The change of seasons sneaks up on you. I am still in early spring mindset, but tonight we pass the midpoint between equinox and solstice, when we really enter the long days of summer.
This graph is for northern hemisphere, so it is reversed for us, and we are about to enter the yellow season of long days. The days are now nearly as long as they are going to be until the next one of these midpoints at the beginning of February.
At the other side of the year, there’s an equivalent marker, a special date when the season changes to the blue long nights of winter. Once upon a time our ancestors depended for the success of their food crops, and so for their lives on remembering these dates. So it’s not surprising that all over the world major festivals are traditionally held on pretty close to the same dates. They have historically been so important that even in cultures like ours we still hold many of the festivals, though we may not remember why. And, here in Australia we have the added complication that we live in the wrong hemisphere for the traditional European associations, and we have foolishly and disgracefully disrespected indigenous knowledge.
So here we are in the odd position of celebrating Halloween, a festival that, in European tradition, marks the start of winter, when thoughts turn to mortality and all around are reminders that every living thing dies. It’s easy to see why the associations are storytelling and remembering the dead. Dark falls early and kids have hours to fill before bedtime. I can easily imagine long evenings trick or treating, or around the fire telling scary stories, made poignant by a charge of fear of the cold and dark. And, as every gardener knows, at the beginning of May the glut of pumpkins pile up and you might as well make lanterns out of them. Traditionally the start of summer would be marked by the festival of Beltane, or May Day – dancing and floral garlands and maypoles, skinny dipping and falling in love, warm air on bare skin and joyous sensuality.
So tonight I will light the fairy lights in the carport and dress up, I think perhaps as a dragonfly, or maybe a mud wasp? Some predatory insect anyway, and make a batch of Aunty Naine’s famous chocolate fudge. And I will resolutely foreswear pumpkins because importing pumpkins when it is entirely the wrong season for them is an abomination.
Happy Beltane everyone, and may your summer be filled with love.
A bit too cold for skinny dipping here in Melbourne. I’d settle for a butterfly or any kind of wasp though. Happy Beltane to you too.
Happy Beltane ♂️…our thoughts in this corner of the world, exactly – does my head in thinking in Northern Hemisphere celebrations. I found a lovely book https://www.julietbatten.co.nz/product/celebrating-southern-seasons-rituals-aotearoa/?doing_wp_cron=1667245635.9564230442047119140625 which I refer to often for more relevant seasonal guidance here in NZ. I wonder whether someone in Australia has done the same, creating an Australo-centric version? It’s breathe out good
I wrote an outline and four or five chapters, and pitched a book just like that to my Penguin publisher of Home Garden, about twenty years ago. Sadly they didn’t pick it up 🙁