Wheel of the Year 2008-9

Last year I was very impressed with an A2 sized wall calendar from two42 which took a new look at the calendrical year, and I wrote a positive review for TDN. Rather than start at January 1st and continue through to December 31st it started at Samhain and went on through to the following year's Yule. Set against a simple forest background it listed moon phases and zodiac signs.

This year I've been sent The Wheel of the Year in a page per festival calendar format. Nine individual and very beautiful prints (each slightly larger than A3 portrait) form the background for the weeks leading up to each particular festival, with the days each having a one line space in which to make notes. There are also icons to denote the changing phases of the moon and the normal public holidays. There are nine artful pages rather than the expected eight so that it takes one past the end of the year at Samhain and almost up to the end of the more usual year (i.e. it stops at December 21st). That means you get nearly fourteen months of calendar for the price of twelve.

The price, by the way, is £12.99 of which £1 goes to the Friends of the Earth. There are discounts for multiple orders, and postage costs likewise vary.

The calendar is printed on FSC Mixed Sources card and paper, whereby the content is made up of stewarded tree and recycled fibre. The quality of the paper and the prints is very high (the one minor typo made me smile rather than flinch). There is also available a wall calendar similar to the one I reviewed last year, and if you go to the main site Mr Butler has a selection of very fine photography prints available to purchase. People generally exchange calendars as gifts at Yule or Christmas or New Year. This would be such a lovely gift to send to someone more in tune with 'the Wheel' rather than the calendar year.

There are other pagan-orientated calendars available, but for my money this one is more functional and yet more beautiful than others I’ve seen.