Star Wars Wheel of the Year

Wheel of the Year Using Star Wars Characters

Star Wars is a really good example of a series of movies that incorporates imagery and characters that are drawn from mythology, and hence nature. The "Wheel of the Year" above is a stab at showing some of the visual vocabulary in the series and how it (probably?) relates to the solar cycle.

Episode IV: A New Hope (the first Star Wars movie) kicks off with Luke leaving home and ends with the destruction of the first Death Star in a scene that's reminiscent of the illumination of the inner chamber of New Grange on the Winter Solstice. Luke (the sun) blows up the Death Star by shooting a load down its shaft, so to speak. The destruction of the first Death Star, I think, corresponds to the Winter Solstice. It's only a small triumph of light over dark because Darth Vader escapes.

Many people's favorite Star Wars movie is The Empire Strikes Back. In that film, Luke and Han are betrayed by Lando Calrissian. Where the anti-Luke (the Winter Sun) is Darth Vader, the anti-Han is Lando (the winter moon?).

The Anti-Han

Lando's betrayal leads to a duel between Darth Vader and an untrained, inexperienced Luke. Darth kicks his ass. He asks Luke to "Join the Dark Side", i.e. the winter, and lets him know he's his father. (The Osiris to his Horus.) Luke of course will never join the dark side. Consequenly, he plunges from the "cloud city", just like the Sun falls from the sky through the autumn. He ends up looking all dingy and beat-up, and hangs from a cross to be rescued by Leia and Lando. This, I think corresponds to the autumn equinox.

Finally Luke goes to Dagoba: a water/earth vegetation planet where his X-Wing fighter crashes in the swamp. Luke emerges from the water and begins his ascent in skill and power. By the finale of the movie, he duels Darth Vader on more equal terms. He is garbed in black as he emerges from the winter side of his cycle, and his light saber is vegetation-Osiris-green. Luke shoots up from the bottom of a pit in this duel, while in the Empire Strikes back duel, he plunges into one.

Luke and Darth fight to a draw, but the Emperor (Seth) starts zapping Luke until Darth Vader chucks the Emperor down another chute into the core of the Death Star just before it is destroyed. In the struggle Vader is mortally wounded. Finally, Anakin emerges from his sarcophagus suit to look upon his son with his own eyes, then dies. This corresponds to the spring equinox.

Finally, the second death star is destroyed and the rebels win and everyone in the empire is free. This probably corresponds to the summer solstice, or maybe to the ascent of the sun into the sky in the spring (on his way to the solstice).