The choice to follow the natural year, planning our meetings and our celebrations to coincide with the progress of moon and sun, while admittedly arbitrary, has a rational basis.
Contemporary life and the marking of civil time while initially based upon natural phenomenon has grown disconnected from the natural world, and it disconnects us as individuals.
By embracing a set of meetings and celebrations that are fixed to the natural year, moon phases, solstices, equinoxes and the middle day of each season we restore the rhythm of nature to our lives and experience the true passage of time rather than experiencing time as a string of identical work weeks.
The choice of the eight pre-christian aboriginal european sabbats: SAMHAIN, YULE, IMBOLC, OSTARA, BELTANE, LITHA, LUGHNASSADH, MABON as our major holidays is by no means intended to diminish other ancient rites. We simply choose these because they are arranged to mark the year, they happen to be what we know, and the decorations for at least half of them are widely available in the form of the traditional secular trappings of the modern christian and civil holidays. We will probably wind up calling these days by recognizable names: Halloween, Xmas or Yule, Groundhog Day(also valentines day), Easter, Mayday, Midsummer, TBD- (maybe Picnic), Harvest Home (or turkey day or thanksgiving).
Secular Pagan meeting days will take place at seven day intervals on the quarters of the moon, New Moon, Half moon waxing, Full Moon and Half Moon waning. Meetings will usually be evening events and will encompass social, administrative and celebratory aspects.
The Secular Pagan solar year begins and ends on the 21st of december. The secular pagan lunar year begins on the first new moon within 14 days on either side of december 21st.