Autumn Blessings

This is a beautiful time of year. The long heat of the Summer is over (except that we didn’t get very much this year), and we can settle down and enjoy some warm, golden days before the Winter sets in. In our hemisphere at least, and in spite of the not-so-wonderful Summer we’ve had, the harvest has been largely gathered in; although this doesn’t mean what it once did. For the last few days, the sounds of this traditional agricultural task have been drifting in through my open window, reconnecting me with the rhythms of the natural world. Even if it is now largely done by machines.

 I think it is a shame that Western society has grown so far away from the cycle of the seasons, and the agricultural round. Even when I was a child, which I know my children think was sometime in the Dark Ages, but really isn’t so long ago, harvest still meant something, at least to a child brought up in the countryside. But now, ask anyone where their food comes from, and they are likely to reply “from the supermarket”. You can buy pretty much anything all the year round – strawberries in December, parsnips in June. We’ve got a recipe book at home called The Cookery Year, which is full of wonderful recipes to cook for each month of the year, using “seasonal ingredients”. And at the beginning, there is a four-page table entitled The Fruit and Vegetable Year, which explains what you can get from which country at particular times of year. It makes fascinating reading.

I love the in-between seasons, when the weather is neither too hot nor too cold, when there is a reasonable chance of warm, sunny days, and still-light evenings, when it is a pleasure, rather than a penance, to walk abroad, either around the village, or in my beloved Salcey Forest.

I go up into the Forest as often as I can - it only takes five minutes to walk from my front door, to the gate which leads to the path to the Forest. I can be in the "Forest proper" in ten or fifteen minutes, which is such a blessing. The Forestry Commission has done a lot of work to ensure that the path is navigable all year round (when we first moved to the village, it used to be "wellies only" except in the driest part of the Summer). Nowadays, I can walk in trainers for most of the year, and walking boots for the rest. Working from home as I mainly do, I can choose my times of walking, whenever the weather seems propitious, or to clear my mind, or to soothe my spirit.

I have blogged on here before about the glories of Autumn in the Forest, and I am looking forward very much to the next few weeks, as the leaves begin to turn, and the trees show just how colourful they can be when they really try. I am so very blessed to live in amongst it all.

And the Wheel of the Year Turns

Lughnasadh (the Pagan festival of First Harvest) is coming right on time this year - it is due to be celebrated next Friday. And this past week has seen the fields around my village change from golden fields of corn and barley and rapeseed to brown, ploughed-in fields of stubble. The weather has been perfect for Harvest, and the farmers' only complaint must be of the lack of hours in the day. They are starting early and finishing late, and the roads around the village are full of tractors and other agricultural vehicles which we hardly see for the rest of the year. It doesn't pay to be in a hurry!

I have always felt immensely privileged to live in the countryside, where I can still be in touch with the changing seasons of the year. Every year the same, and every year different. It evokes feelings of awe and gratitude, as I watch the first green shoots growing strong and high, flowering, and then ripening. Then the crops are harvested, and the countryside exhales, and settles down for its winter dormancy. Every year the same, and every year different.

And on the village allotments, the runner beans are ready, so are the courgettes, and the raspberries and the salad vegetables, and the maize is coming on nicely. There too, it looks like being a bumper harvest. All the back-breaking work of digging, weeding and anxiously tending has paid off. Every year the same, and every year different.

It is also coming up to the season of exam results, as GCSE, AS and A2 students wait to discover whether their hard work over the past year has paid off. Some students will be delighted with good results, others will be devastated by unexpected failures, and will have to scrabble around for Plan B. Every year the same, and every year different.

So I pray for a goodly crop of exam results this year, and some happy students ready to move on to the next phase in their young lives.

Come, ye thankful people, come!

Today I went for a walk in the fields around our village with a friend. All the wheat had been harvested, and the fields were looking bleached and untidy. It made me appreciate anew the miracle of the cycle of the seasons, which it is so easy to forget if the eyes of your mind are closed to the changes around you. And it made me think ...

Harvest Festival at Dudley Old Meeting House

I think it is a shame that Western society has grown so far away from the rhythm of the seasons, and the agricultural cycle. Even when I was a child, which I know my children think was in the Dark Ages, but really isn’t so long ago, harvest still meant something, at least to a child brought up in the countryside.

But now, ask anyone where their food comes from, and they are likely to reply "from the supermarket". You can buy pretty much anything all the year round - strawberries in December, parsnips in June. but this universal bounty has its downside. We have lost contact with the changing order of the season - and I think it is a loss. The Western demand for all kinds of everything all the year round has had far-reaching effects all over the world. Farmers in developing countries now grow "cash crops" such as coffee and bananas, instead of food to feed themselves and their families.

So why do we in our modern industrialised society still celebrate Harvest Festival? Is it out of a feeling of nostalgia for a more structured past, one in which the seasons followed each other in order, and still meant something? I think it is significant that it is the only pre-Christian festival still widely celebrated in Christian churches. I believe that in spite of our outward severance from the cycle of the season, our innermost selves still believe in its importance, and like to mark it in this way.

A prayer for Harvest time:

Creator of all, we thank you for once again bringing the annual miracle of growth to fruition.

We thank you for the sunshine and the rain, combining to nurture the plants and help them to grow.

We thank you for the good soil of the earth, which feeds the seeds and enables them to burgeon and bear fruit.

Make us aware that we are the guardians of the earth; that it is the only one we have; and that it is our duty to preserve it for future generations.

Help us to make wise choices, so that we can save what we still have; and try to put back something of what we and past generations have squandered.

Remind us that we are the lucky ones, with full bellies, clean water and full store cupboards; help us to remember that for the vast majority of the world’s people, such things are a luxury beyond imagining.

Help us to turn our prayers into action; to put our money where our mouth is; and to strive for a fairer world.

Creator of all, hear our prayer. Amen