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Blog - Harvest reflection

Peter  1-10-2009

HARVEST REFLECTION

 

As the wheel of the year turns and we reach the end of the summer, the Earth gives up its bounty. For the gardener, this is the time when reward comes for all the hard work of sowing and planting, weeding and watering, feeding and, often, fretting. For the farmer, this is the critical time when the year’s income is won or lost and for the casual country walker or determined forager, this is the time of free food from the woods and hedgerows.

 

In our modern society we very rarely have to give food a second thought. If the cupboards are looking bare, we pop to the shops and fill the trolley. The supermarkets and the availability of airfreight and cold storage have removed the seasonality from our food. If we fancy strawberries in December or apples in June, we can have them.

 

However, there is a growing realisation that this is not a sustainable way of life in the long term. There is increasing concern over the environmental cost of transporting food half way around the world as well as the effects of land in poorer countries being used to grow cash crops for export instead of staple food for local people. We now often hear celebrity chefs on TV extolling the virtues of fresh, locally produced food. There is a renewed enthusiasm for growing your own fruit and vegetables and there are now long waiting lists for allotments in many areas.

 

If you ask most gardeners why they spend long hours tending the vegetable patch, they will tell you of the satisfaction of growing your own food for the table, the money they save on the household bills and the benefits of fresh air and healthy exercise. Some will hint, in a half embarrassed fashion of a deeper meaning and perhaps the real reason why they toil in the back garden or on the allotment. They will speak, perhaps hesitantly or awkwardly, of the satisfaction putting their hands in the soil and the feeling of being closer to Nature, even in the heart of the suburbs.

 

For Druids, the natural rhythms of the land are at the very core of our spirituality. In the garden and on the farm we see in microcosm the cycles of birth, death and rebirth that form the very essence of life in the universe. Everything, from the smallest microorganism to the stars in the night sky is part of this eternal round of birth, life, death, decay and rebirth. By acknowledging our place in this cycle we feel the connection that we have to every other person on the Earth, to the planet itself and to every other piece of matter in the universe.

 

When we deny this connection and kid ourselves that we are somehow separate from all of this, we open the door to stress, alienation and despair. However, when we take time to listen to the changing song of the Earth as the seasons change, to smell the change in the air when summer turns into autumn and feel the effects deep inside ourselves as our bodies respond to these natural cycles as they have been programmed to for thousands of years, we begin to feel the embrace of the Goddess and to dance to the same tune as the rest of creation. In fact, we wonder how we managed to block out the music for so long.

 

When we feel this connection to the Earth’s natural cycle we cease to be passive observers of the changing seasons out of the windows of house, train or office and become active participants. We begin to see the rhythm of planting, tending and harvesting in our own lives both in the literal sense if we feel inspired to begin to grow things ourselves and in the metaphorical sense of feeling our lives, plans and projects grow and develop according to this universal principle.

 

This harvest season, whether you are picking an apple, digging some potatoes or simply buying some locally grown produce from a shop or market stall, take the time to reflect on how we are not separate from the natural processes that produced but are an integral part of the natural wonders that we see around us…and give thanks.

 

May you reap the harvest that your work of planting and tending through the year deserves.