how many of our modern traditions are essentially mashups of cultural practices layered over centuries. Humans have always sought meaning and connection, weaving folklore and mythology steeped in seasonal wisdom to make sense of everything from weather patterns to fertility, loss, and renewal.

As the year draws to its quiet close, we gather to mark the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year and the turning point toward the returning light. Across cultures and centuries, this has been a time to pause, reflect, and honour both the darkness and the promise of renewal.

As the year turns and the light begins to fade, we find ourselves standing at a threshold: the space between autumn and winter, life and death, what has been and what is yet to come. Across centuries and cultures, this time has always been understood as one of reflection, remembrance and renewal.

Here in the northern hemisphere, Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year. It is a moment to pause, to take stock and turn inward to honour the cycles of life that hold us all.

To mark the Autumn Equinox we held a gathering on the beach, connecting with nature and welcoming the seasonal changes as we looked towards the darker months of the year. We were blessed with a calm breeze and a nearly cloudless sky to enjoy a meditative nature walk, the creation of a nature-based art installation and a bring-and-share feast around the fire. We reflected on our experiences of the year so far and gave ourselves permission to be present with ourselves, each other and the sounds of the waves as high tide rolled in.