Wuruma Ending 2009

(I am pronouncing Wuruma as WUH-ruh-muh.)

The Wuruma Wheel applies to the seasons occurring on the NSW Central Coast.

It is not the same as the Southern Wheel. (For Southern Wheel click label at end of article.)

The Wuruma season, the windy season of two months, begins on or about the 1st of August. It is windy and dry and ends around the end of September.

This year (2009) the windy season ended in late October after a couple of extra cold fronts came through Sydney and the region around it which includes the NSW Central Coast.

Pelicans seem to be the only birds in the sky when the wind is at its strongest. In the wind before a storm they are still circling high when all the other birds have disappeared to wait it out and they are usually still in the sky in the teeth of all the biggest gales. So they are the bird I associate with the Wuruma windy season.

After the last cold front in October, I got out my small collection of pelican feathers and collected some gum leaves and needles from the casuarina tree. I smoked (smudged) myself outside with the leaves in a bowl and stared at the pelican flight feathers and thought about them alone up in the sky in the teeth of the big winds.

For how my Wuruma festivals have evolved, see Wuruma Beltane 2009


Wheel & festivals

Wuruma Wheel of the Year

Wuruma Wheel festivals


Flora & fauna

Casuarina cunninghamiana

Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus)

Wuruma Beltane 2009

(I am pronouncing Wuruma as WUH-ruh-muh.)

Wuruma Beltane falls around the 15th October and is on the Wuruma Wheel of the Year.

The Wuruma Wheel applies to the seasons occurring on the NSW Central Coast. It is not on the Southern Wheel of the Year, which is the European-based Wheel as celebrated in Australia. (See Wheel links below or in the side-bar.)

When I started celebrating the Wuruma Wheel in 2008 I had no idea how accurate my calendar of the local natural seasons was. It was given to me by a white person and I was told it had been compiled from observations by white non-pagans over several decades.

Now, in 2009, I have been round the Wuruma Wheel once and I have found it to be accurate so far. I am sure there will always be a few variations in when a season arrives or leaves and how long it lasts but that is the same for all Wheels in all climates.

At Wuruma Beltane 2008 I was at home with all my notes and books. This year I was on holiday and had only my own observations.

There were brush turkeys hatching from a mound nearby and the adult male brush turkeys that had not yet found a mate were looking rather desperate. Tiny pink flowers were coming out in the bush and a small snake was sunning itself on the window ledge one morning. And every morning and early evening the sulphur-crested cockatoos crowded into the golden wattle outside the window and feasted on its seeds then flew away to deposit them somewhere so more wattles could grow.

I collected dropped cockatoo feathers and picked a couple of wattle seed-pods. I also collected gum leaves and pieces of frond from the Cabbage Tree Palm and Bangalow Palm nearby. Those three trees are native to where I was staying on the NSW Central Coast.

I burnt the leaves in a bowl outside and smoked (smudged) myself in the smoke and meditated on the image of the cockatoos dropping the wattle seed over the bush and new wattles springing up over the coming months to bloom at Wuruma Spring in the future.

So far I have celebrated Wuruma festivals on a low altar in my living room, with vases of native flowers and lit candles, in a circle cast in a public park, with fallen feathers and leaves and seeds and images of native animals and with leaves for smoking. As part of each of those rituals I have meditated on the native flora and fauna of the area I live in.

So far I have found the use of a formal altar and casting a circle to be a bad fit. Not wrong just not suitable for Wuruma ritual. The feathers and leaves and seeds and so on are good. The images I have found to be unnecessary.

The key elements of the Wuruma ritual for me are the smoking, the observations and the meditation.


Bangalow Palm (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana)

Brush Turkey

Cabbage Tree Palm (Livistona australis)

Gum tree species

Sulphur-crested cockatoo


Wuruma Wheel of the Year

Wuruma Wheel festivals

Vernal Equinox 2009

(This festival fell on the 23rd of September in 2009, in the Southern Hemisphere. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, click label at end of post.)

For Vernal Equinox this year I collected a few sprays of blooms from the local golden wattle and put them on display in my living room. I also painted some eggs green and put them with the wattle. Green and gold are the national colours of Australia.

That was it. I was not very well and held no ritual and attended no circle.


The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel

Vernal Equinox is not marked on the Wuruma Wheel.

The next festival on the Southern Wheel is Beltane which is on or about the 31st of October.

Wuruma Spring 2009

(I am pronouncing Wuruma as WUH-ruh-muh.)

Wuruma Spring falls on or around the 1st of August and is on the Wuruma Wheel of the Year.

The Wuruma Wheel applies to the seasons occurring on the NSW Central Coast. It is not on the Southern Wheel of the Year, which is the European-based Wheel as celebrated in Australia. (See Wheel links below or in the side-bar.)

In 2009 I celebrated Wuruma Spring in mid-August. There were few golden wattles in bloom locally on the 1st of August and the real start of spring comes when the wattles bloom.

The official national Wattle Day is on the 1st of September. So those celebrating the Wuruma Wheel or their local Wheel might celebrate on the 1st of September or just watch their local wattles and celebrate when they start to bloom.

I did not have the energy for a full festival and formal ritual seems out of place on the Wuruma Wheel anyway.

Instead, I cleared off the top of my bookcase and covered it with a green cloth. I put a big bunch of golden wattle in a vase. Wuruma Spring occurs during the Wuruma season (the windy season) so I marked that by collecting all the fallen feathers I could find from native birds. I scattered them around the vase, lit a candle at each end of the bookcase and left it at that.

So my first Wuruma Spring had no ritual at all, unless you count setting up the wattle and feathers. But it was good to have found a way to mark it.


The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel

Wuruma Spring is not marked on the Southern Wheel. The Southern Wheel is based on the European and other northern hemisphere Wheels.

The next festival on the Wuruma Wheel is Wuruma Ending on or around the 30th of September. Followed by Wuruma Beltane around the 15th of October.

Wuruma Wheel explanation & dates

About Wattles

Wattle Day

Wuruma Season 2009

(I am pronouncing Wuruma as WUH-ruh-muh.)

The Wuruma Wheel applies to the seasons occurring on the NSW Central Coast.

It is not the same as the Southern Wheel. (For Southern Wheel click label at end of article.)

The Wuruma season, the windy season of two months, begins on or about the 1st of August. It is windy and dry and ends around the end of September.

In 2009 I celebrated it on the 21st of August. The winds had come just a few days earlier and on the next windy day (the 21st) I went out and had the ritual.

It was very informal ritual. Formal ritual seems out of place on the Wuruma Wheel.

I went down to a quiet spot beside the river and sat down under some Casuarina trees. In even the slightest breeze the Casuarinas make a soft sound like distant voices and it's said that to the Aborigines this is the sound of the spirits. It certainly seems like it to me.

It was a good spot but it was fairly public so I held onto my pelican feathers (representing Air) and cast a mental circle and spoke to the winds, thanking them for bringing rain to water the land and for sweeping away unwanted things.

I sat there with my eyes closed for quite a while, just letting the wind pick up my mind and blow it about like a leaf. It was very comforting though I can't say I know in what way.

After that, I uncast the circle and that was it. Very informal. Just the essentials.

During the night the wind got stronger and I could hear garbage bins and unlatched gates clattering and banging in other people's gardens. It gave me a feeling of peace.


The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel

Wuruma season is not marked on the Southern Wheel. The Southern Wheel is based on the European and other northern hemisphere Wheels.

The next festival on the Wuruma Wheel is Wuruma Spring. It comes around the same time as the Wuruma season begins.

Wuruma Wheel explanation & dates

Bride's Day 2009

(This festival fell on the 1st of August in 2009, in the Southern Hemisphere. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, click label at end of post.)

This festival is also known as Brigit's Day, Imbolc and Candlemas.

Last year (2008) was my first Bride's Day. I went to a great open circle in Sydney run by Druidry Down Under. This year I have been rather unwell and just had a low-key ritual at home.

I set up my altar with symbols of the maiden goddesses of Scotland, England and Lithuania (my ancestral cultures) and lit a big white candle.

The golden wattles were just beginning to show unopened blooms on Bride's Day. The wattle makes a good native flower emblem for Bride's Day and I found a few sprigs of opened blooms and put them on my altar.

My ritual was very simple and informal. I buried a handful of seeds I saved at Lughnasadh to symbolise the time of sowing. I meditated on the archetypal maiden goddesses. And I carried a lighted candle into the corners of all the rooms of my house to symbolise the growing light of the light half of the year.

That was it. I find my altars and rituals and festivals get simpler as I understand them more.


The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel

Bride's Day is not marked on the Wuruma Wheel but is similar to Wuruma Spring, which is held around the middle of August.


The next festival on the Southern Wheel is Vernal Equinox at 7.19am on the 23rd of September 2009.


Wuruma Wheel explanation & dates

Southern Wheel explanation & dates

Winter Solstice 2009

(This festival fell at 3.46pm on the 21st of June in 2009. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, click label at end of post.)

Last year (2008) was my first Winter Solstice. I was fairly clear on the meaning of it (the god returns and the year begins a-new) but I was pretty shaky on the lore and on how to conduct an effective ritual.

This year I have a better grasp on the Wheel in general and my rituals and celebrations are not the comedy of errors they were.

I set my altar at home with a red cloth for the Great Mother’s labour and some early-blooming golden wattle. I marked the change from the dark half to the light half the way I did last year: by extinguishing a black candle and lighting a gold one. I did this at 3.46pm, the hour and the minute of the solstice in the Sydney region.

Once that was done I lit the mass of white candles I had set out in my living room. They made a blaze of light to symbolise the return of the sun. (And this year I opened a window to appease the smoke alarm.)

Outside the ritual I transferred my favourite Christmas traditions to Winter Solstice.

I wore musical reindeer antlers and sang my favourite Christmas carols (and ‘Here comes the sun’ by the Beatles). I had a roast pork dinner with crackling and apple sauce and a big bowl of hot custard. After dinner I watched The Hogfather on DVD and ate those chocolate balls in gold foil that look like miniature suns. I hung a solstice sock on the bookcase and filled it with a gold coin, an orange, chocolate and glazed fruit and opened it the morning after solstice night.

It was a very simple and pleasant Winter Solstice.


The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel

Winter Solstice is not marked on the Wuruma Wheel.

It is not the return of the sun that drives the Australian climate (and therefore the Wuruma Wheel). Rain drives the Australian climate. Sun we have in abundance, rain is scarce.

For a fuller explanation read the relevant article in Southern Echoes, a Druidry text.


The next festival on the Southern Wheel is Bride's Day (Imbolc) at the beginning of August.

The Wuruma Wheel festival called Wuruma Begins (the windy season) falls around the same time.

Wuruma Wheel explanation & dates

Southern Wheel explanation & dates

Wuruma Samhain 2009

This festival is on the Wuruma Wheel of the Year. It is not on the Southern Wheel of the Year, which is the European-based Wheel as celebrated in Australia. (See Wheel links below.)

Wuruma Samhain fell on the 31st of May in 2009.

2009 was my first celebration of Wuruma Samhain. Later celebrations of it may differ.


Flora and fauna

Australian seasons are very different to those in the Northern Hemisphere (Europe, North America, etc.). It can be strange to look out the window at the blooming winter flowers on the native plants and think about Samhain. The winter cold is biting deep at this time of year and my head is still full of images from the European Samhain.

However, I found a few local native species that fit Wuruma Samhain:

* Red-bellied Black Snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus) - now going to ground for winter, as are other snakes

* Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) - now migrating North and thus leaving the Central Coast of NSW

* Tailor fish (Pomatomus saltatrix) - now migrating North and leaving the Central Coast of NSW


I chose the colours of the Red-bellied Black Snake as my altar colours. I made a snake shape with black cord on my altar surface and put a pile of local sandstone at its head to represent it going to ground for winter in the element of Earth.

For flora I brought in a bare branch and several dead cobs of Coast Banksia (B. integrifolia) which is a local species of Banksia. This species has a dark leaf with a very pale underside, making it a liminal species. Banksia is also the old man of Australian native trees due to its wrinkled bark, another reason it is suitable for a Samhain altar.

(For photos and habitat maps see links below. See Wuruma Lughnasadh for my reasons for not using Aboriginal ritual (secret business) or initiate lore. The smoking ceremony is not secret business.)


Ritual

For the smoking ceremony (smudging) I collected leaves from native trees in the area, put them in a fire-proof bowl and lit them. It had been raining for a few days so I used dried leaves I collected a month ago.

I brought the ashes inside to my altar and cast a circle.

I called the quarters:

Water for East
Fire for North
Earth for West
Air for South

I included the seasonal flora and fauna in the quarter calls.

I addressed the spirits of the land, giving my birthplace and ancestry, and making them aware that I intend no disrespect or infringement on Aboriginal initiate ritual or lore.

I told them about the dying god of the European Neopagan wheel and about the symbolism on my altar and in my ritual.

I thanked them for the bounty of the land throughout the year, for its plants and animals and for its beauty.

I thanked the Elements for their presence throughout the year and their own special beauty. Then I opened the circle.


Confusion

The quarter correspondences I use for Wuruma rituals are different to those for the Southern Wheel. (See link below.)

I always address the Aboriginal spirits as the gods of a parallel pantheon. Given the history of black and white relations in Australia, I would feel very uncomfortable laying any claim to them.

I often have difficulty interpreting the Wuruma Wheel. I use the European wheel as a reference point because it's the only Earth-based religion I am familiar with. But sometimes I get tangled up in trying to find an equivalent in the Wuruma Wheel when there simply is none and my Wuruma rituals get confused and confusing.

It is my first time round the Wuruma Wheel and I am still basing my Wuruma rituals on the concepts of the European wheel and pantheons. Although I was born in Australia and have lived here all my life, mainstream Australian society is still follows the European patterns of clear-cut seasons.

The gods are sometimes very different too. Think about the names and forms the European gods take. The Horned God is a good example. He has horns, native Australia animals do not have horns. He represents life cycle of the cattle in the fields, in Australia the meat animals are kangaroos and crocodiles and smaller animals. When I think about the god as an Australian animal, I get an image of Skippy and, loved though Skippy is, he is not very god-like.

But I am willing to live with the confusion. It won't last forever. I started on the Wuruma Wheel because leaving out Australian seasons and flora and fauna leaves a gap I need to fill. The next time round it will be clearer.


The next festival on the Southern Wheel is Winter Solstice on the 21st of June.

The next festival on the Wuruma Wheel of the Year is Wuruma Begins (start of the windy season) on the 1st of August.


Wuruma Wheel of the Year

Southern Wheel of the Year

Elements on the Southern Wheel & on the Wuruma Wheel


Red-bellied Black Snake article with pictures and habitat map

Red-bellied Black Snake at Faunanet.gov.au

Humpback Whale article with pictures and world habitat map

Whale species article with Australian habitat maps

Tailor fish article with pictures and habitat map

Tailor (AKA Bluefish) article with picture

Skippy at Classic Australian TV


Banksia integrifolia

Coast Banksia at Friends of Lane Cove National Park Inc.

Samhain 2009

(This festival fell on the 25th of April in 2009. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, click label at end of post.)

Last year (2008) was my first Samhain. I was still learning the very basics of the Wheel of the Year and had too much information swirling round in my head to have a focussed idea of Samhain.

This year I stripped it down to the essentials: the Horned God dies and winter sets in. And, as Samhain fell on Anzac Day (similar to Memorial Day/Remembrance Day), I tied it in to the ritual.

Before the ritual I had a special dinner for my ancestors. I recited the names of all my deceased relatives that I know of and told them what they meant to me when they were alive. I also named my great-grandparents and told them what my grandparents had told me about them.

The ritual itself was fairly simple. I lit a candle for the Horned God and thanked him for being there and rambled on for a while about his importance on the Wheel and about Samhain being the time of his death.

I had a red poppy wreath on the altar to represent Anzac Day and I talked about Gallipoli and World War II and about how they touched my family and friend’s families and asked that a friend currently serving in Middle East would remain safe.

Then, within the ritual, I extinguished the Horned God’s candle.

That was it really. I left my altar up for the three nights of the Dark Moon and the extinguished candle will remain there until Winter Solstice.


The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel

Since I started celebrating the Wuruma Wheel I have been a lot less confused about what to include in and exclude from my Southern Wheel (European-based Wheel) festivals and rituals.

I had been trying to tie in the local Wheel (Wuruma Wheel) and its representations and it was not working very well.

Now I have the Wuruma Wheel to work from and I am celebrating the festivals of the two Wheels on separate dates. This avoids confusion.


The next festival is Wuruma Samhain on the 31st of May.


Samhain 2008

Wuruma Wheel explanation & dates

Southern Wheel explanation & dates

Wuruma Lughnasadh 2009

(This festival fell on the 21st of February in 2009. For information on the Wuruma Wheel of the Year, click label at end of post.)

(I am pronouncing Wuruma as WUH-ruh-muh.)

The Wuruma Wheel applies to the seasons occurring on the NSW Central Coast (just above Sydney). It is not the same as the Southern Wheel. (For Southern Wheel click label at end of article.)

I have named some of the Wuruma Wheel festivals after their British/European counterparts. This merely for convenience.

I have not thrown out the Southern Wheel and have no desire to do so. The Southern Wheel connects me to my British and European ancestors, and to the community standard of Australian Neopaganism.

February 2009 was my first celebration of Wuruma Lughnasadh. Later celebrations of it may differ.

On and around February the 21st the flowering gums were and still are in bloom and the rainbow lorikeets have been and still are feasting on them.

I took the flowering gum and the lorikeets as the themes for my Wuruma Lughnasadh altar. I decorated it with gum flowers dropped by the lorikeets and I was lucky enough to find a shed lorikeet feather so that was included too.

I do not know what form or forms the rituals of the local Aboriginal people took and take. If it is secret business I do not wish to find out. Where there is something inappropriate to the Wuruma in the Neopagan rituals and altar, I leave it out of the Wuruma.

Two main issues influence my Wuruma altars and rituals. One is the secret business issue and the other is the amount of inaccurate and confused lore about Aboriginal spirituality and culture within white Australian society. Until I have accurate lore from Aboriginal people from my area and the elders' permission to use it, I am basing my Wuruma rituals on Anglo-Celtic Neopagan rituals.

Below are some parts of my Wuruma Lughnasadh ritual.

For the smoking ceremony (smudging) I collected leaves from native trees in the area, put them in a fire-proof bowl and lit them.

(Australian native leaves produce plenty of smoke so if it’s too windy to do this outdoors I recommend disabling any smoke alarms beforehand. Visit from neighbours and the fire brigade tends to disrupt ritual.)

I smoked myself thoroughly and enjoyed the scent of the burning gum leaves and casuarina needles. I live in a flat and my altar is indoors and so I had the smoking ceremony outside then carried the ash in to the altar.

The elements I use on my Wuruma Wheel altars differ from those on my Southern Wheel altars.

Southern Wheel Elements:

Fire for North
Air for West
Water for East
Earth for South

Wuruma Wheel Elements:

Water for East
Fire for North
Earth for West
Air for South

For Water I used a rough wooden bowl, Fire was the smoking ceremony, Earth was a handful of local sand, Air was the lorikeet feather plus feathers shed by the local pelicans and galahs.

I call the quarters in my Wuruma rituals because they help me to disengage from the whitefella world of my town and plug into the native flora and fauna and landscape.

Below are the quarter calls I wrote.

If you wish to use the words on my website, acknowledge them as mine. If you wish to post them on your website or anywhere on the internet, include the address of this website (http://wurumaandsouthern.blogspot.com/). To do otherwise is to violate my copyright.

Quarter Calls:

East, Element of Water
Touch me with your gifts of undiscovered deeps, soft rain and bush creeks,
Come down from the clouds to water the Autumn Earth
Hail and welcome.

North, Element of Fire
Touch me with your gifts of light and energy and wild beauty,
Bring your fire to benefit the bush and the people
Hail and welcome.

West, Element of Earth
Touch me with your gifts of quiet rest, golden stone and sheltered places,
Yield up your stored warmth to ripen the Autumn harvests
Hail and welcome.

South, Element of Air
Touch me with your gifts of wind song and coolness and rain-filled cloud,
Bring your storms and clouds to cool down the Autumn Earth
Hail and welcome.

Calling the Gods:

I call the European gods of Australian Neopagans as I know nothing of the gods or spirits of the area. There were a lot of storms around the time of the Wuruma Lughnasadh so I called Striker (generic name for the thunder god) and the Harvest Lord for the harvest of gum flowers the lorikeets were enjoying.

As in previous Wuruma rituals, I addressed this explanation directly to the gods and spirits of the area, asking them for forgiveness if I unwittingly used secret lore.

Path-working:

At the Wuruma Beltane in 2008, I meditated on the natural landscape around me, using the flight of a native bird over it to explore it. This meditation worked well so I used it again.

This festival was my third on the Wuruma Wheel and I am still feeling my way in terms of suitable ritual, flora and fauna, correspondences and so on. My 2010 Wuruma Lughnasadh festival could be quite different. Only time will tell.

The next festival on the Southern Wheel is Autumnal Equinox on the 21st of March.

The next festival on the Wuruma Wheel of the Year is Wuruma Samhain on the 31st of May.

Southern Wheel of the Year

Wuruma Wheel of the Year

Summer Solstice 2008

(Falls around the 21st of December in the Southern Hemisphere. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, see menu in sidebar.)

The weekend before the solstice I went to Ostarian Grove's Midsummer Madness. It was held at a lovely spot in a park beside Sydney Harbour and was a lot of fun. We had a BBQ and played games afterwards.

On the solstice itself I celebrated at home and changed the altar candle from gold to black as the solstice marked the move into the dark half of the year.

Conflict and Confusion

Christmas (Winter Solstice/Yule) on the Christian and secular calendar falls on the 25th of December. Summer Solstice (Litha) on the Southern Wheel fell on the 21st of December in 2008.

Last year, at my first celebration of the Summer Solstice, this caused me a lot of confusion. I was used to the winter imagery of the secular Christmas but it was Summer Solstice not Winter Solstice.

I dealt with the confusion by putting up my usual Christmas decorations on one side of the room and my Summer Solstice altar on the other.

This year I was not confused. I unplugged the television in early December and did not go into the shops in the last week before Christmas. I sent out my usual Christmas cards and wished everyone I saw a Merry Christmas, put out some Christmas decorations, cards and a deer, and left it at that. It was rather pleasant being without the constant barrage of advertising urging me to celebrate Christmas.

The Wheel

The next festival on the Southern Wheel is Lughnasadh, falling around 2nd February.

The next festival on the Wuruma Wheel of the Year is Wuruma Lughnasadh, falling on 21st Feb.

Southern Wheel of the Year

Wuruma Wheel of the Year