Elemental Thinking

Earth Politics

October 10/21/25

The Four Seasons and the Eurocentric Temperate Zone World-View

Scientifically, the seasons of planet Earth are astronomically divided into four precise time spans: Spring starting with the Vernal Equinox, Summer with the Summer Solstice, Fall with the Autumnal Equinox, and Winter with the Winter Solstice. These meteorological slices in time can be calculated down to the second, depending on the sunlight/darkness ratio, either equal during the Equinoxes, or at their peek differences on either Solstice. As Banu Subramaniam discusses in Chapter 6: In the Dark Shadows of the Tree of Life, science and colonialism cannot be separated, in which the truths of western science are held as universal truths. I had not thought before that the seasons that have marked my life were cultural constructs inherited from my colonial relatives and supported by western science, a sort of Eurocentric or Temperate Zone world-view. How old was I even when I realized that Christmas fell in summer in the Southern hemisphere?

In contrast, David Macauley’s The Four Seasons and the Rhythms of Place discusses how truths about the seasons are dependent upon place and time. While much of English literature and art depicts distinctive four seasons (with Vivaldi’s 4 part concerto acting as the standard of (western) musical seasonal representation) Spring is seen as warm and wet, Summer  as hot and dry, Autumn as cool and wet, and Winter as cold and dry, other locations across the globe, be it in other latitudes or altitudes, divide their yearly time into different segments with different temperature and humidity combination (Macauley 46). One example of this is how the Hindu culture incorporates two additional seasons, monsoon and pre-hibernal compared to the western four (Macauley 31). Similarly, in Traditional Chinese Medicine of which I have some knowledge from my studies of Herbalism, this system draws upon five seasons including an intermediate “Late Summer,” with a fifth element of Metal being associate with Autumn in additional to the elements of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water that are associated with temperate seasons.

While an Eurocentric, temperate zone world-view of seasons is not in itself harmful (i.e. political or separating), it is after all how many people in these regions experience weather patterns and cycles, it becomes problematic when this way of thinking and experience is considered standard. For example, in artwork that depicts an anthropomorphized winter as an aged man a la artists like Philip Galle in his engravings as seen on page 158 of Jensen and Chapman’s chapter on The Four Seasons, Winter is linked with death. This view others the experiences of those living in cold northern climates or higher altitudes where the temperate zone world-view of an eternal winter only equates cold regions with blank barren wastelands of snow, as is discussed in Jen Rose Smith’s Ice Geographies, and has been a basis for land seizure against Indigenous populations due to the under valuing and misunderstanding of the gifts of these environments.

As for adding a new branch to this topic, as a girl growing up in New England with a temperate zone seasonal view, I always felt that the beginning of Spring with the Equinox in March seemed anticlimactic, a technical calendal tease, because from my latitude of 42 degrees north in Amherst MA, where the leaves would not be unfurling until another five or six weeks later in early May and the cold winds blowing well into April, I felt lied to by the greater cultural expectation of what the season of “spring” meant. It was only when I explored the Celtic Wheel of the Year and its quarter and cross quarter holidays did I feel a resonance. For example, while I was used to believing that the first day of summer was on the day with the most daylight, it never sat right that this beginning was really like an ending when the amount of sunlight would begin to diminish. For the Wheel of the Year, June 24th is considered Midsummer, not the beginning, but as the name suggests, the middle. When reading Craig Holdrege’s The Seasons Embodied: The Story of a Plant, with the author’s close study of the skunk cabbage, I was reminded how the change of a season is not always seen, but may be developing underground or in the bud, appearing in incremental measurements as these changes slowly bring forth the next phase on the continuum of “seasons.” The truths of the characteristic of the season may only be fully realized as they materialize, not as a date on the calendar or measurable in minutes of sunlight in a day, but in being in relationship with environment and time, which is different for every location across the globe.

At the same time, soil is a site of resistance and renewal. It is not inert but generative, refusing the linear time of industrial modernity by insisting on cycles of decay and emergence. In the quiet work of roots and microbes, in the heating of the earth beneath melting snow, soil performs a form of agency that counters narratives of domination. It teaches that life is relational, interdependent, and seasonal. To be attentive to soil is to enter an ethics of care: one that understands nourishment, decay, and regeneration as shared responsibilities among humans and non-humans alike.

In this light, soil demands new narratives. Not stories of mastery or origin, but stories of entanglement where belonging is not defined through ownership but through participation in the life of the Earth. Through the seasonal pulse of the ground, soil speaks: not in declarations, but in cycles. It reminds us that to be alive is to be in rhythm with the elemental, and that true rootedness is not about being fixed in place, but about being responsive to the ever changing breath of the world beneath our feet.

At the same time, soil is a site of resistance and renewal. It is not inert but generative, refusing the linear time of industrial modernity by insisting on cycles of decay and emergence. In the quiet work of roots and microbes, in the heating of the earth beneath melting snow, soil performs a form of agency that counters narratives of domination. It teaches that life is relational, interdependent, and seasonal. To be attentive to soil is to enter an ethics of care: one that understands nourishment, decay, and regeneration as shared responsibilities among humans and non humans alike.

In this light, soil demands new narratives. Not stories of mastery or origin, but stories of entanglement where belonging is not defined through ownership but through participation in the life of the Earth. Through the seasonal pulse of the ground, soil speaks: not in declarations, but in cycles. It reminds us that to be alive is to be in rhythm with the elemental, and that true rootedness is not about being fixed in place, but about being responsive to the ever-changing breath of the world beneath our feet.