Embracing Autumn: Scarlet and Crimson Treasure

As we move further into Autumn there are more and more splashes of red to be seen in the trees and hedgerows. The rowan berries are the first, in August, but as September progresses they're joined by rosehips, haws, the berries of honeysuckle, and nightshade - and of course, unripe blackberries.

Bright scarlet rowan berries hang in distinctive clusters, in contrast to the crimson haws which are distributed much more evenly amongst the hawthorn foliage. 

In the hedgerows hereabouts there don't seem to be many rosehips - but there is a huge crop of haws. Some claim this signals a harsh winter ahead of us, but I tend to think it's more to do with favourable pollination conditions back in the spring when an exuberant froth of blossom covered the hawthorns.

I often think of the hawthorn as being the epitome of spring - its bright green leaves are among the first to break when the world begins to green anew, and the appearance of its flowers usually coincides pretty well with Beltane. Yet at this time of year when its leaves have darkened to glossy forest green and rich red haws jewel the hedgerow it is a striking feature in the landscape. In spring hawthorn seems full of lively joie de vivre, perfectly matched to the festivities of Beltane. As we approach the Autumn Equinox, its energy is of quiet, benevolent dignity - and generosity. There are enough haws for both us and the birds to enjoy - take advantage of this bounty and go foraging. 

Embracing Autumn: Hawthorn Brandy

Haws can be used to make many delicious edibles - jam, jelly, syrup, chutney, wine etc. Just Google 'hawthorn recipes' and you will find lots of inspiring ideas to make the most of your foraging. One of the simplest recipes of all is Hawthorn Brandy. If you've ever made Sloe Gin it's made very much along the same lines -  but everyone makes sloe gin, so why not try something a little different instead?

After picking your haws, pick them over and wash and dry them. Put them into a plastic bag and place them in the freezer overnight (this will soften them and begin to break down the skin so that their flavour will infuse the brandy effectively). Weigh the haws and put into a Kilner jar or similar tightly-lidded wide-mouthed container. Add sugar (half the weight of the haws), a pinch of cinnamon and some lemon zest. Pour over enough brandy to completely cover the ingredients, fasten the lid on tightly and shake well to dissolve the sugar. Store the jar somewhere dark, allowing the fruit to steep in the brandy for at least a couple of months (better yet until Yule). Shake the jar regularly. When enough time has passed, strain out the haws and lemon zest and bottle the flavoured brandy. Enjoy!  

 

Harvests - The Good, The Bad and The Wonderful

We are almost at the Autumn Equinox, that magical point at which day and night stand equally balanced before tipping into the dark half of the year. That is one reason Pagans mark this time of year with ritual. Another reason is that we are slap bang in the middle of the harvest season, which begins at Lammas or Lughnasadh and goes on until Samhain. Lammas is celebrated in high summer, at the beginning of August when the grain harvest usually begins. Samhain comes at the end of October, when farming communities traditionally brought their livestock down from the hills into more sheltered pastures and culled old or weak members of the herd. The culled animals would provide meat for a celebratory feast and this would also be salted down or cured to provide food through the coming winter months.

Autumn Equinox, or Mabon as some like to call it, is a time for harvesting the abundant fruit and nuts available as summer gives way to autumn. Apples, pears, late plums and damsons, squashes and pumpkins, blackberries, autumn-fruiting raspberries, quinces, hazelnuts, elderberries, haws, and sloes... The summer crops of potatoes and onions should be dug by now and safely stored somewhere cool, dark and dry. Then there are mushrooms to be foraged and the last of summer's bounty to be stored away in jams, jellies, pickles, cordials, wines, syrups and chutneys. And of course, seeds of flowers, vegetables and fruit can be saved for sowing next spring.

Unfortunately the fruit and vegetable harvest at Halfway Up a Hill is rather meager this year. The vegetable patch has been somewhat neglected as I no longer have as much time to devote to it, and much of the fruit harvest is disappointing due to the terrible weather we've had this summer negatively affecting pollination rates. There are no damsons at all and my usually reliable cooking apple has only three fruits, comparing miserably with the fine harvest we had last year. Even the elderberry crop is sparse. Defying all expectations though, the tomatoes have done pretty well and continue to produce, and there is an extremely heavy crop of haws in the hedgerows.

Our modern estrangement from the natural world to an extent insulates us from the extremes of food shortage that we could expect from such a cold, wet summer. Food  prices may increase, but there will still be plenty to choose from at the local supermarket, greengrocer or market stall. We are so lucky in the Western world, and we so often take that for granted.

But we are also lucky to have the wonderful human spirit of altruism, generosity and the instinct to share in times of plenty - in times of scarcity, too. Just this week I have been gifted with some homegrown runner beans, a big fragrant bunch of sweetpeas, a pretty oriental fan and a jar of redcurrant and blackberry jelly by different people. In the last year I have been given rhubarb, plants, vouchers, magazines, a vintage radio for restoration, cucumbers, fabric, kitchenware, a computer that needs fixing, yarn, a large amount of firewood and items of clothing by friends, family and neighbours; they have also gifted me freely with advice, expertise and various skills that I lack when I've needed help. I myself have passed on books, surplus eggs, incense, my old car, toiletries, magazines, perfume and homemade jam. I have borrowed a wall-paper steamer/stripper, a router, a tile-cutter, a mitre saw, and have lent out a bagful of DVDs, my carpet-shampooer, a dehumidifier, my pressure-washer and books. And I have done lots of liftsharing!

Since T left, money is a constant issue. I receive alimony, but it decreases each year and will end altogether in a couple of year's time. I am now working, but I don't seem to earn enough to manage without the alimony. And as we find ourselves in the middle of a recession with no end in sight - no matter what the politicians say - the cost of living increases almost daily. Money - or lack of it - is now a permanent worry at the back of my mind.

But in this time of balance between summer and winter, light and dark, abundance and scarcity, I breathe and choose to remember that it is true that the best things in life are free. I choose to remember that I am part of a community of friends, family and neighbours who look out for each other, share what they have and help when they can, just because that's what we humans do for each other. I choose to remember that co-operation is more important than competition. I choose to remember that abundance and money are not the same thing. And most of all I choose to give thanks for the harvest of my many blessings, which are priceless.

Mabon Altar

Moments of Radiance

Yesterday we held our Mabon (Autumn Equinox) Ritual. It is starting to feel like a tradition each autumn: during the ritual we write those things we'd like to shed from our lives onto leaves and then burn them in the cauldron; take stock of the year's blessings and take an apple from the altar to symbolise those blessings; and finally pass around a basket of hazelnuts, taking it in turns to give them to each other - a nut for each wish or blessing we want to bestow. This symbolises the sharing of our year's harvest.

The ritual is always emotional, moving and heart-warming as people speak of the negatives they want to shed, then move on to the good things they harvest and finally bless each other in turn with lovely hazelnut-wishes.

Afterwards the group gathered in my kitchen as I finished preparing the mushroom quiche and apple crumble we were about to consume. Pinky and Suzanne were in the corner discussing tarot decks, IB and Dom compared mead recipes at the kitchen table, and all the while Sid serenaded us on his flute, moving from Ave Maria, through some Irish jigs to Ravel's Bolero.

I looked around at the lovely people assembled in my home, as the sun streamed in through the windows, the smells of the feast to come permeated the room, and the lovely ethereal music wove its way through all. And I felt a blaze of happiness. This is what I have always wanted, a group of true friends, a meaningful spiritual path, a comfortable home in which to gather and share with those friends in celebration and love.

Sometimes in life we are happy without even knowing it, only realising how precious a moment is after it has passed, and sometimes we are lucky enough to recognise true happiness in the moment. At this year's harvest I was truly blessed with an opportunity to recognise and count my blessings in a moment of radiance.

May we all be so fortunate. Blessed Be!

The Mystery and Magic of Balance

Today is the Autumn Equinox, also known to the Pagan community as Mabon or Madron. It is one of only two days in the solar calendar when night and day are of equal length. As such it is a potent symbol of balance, and many Pagan celebrations of the equinoxes focus on this aspect.

The thought occurring to me today is how rare that perfect balance is in nature and in our lives. After all, there are 365 days in a year (or 366 in a leap year) and yet on only two of those days are night and day perfectly balanced. How often do we truly feel that we have the work/leisure balance right in our life? How often do we experience the right balance of sun, wind and rain for our gardens to flourish? How often is there a glut of this, or a scarcity of that instead of just the perfect amount?

It would seem that perfect balance is something to strive for in our lives. After all, life in perfect balance is a life of ease, right? Well, yes... kinda. But at the same time, to truly flourish, life needs change. True balance equals stasis, an absence of change or growth or decay or innovation or evolution. And admittedly, all that stuff can be scary. Change is scary. Don't we all often find it easier to stay in a difficult or uncomfortable situation than to break away and try something different?

Last night I watched a re-run of the film 'Pleasantville'. In the film, two modern day teenagers are somehow transported into the seemingly idyllic world of Pleasantville, a 1950's TV show about a wholesome and 'perfect' small town. In Pleasantville everything is, well, pleasant. The townspeople are cheerful and friendly. Everyone lives pleasant middle class lives in comfortable homes. The youngsters are sweet and innocent, the school sports team always wins. Everyone is contented with their lot. And yet... to the outsiders, the drawbacks to life in Pleasantville soon become glaringly obvious.

To maintain this harmonious lifestyle, Pleasantville is in a kind of stifling stasis. The people are friendly, courteous and 'nice', but have no meaningful emotional life or true connection to each other. Each person fulfills his or her role within the town, but they are incapable of breaking free from those roles or using their initiative. The road in and out of town is actually a huge loop, leading to nowhere but Pleasantville. The books have titles printed on the spines, but the pages are blank - no room in a world like Pleasantville for ideas from 'outside'. Of course, the arrival of the newcomers soon sends ripples of change through the community, inevitably leading to strife. And yet the benefits of change are seen to be worth all the upheavals they cause. Gradually, Pleasantville's monochrome world changes to colour; the pages of the books become filled with words, stories, ideas; the townspeople experience hitherto undreamed of emotions - love, happiness, anger - and begin to live authentic lives, with all their inherent joy and pain.

This is the mystery and magic of balance. That in order to achieve it, we need to be constantly changing. That once we find it, something somewhere will shift and change and oops - yet again we will be juggling and adapting and altering, but most importantly learning and growing.

On this day of balance, I take time to notice and be grateful for the areas of balance in my life. But at the same time I remind myself that change is constant, inevitable - and what life is all about.

Autumn Equinox

Gathering in the temple, we created elemental altars together. One each for earth, air, fire, water and spirit. Draped cloths in each of the four quarters, plus one in the centre of our circle were adorned with flowers, crystals, feathers, candles, shells, incense... The temple space was cleansed with incense and salt water. We cleansed each other and entered...

Together in our peaceful sanctuary, we grounded, cast a circle and invoked the elements, Deities and other Mysterious Ones.

In this time of balance and change, we wrote on leaves those things we would shed and cast them into the cauldron to be transformed. In this time of harvest, we took apples, naming them for those things we would gratefully reap and take with us into the dark half of the year. In this time of community celebration we gifted eachother with hazelnuts, naming them for the blessings we would wish on eachother.

In this time of Autumn Equinox I gathered with good friends in celebration, shed my fears and tears and grief, held on to my hopes and blessings, and discovered all the good things others wish for me. In this pause from routine, this place of balance between light and dark, summer and winter, when day and night stand as equals, I felt the shift and realised that both balance and change are necessary.

The universe is in a fine dance between stasis and chaos. And so am I. This time of upheaval in my life may well turn out to be a blessing. I am certain that it will be a time of growth and learning.

Blessed Be.

P.S. Paul's account of the ritual is here.