it's different down under

‘What Witches Do’ became a very useful source of inspiration, a stimulus to exploration and discovery, a prompting for more reading, deeper study and practical work. So we stepped into the Tarot. Trial and error eventually resulted in packs that suited each of us. At first there was much turning of pages when, after more trial and error, we came across books which were the right ones for us. Then we met with Dion Fortune’s ‘Mystical Qabalah’ and linked the two systems together, which has tended to influence my readings ever since. (These days, in my teaching of divination, I begin with psychometry and the resulting build up of images which deliberately excludes the use of books or other printed prompts.)

Stewart Farrar’s text set us off in the right direction. It was a brilliant starting point.

It was the observation of the seasonal feasts which first caused me to be aware of the difference between England and the Southern Hemisphere. I’d grown up in London with a full awareness of the power of Spring in the poetry painting song dance and instrumental music of our northern world. It was the great re‑awakening of life and new growth after the dark dormition of Winter. In all my time in Australia, I never once saw any sign of Spring. It just did not happen. Only the state government’s calendar contained the rubric that September 1st was the first day of Spring.

I was prepared to find December 25th celebrated with a turkey lunch on a suitable beach while the surf rolled in from across the Pacific. It never quite worked out like that. Christmas Day was a time to invite friends to a full Christmas lunch, a swim and much partying. Only as time went by did I feel it quite incongruous to be singing ‘See amid the winter’s snow’ when the temperature outdoors was up in the 80s Fahrenheit with humidity to match. Easter was similarly out of joint. Easter is the great festival of rebirth after the drama of death. How could you really celebrate Easter when the deciduous trees in the Botanical Garden were dropping their richly coloured leaves as they moved to the end of yet another annual cycle? (The ubiquitous indigenous gum trees celebrated no cycle at all. Their leaves always turned edgeways on to the rays of the sun.)

In time I recognised that we lived with the equivalent of just two seasons a year. Summer was hot and often tropically wet. Winter was cool and dry. ‘Cool’ meant about 15º Celsius, though indoors and at night it felt colder than that.

The phases of the Moon we could appreciate and celebrate. The daily round of the Sun was a different matter. Yes, we could turn to the eastern horizon for the sunrise but the transition from complete darkness to full light was accomplished quite suddenly. (So different from standing with Bobcat and her Druids on the ramparts of Avebury while I grew to understand why our forebears had lit fires to inform the stations down the line that something really was happening.) In Australia I observed many a brilliant sunset on the western horizon even though twilight was quite absent. Nightfall was like the dropping of the Safety Curtain in a theatre.

But the Sun at Noon stood in the North. And there was the problem. Should we dance and circle clockwise, as the books said? or should we go with an Australian deosil : East North West and South?

Then there were the Guardians of the Four Quarters and their associations. I began to understand that what suits one location may not suit another. To our East, hardly more than a few steps away, were the endless rollers of the Pacific Ocean. Surely this must be the home of the Watchtower of Water? And out to the West, beyond the city, the high landscape of the Blue Mountains. Earth. Surely? And in the South, that Summer phenomenon known as the Southerly Buster, a harsh wind which could sweep up direct from the Antarctic with a drop in temperature of 15 Celsius or more. A powerful dominating demonstration of Air. And so, leaving us with the Sun at Noon in the North : Fire, to complete the tetrad.

It’s only in more recent years, sitting here in a gentler clime, within walking distance of Carfax, where the Four Ways meet, that I came to appreciate how much the Pagan components of Wicca depend on local landscapes. The changing angles of the Sun observed as it swings on its pendulum from solstice to solstice and back again. The eagerly sought for first signs of the green shoots of Spring troping the bare branches of Winter. The delightful chromaticisms of the Fall of the Leaf as a prelude to hibernation. And all that goes betwixt and between.

Magic. Sheer magic.

© francis cameron, oxford, 1 july 2009