Australian Eostre

The constellation of Pegasus and the brightest star in the galaxy Andromeda are rising in the northeast at this time. In southern Australia, spring can be a changeable season and is often characterised by warm days interspersed with wind and rain, vigorous plant growth, abundant flowers and nesting birds. Young koalas leave their mothers’ pouches and mature koalas begin mating. In northern Australia this is the hot dry season; the atmosphere is sticky, water dries up and the ground is very dusty. Swamps and waterholes evaporate, and birds and animals gather around the shrunken billabongs. During this season Aboriginal people burn off the dry grass which flushes out game such as wallabies, goannas, snakes and lizards. Emus are laying their eggs now, and several turtle species, as well as brown snakes, mate.

Meditation: According to Aboriginal legends from the Murrumbidgee area of New South Wales and from the Murray River region in New South Wales and Victoria, the sun is created from the yolk of an emu egg which was thrown up into the air where it struck and then ignited a pile of kindling. Emu breeding habits display cooperation between the sexes: the female lays the eggs and the male hatches and rears the chicks which are striped light and dark – like the year. The emu’s egg, laid during the time of the equinox, signifies harmonious balance, partnership, sharing, polarity, duality and androgyny.