Caer Australis Blog

The equinoctial season of spring has arrived in Australia and the flurry of wildflowers and the green of new growth marks the warming of the land. The lunation from 19th September is that of the Aedrini moon in the southern hemisphere, spanning the vernal equinox. Follow the southern lunations on the Caer Australis website. The red bottlebrushes have recently burst into bloom, attracting honeyeaters and bees aplenty!
Their bright red display symbolises the Aedh ‘flame of fire’ of the month.

A Red Roar brings a match between Wales and Australia! A treat all round with two great teams. The best on the day!

Cup news: ABC Sport | Rugby Heaven

Follow the Cup at icWales.

And at 32 : 20, a good fiery game with an exciting finish! Well done both!

The astronomical rarity that occurred in 2002, the near conjunction of the visible planets, was recorded in the Harvard University Gazette in its April 18, 2002 issue. The image, copied from the page, shows the evening sky in April 2002. Later that year in June, the dawn rise of the constellation Taurus saw the planets rising with Aldebaran and the Pleiades star cluster, shown in the intro page for The Celtic Calendar 2007, beginning a new 30 year Celtic Age as recorded by Plutarch and Pliny the Elder. In ancient times, the dawn rise of the Pleiades occurred in May, from which the Beltaine festival arose following Romanisation. Actual photographs of Saturn in Taurus are shown in Saturn Return 2002 on the CA website.

September 1st is the official start to Spring in Australia, several weeks before the southern vernal equinox, and a month after ’southern Imbolg’, Teine Earrach Deas. The Celtic reckoning allows for the spectacular awakening of oaks, and here is the green mantle displayed by the Tranby oaks by the banks of the Swan.

     ”Oak that grows
     between two banks…
     Stately and majestic
     is its aspect!”
                     - Gwydion

And Arianrhod declared to Lleu, “You will never have a wife of the race that now inhabits the Earth!” So Math and his nephew Gwydion set about, by magical incantations, to form a wife for the Lleu the nephew of Gwydion. They took blossoms of oak, of broom and of meadow-sweet, produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man had ever seen. To her they gave the name, Blodeuwedd, and to Lleu she would become bride.