The Carousel Within The Wheel – Experiencing The Fall Feasts

Aug 22, 2025 | Appointed Times, Moedim | 0 comments

In his vision of YHWH’s majesty, Ezekiel wrote of “a wheel within a wheel” (Ezekiel 1:16) as an illustration of divine order, ceaseless motion, and heavenly design. These wheels keep turning and do not stop; their revolutions testify of Yahuah’s governance of time through His calendar. Within that rhythm, the Fall Feasts — Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles — form a sacred cycle that calls us to remembrance, repentance, and rejoicing.

Ezekiel pictured a wheel within a wheel. Now picture the outer wheel as Yah’s Appointed Times — the fixed cycles the Almighty etched into the fabric of creation. This outer wheel is steady and unyielding, defining the framework of covenant life. Each year as the Feast Days arrive, they are marked by the turning of that great wheel.

But within this wheel, imagine another disc — not a wheel — but a carousel.

In a memorable monologue about Kodak’s slide projector from the 1960s, a fictional television character once described the carousel not as a machine of progress, but of return. “It spins around and around, taking us back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.”

So it is with the annual Feasts. Imagine a ‘carousel’ that inhabits the larger wheel of Yah’s Appointed Times. Every turn is familiar — and yet adorned with new light, memory, and deeper understanding. The wheel gives us structure; the carousel carries us year-by-year to a place of spiritual maturity. One is emblematic of covenant responsibility, the other covenant joy. One establishes order, the other invites delight. Together they remind us that time is not just passing, it is teaching. Each calendrical cycle draws us nearer to our destination: eternity in resurrected, redeemed bodies where we will dwell in the presence of our Father (the Almighty El) and His Son, our Messiah, brother, and High Priest.

The carousel seems to whisper:

I too am a wheel. But I am the wheel adorned with song and light. Where the great wheel marks time with faithfulness, I bring you into its meaning with joy. Ride with me, for I turn not only with the Seasons, but with delight — carrying you home.

A wheel pushes forward. It is about progress, momentum, and movement from one point to another. It marks time and distance, reminding us of the cycles that carry us steadily through seasons, years, and generations.

A carousel, though also a wheel, does something different. Instead of moving you away from where you began, it turns in place, circling around and around. Yet it’s not stagnant — it transforms the wheel’s forward force into a journey of delight, reflection, and return. The carousel doesn’t measure how far you’ve gone, but how deeply you’ve experienced the ride. It brings you back again to the same point, but with new eyes, new wonder, and a fuller heart.

The wheel is Yah’s timepiece — His unbroken cycle of weeks, months, and seasons, marking covenant appointments from creation itself. The carousel within it represent our lived experiences: anticipation as the Feasts approach, joy in gathering, and maturity gained with each return. Together they remind us that the moedim are both structure and celebration — fixed by heaven’s Sovereign, yet alive with meaning for every generation.

With this vision in mind, let’s step onto the carousel of the seventh month, when the Biblical Fall Feast days invite us to experience the covenant not as a burden, but as celebration.

The Feast of Trumpets – The Call to Attention

“On the first day of the seventh month you are to hold a sacred assembly, and you must not do any regular work. This will be a day for you to sound the trumpets.” Numbers 29:1 (BSB)

Trumpets break the silence. They summon us to remember who we are, and Whose we are. In ancient Israel they signaled battle, announced victories, and declared the arrival of the King. When Yeshua returns in power and glory, His angels will sound a great trumpet and gather His elect from the four winds. (Matthew 24:30-31). Paul the Apostle revealed that at the ‘last trumpet’ the dead will rise incorruptible (1Corinthians 15:51-53).

This Feast inaugurates the seventh month, reminding us that life itself is punctuated by divine summons. As the carousel spins, each trumpet call is not just repetition — it is an invitation to prepare, to awaken, and to look forward.

The Day of Atonement – The Call to Humility

The tenth day of this seventh month is the Dave of Atonement. You shall hold a sacred assembly and humble yourselves, and present an offering made by fire to YHWH. Leviticus 23:27 (BSB)

In my humble opinion, this day is not about food or fasting, but affliction of the soul. Jubilees 34 tells us it began when Jacob mourned Joseph, deceived by his sons into believing him dead. That grief became a pattern of repentance, passed on as a command for Israel to remember their sins and cleanse their hearts once a year. Those of us who, through Messiah, have been grafted in to Israel by faith and obedience must do the same.

For us, Joseph foreshadows Yeshua. We too are the guilty brothers, ye he forgives, heals, and restores. Atonement is not meant to be endured as a grim ritual but experienced as cleansing grief — the kind that turns sorrow into repentance, repentance into relief, and relief into joy. The carousel slows here, teaching us to feel the weight of sin, yet also the release of mercy.

Sukkot — The Call to Joy

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Feast of Tabernacles begins; it continues for seven days. Leviticus 23:33-34

Sukkot is the carousel at its peak of joy — booths adorned, lamps burning, voices belting out songs of praise. Israel dwelt in temporary shelters, remembering their wilderness journey. We live in fragile tents of flesh, awaiting that day when we will reside in our eternal dwelling places — our tents –in the Kingdom.

For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. So while we are in this tent, we groan under our burdens, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed, so that our mortality may be swallowed up by life. 2 Corinthians 5:2-4 (BSB)

Yeshua himself attended this feast (John 7:1-10), stepping into the rhythm of joy. Jubilees 32 reminds us that the eight Day — Addition — was given as a prophetic flourish, symbolizing the end of sin and the dawn of eternity. Jacob, renamed Israel, celebrated this day with priestly sacrifice, foreshadowing the covenant’s fulfillment in Messiah. Sukkot is the covenant adorned with delight. It is not simply a command to keep, but a rehearsal of eternity – to dwell with our Heavenly Father, Yeshua, our righteous angel brothers and all the redeemed.

The Carousel’s Final Spin — Home At Last

Every wheel turns forward, yet inside, the carousel turns us back around and around — to memory, to covenant, to home. The Feast are not merely rituals locked in the past, nor mere shadows without substance. They are rehearsals of eternity, wheels within wheels, moments within cycles, joy within responsibility.

Yahuah’s Fall Feasts — Trumpets, Atonement, and Sukkot — remind us that His covenant is not a burdensome obligation. These appointed times embody a carousel of remembrance, reflection, and rejoicing — carrying us back again and again to the place where we know we are loved.

And as the wheel turns one more cycle during this wonderful season, we step into it with deeper understanding — until the last trumpet, when the carousel stops and eternity begins: “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet… the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52).