Seasons Creation Story
Follow Mira through the seasons and learn about the conception of pollination.
Water Ribbon Bush Thaka
Wattle Immersive PDF
Print out this workbook for extra activities. Please only share this link with members of The Mother Tree.
Additional goodies:
Silver wattle and magpie time
July-August – the cool weather continues but some warmer days arrive. The bush comes alive with the sight and smell of flowering wattles and the call of many birds.
Gurruk (Australian Magpie) begin to construct nests for raising young. Water Ribbon tubers are roasted and eaten. Flowering Early Nancy signal that the eggs of Black Swans are ready for collection. The wood from some wattle species can be used for making tools.
Early Nancy and Scented Sundews form white carpets on slopes and hilltops at places like Kalimna Park, the Muckleford Nature Conservation Reserve and the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park. Wararak (Silver Wattle) bursts into flower along the Loddon River and Campbells and Forest Creeks.
• Water Ribbon tubers flower and seed along rivers and creeks
• Migratory Cuckoos (Fan-tailed, Pallid, Shining Bronze and Horsfield’s Bronze) arrive and begin calling for the breeding season
• Many Acacia species burst into flower including Wayi-Galk (Golden), Wararak (Silver), Rough and Woolly Wattles
• Rakali (Water-rat) mate
• Early Nancy and Scented Sundews form white carpets on slopes and hilltops.
Information from Uncle Ric
Check out the whole Dja Dja Wurrung Seasonal Calendar here:
Bitters Drink
My morning routine in The Flowering.
Here is a bonus extract from our book of recipes, potions, Indigenous wisdom and Celtic Folklore from our permaculture farm on Gunditjmara Country and a decade of running bush school. The wattle blossom essence and the wattle potion (hot drink) are the recipes for what we did on Djarra Country over the change in the seasons from The Big Wet to The Flowering.
Wattle Heart Medicine
How to use your wattle heart medicine with Emotion Literacy as the foundation.
Onion Weed
I went for a purpa // a walk // through the wooruwooruuk // bush track from Campbell’s Creek to Castlemaine and found lots of bush food and examples of pollinisation!
Pollinisation // Bush Food
Decolonising Homeschool Elevator Pitch
At Open Field Co-living Homestead house-warming party, a Dragonfly Dad and I had a yarn about what Dragonflies is about at a foundational level, our mission and how we decolonise our little school. This was my response.
Timestamps and Themes
0:34
Homeschool is a relationship building activity
1:08
Dragonflies group uses Pivotal Response Therapy (decolonised)
1:14
The information in the lessons is for the parents/guardians: anything the children retain is a side benefit!
1:48
Yunkaporta’s Eight Ways Indigenous Pedagogy
2:35
Fluid structure / Rhythms and Rituals
2:58
No age or gender groups / intergenerational learning and full inclusion
3:13
In my role as Dragonflies Founder and in your role as Homeschool Parent you aren’t giving the children information to rote learn and remember, you are guiding them HOW TO LEARN, not what to learn (in a way that suits their unique neurobiology)
4:09
WE ARE NATURE (against Leave No Trace and Gatekeeping)
7:21
Resourcefulness and Resilience (not how to cope with colonised systems and bullying)
8:12
Regulation in not the purpose (of bush school OR homeschool)
8:58
Community Care
9:40
Against rote learning / Age of Information!
10:10
Critical Thinking
10:21
Decolonising language