The coming of hope

Today is the first day of summer in Australia. Let’s be honest, it’s an arbitrary change of season – yesterday was spring, with its bursting life and transformation, and today is summer, with all its ripe fullness. Remarkable what the flick of a clock dial (or its digital equivalence) can represent!

Who decides these things, and does it make any difference? It’s long and complicated, and certainly beyond the full scope of #the40project. We could go way back to Ancient Egypt, when three seasons (Inundation, Going Forth, and Deficiency) governed their civil calendar, concepts which all related to the ebbing and flowing of rains, floods, and seasons of planting and harvest. Or perhaps we could trace connection to ancient Greek, Roman, or later Julian or Gregorian systems?

Our contemporary “four seasons” are not even straight forward, despite their origins in these earlier systems; differences still exist between astronomical and meteorological definitions. The astronomical is based on the movement of the Earth around the sun…think solstice and equinox. The meteorological is based on temperature changes across the year. Still, this seems to emerge from cultural and geographical contexts that mean there’s not always four seasons.

Indigenous communities in Australia, for example, have vastly different ways of describing the changes throughout the year. Take the Gulumoerrgin language, spoken around Darwin and surrounding areas, which describes seven different seasons. Their seasonal names prioritise changes that occur in weather patterns and changing sources of food availability (such as Damibila, the time of barramundi and bush fruit).

People who live in tropical zones also experience far less difference between seasons. It’s generally accepted their year is punctuated by only two seasons: a wet and dry season. With this region home to 1/3 of the globe’s population, it’s worth reflecting on the extent to which we assume our own experience of climate is transferable to other regions (cue the northern European Christmas/Yuletide traditions of snow, burning logs, roasted meats and vegetables and mulled wine, all of which seem somewhat incongruous in a land where December 25 is often greeted with 30°C/86°F or higher)!

Despite these diverse ways we might configure the year, most of us in Australia find ourselves at the cultural (if not meteorological) start of summer. What does such a time represent?

Pre-eminently, it seems to be a moment of hope. The end of the school year will soon be here. As tired and frazzled as some of us might be at this time of the year, we have a hope that this will soon pass. I can keep going because I am sure that this time ends, and rest is not far away. It’s not deluded wishful thinking. It’s not empty positivity. It’s what inspires and animates us to keep going, persevering right through to the end. It changes our heart and our actions.

In another calendar, that of the wider Christian Church (except for Orthodox traditions), this week also starts the season of Advent, the coming. It is a season of reflection and preparation for the celebration of Christmas. It signifies a hope that, whatever our current circumstances, there is a life of peace and love that is possible.

It is not here yet, but it will come. This is a powerful message, regardless of one’s personal affiliation.

In a similar tradition, an old prophet once mused that where there is no vision, no hope, we perish. Perhaps not in the literal sense, but certainly in the symbolic sense that we tend to give up if we cannot see a better state, a better life.

And this seems to be what characterises the vocation of education. Despite the relentless pressures, despite the frustrations and disappointments, despite the drain it is on our lives and loves, we persist.

It is this unwavering belief that what we do matters, that we are custodians of life and opportunity for thousands of children and young people, and that we are “purveyors of hope”[1].

As summer starts, gardenias begin to bloom. Their fragrance invokes summer, Christmas, and rest. How joyous it is when it wafts across the yard. And thus, the final reflection for this week: how does the fragrance of my life evoke joy and life?

[1] Despite this quote emantes from Napoleon Bonaparte, with all the moral complexity such a source invokes, the phrasing is exquisite!