Autumn | Seasons | Wheel of the Year

The Closing of The Summer Door

And another turn of the wheel.

We’re closing in on the harvest time. The time when the days grow shorter when the sun sets sooner. When the dimness of early evening is shattered by a soft glimmer through the branches of our old beloved birch trees, swaying in the wind.

It’s that time of the year. The time of clove and cinnamon and ginger. That lovely pie-crust scent that fills the kitchen when you get a roux just right. Of pumpkin in the oven, roasting down slow to be made into soup. Of cream and blueberries and sliced honeycrisp.

Bowls of flour, of brown sugar creamed with butter, of raisins and nuts and soft cheeses. Pastry and beef pies, sprinkled with thyme and chives, cut fresh from my garden. Overgrown greenery, ready to die back with the first coming of the frost next month but still reaching skyward for now.

It’s the time of the tall grass turning brown as it ripples in the breeze. Of gathering stalks with a knife in one hand, slicing low to the ground to keep the strands long. Bundled up, tied with a cord made from a slender length of nettle- or so it was done in centuries past.

What shall it be? A basket? Perhaps. Or a hat, to keep the last rays of the Summer sun off of my neck. But I think for the moment I will call it a wreath.

Yes. A wreath, woven of long dry leaves, of fibers and whip-thin willow branches. I’ll decorate it with seed pods, tucked carefully into place, dabbed with a paste of cooked flour and water. A traditional glue for bookbinding, but it’ll work here in a pinch…not for long, but it will do.

Shall it go on the wall? Or on my door, perhaps. Hanging above the window, with a sprinkle of salt on the topmost step. I’ll have swept out the front room by then, cast out the season’s ills to make ready for the Winter bunking in. Ready for the snow to blow in, pile up, lock us indoors.

There are traditions to be maintained. The planting of the garlic on a full moon in Autumn, in October. To overwinter in the frozen ground and come up in the Spring. Only the largest bulbs go into the earth, the hardneck cloves for the best flavor. But the softneck lasts the longest.

The time will come to make ready the garden beds, to take out the shears and snip old plants down at the base. Leave the roots in, let them rot down in the soil where they dug in deep. Return the minerals they fed from. Compost the rest, cook it down- but for the nightshades.

The nightshades should be burned. Potato, tomato, no matter the variety. Into a bag, given away for the flame so as not to spread their blight into the dirt for next year’s crop. With every turn of the wheel, it becomes more vital, more necessary for a good growing season.

It would be time to gather corn, if I had any. To peel back the covering, press my nail into the kernels. Watch for the sweet white sap that lets you know the ears are ready- picked fresh, thrown straight in the boiling pot. No time to go bitter, they’d taste like candy. Caramel with a sprinkle of salt.

Corn, pumpkin, a crop of bush beans from the patch, the lovely sisters. The groundcherries with their little lanterns of dry paper. Falling from the plants as you walk past, dropping from the stems to be gathered into the hem of my shirt. Volunteers this year, I didn’t plant them. But I missed fruit last Summer, and they came back again for another round.

Echinacea have taken over the back of the patch, shaded in the eaves of my home. Purple petals, tipped over. Lampshades and hiding places for the bees to rest from the heat. I’ll never forget the metallic taste of an echinacea tincture, the syrup my parents would give me when cold season rolled around.

I have to smile at the thought. In another year, they will be ready for me. Ready to be pulled up, washed off, chopped up. Into a jar with vodka, hidden in the back pantry. The little tips and tricks you learn in a family like mine. Old ways. People still forget, even in a time when many have started to look back.

Old ways from the old days. Not always good, plenty of them can be safely discarded, thrown in the trash where they belong. Not all traditions are worth keeping, like an overstocked pantry. You go digging far enough back, you’re going to find jars full of mold. There’s no shame in casting aside what isn’t good anymore.

It makes room for new things, anyway. New ideas, new recipes. New thoughts and feelings and memories to share. That’s the way to do it. We keep what’s worthwhile, we rewrite what’s been broken. You don’t leave a mess laying around, you clean it up. Sweep it out the front porch. Cleanse.

There’s your lesson for the end of the Summer. Clear out the bad. Make way for new things, new seeds to plant when the Spring comes again. New growth.

Keep the way open for the wheel to keep turning.