The Six Seasons: Shifting Australian Nature Writing Towards Ecological Time and Embodied Temporality

Abstract

The seasons figure prominently into writings about nature. The progression of spring, summer, winter and autumn has been used as a narrative template for expressing the cyclicality of places. In Australia, descriptions about the reversal or absence of the seasons appear in the writings of colonial commentators. However, the uptake of the four seasons by contemporary Australian nature writers warrants critical attention, rather than ongoing reiteration. An aspect of Australian colonisation has been the imposition of the Gregorian configuration and subsequent relegation of traditional calendars to the margins of time-keeping. The four-season template impresses a structure upon Australian ecologies, whereas Aboriginal land-based calendars reflect regional nuances and hence Aveni’s concept of “ecological time.” Engagement with eco-time counterpoises the colonial elision of—and failure to recognise—antipodean seasons. Rather than uncritically adopting the template of the north, Australian writers might consider extant traditions of seasonality, time and calendars connected culturally and corporeally to places. Such a shift from structural towards ecological time involves what I call “embodied temporality.”