The Earth Belongs to Us All: A Folk Witch’s Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation
As a practicing folk witch with Celtic and pagan ancestry here in the UK, I need to say something that’s been gnawing at me. There’s a rising trend—especially online—where people declare that celebrating the Wheel of the Year, honouring the old gods, or working with folk magic is “cultural appropriation” unless you can prove your ancestry.
Let me be clear: that’s not appropriation— those that claim it is are practicing gatekeeping disguised as virtue.
The Festivals Are Older Than Gatekeeping
Many of the festivals we celebrate today—Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh—have deep roots in the land and the lives of the people who depended on it. Some of the names we use, like Lughnasadh or Lammas, have shifted over time. Gerald Gardner and the early Wiccans in the mid-20th century gave us the modern framework of the “Wheel of the Year,” but they didn’t invent the festivals themselves. They drew from ancient agricultural and solar celebrations that existed long before Christianity—and long before Gardner.
So when someone lights a fire at Lughnasadh or places candles on their windowsill at Samhain, they’re not “stealing” from my culture. They are answering the same call my ancestors did: to honour the harvest, the ancestors, and the sacred cycles that sustain us.
The Land Doesn’t Ask for Your Passport
The turning of the seasons is not owned by any one bloodline. The sun doesn’t rise only for Celts. The rains don’t bless only those with druidic ancestry. To say that someone without Celtic heritage can’t honour these festivals is to insult the land itself.
Do you think the first people to gather at a sacred fire checked each other’s genealogies before they danced? Of course not. They came together in community, survival, and reverence.
Who’s Really Shouting “Appropriation”?
Here’s the thing: the people most often crying “appropriation” are rarely those of us who are actually practicing within the tradition. They’re usually outsiders or dabblers playing morality police on the internet. It’s virtue signaling dressed up as justice, and it erases the truth: that the land and its cycles belong to us all.
My ancestors endured centuries of suppression—Christianization, famine, persecution—yet their stories and celebrations survived. And now, in the 21st century, we’re told by self-appointed gatekeepers that sharing in those traditions is somehow offensive? That’s not protection; that’s silencing.
Respect Matters—but Restriction Isn’t Respect
Yes, I believe in respect. If you celebrate Lughnasadh, know what it means. Understand it’s not just “a summer harvest party,” but a festival honouring the god Lugh, the grain harvest, and the sacred balance of work and rest. If you keep Samhain, know it’s more than Halloween costumes—it’s a liminal time when the veil is thin and we honour our dead.
But don’t confuse respect with restriction. Respect is learning, honouring, and practicing with reverence. Restriction is saying, “This isn’t for you.” And that restriction is not rooted in the old ways. It’s rooted in modern gatekeeping.
An Open Fire, Not a Closed Circle
I believe the festivals call to those who need them. Maybe your ancestors didn’t dance at Beltane fires, but if you feel the pull to light one now, who am I—or anyone—to tell you it’s not yours to celebrate?
The Wheel of the Year is not a gated community. It’s a living, breathing cycle. The fire burns brighter when more people gather around it, not when we guard it with suspicion.
So if you feel called: walk the wheel. Light your fire. Bake your harvest bread. Honour the ancestors—whether or not they share your blood. The earth doesn’t care about your surname. The sun and the soil ask only that you show up with respect.
Because these traditions? They were never meant to belong to a select few. They were always meant to belong to everyone who chooses to walk in reverence with the land.
