(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
