Dancing to a Different Rhythm: A Southern Hemisphere Perspective of the Sacred Seasons
Esther Pockrandt – Australia
The Wheel of the Year, Southern Hemisphire
[Friday December 22, 2023]
It is dark outside. It is 4 am. Pre-dawn and far away calls of kookaburras break the night silence from across the distant hills. The eager call of a currawong trying to get a foot grip on the wet tin roof chimes in, letting the world know nature is waking up. A possum Mum scurries hastily yet sure-footed across the spines of roofs, from foraging overnight in nearby bushes and trees for fruit, leaves and nectar, like a tight rope walker with a piggy-backed young one, balancing on the electric wires that connect homes to poles, and more poles to homes, hurrying to bed and sleep in a tree hollow somewhere, before the hot sun strikes. The whip birds are still dozing. The drip of remnant rain from leaves of last night’s storms provides that silent drip-drip drone as the dark of the night fades barely noticeable into promise of more light in the east…not quite yet, but soon. And ‘soon’ comes, and so it is. Yet there is no colourful sunrise this morning. The drip-drip from leaves turns to gentle but steady rain again. It is a wondrous new, moist dawn on this special day, an unseasonal, welcome relief from the scorching heat over the past week and a respite from the threat of bushfires, parched cracking earth … for now.
