The seasonal wheel turns towards Lammas,
The welcome and gateway into the season of autumn.
It is the festival of first fruits when we feel which of our projects and labours are ripe enough to ease from the branch and fall effortlessly into our outstretched hands.
It is a festival we can allow to take place lazily over several days,
Even the whole month of August,
As we find the right balance between luxuriating in the pauses and seriously committing our energies to gathering up our inner and outer harvests so that nothing is lost,
Left to rot in the ground or wither on the vine.
With the afterglow of late summer,
Purring in our bodies and the land,
The days become lulled and languorous like the amber nectar of honeyed mead.
The communities of trees are hanging heavy,
Their close-knit canopies are bowed over as their life force is directed into the berries,
Fruits,
Nuts and seeds.
The mellifluous buzz and hum of the nectar-gatherers,
Wasps,
Horseflies and worker bees fill the air with their cyberitic symphony.
O to be me,
They all seem to be saying,
O to be me.
Everything is ripening and golden-ing,
There is a sensuous love-fest happening between the epicurean sun,
The land and the big orange moon hanging heavy over the fields.
We can feel it,
Smell it.
We make a beauty forage along a species-rich hedgerow where there are smells we could crawl into and peer out of.
Like the green man,
Soothsaying his enigmatic wisdom,
Not in words but what our souls need more,
Leaves sprouting from his nose and ears,
Curls of wild honeysuckle like a headdress,
The exact shade of hair bell,
Rowan berries,
The first of the sweetening blackberries that will soon be ready to toss themselves carelessly into our baskets for pie-making,
White hazelnuts in their frilly fairy caps puckering up for autumn's first kiss.
Sun-kissed and satiated,
We stretch out under a favourite tree,
An old birch or oak,
To rest and digest.
In our gardens,
The sunflowers are overseeing gluts of fat courgettes and squashes,
Potatoes,
Peas,
Sweet peas and beans to share with our friends and neighbours.
As we fill our kitchens with the warm,
Commodious fragrances of our first harvest loaf made from the first wheat and corn blessed,
We take time to notice in what ways our lives have filled out during the year,
Risen,
Reached their full flavour.
What proofing is still needed to bring our goodness forward on behalf of ourselves,
Our loved ones,
The earth and all her relations.
A poignant change in the evening air signals that the halcyon days of summer are coming to an end.
We make the transition from the element of summery fire to deep-feeling water.
The sun still keeps our days buoyant,
But the pull of water on our hearts has three distinct undercurrents.
We may start to feel more emotional.
We may feel the downward pull towards the death of the natural ear.
And barely audible,
We might also feel the whispers of death itself.
They heighten our awareness that only a small percentage of the world have cornucopias of surplus.
Summoning the medicine of dragonfly who can jump tracks,
Adapt with lightning ease,
Fly backwards and forwards into past and future,
We initiate deep wisdom circles to welcome indigenous knowing.
Donut and gift economies to close the global poverty gap and share this love feast from the earth who could feed us all,
Mouth on mouth.
