(no subject)

[aetherograph]

As the month of March passes into April, I would like to challenge my fellow pagans to do something.

Look around you.

Look around where you actually live. What animals actually live there? What do the seasons ACTUALLY do where YOU live?

Four seasons, january being winter, and the presence of oak or deer or rain is dependent on the biome where you live.

I spent my early life in a desert, where the idea of snow and frost was foreign. The only snow was up on the mountains and you went and visited it and then came home. And yet I was told we were celebrating warmth in the winter during solstice, as though the weather wasn't clear sunny skies and 80 degrees Fahrenheit! As though April was a time of rain and new life when all that happens in January, for about two weeks.

The four season agrarian idea of the year and the seasons, the European idea of forests with certain animals, the Northern Hemisphere idea of winter in january and summer in june... these are all colonising every single book or guide or conversation about pagan holidays I have ever seen.

But we are supposed to celebrate where we are, the land where we are, our home and our reality.

I am not a farmer. Why should I celebrate farm related holidays? If I live in a desert in California, or a tropical marsh in Georgia, why can't I celebrate those seasons, those plants, those animals? Why am I hanging holly and mistletoe in December when cypress and palm are the plants in my backyard? You know?

When I realised I didn't have to conform to just ONE location's seasons, when I realised it was more important to celebrate where I am, a lot of the wheel of the year stuff stops making any sense and seems kind of oppressive.

There are so many beautiful biomes in the world, from the cloud-forests of Aotearoa, to the deserts of Mojave, to the Okavango's ephemeral floodplain, to the salmon-fed rainforest of Sequoia, the everglades of Florida, the mangroves at the edge of the world, and, yes, the bogs and woodland of Europe too. Even if you live in the middle of a city, that too is a biome, and a rich one if you pay attention!

But look around you, look around at the sister-plants and brother-animals around you. What is happening through YOUR grove's year?

Smash the year wheel if it doesn't accurately reflect your surroundings. Make a new one that celebrates where you are.