Today marks the vernal or Spring equinox here in Australia. Officially, Australia’s Spring began on September 1st, but if you follow an astrological calender, Spring begins today, as the daylight hours grow longer and the darkness of Winter truly fades.
An indigenous calender for the Kakadu season. White Australia is so young, and adrift from our European roots we have lost the art of seasonal connections.
There are existing knowledge systems of weather and seasons in Australia that were held by indigenous people. They could predict thunderstorms by particular tides, know hot weather was coming when the koalas were fighting. Knowledge was sacred, and shared amongst a select few and passed down through generations - thousands of years of observing nature that influenced culture. People from many nations would gather every few cycles and share these wisdoms to help guide their lives. It saddens me to think of the arrogance of the coloniser who believed them savages and imposed times and dates onto a terra nullius, a supposed no man's land.
The information, however, is being gathered, but it is up to us to connect. By doing so, we deepen connections to our own country and to the people that were here before us. The Bureau of Meteorology has created an Indigenous Weather Website (IWW) mapping indigenous understandings of the environment around them. It's a more subtle reading of the environment, more intricate and detailed than our rigid months systems that could not ever really fit this new world.
The seasons in Victoria according to custodians for the Grampians region, near us in Victoria
There's freedom in removing ourselves from the trappings of man made time marks. In consciously doing so, we remove ourselves from the limitations and boundaries of Europe that doesn't really help us connect to the landscape here, and we need it, to really connect and protect this land we profess to love. We need to tune in on a really deep level so that we can notice more quickly when things go wrong, be aware the changes that we are responsible for, and make moves to adjust and protect this land we are blessed to be on.
Personally, I connect to country - both to Australian metaphors of Rainbow serpents and cockatoos and lore from England, elements gleaned from literature, poetry, religions far and wide, stories, observations, mythologies. It's all in the interpretation, the moment. It's a multicultural, multilayered connection to cycles that is rich and beautiful.
Right now, the feeling of Spring here can’t be denied. For weeks now I have felt as if there are two forces vying for space – dark and light, cold and warm, joyful and free and somewhat cloistered and housebound. It’s when we give these fluctuations in the seasons and the world around us our attention that we also learn much about our place in this grand, grand life, our place in the whirling dervish of an Earth with the hem of her skirt spinning whitely around us, mesmerising. Captivating.
For a brief moment today everything seems in poetic harmony. A moment where things are still, for a change, caught in a balance as light and dark are almost in balance, yin and yang, sun and moon. The ennui of late winter gives way to a blossoming Spring, and so many of us (even those heading into Atuumn) are glad of the change as the tumult of the season before has tired us – too much of anything is exhausting.
I have been thinking a lot of annica or impermance in Buddhist thought. Everything rises and falls away. We forget this as we so stubbornly hold onto things – our beliefs, our identities, our possessions.
Yet the girl in the mirror is changing like the Earth changes – the decay is setting in, the wrinkles changing the features. There’s a slight disconnect – the internal view of self is not the external. And so she turns again to anicca, anicca, anicca – the breath rises, the breath falls. Winter leaves, Spring comes, and though Winter seems momentarily forgotten, there’s a deep knowing that Spring is only a great joy because of it’s impermanence. The great New England poet Robert Frost’s words echo across time and distance: ‘as dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay’. I wonder at an Australian equivalent in poetry – I’m sure there must be one.
We would do well to interact with the seasons on a deeper level than just dreams of suntans and barbecues. The deep consciousness of these cycles would make life easy to bear, knowing that we too are in constant flux. We have seasons in our lives – the child is Spring, the old ones Winter. Yet each year is a flux of seasons too for us – we cannot expect life to be constant, because that only brings suffering. We attach to the high of summer and the excited promise of Spring and are saddened at it’s passing, just as we attach to the good moments of our lives as if constant happiness is a benchmark against we live our lives.
It is not impermance that makes us suffer. what makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent, when they are not. Thic nhat hanh.
Such is the myth of happiness – that it is attainable, buyable, keepable, a bird in a cage. Happiness is only happiness because of the dark times in our lives. Spring cannot be Spring without the winter before it.
What would the seasonal map of your local look like? What system would it be based on? What do the seasons tell you? ###### Source
Knowing this attachment causes suffering when the day is over makes things more precioius, not less. We know we should not attach, but that doesn’t mean we can’t engage and enjoy what we do have. We should live each moment fully, each blossom enjoyed, each bird call trilling across the blue sky treasured and held. We whirl with the planets, hearts open, and we should allow the dance to slow when the seasons call for that too, and be okay with that, and full of grace.
And so I welcome in the Spring, this time of blossoming, promise and ideas, of social connections and projects underway, hopes and dreams out in full force. I gather energy like the possums running across the tin roof of my soul, and hold it close to the hearth at my centre, knowing I’ll need it later when the gold fades from the sky and winter comes again.
The calender months don't tell me much, but the Earth does.
And I listen.
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Really enjoyed this beautifully written post @riverflows
I love this my friend and I can really relate .. I just left the below words (taken from one of my old posts) in another comment but I also feel they really mirror the perspective you're putting across here:
Born out of an ignorance regarding the very nature of time itself humanity has constructed a calendar whose very implementation was one of the first steps in our disconnection to natural law, this is sometimes referred to as the error in time. To keep balance with the natural order and cycle of life the calendar should be (roughly) divided into 13 months of 28 days (adding an extra day in the year), this is known as higher time. A higher time calendar would ensure a perfect balance between our body clock, metabolism and the natural time cycle of the earth. Indeed the modern calendar and concept of time has removed us from the interconnected natural cycle of life. In doing so we have externalised the concept of time and enslaved ourselves to the clock.
As you may be aware .. I'm a huge proponent of indigenous wisdom .. indeed in many ways our society is dying for a lack of wisdom and so it's hugely important that the voices of these elders are heard again, the fact that people are beginning to once again listen .. fills me with profound hope. Thanks again for this post @riverflows
Oh thanks so much for this. I indeed think that these are the most valuable systems to connect to and I was pleased to see these wisdoms being collected on a website here at least.
A higher time! Yes!! This is EXACTLY what I was trying to say. Thanks so much.for your comment. X
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"...we cannot expect life to be constant, because that only brings suffering. "
Yes, Yes and yes! I love the change of seasons, how plants, animals, insects and all organisms on land and sea adjust and adapt. Even in places where the seasonal changes are subtle it can still be witnessed.
I completely agree that it is important to observe, learn and understand our environment. Our ancestors were certainly more connected to it. Perhaps because they weren't distracted by television and light pollution. Observing the environment was the viewing medium. I would much rather watch the stars at night or the birds and insects flying by.
Fantastic post and a beautiful message. ❤
Thankyou! If I ruled the world, I'd ban television and make us all go out and be with nature haha. We forget the most basic of lessons about ourselves and the world by disconnecting from nature.
I didn't know about the seasons in Australia. Interesting there are 6 for where you are, and perhaps 2 elsewhere.
Here we could say 5: winter, mud season, spring, summer, autumn in New England :))
I've always wondered why, when europeans displaced native people, we discarded their knowledge and understanding of the area. They know these places. We struggle more than necessary to survive rather than trust and learn from the folks that have done it forever.
Exactly! We lived under this big myth for nearly 200 years that Aboriginal people were nomadic and had no agriculture! But theres descriptions in historical texts and evidence on our landscape that made this a lie. And all of those years of imposing European systems on the land. Now you see.farmers going through awful suffering and as much as I sympathise part of me wonders that if 200 odd years ago we had have listened to the original inhabitants rather that slaughtered and dispossessed them if the story would have been different, both here and the world over.
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Seasons in Texas:
Pre summer, summer, still summer, and Christmas.
Or that's how the joke goes anyways.
Oh ha that's how I imagine Texas!!! So what's your average temp range then? Is it super dry there?
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Pretty dry, but the almanac says we're in for a cold wet winter.
This year we went six months without rain, but this month was just declared the wettest September on record.
yay you said it right on sister! i am so with you on the earth changes more than a calendar but when earth changes happen i can't sleep eat or focus. i've had serious physical body vibrations many times during astrological events. no fun. dizzy, nauseous, the symptoms vary. At any rate i knew you were my girl as soon as you mentioned calendars. in my astronomy class we are all off by a month a year since its inception. i'm supposedly a "cancer" instead of a leo. etc etc.
if anything is an indicator i haven't slept in 3 nights ... so something is amiss.
much love, your sis,
eagle spirit
Wow off a month?? How does that work?? I relate well to both cancers and leos (me a cancer moon... bet ya could have guessed that!) .. it is good we all tune in to the earth.. we live here after all.
very very basic understanding, it took a semester of studying and not easy to explain
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/star-signs-zodiac-nasa-new-changed-astrology-astronomy-what-is-my-new-star-sign-a7319831.html
Happy Spring Equinox @riverflows!
/FF
💚💚💚
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Awww!
😋
/FF
I really do love your writing, your truth sharing, I am there with you sister. We have so much to gain by being in contact with the earth, by returning to and embracing the natural cycles of life. of nature. Nature is our guide, our best teacher and when we live in harmony with her, we are connected to one another and we allow ourselves to tap into our power, into the collective power that lies in wait. Happy Spring Equinox beautiful, one of these days I will get to dance with you in celebration of the seasons xxxx love you xxxx