After some early rainfall around the time of the autumn equinox, and the welcome return of our beloved Little Creek, the season of Djeran has been particularly dry this year.  Our marvelous fungi friends began to pop up their little crowns through the soil and forest litter, but with the lack of rain they have retreated beneath the earth, and their presence in the forest has been very sparse compared with last year.  So it was with great celebration that we welcomed the rainy days last week, and our songs and stories of recent weeks have reflected these changing events. The children have been watching out with eagle eyes on our bush rambles for any fungi friends as they return.

Djeran was traditionally the time when Noongar people would fortify their shelters in anticipation of wetter weather to come; accordingly, we visited the bamboo forest during the first weeks of term and gathered materials to build a roof structure to keep us dry during the downpours. The children enjoyed helping to saw the bamboo lengths and playing with the offcuts.  Our deep gratitude to Kristi yet again for the contribution of her many skills to the final construction phase.  We were able to enjoy the rains of last week in relative comfort and style, with just enough drips to keep things exciting.  We look forward now to the transition to Makuru, the Noongar season of winter time.

 Central to our Bush Kindy experience at this time of year is the return to having campfires every session.  Our first week back we celebrated with a special ritual to light our first fire, singing songs to djanak karl, the fire spirit, and walking through the peppy-leaf and bush resin smoke to cleanse our own spirits.  Since then, the children have enjoyed that special sense of homeliness that the warmth of a campfire brings, drinking rooibos tea and cooking damper-on-a-stick and potatoes for our morning teas.

At the end of this term I will be flying to Byron Bay to present workshops at the National Steiner Teachers conference on our Bush Kindy program.  I will be sending a notice home to Bush Kindy parents shortly, but would like to mention here that I will be offering a session for interested parents and teachers before the end of term on the topic of “Bush Kindy through the Noongar Seasons”.  It will be a practice run for me, and an opportunity to share, with an accompanying narrative, some of the wonderful photos of the Bush Kindy programme that have accumulated since we began last year.

 Bruce