Ancient rituals linked to the winter solstice have been given a modern twist in Hobart in recent times with the advent of Dark Mofo and its mid-winter swim. I didn’t need a cold plunge in the Derwent, though, to tell me we were moving from the dark into the light with the lengthening of daylight on Tuesday last week. The sweet melody of a male golden whistler told me the worst of the winter would soon be over.
We might have human rituals to celebrate mid-winter but the whistler and a handful of songbirds at the Waterworks Reserve were having a celebration of their own.
After nine days of heavy rain and overcast skies, a sun shining bright and hard finally broke through the gloom on the shortest day of the year, even if a coating of frost glazed kunanyi/Mt Wellington.
It was as though spring had arrived early with the male whistlers, green rosellas and grey fantails practising their songs to proclaim breeding territories before hitting the high notes to attract mates. And a pair of plovers, also known as masked lapwings, were engaged in a courtship dance against a backdrop of silver wattles beginning to form their bright-yellow blooms.
Before spring arrives birds especially have to be prepared. They must establish territories ahead of the migrants hitting our shores from interstate.
Nature runs by its own clock and greets the approach each season with an intimate sense of timing. It knows when to switch off – as in autumn – and when to switch on, particularly at this time of year.
We are finally moving away from the season in which the tilt of the earth has put the southern hemisphere at its farthest point from the sun. But how the wild world can sense the turning point remains a mystery. Perhaps the same celestial forces are at play that enable migrating birds to plot their course by the sun and stars, and by the earth’s magnetic field.
Did humankind plug into the same forces before physically recording the movement of the sun and planets in stone monuments. Throughout history, societies across the world have held festivals and ceremonies marking the symbolic death and rebirth of the Sun, sometimes called the “celebration of the Sun’, or “new beginnings”. Most often, winter solstice celebrations have honoured the symbolism of fire and light, along with life, death, the rising Sun, and the moon.
I sat in the Waterworks Reserve during the morning of the solstice, at a point where the Sandy Bay Rivulet leaves its channelled sandstone course and enters a natural, untamed route. I thought of the first Australians passing this way, perhaps on a hunting foray, and wondered how they may have marked the solstice. One thing was certain; whatever the ancient ritual, over the millennia the golden whistlers and green rosellas would have provided the soundtrack.