We’re heading into a drought that’s forecast to last three years. As the days lengthen towards summer there’s a feeling of dread, with bushfires breaking out, destroying land, habitat, houses; taking the lives of the native creatures and even putting human lives at risk. They’re unseasonably early this year, more of them at one time than we’re used to, and closer in to suburbs. This is just the start of the bushfire season – 80 bushfires destroy more than 30 homes, 130 fires burned over 5,000 hectares in New South Wales – are some of the headlines for October 2023.

In this same October suburban homes and gardens were decorated with plastic pumpkins, kilometres of fake white cobweb, plastic skulls and ghosts, and on the night of the 31^st small children went trick-or-treating along the streets. Because – it’s the eve of winter, right? The night when the veils are thin and spirits cross to the other side and we all wear masks to either keep us safe, or allow us to cross through those veils and meet with our beloved dead. Wrong.

This is not so much a rant about rampant consumerism, the production of yet more plastic junk and the subsequent devastation to our planet – although that as well. And its even less about trying to take away a night of fun and daring, costume and dancing with the unseen that small children might be granted. But it is a rant about what it’s like to live in a part of the world that doesn’t acknowledge its own seasons – the actual weather, time of year, length of days and the very real seasonal happenings.

So we’ve got it all upside down – still imagining we’re part of those colonial empires that invaded, importing their own culture and doing their best to obliterate the realities of the land and its peoples, even if doing that condemned us all to denying reality for ever onwards. Some of us celebrated Beltaine in amongst the skeletons and fake cobweb. I held a Dinner of Love, others danced through the streets with music and wild costume. And come the solstice – in among the fake snow and the northern hemisphere carols playing on a loop – some of us won’t be heralding the new birth of the sun, but honouring its full power and strength, hoping we and the land survive that.

In the southern hemisphere we have no need to be reminded of what’s happening on the other side of the world – Halloween in spring, Christmas at midsummer, even Easter in the middle of autumn – we’re used to all that. It’s almost all we see, shielding our eyes against the reality that surrounds us. But if you live in the northern hemisphere, this is a somewhat riled invitation to remember the other half of the globe. In your awareness, in your magic, even in your social media posts please acknowledge that the world has two seasons, every season, because perhaps if you do that, and validate the reality of the whole of this sacred wheel, we’ll learn to do it ourselves.

Jane Meredith is an author and ritualist. She is passionate about myth, magic and the evocation of the divine. Her books include Journey to the Dark Goddess and Circle of Eight: Creating Magic for Your Place on Earth. Jane lives in Australia and presents workshops worldwide and as distance courses. Her website is: http://www.janemeredith.com

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/jane-meredith