Thoughts on the Season

I've been collecting thoughts on the season that have been accumulating around the edges of my consciousness for the past few weeks.

Here are a few of them:

"Last year, Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas. Clean water for the whole world, including every poor person on the planet, would cost about $20 billion. Let’s just call that what it is: A material blasphemy of the Christmas season."

~Jim Wallace from "The Real War on Christmas," Sojourners

"But I can’t escape this: we have cut ancient trees to give the children big houses. We poison the fields to give them bread. We manufacture toxins to give them plastic toys. We kill village children to give our children world peace. For the sake of the children, we amass wealth by ransacking the world where they will have to live. What kind of love is this?"

~Kathleen Dean Moore from a beautiful and moving reflection in Orion, "What Kind of Love is This?"

And.

In spite of all this, we still celebrate the return of the sun, the passage of the darkest days of winter and the hope that exists in dark, sad times for the return of light and life:

"Hope is not a prognostication — it's an orientation of the spirit. Each of us must find real, fundamental hope within himself. You can't delegate that to anyone else. Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy when things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something to succeed. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It's not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives us strength to live and to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now. In the face of this absurdity, life is too precious a thing to permit its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily, without meaning, without love, and, finally, without hope."

~Vaclav Havel, from an essay I have returned to several times over the years, including on the occasion of Havel's recent death, "Never Hope Against Hope."

I've returned too to my ruminations on the solstice from two years ago ... a time to notice and know darkness, a time to honor the dark, a time to honor the dead. It is a time to sit with the painful and the difficult things, with loss, with despair. It's the dead of winter.

And: it is the birthday of the sun--the birthday of light in the midst of the darkest time of year. A turning point, the return of the light, a time of transformation, a time of hope, and a time of rebirth.

In many ancient traditions, Winter Solstice is a time to honor the way that life emerges from death, light emerges from dark in the cycles of the natural world. A time to look forward to Spring and Summer and the bright, hot months when everything will be in fruit and flower, imagining what will come to be.

And finally, my favorite recent variation on the theme of pagan origins of modern seasonal traditions, "Santa is a Wildman" by Jeffrey Vallance.

Happy Christmas, happy Solstice, sweet bright blessings for these dark days.

Pausing for Gratitude

This time of year, marked with harvest festivals in many earth-based cultures, is a time to pause from the garden frenzy, take stock, enjoy the fruits of our labor, and be grateful. In the ancient Celtic calendar, one of the four major festivals of the year was observed at the beginning of August, called Lá Lúnasa, Lughnasadh, or Lammas, which was in that part of the world at that time the beginning of the main harvest season.

In years past, we have celebrated this time of year with fanfare; this year Lúnasa came and went without any vegetables being launched down the Swannanoa river or harvest altars being constructed, but I have been taking time to pause and give thanks for the garden this week.

I spent some time this week in the garden taking photos and feeling immense gratitude for all of the labor that created this bounty, and for the Earth's incredible abundance.

Here are a few shots from the past week in the garden and at market. Happy harvest!

Zinnias and Purslane

Black

Swallow-

tail

Moon & Stars Water-

melon

Cherokee Trail of Tears Black Beans

Edamame

Bush beans, edamame, and lots and lots of pole beans

Depp's Pink Firefly tomato - a gorgeous and delicious Appalachian heirloom that has been a heavy producer for us this year.

Tomato jungle in the hoophouse...

Cucumbers and Globe Amaranth

Sweet potatoes, squash, and pole beans

Edamame surrounded by pole beans

Cardoon flowering

Magenta spreen lambsquarters

Love-Lies-Bleeding and Autumn Joy Sedum

Moonflower climbing

Our tomatoes for sale at the West Asheville Tailgate Market

Italian heirloom frying peppers at market

Cherry tomatoes at market. We are growing the varieties White Currant, Peacevine, Sungold, and Black Cherry.

More tomatoes! Two of my all-time favorite slicers. The green-ripening Emerald Evergreen and the beautiful Flame/ Hillbilly.

Orange Banana, Pearly Pink, and Cream Sausage tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes, sunflowers, and zinnias in the garden...plus some found- object garden art!

Dead of Winter, Promise of Spring

It's the dead of winter, and not much is growing in our gardens, but I thought I'd post some pictures of our various 4-season gardening contraptions.

Above is a simple, temporary cold frame made from straw bales and salvaged plexiglass windows; carrots and spinach are growing inside. And below are some shots from inside our hoophouse, including a close up of one of the 2000+ babies growing in there: Merveille des Quatre Saisons lettuce, a cold-hardy French heirloom.

In ancient, earth-based cultures in climates similar to ours (specifically: Northern Europe and the British Isles), this time of year was seen as a turning point. The snow is thick on the ground, but the earth underneath holds the possibility of Spring. Our bones are chilled, and we are weary with winter, but we know Spring's green shoots are coming. Pregnant farm animals literally contain new life at this time of year, the babies that will be born in the Springtime. Even when its hard to imagine Spring, we know it will come.

The ancients conceived of this time of year as the time when the goddess changed shape from her winter form --crone, hag, wizened and wise and bony old woman--to her spring form--maiden, bride, supple and fresh and pregnant with possibilities. Candlemas was the Christian appropriation of festivals honoring this transition, and Groundhog Day is the modern remnant of these ancient rites. Neopagans observe the transition as "Imbolc," but it was called by a variety of names by the peoples who celebrated the moment of turning from winter to spring. Whatever we call it, I'm grateful for this time of year -- when the bright blue sky and warm sun reminds me, even on cold winter days, that Winter won't last forever.

I'm grateful for the ways we capture the warmth and light, even in Wintertime. I mean this on a literal level: with coldframes and hoophouses and row cover and passive solar technologies. And I mean it figuratively: with the sickness and sadness in our household (see my last post on Frankie the cat), sparks of sweetness and levity are all the more precious.

In the dead of winter, there is light inside our cold frames and the hoophouse. Christopher cleaned out the ashes in our wood cookstove, and a new fire is lit. Our fridge is full of jars of seeds ready for Spring planting. Tiny carrots and kales and chards and beets and winter-hardy salad greens are growing in various contraptions throughout the garden. And we're holding on to a tiny light of hope for our beloved Frankie, for whatever may be for her.

So happy Imbolc, Candlemas, Groundhog Day, Bridget's Day, whatever you want to call it...and here's to cleaning out the ashes and lighting new fires.

Welcome Sun!

Left: Newgrange passage on Winter Solstice

In honor of the Winter Solstice today, here's a video that gives us the opportunity, albiet in 2x3 inch form, to witness a Winter Solstice event created by neolithic farmers:

http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/Solstice2007/ (click "view the archive")

The video shows the sunrise on Winter Solstice at Newgrange, a beautiful neolithic structure in Ireland engineered to observe and honor the Solstice.

More about Newgrange here:

http://www.knowth.com/newgrange.htm

I have been lucky enough to spend time at Newgrange several times in my travels in Ireland over the years. It is awe-inspiring -- the structure is 5,000 years old and its design is brilliant both technically and artistically.

Sidenote for you natural building aficianados out there: its a south-facing bermed structure with a living roof that hasn't leaked in all those thousands of years.

Newgrange is a beautiful symbol of the winter solstice, and resonates deep, deep down for me -- maybe it's molecular, maybe it's the collective unconscious.

Winter Solstice has always been a significant time for my family -- sometimes full of joy and other times marked by profound grief and loss.

It is the longest night, a time to notice and know darkness, a time to honor the dark, a time to honor the dead. It is a time to sit with the painful and the difficult things, with loss, with despair. It's the dead of winter.

And: it is the birthday of the sun--the birthday of light in the midst of the darkest time of year. A turning point, the return of the light, a time of transformation, a time of hope, and a time of rebirth.

In many ancient traditions, Winter Solstice is a time to honor the way that life emerges from death, light emerges from dark in the cycles of the natural world. A time to look forward to Spring and Summer and the bright, hot months when everything will be in fruit and flower, imagining what will come to be.

Solstice morning on the farm

For gardeners, this time of year is a time of planning the garden, deciding what seeds you will plant, what food you will grow. On a metaphorical level, the Winter Solstice is a time for the same sort of setting of intentions, dreaming, imagining good things to come.

The seed is a beautiful symbol of the Winter Solstice to me -- a tiny dormant thing, seemingly lifeless but full of potential, full of life that will sprout, grow, bloom, and fruit as the cycle continues. Today, I will excavate some vegetable seeds from the jars where they live in the back of my fridge, and lay them on my altar, imagining all of the growing things to come!

~~~

More on Winter Solstice traditions:

• Waverly Fitzgerald on the Winter Solstice
• http://www.candlegrove.com/solstice.html
• http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm

Harvest Celebration...with Sparklers

Above: corn patch

Left: harvest offerings

Lúnasa

The beginning of August is one of the four main festivals of the ancient Celtic calendar, variously called Lá Lúnasa, Lughnasadh, or Lammas. Lúnasa falls halfway between the solstice and the equinox, and honors the beginning of the harvest season.

In various pagan traditions, this time of year is a time to offer gratitude to the earth for the food we eat. At this time of year when gardens are overflowing and the earth is so abundant, it can be easy get caught up in the frenzy of the season without stopping to take stock and give thanks. I love the tradition of pausing in gratitude for the harvest.

Harvest Altar with snakeskin and sunflower

In Old Irish the name of the festival was Lughnasadh; in Modern Irish, the name for the month of August is Lúnasa, with the festival itself being Lá Lúnasa.

The modern neopagan festival of Lammas is another incarnation of this holiday: when Christianity came to Ireland and the other Celtic nations, Lughnasadh was renamed Lammas or 'first loaf.'

Huckleberry potatoes from the garden

At Lammas, the custom was to bake a special loaf of bread from the first grains of the harvest, to place on an altar as an offering, or to eat at a celebratory feast. The concept of “the bread of life,” rituals of communal breaking of bread, and even the honoring of bread as the body of the divine, can be traced to these roots. Although we did not break bread together, we did commune over some fine potato salad, fresh tomatoes, and all manner of other homegrown and locally-foraged foods.

Lúnasa is traditionally a time of community gathering, feasting on homegrown food, & reunion with loved ones. We celebrated last night by the full-ish moon with food, homemade wine, family, and friends.

Gratitude Floats

My friend Dana (who blogs delightfully over at Dana-Dee) has a tradition of launching a raft covered with flowers and vegetables down one river or another at this time of year as an offering of gratitude for the harvest.

Dana came over yesterday afternoon and whipped up a bamboo raft in no time flat. Later, she decorated the raft with marigolds from Susie's garden and we all loaded it up with offerings from our gardens--okra, cucumbers, basil, garlic, dill, carrots, broccoli, and all sorts of miscellaneous beautiful and delicious things.

Christopher's sister Kelly is in town, and she led us in some old-time religion, after which we all trooped down to the river to launch our outlandlishly lovely little boat.

The raft floated off down the dark river, festooned with sparklers, candles, flowers, and food, and with marigolds floating all around it, to the strains of "The Love Boat" theme.

We walked home in the dark and shared a feast from the garden, meads and various other beverages, a wood-fired hot tub soak, and chocolate. A whole lot to be grateful for.

More photos here. . .

Lúnasa blessings:

May you never go hungry.

May you always be nourished.

May all be fed.