Harvest

Driving through the Illinois countryside last week, I realized how happy I was seeing the golden cornfields being harvested, the soybeans turning from green to yellow and rust, the warm sun shining in a deep blue sky with a cool breeze touched with hints of autumn’s crispness. The new crop of apples were being picked at Tanner’s Orchard, and everything looked, smelled, and sounded as if the season, and the year, had reached the fullness of life, what we have been working for since spring.

As I helped Jim and Peggy on their organic farm, shucking and sorting the ancient Oaxacan green corn, I gave thanks for how good it felt to be outdoors and physically active in a world of such variety and beauty. The crop was larger than anticipated because the deer and raccoons hadn’t found it. I rejoiced in getting my hands dirty and celebrated the harvest being brought in, as people have done with corn for thousands of years.

We celebrate many events throughout the year. Some are personal, some cultural or religious, and some are national. Many have their origins in the changes of the seasons as people sought to be on good terms with the powers of the natural world, to honor nature and to give it thanks. In autumn we renew our spiritual rootedness in the earth, feel the delicacy of life on the breeze, and realize that some lives will now end among the plants and animals, while other lives will continue on.

What we do today goes deeper than simply bringing the harvest in before the cold and snow of winter arrive. There are reasons why we feel so alive outdoors, and why we feel so vulnerable. Autumn reminds us that we are part of the earth, and that we’re not the ones in control. We need to be reminded of this now and then.

Today I feel these physical connections of being nourished and fed by the earth, by its food and by its spirit. There is a sense of coming home. I am still a child of Mother Earth, even though I live in the city. At harvest I remember to return to her table to honor and give her thanks.