Releasing and gathering

As the Autumn Equinox approaches, that day of equilibrium before the day’s dark minutes outweigh light, balance is a theme I reflect upon. I wrote the other day about the theme of letting go at this time of year; a call that I take from the trees and the hedges and the land. In counterpoint, I hear also the call to gather, called to me from the earth and from the worms who bury inside it as they gather the year’s leaves and other debris. I hear this call from the animals and birds who gather berries and nuts to feed them through the winter. I hear it from my ancestors who would also be gathering and preserving food from the land at this time. And gathering seeds; preparation for next year’s food. Continuation of the spiral.

This balance of releasing and gathering, letting go and storing, holds beautiful and necessary harmony for me. Death is needed for birth and rebirth, emptiness creates space that is full of potential. Those busy worms break down that debris to feed the soil that will feed us next year.

This year,  pumpkin seeds will probably be the only ones we’ll harvest from our garden. Happily, the year has been rich in many others; lessons about my strengths and weaknesses (and limitations), lessons about why some of these are so, lessons about our garden, about things we desire more of or less of in my life – that we want to release or gather. There’s been new friendships that I hope will blossom, the awesome and unique personality of our son that blossoms more and more into its own, the little “seed” growing inside my belly into a whole new person, skills and interests of ours that are blooming too. Like many food growers record their seeds sown, their successes and not-so’s, and seeds gathered for next year in a gardening journal, I record these personal harvests in order to remember and to learn about my growth. Continuation of the spiral.

I wish you peace and joy in any Equinox preparations of your own, and in your own gathering of your precious seeds. xx

The first week of September

I bid farewell to August on its last day with a change of the nature table to a more autumnal theme, including a few little bowls and baskets for holding all the treasures of nuts, cones, conkers, acorns. leaves, seedpods and more that will be “harvested” on our walks. The next appropriate activity seemed to be baking a cake: I can usually rely on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to provide recipes rooted in the seasons so the result was based on an apple cake recipe of his that I added some blackberries to in order to autumn it up a bit more.

Despite odd teasing days of bright, warm sunshine, Autumn is definitely palpable here. It rules the later mornings with their chilly fragility. It tugs to us the also-cooler evenings at an earlier hour. It’s in the slightly weaker daylight, the gusty breeze, the swelling apples and the occasional mist. It’s in the sweet, purple blackberry juice dribbling down my son’s delighted face. It’s starting to touch the leaves – not many yet in the places I walk, but some: curling them, painting them, drying them, plucking them from their trees. Some resist longer than others. I feel a little sadness at the idea of them dying, despite my love of this season and knowledge that death facilitates the joy of rebirth and renewal.

I find September itself brings a kind of rebirth. Perhaps my years of schooling, despite having ended almost half my lifetime ago, have drummed into my subconscious the feeling of a “new start” at this time. Perhaps it’s the sense that the land is birthing its fruits and crops. Perhaps being pregnant just leaves me a little fixated on birth right now! (Especially as my first-born was due in September).

Nevertheless, we are settling into a new groove after a few weeks of being away from home a lot and out of our normal rhythm. This week will be the first full week back dancing our usual dance – although it never is exactly the same because we add to that dance the new steps we’ve learned as the seasons and our lives turn and turn; our harvests.

The week has also seen a bit of tree pruning to optimise light in our garden as the sun gets weaker, some slipper-making, and a bit of house cleaning and space-cleansing. This week calls for me to finish making our draught excluder and to top up the cedarwood on our anti-moth blocks. To dig out the inner-child self-healing work I began last winter (and then neglected as the garden called my attention). To dig out gloves and warm hats. Time for preparation. Turning in, cosying up and winding down. And for looking forward to the pumpkins still ripening in our garden – to not forget that the year still promises harvests to come.

A harvest nature table

We put this nature table / altar together for Lammas, although I never quite got around to writing a post about it – mainly due to the nature of one of the “harvests” featured. As many do with this festival, I like to focus on the year’s projects that have come to fruition; what we are reaping. Doing so, I’m taking my cue from nature, this being the harvest time. And in the growing calendar, harvest is a time, rather than a particular set day, which is why I tend to celebrate Lammas especially in this spread out, extended way.

Sometimes our harvests are outright tick-of-the-goals-list successes (if that doesn’t sound to blunt!), sometimes they’re surprises, sometimes more “lessons we’ve learned”. For all, I feel it’s important to state and share our gratitude; to thank each other, the Earth, the cosmos, our resources and whatever else has enabled these harvests – as well as to acknowledge the efforts we and others have put in.

As we now turn into September, with all the demands that come with continued harvesting, preparation for winter and/or return to school or work, I know it’s important for me not to let that gratitude and those lessons get lost in this busy-ness, but to weave themselves into the rhythm of this month and of this season, and to learn how to dance to that new beat…

The tiny corn cobs in the very top pic were from last year – we learned to let go of our hope to grow sweetcorn and a few other crops here: our little urban garden just doesn’t have the space. The premature conkers on the left here represent plans I made that still haven’t been fulfilled. This year I’ve “harvested” learning more about the reasons why I procrastinate, mismanage my time, avoid things etc. The knitting is there because this is a skill I think I’ve improved this year, the bark is a souvenir from one of the lovely woodland walks we’ve enjoyed – and been making more time for – as well as representing the development of my husband’s interest and activities in woodland work. The honey is from our camping holiday on Exmoor.

The painting behind the Holly King represents seasonal food and the berry harvest we enjoyed from our garden (that my son was extremely efficient at harvesting into his mouth!). The heart was made by my son at his kindergarten (which he started at in January). 

Not a great pic but the basket contains some rubble from the old concrete path that took up a lot of our garden. We broke it up to increase our growing space and to add a lawn and a more natural bark-chip bath; one of the bark chips is in the basket too.

The lavender is from our garden and the “seaside in a box” was inspired by an craft activity idea posted on theimaginationtree.com. It symbolises the three lovely weeks that my son and I recently spent staying with my mum in Cornwall – and frequently visiting the sea! The scan picture is a really special blessing from this year; our second child who we very much look forward joining us Earthside in February. Hence the lack of blogposts for a few weeks due to me having a lot of early nights! (Thankfully I’m feeling much better lately). The houmous packaging represents my accepting that it’s ok if I don’t always meet my expectations of myself: I ideally like to make houmous from scratch each week, using dried, soaked chickpeas I’ve then cooked in the pressure cooker. However, sometimes there’s a call for some supermarket houmous – when I’ve got a baby in my tummy to grow, a three-year old to build trainsets with, housework (or knitting!) to do, sunshine to enjoy, friends to see or whatever. Perfection’s just not worth it sometimes!