About Secular Seasons

Celebrations are an important part of every culture. They can take many forms, ranging from public holidays celebrated year after year by an entire community to small, private ceremonies marking an important transition in the life of an individual.

Communal holidays bring people together to celebrate shared values, to commemorate historic achievements, and to commit to common goals. They are positive and enjoyable and can provide an opportunity for education and outreach. People also celebrate the major transitions in each individual’s life. Birth, graduation, marriage, retirement and death are all significant events that can be marked by ceremony and speeches, music and feasting. These rites of passage are a time for joyful celebrations and solemn commitments. They are moments when we step back from our daily concerns and look at our lives in a broader context. We explore the beliefs and values that give shape and meaning to our lives.

Many holidays and ceremonies are religious. But non-religious people celebrate too, and they prefer to do so in secular ceremonies that reflect their beliefs and values.

The Secular Seasons project promotes secular celebrations, holidays, and events. Many of these are inclusive events that everyone can enjoy, whatever their religion or beliefs. Some are designed specifically for humanists, atheists, and other freethinking people who reject religion. All of them provide positive opportunities for celebration for an increasingly diverse society.

Secular Seasons Project Goals

The Secular Seasons project took form at the start of the new millennium. At the end of 2007, the American Humanist Association adopted the project and began revamping the website. The website aims to provide a service for individuals and groups by:

• Providing information and resources about new global holidays that transcend separate nationalities, religions and cultures.
• Sharing resources for organizing personalized rites of passage, such as weddings and funerals, for people seeking an alternative to traditional religious ceremonies.
• Listing major freethought conferences and events, primarily in the United States, which provide an opportunity for non-religious people to find community and support.
• Unearthing pagan roots, or providing secular interpretations, of holidays that are widely viewed as specific to Christianity or other dominant religions.
• Giving people positive opportunities to celebrate and promote ideas, values and traditions that are often ignored or disrespected.
• Helping freethinkers who feel isolated and unable to fit within the traditional framework for annual celebrations and holidays.
• Providing ideas and materials to organize celebrations that focus on improving our societies, embracing our diversity, and living our lives to the fullest.
• Creating opportunities to honor great discoveries, developments and exemplary people from human history.
• Finding ways for freethinkers to join in traditional celebrations that contribute to the richness of global culture.

Secular Seasons Project History

Secular Seasons was started by Deidre Conn and Amanda Chesworth with contributions from the secular student movement and other freethought activists. The beautiful web design was contributed by Dave Feroe, and free webhosting was provided by Alan Levin.

The first site to be created dealt primarily with seasonal celebrations and was centered around the calendar year. Just before the first site was set to be unveiled in the summer of 2001, Deidre Conn suffered from a coronary attack that left her 90% brain dead without hope of recovery. Further development of the Secular Seasons project slowed almost to a halt.

In 2009, the American Humanist Association (AHA) adopted the Secular Seasons project. The American Humanist Association advances human rights, secular ethics and the separation of religion and government through advocacy, innovation and collaboration. AHA also runs the Darwin Day Celebration, which is something of a model for a new inclusive holiday celebrated every year in thousands of venues around the globe.

We thank Amanda Chesworth, Dave Feroe, and Alan Levin for their inspirational work in developing the original website and in helping transfer it to the American Humanist Association. The project is dedicated to the memory of Deidre Conn. Her vision and her contributions to the freethought movement are important and they will not be forgotten.

Help Us Help You

We would like the Secular Seasons project to be one that is utilized by all freethinkers. We also would like all individuals, groups, and organizations to contribute when they are able.

Please join us by sharing your ideas, suggestions and time in making this effort one we can all enjoy and share, not only amongst ourselves, but with the world in which we are a part.

We here at the American Humanist Association are striving to expand the options and alternatives for holidays, but we can only do this with your help. If you have invented your own holiday or tradition, adapted an existing one, or know of one that is not listed, please feel free to share not only with us, but with the entire secularist community and the world.

Link to Secular Seasons

Please feel free to use the following image and link to SecularSeasons.org

Just cut/paste the following code onto your webpage: