Australia needs a new seasons and cycles calendar Part 2 – The story of the European calendar

Way back in the ’80s, my friends and I were beach-adoring teenagers. Every January, we’d body surf then lounge around watching cricket, savouring every moment of those sunny days. We saw those weird (English or American) snow-glitter Christmas cards, but never gave them much thought.

Back then virtually no-one I knew had ever seen snow, let alone skied. Winter at Christmas was as absurd as St Nicholas in a bikini !

3 decades later, my family & I experienced real cultural surprises during our first white Christmas in the wintery dark of Manitoba, Canada. The deep colour of evergreens and holly berries and the nourishing warmth of December roasts finally made complete and perfect sense !

We stayed on to live in Ontario for 7 more “proper” Christmases. The dreamy, twinkle-lit, longest night at Winter solstice (December 21) became my favourite day of the year. The world was becoming brighter again as we listened to sound bowls being played in community spaces.

Nature outside was reflected in our indoor traditions and behaviours. The energy of stodgy food was needed to clear huge snow banks from the asphalt driveway. The stillness of the January freeze was perfect time to consider a New Year. Soft colours of pastel eggs met early spring thaw. Then the Easter bulbs arrived – tulips, daffodils and native trillium. It was cottage season from May 24 onwards.

Mid-summer and the accompanying abundant light were celebrated in June. Kids stayed up playing in the street until 10pm in July and August as the twilight lingered.

In the second part of the year, the seasons naturally wound down. Halloween and Thanksgiving were integral parts of the harvest. All the puzzle pieces of our ancestral European calendar clicked into place for us. We broke out our woollens when the kids went back to school in September. Things were in their logical, natural order at last. There was an ease to it.

Since being back in Australia, our calendar has felt topsy-turvy to me. More and more people are recognizing – our calendar does not fit our hemisphere!  

• Why don’t we have harvest festivals (like pagan Mabon) instead of Easter? (For more about how this festivity works in the southern hemisphere see here) How weird is a rebirth celebration in our autumn ?

• Why do we insist on Halloween symbolism in our spring?

We have to flip this damn conventional Gregorian calendar by 6 months. It’s illogical.

The Southern Hemisphere pagan wheel, which fits with our familiar 4 seasons, spring>summer>autumn>winter is one way to understand how the cycles function. Many who school their children in the Waldorf system will also be familiar with the Phenology Wheel as an example of this type of calendar/framework.

We all need to make this shift. It is based on common-sense. I’ve been living according to astronomical and natural markers for a while, tuning in to the seasonal changes. It feels like there is more ease this way. Currently the calendar (that Pope Gregory invented by the way) to me feels unnatural – like an ill-fitting suit.

True, we can’t just call June, January – but it IS time to consider the Winter Solstice in June as the first marker of a new (perpetual) cycle, or New (solar) Year. And so here we are………….

Projects ought to start soon as energy increases – due to the sap rising all around us in spring (August, September, etc). As summer approaches, life is full of frenetic activity and effort. This is the peak “doing” of the year. Autumn – the first half of “the old year” directly after Christmas, is all about harvesting rewards and wrapping up tasks from July > December. The first half of the solar year for building, the second for letting go. Then the deep dive to winter and annual wrap up happens again as of May in the quiet before Winter Solstice.

I’d love it if others would join me to craft their own more logical and respectful framework for observing the seasons.

What might you achieve by doing this?

• It will help you get off the often unsatisfying “Ferris wheel of Hallmark holidays” No more glitter cards !

• It can help you plan and achieve your goals alongside your body’s physical patterns of stagnation (winter), planning (spring), enactment (summer) and assessing (autumn). 

• It will fast-track your connection with nature as you realise the natural rhythm and energy of this way of living.

This month – just after the longest night of the year, I’ll be hosting a couple of events and providing tools to help you start your 2021/2022 year properly. Starting in spring – with growth and energy and ending logically with winding up your life’s patterns the following winter (in 2022).

There’ll be links to cheap, cheery & quick workshops, an e-book, templates for creating your own wheel and some guidance for how to integrate your own habits and practices with those of the Australian seasons.

Please join me!