Seasons
Seasons
On Larrakia Country there are seven seasons identified by the Larrakia people. Dalay, Mayilema, Damibila, Dindjanggma, Gurrulwa Gulig, Dalirrgang and Balnba.
These seasons are identified by changes in nature. The changes in the colour and growth of the flora, the movement of the fauna and the shifts in the climate.
Across these sevens season the concepts of the shift in/between wet, dry and build up are discussed regularly amongst locals. The wet being the rainy season that turns into the dry mild weather period that shifts into the humid build up to rain time. With this cycle repeating. Each of these periods hold within them social, political and environmental rituals that are shared by those that call Larrakia Country home.
The wet:
tourists and short term locals flee down south,
locals hibernate or become deeply easy-going on all social and work plans, gardens become overgrown and lush with green,
lighting flashes fill homes with light throughout the night,
mould appears everywhere,
countrymen visit and stay in town,
cyclone kits are prepared, sunsets are hyper colour and moody,
frog choruses fill the quiet,
downpours are celebrated.
The dry:
the social calendar is bursting with outdoor events,
the skies are bright blue missing even one cloud,
grass starts to brown,
getting out bush plans are enacted,
air cons are turned off for some,
Rosellas dry up
The build up:
frustrations run high,
sweating is standard,
the ocean become home to stingers and crocs,
crime and violence rise,
mangoes and mango madness everywhere,
plans go out the window – Territory time becomes the norm.
The seasons of Larrakia Country provide a unique and visceral portal into Lefebvre’s concept of the thirdspace or as Wookey coins it feltspace. “A body-centric way of feeling space, of understanding it through the body.” (Wookey in Strauss, p 78) For my work I will mutate this concept to define feltspace as a body-centric way of feeling one surrounds both near and far, of un/knowing and/or re/learning it through the body.
In acknowledging the Larrakia Seasons we can begin to understand the collective pace of the people, places and elements that inhabit Larrakia Country. When looking at these elements in collaboration with policy it becomes clear that too often policy, particular artifactual policy (p26) as Lea labels it, continues in spite or despite the seasons. Either ignoring or potentially unaware of the shifts due to being too often confined to air conditioned buildings. By ignoring the seasons there are the obvious and, regularly discussed, missed opportunities to be in collaboration with others but potentially less obvious is the nuisance or longevity that a policy can have when it exists within a ‘controlled’ environment. By not being built with flexibility or vulnerability in its foundations it becomes intractable in its ability to reality to changing circumstances so either quickly becomes redundant or more regularly on Larrakia Country becomes the enforced practice despite it not suiting the circumstances or even producing the desired outcomes.