Caer Australis Blog

The Forum is now linked from each of the the CA calendar pages, and a link has been added to the Gorsedd. Looking forward to good converstions and discussions about the diverse ideas surrounding the Celtic reckoning of time.
Visit the Celtic Calendar Forum and have a look. To contribute, registration is simple – just click the button and we’ll be notified. You’ll shortly receive your activation code and you’re on. Registration is to prevent spam, of course!

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!

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.

An updated presentation of the “Celtic Calendar” section has been uploaded. This new presentation is more fully referenced and contains new ancient historical source information that better explains the May commencement of the Celtic calendar.