Friday Rambles, Demeter At the Gate

A single burnished leaf from the oak in the front yard floats down and comes to rest in a pot of bronzey chrysanthemums on the threshold. The deep scarlet in the center of the "mums" matches the vibrant color of the front door, a cheerful thing and very welcoming. Days are still very warm here for the most part, but nights are starting to cool down, and it won't be long until we have to carry pots indoors every evening as darkness falls and the wind comes out of the river.

As the oak leaf makes itself comfortable among the blooms, a long v-shaped skein of geese passes overhead, joyously honking on its way out to farm fields to feed. The great Canadas will return at sunset and spend the night on the river.

Closer to the earth, the swallows of summer are packing their flight bags and making ready to depart, their places on telephone wires to be taken by flutters of sparrows and constellations of noisy starlings who are putting on winter stars and flashy yellow beaks. Monarch butterflies will be leaving around the same time.

Frantic squirrels everywhere are filling their larders, and I have surrendered to the little blighters in the matter of geraniums - there does not seem to be much I can do to prevent the flowers from being unceremoniously tossed out of their pots and replaced with buried acorns, berries, crabapples and walnuts. For some reason, the squirrels leave chrysanthemums alone. The scent perhaps?

When I awakened this morning before sunrise, Jupiter was just above the eastern horizon and the constellation Orion was rising in the southeast quadrant, his club held high and sword belt twinkling. The appearance of the giant is one of my seasonal markers, and his appearance in the predawn sky is a sign fall is on its way.

Above us, autumn stars twinkle in the darkness. Here on earth, apples, corn, pumpkins and hay are ripening and being gathered in. There is no doubt about it—Demeter is at the gate, and she is rattling its rusty latch with enthusiasm. The lady knows the ancient cantrip that grants her entrance to these smoky northern hills, and she knows the key in which it is to be sung. This is my favorite time of the year.

Thursday Poem - Enriching the Earth

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seed
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.

Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems

Wordless Wednesday - First Toms

A Gift From the Squirrels

Friday Ramble - Lammas (Lugnasadh)

Here we are on the last day of July, and the eve of Lammas,sometimes called Lughnsadh, Lúnasa, Calan Awst, "First Harvest" or "Loaf Mass". The festival celebrates summer, farming and harvesting, particularly the gathering, milling and putting by of grains and cereals.

Humans have gathered and consumed grains and cereals since Neolithic times, and the beginning of domestic grain cultivation is an important moment in our evolution. It marks the transition from an ancient, nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of farming and settlement. Sickles, sheaves, stooks, mill wheels and grinding stones are common motifs in almost every culture on island earth.

Gods and goddesses? Oh yes, our festival has a throng of harvest gods: Lugh, Tammuz, Osiris, Adonis and Attis to name a few. Then there is Dionysus or Bacchus -  the grapey god is in a class all by himself, deity of vineyards and harvesting, wine making, drunken revelry and ritual madness.  He stands at the gate between summer and autumn, and his magical tavern with its ever turning mill wheel and rapture inducing brews is the stuff of legend. According to folk tales, its doorway can be entered from any street in the great wide world if one is in the right frame of mind and receptive to the alluring tug of the wild, the intoxicating and ecstatic.

In the ninth century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, August 1st was called "the feast of first fruits", and the occasion also marked the end of the hay gathering that had begun at Midsummer (June 21st). Loaves of bread were baked with freshly milled grain and placed on church altars. After they were blessed, the loaves were used in simple charms and rustic enchantments. 

At Lammas, tenant farmers paid an allotment of grain to their landlords as rent, and a tithe (one tenth of a farm's yield) was given to the local church. Farmers delivered their portion to parish tithe barns, and a number of the elegant timber, brick and stone structures survive today. The oldest standing tithe barn in existence is one in Essex erected by the Knights Templar in the early thirteenth century. Analysis of its timbers has yielded a date for them of circa 220. 

Tim Powers' novel The Drawing of the Dark always comes to mind around this time of year. The book is full of harvest and brewing metaphors, and it has a cast of fabulous characters including King Arthur (reborn as an Irish mercenary named Brian Duffy), the wizard Merlin and the Fisher King. Dionysus and his magical tavern put in an appearance. So do the woodland god Pan, Gambrinus (mythical brew master), Finn MacCool, the Morrigan, Guinevere, Morgan le Fay, Odin, Thor and Hercules. There's a shipload of Vikings sworn to defend the ancient brewery at the heart of the story and stave off Ragnarok, and there are other mythical creatures too numerous to mention. I usually reread the novel again around Lammas, and I am about to do so. 

The first day of August marked the beginning of the harvest for the ancients, but it also marked summer's end in some cultures, and so it is for moderns. Days are still blisteringly hot for the most part, but mornings and evenings are often cooler. Some mornings, Beau and I find fallen leaves in the birdbath when we go out, and the air is filled with the splendid whiff of herbs going to seed in the garden. There are still many warm and sunny weeks before us, and it is difficult to believe that summer is waning, but it is doing just that. Our days are growing shorter, and autumn is not far off. 

We've come a long way from our early "hunting and gathering" days, but traces of old seasonal rites remain here and there. When I arrived in Lanark county years ago, I was delighted to learn that Lammas festivities are alive and well in the eastern Ontario highlands. They are called céilidhs or "field parties", and the attendees are unaware of their origins for the most part, but all the festival trappings are there: bonfires, corn, grilled munchies and fresh baked bread, wine and beer, music, storytelling, dancing, parades by lantern light and merrymaking in abundance. Once in a while, there is even a ritual or formal harvest observance. Blessed be.

Sequestered, 360 (CCCLX)

Wordless Wednesday - First Gathering

For the Oaks

For every mighty oak, there was once

an acorn that held its ground.

 

In September, every garment in my closet has acorns in its pockets, seasonal offerings from the magnificent oaks of the eastern Ontario Highlands, from red oaks and white oaks and burr oaks. There are other species of oak in the province of course, but these are the oaks of my native place, and I think of them as my sisters.

On sunny autumn days, I find a comfortable seat among my kin, and we have long conversations, some of the most thoughtful and enlightening discussions ever. I have no leaves, and I don't bear acorns, but the great oaks welcome me nevertheless.

Pockets without acorns rattling around in their depths enfold other offerings, pine cones, walnuts, beech nuts, hickory nuts and conkers (horse chestnuts). I adore their shapes, their colors, their textures, their fragrance, the whole season of their fruiting, and I can never resist gathering them out in the woods.

Autumn is a season of entelechy, a time of becoming, a time of of once and future trees. How magical, that the little wonders I am carrying home will be towering trees in the woods long after my spirit has boogied off, and my mortal husk has been composted in some fashion or other. Vast amounts of information and creative will are stored within acorns' tiny, elegant shapes. Form, function, beauty, they have it all. 

Turning my pockets out this weekend before chucking everything into the washing machine, I realized that there has been a whole forest riding around with me for several days, and it made me smile. No need to pine for my tree sisters when I am away from the woods - they are right here with me.

Standing in the Light

A Bowl of Red

The first Macintosh apples of the season. Hallelujah!

Morning Offering

Wordless Wednesday - Ripening

Happy Lammas/Lughnasadh (First Harvest)

Happy Lammas, happy August!

A Bin Full of Crows

For the Oaks

In September, every garment in my wardrobe seems to have acorns in its pockets, offerings from trees in the garden, in the park near my home and out in the Lanark highlands. After years of rambling, I have come to think of the towering woodland people as sisters. On sunny autumn days, I find a seat among my kin, and we have conversations, some of the most thoughtful and enlightening discussions ever. I have no leaves, and I don't bear acorns, but the great oaks welcome me nevertheless.

Pockets without acorns rattling around in their depths enfold other offerings, pine and spruce cones, conkers, walnuts, butternuts, beech nuts and shagbark hickory nuts. I adore their shapes, their colors, their textures, their fragrance, the whole season of their fruiting, and I can never resist gathering such things out in the woods. Autumn is a season of entelechy, a time of becoming, of once and future trees.

Turning my pockets out this week before chucking everything into the washing machine, I realized that there has been a whole forest riding around with me for several days, and it made me smile. No need to pine for my tree sisters when I am away from the woods - they are right here with me.

Friday Ramble - Demeter at the Gate

A single burnished leaf from the oak in my neighbor's front yard floats down and comes to rest in a pot of chrysanthemums on her threshold. The deep scarlet in the center of the "mums" matches the vibrant color of her front door, a cheerful thing and very welcoming. Days are still warm here for the most part, but nights are starting to cool down, and it won't be long until villagers have to carry flower pots indoors every evening as darkness falls and the wind comes out of the river.

As the oak leaf makes itself comfortable among the blooms, a long v-shaped skein of geese passes overhead, joyously honking on its way out to farm fields to feed. The great Canadas will return at sunset and spend the night on the river.

Closer to the earth, the swallows of summer are packing their flight bags and making ready to depart, their places on the village telephone wires to be taken by flocks of chirping sparrows and constellations of noisy starlings, who are donning winter plumage and swapping their yellow beaks for pecking equipment in darker shades.

Village squirrels are frantically filling their larders, and I have surrendered to the little blighters in the matter of geraniums - there does not seem to be much I can do to prevent the flowers from being unceremoniously tossed out of their pots and replaced with buried acorns, berries, crabapples and walnuts. For some reason, the squirrels leave chrysanthemums alone. The scent perhaps?

When I awakened this morning before sunrise, Mars and Jupiters were bright presences in the southeast quadrant, and the constellation Orion was rising below them, his club held high and his sword belt twinkling. The appearance of the mythical hunter is one of my seasonal markers. Fall is on its way for sure. 

Above us, autumn stars twinkle in the darkness. Here on earth, apples, corn, pumpkins and hay are ripening. There is no doubt about it—Demeter is at the gate, and she is rattling its rusty latch with enthusiasm. The lady knows the ancient cantrip that grants her entrance to these smoky northern hills, and she knows the key in which it is to be sung. This is my favorite time of the year.

Morning Offering

Friday Ramble Before Lammas

Here we are nearing the last day of July. Next Wednesday is the eve of Lammas, sometimes called Lughnsadh, Lúnasa, Calan Awst, "First Harvest" or "Loaf Mass". The festival celebrates summer, farming and harvesting, particularly the gathering, milling and putting by of grains and cereals.

Humans have gathered and consumed grains and cereals since Neolithic times, and the beginning of domestic grain cultivation is an important moment in our evolution. It marks the transition from an ancient, nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of farming and settlement. Sickles, sheaves, stooks, mill wheels and grinding stones are common motifs in almost every culture on island earth.

Gods and goddesses? Oh yes, our festival has a throng of harvest gods: Lugh, Tammuz, Osiris, Adonis and Attis to name a few. Then there is Dionysus or Bacchus -  the grapey god is in a class all by himself, deity of vineyards and harvesting, wine making, drunken revelry and ritual madness.  He stands at the gate between summer and autumn, and his magical tavern with its ever turning mill wheel and rapture inducing brews is the stuff of legend. According to folk tales, its doorway can be entered from any street in the great wide world if one is in the right frame of mind and receptive to the alluring tug of the wild, the intoxicating and ecstatic.

According to Irish mythology, the August 1st festival was established by the god Lugh to honor his foster mother (Tailltiu), who perished from exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for cultivation. The date is also associated with other harvest goddesses like Demeter, Persephone, Ceres, Bridget, the Cailleach, Selu, Nokomis (the Corn Mother) and Freya, who is sometimes known as the Lady of the Loaf. 

In the ninth century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, August 1st was called "the feast of first fruits", and the occasion also marked the end of the hay gathering that had begun at Midsummer (June 21st). Loaves of bread were baked with grain from the first harvest and placed on church altars. The loaves were blessed and later used in simple charms and rustic enchantments. Tenant farmers paid an allotment of grain to their landlords as rent, and a tithe (one tenth of a farm's yield) was given to the local church to sustain it. Farmers delivered their portion to parish tithe barns, and a number of the elegant timber, brick and stone structures survive today. While it is difficult to date some of the earlier structures precisely, a number of tithe barns can be dated back to the middle of the fourteenth century.

Tim Powers' fabulous The Drawing of the Dark always comes to mind around this time of year. The book is full of harvest and brewing metaphors, and it's a rollicking good read. The main characters are King Arthur (reborn as an aging Irish mercenary named Brian Duffy), a sorcerer called Aurelius Aurelianus (the legendary Merlin himself), and the Fisher King. Dionysus and his magical tavern put in an appearance, and they're in good  company - the woodland god Pan, Gambrinus (the mythical brewmaster), Finn MacCool, the Morrigan, Guinevere, Morgan le Fay, Odin, Thor and Hercules also show up. There's a shipload of Vikings sworn to defend the ancient brewery at the heart of the story and stave off Ragnarok, and there are other mythical creatures too numerous to mention. There has been a paperback copy of the novel in my library since it was published in 1979, and I have retired at least three tattered PB copies since. When a dear friend gave me a hardcover copy a while ago, I was ecstatic. It seems appropriate to read the novel again before Lammas, and I am about to do so. 

The first day of August marked the beginning of the harvest for the ancients, but it also marked summer's end in some cultures, and so it is for moderns. Days are still blisteringly hot for the most part, but mornings and evenings are often cooler. Some mornings, Beau and I find fallen leaves in the birdbath when we go out, and the air is filled with the splendid whiff of herbs going to seed in the garden. There are still many warm and sunny weeks before us, and it is difficult to believe that summer is waning, but it is doing just that. Our days are growing shorter, and autumn is not far off. 

We've come a long way from our early "hunting and gathering" days, but traces of old seasonal rites remain here and there. When I arrived in Lanark county years ago, I was delighted to learn that Lammas festivities are alive and well in the eastern Ontario highlands. They are called céilidhs or "field parties", and the attendees are unaware of their origins for the most part, but all the festival trappings are there: bonfires, corn, grilled munchies and fresh baked bread, wine and beer, music, storytelling, dancing, parades by lantern light and merrymaking in abundance. Once in a while, there is even a ritual or formal harvest observance. Blessed be.

Wordless Wednesday - Gathered

Wordless Wednesday - Binned