Caer Australis Blog

Southern Beltaine is greeted this year with an abundance of sunshine and lifegiving rain. The oaks at Tranby House on the banks of the Swan River in Perth are thriving this year, and their green mantle of leaves mark the start of summer and the beginning of the seasonal cycles in the Southern Hemisphere. November is the southern equivalent to May in the Celtic homelands, concerning the seasons; and to this time at start of the year’s seasons Dafydd ap Gwilym wrote in the mid fourteenth century, "When Spring ended I cared not; May’s golden wealth is purest gold. The beginning of full Summer scattered him, whom tears had nourished; May is faultless: the coming of May is a blessing to me; God and Mary decided wisely and steadfastly to uphold May" The poem has been published in full in the Grove on the Caer Australis website: The poem, ‘May’, was written in the mid fourteenth century by Dafydd ap Gwilym and added to the Grove as part of the southern beltaine summer festival.

The end of October brings winter to completion in the Southern Hemisphere; while Halloween howls through the enthusiastic and care-free, its winter symbolism belies the Southern Season as we enter the beginning of the seasonal procession with the onset of the Celtic summer in the south, our equivalent of Beltaine is at hand! A walk along the banks of the Swan River in Perth to get a picture of the Tranby oaks at the eve of summer took us to meet a family of water fowl – as pictured here – and they serve to remind us of what Dafydd ap Gwilym sang in the mid fourteenth century in his Haf – Summer, "Cnwd da iawn, cnawd dianaf, O’r ddear hen a ddaw’r haf", that is, an excellent crop and untainted life comes forth from the old earth in summer.
Summer has ever been the beginning of the Celtic year,
"So in the South you must remember,
It’s the merry merry month of November!"

A distinguishing feature of Caer Australis is its exploration of the Celtic calendar system. There is great scope for discussion of the Celtic calendar – our understanding of it, how we respond to it, and how it provides insight into the Celtic civilization, in all its developing forms – ancient, historic and current. There is also scope to discuss how the neo-pagan movement and its Wheel of the Year uses the Celtic time points. To this end, the Caer Australis forum has specialised into a venue for the airing of ideas and discussions on the Celtic calendar system. The forum is located at: http://caeraustralis.com.au/forum/ Visit, post and we’ll get the conversations started!