Walking the Celtic Wheel

In every moment and in every footfall, we can find a beginning and an end to celebrate. Walking the Celtic Wheel is a bewitching memoir of rural life in a small, stone cottage in northwest France and an exploration of the cycles of the seasons. It reveals how the natural world guides Guardian ‘Country Diarist’, Julie Armstrong’s own spiritual journey. Responding to the Wheel draws her out into the chill winter night, into May sunshine, the mud of spring rains, to autumn harvests and to a mysterious standing stone. She walks toward older, ancient ways of being and to La Paperie, a quiet cottage that guides her home. Somehow ‘between times’, and more than a little other-worldly, La Paperie changes the direction of lives, brings challenge and comfort and the chance to breathe again in greater harmony with other creatures. The Celtic calendar celebrated the cyclical shift of seasons and movement of the sun. The fire festivals, solstices and equinoxes guide the times to plough, sow, harvest and rest. The walks here are made in celebration of Imbolc, Bealtaine, Summer Solstice, Lughnasa, Autumn Equinox, Samhain and the Winter Solstice. They shape the story of a year in which Julie learns to let go and to find; in which the cycles of the sun illuminate her steps. Scholar, dancer, writer and yogi, Julie lives in many worlds: the creative, the academic, the spiritual and the pagan. The Celtic traditions she contemporises nourish life in the present day and revitalise rituals and customs. Her journey is richly poetic, wisely practical and accessible to all. The book shares the sources of Julie’s inspiration as a writer, as a mindfulness practitioner, as a walker, wanderer and as a naturalist. She shares her connection with nature’s seasonal rhythms and may inspire you to bring your own life closer to that wilder, more-than-human world.