Celebrating the WOTY in a tropical country

[corliss_]

I live in a tropical country where there is hardly a fluctuation in seasons: wet and humid, dry and hot.

For those that live in similar climates, do you find it difficult to get in tune with Earth's cycles and the festivals? Especially with the approaching Autumn and Winter festivals, as I find it difficult to get into a "the Earth is at rest" mindset when it's 100° and blazing sun.

Do you adjust your calendars accordingly? How do you get into that mindset when the signs of slumber (leaves changing and falling, temperatures decreasing) are nowhere to be found? Do any of these factors affect your rituals/practices during festival times? Or do you just do it?

I'm just curious, as I'm finding it hard to believe we're coming up on the Autumn Equinox already. I grew up with four distinct seasons, but now I'm all thrown off. It's pretty difficult to meditate on the turning of the Wheel when it seems to be just two halves of a circle.

[Darkhawk]

Do you adjust your calendars accordingly? How do you get into that mindset when the signs of slumber (leaves changing and falling, temperatures decreasing) are nowhere to be found? Do any of these factors affect your rituals/practices during festival times? Or do you just do it?

 
So here are some questions for you:

What are the nuances and signs of the seasons where you are now? It seems to me to be very nature-denying to try to force a region to fit the patterns of a system that wasn't built for its climate.

For example, I know that many more tropical areas have their more dormant timeframe in the dryer/summer time period, not in the wetter/winter period.  Is that true where you are?  What are the signs and phases of that?

What are the migrations, the changes in what blooms and what doesn't?  What's the actual cycle of the year look like where you are?  It's likely possible to find something that happens around quarter time and cross-quarter time, but you have to look at your actual local climate and figure out how it really works.

(I don't use the wheelyear, but I do use a calendar that was Not Built For My Region, so I figured I'd throw something out.)

[corliss_]

So here are some questions for you:

What are the nuances and signs of the seasons where you are now? It seems to me to be very nature-denying to try to force a region to fit the patterns of a system that wasn't built for its climate.

For example, I know that many more tropical areas have their more dormant timeframe in the dryer/summer time period, not in the wetter/winter period.  Is that true where you are?  What are the signs and phases of that?

What are the migrations, the changes in what blooms and what doesn't?  What's the actual cycle of the year look like where you are?  It's likely possible to find something that happens around quarter time and cross-quarter time, but you have to look at your actual local climate and figure out how it really works.

(I don't use the wheelyear, but I do use a calendar that was Not Built For My Region, so I figured I'd throw something out.)

I just moved here (Honduras) two weeks ago, so I'm not familiar with this region's fluctuations and cycles just yet. I've never lived somewhere with little to no seasonal changes. I'm not trying to force a region to fit with the northern hemisphere's seasons, I just want to find out what others do in the same situation.

I'll keep what you said in mind, though. Thanks.

[Darkhawk]

I just moved here (Honduras) two weeks ago, so I'm not familiar with this region's fluctuations and cycles just yet. I've never lived somewhere with little to no seasonal changes. I'm not trying to force a region to fit with the northern hemisphere's seasons, I just want to find out what others do in the same situation.

 
In that case, you're in a perfect situation to spend your holiday cycle being attentive to what's changing, what the weather's like at this time, and so on.  Like a year of getting acclimated to where you are now!

[Riverwolf]

I live in a tropical country where there is hardly a fluctuation in seasons: wet and humid, dry and hot.

For those that live in similar climates, do you find it difficult to get in tune with Earth's cycles and the festivals? Especially with the approaching Autumn and Winter festivals, as I find it difficult to get into a "the Earth is at rest" mindset when it's 100° and blazing sun.

Do you adjust your calendars accordingly? How do you get into that mindset when the signs of slumber (leaves changing and falling, temperatures decreasing) are nowhere to be found? Do any of these factors affect your rituals/practices during festival times? Or do you just do it?

I'm just curious, as I'm finding it hard to believe we're coming up on the Autumn Equinox already. I grew up with four distinct seasons, but now I'm all thrown off. It's pretty difficult to meditate on the turning of the Wheel when it seems to be just two halves of a circle.

 
I live in California, where everything has been completely out of whack for almost a decade, now, so I feel your pain.

The Wheel of the Year's traditional festival imagery is based largely on the climate of historical Northern Europe, which has all four seasons. While where I live rarely gets snow (never in my 28 years of living here), we did have all four seasons. Winter was wet, foggy, and cold.

Nowadays, we largely have, at best, 2 and a half seasons. 2 months (on good years) of nice, cool, rainy Winter, maybe 2 months of a very dry Spring, and the rest is scorching Summer.

Traditionally, Summer is Life and Winter is Death. But in these parts lately, it's been hard to be in tune with that, since Winter brings water and relief, while Summer brings the scorching, killing heat that just gets hotter every year.

One solution would be to create some new traditions and imagery that allow a degree of being in tune with this new regional climate, though I have absolutely no intention of sticking around long enough to establish any for myself; me and my partner are trying to get further North. But I do think it's more important to be in tune with one's regional climate than that of somewhere else that might be more culturally familiar.

[DemeterDelusion]

For those that live in similar climates, do you find it difficult to get in tune with Earth's cycles and the festivals? Especially with the approaching Autumn and Winter festivals, as I find it difficult to get into a "the Earth is at rest" mindset when it's 100° and blazing sun.

Do you adjust your calendars accordingly? How do you get into that mindset when the signs of slumber (leaves changing and falling, temperatures decreasing) are nowhere to be found? Do any of these factors affect your rituals/practices during festival times? Or do you just do it?

While not tropical, I do live in one of the hottest areas of the Mojave, and the traditional seasons and holiday imagery never match up! While we do have seasons themselves, they're so different that it's frankly easier to come up with my own flexible WOTY. No set dates makes celebrations short notice, but it feels more authentic than going with the normal dates. I usually change the associations with the seasons, too, because they manifest so differently than "normal" ones do (f'ex, autumn is about energy instead of slumber because it's the one time of year we have consistent thunderstorms).

That said, when I lived in the much more tropical Florida, the seasons became more about the wildlife than the plant life. When the lovebugs swarmed, it was spring. When we had to keep our beachfront apartment's balcony lights off because turtle hatching was about to begin, it was summer. Sure, the plants don't change much for the seasons, but that doesn't mean nothing changes at all.