The Briar Philosopher - Gathering

The Summer is sighing and shifting toward Autumn. The signs are everywhere. Katydids are singing in the tall grass. The deep greens in the trees are beginning to fade, soon to be replaced with the many colors that grace these hills in the fall. The last of our corn has been picked and while a few green tomatoes still promise to ripen before frost, the garden has about given up all of its summer bounty.  The flowers, so bright in the summer, have turned their attention to next year’s resurrection. Through the summer they have harvested  the sun and rain and good soil and turned it to seed.  Now is the time to gather what they have gifted us and that’s exactly what I was up to during part of the long weekend just passed. 

We have been planting a lot of flowers over the last few years to feed the bees and birds and butterflies and hope to have even more next year. These tiny packets of magic now filling a quart jar in my kitchen will help with that endeavor. I have gathered the seeds of Black Eyed Susan, Sunflowers, Cornflower, Cosmos, Marigolds, Bee Balm, Mullein and Zinnias. I still have Butterfly Weed and Milkweed seed to gather but will let the pods dry just to the point of cracking before I do so. It is my way to walk through the last of the season's beauty and thank each flower for the gift of its beauty throughout this season and the promise of returned beauty when the season comes round again. To do so keeps me mindful of the magic and the miracle of life itself as well as keeping me grateful for the grace of small things. I am also reminded each spring and each autumn of the continuance of things. Seeds carry that message for me and every year they whisper to me that death is an illusion. They remind me that flowers are not less alive when they sleep within the seed. They only await a new season to grow and bloom again. They remind me that beginnings and endings are often the same thing as each seed marks both the ending of one season and the beginning of another. 

These reminders, I believe, are important to our own understanding of ourselves. We, at least in western culture, tend to think in terms of a straight line from birth to death. We think in terms of sharp beginnings and sharp endings. But nature moves in circles. We know that. We see it all around us. The earth moves round the sun and the circle of seasons moves with it. Even mountains become sand in time, only to rise again as continents move and change. Rain will return to the streams and rivers and oceans only to be drawn again into the clouds to fall again and again. Perhaps if we remembered this every day we would not fear death so much for we would know that endings are beginnings as well. 

Yesterday, the Boy and I took a walk down Turkey Foot. The song of the creek and the sun through the trees had a calming and restoring effect on our much battered hearts. It is a healing place for old children such as ourselves who spent many hours in communion with creeks when we were younger. While there, I built a tiny memorial to those who have passed from our lives this year. It has been a year scattering as well as a year of gathering. So, this year, I dedicate the following poem to our dear friends who are no longer with us in body but who we carry in our hearts, minds and souls until we too return to dust. For Vette Middleton, Polly Gail Lakes, Phil Curd, Elizabeth McCommon and Bob Gabbard: 

Becoming

I am not I.
I have not yet been.
I am becoming;
reaching toward being,
breathing toward being,
walking toward being.

A flower is not a flower
when its tiny shoots clear the soil
and it lifts a leaf to Sun;
Is not yet a flower when
petals open bright to dance
for passerby and pollinator.

A flower blooms into being
only when the petals wither,
the seeds of its season fly or fall
or scatter,
Its stalk returns to earth.Its circle turns complete,
Its creation fulfilled.

And I am not yet I.
I am becoming.
Still within this spirit
the seeds of my being form.
And when this flesh does wither,
and my brightness falls away,
my seeds collected, flown or fallen,
I will be I and will release this flesh to earth and ashes.

My circle  complete.
My creation fulfilled
I will begin. 

© Carmen Abner 1995

Good Night Dear Friends. You will never be forgotten.