With a frost around the corner, it’s time to reap the benefits of our summer labor.
I met a friend for a dog walk Friday evening, and she brought me a little bundle of tulsi tea leaves from the farm where she works. They have been busy harvesting the last produce. My neighbor has been bringing me kale and chard from his garden, also eager to harvest what he can before the growing season ends. This time of year, before we enter the dark slow season, blesses us with abundance.
I spoke to a friend who runs a farm in Massachusetts. They’ve already had a frost, but she’s been gathering in the crops that are still going strong. The arugula and parsley are fresh and crisp. Bundles of rosemary are drying in the barn. The last of the calendula continues to bloom. My friend loves this period of time. It feels hopeful. A reminder of all the hard work behind her, and of the restful winter season ahead.
She’s been making a kale, roasted garlic, and delicata squash salad almost every day, and is pairing it with a potato leak tart with a pistachio crust. Yum.
Historically, there were many harvest rituals during this time of year, bringing communities together for the last push to gather and process grains and cull animals for food during the cold months. Many of these cultures worshipped goddesses that were associated with agriculture—and with life and death. Demeter was the Greek goddess of the harvest, and the underworld, since she was the mother of Persephone. Ala is a harvest goddess from the Odinani and Igbo cultures in Nigeria, who also ruled over the underworld. In Celtic cultures, the last sheaves were reaped in ritual and woven into intricate dollies to honor the spirit of cailleach, (Gaelic for “hag”), the feminine spirit of winter. These dollies were then kept warm in the home over winter, and tilled into the earth in spring to infuse the new crops with fertility.
If we see these rituals as a reminder of the unending cycle of the seasons, then death is a necessary part of renewal and rebirth. The fall is a time to honor the abundance, and remind ourselves of the duality of existence.
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