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Heartwings Love Notes 794 - Time for the Harvest

Heartwings says, "What will you harvest from this year?"

I remember my mother cutting up fruits and vegetables and filling the steaming canning kettle with jars. These were later stored in our cellar against the cold winter months. There was also a small barrel of potatoes down there. One of my tasks was to go down and pick off their sprouts. At that time of year too, my mother made wonderful jellies from the fruit that grew on my great aunt Alice's trees. A lawyer, my great grandfather was also an amateur student of horticulture. He planted all sorts of fruit trees as well as grape vines, vegetables and flowers, all of which were tended to by a gardener.

I think of my mom and her tasks at this time of year when fruits and vegetables reach their peak and are harvested. Long ago Pilgrims and Native peoples dried food to preserve it. Later on housewives like my mom filled glass jars, heating them until the food within could be kept for use in the winter. Today people who might in the past have canned and preserved it will freeze the extra produce that they are not using right away. People with gardens are "putting food by," as it is called in order to have healthy, homegrown meals for the winter months. We who live where the seasons prevail have always done this.

These days food of all kinds is plentiful in every season year round, and if we do not have a garden from which to harvest, we are less likely to preserve food against the winter. However, there is more than one kind of harvest to be made at this time. If we have planted ideas in the spring, and tended them in the summer, they may have matured enough by the fall to be gathered in and made use of during the rest of the year. If we have projects we have worked on, ideas we have been developing, stories or poetry we have been evolving; now is the time to get them out there for the final testing, checking or editing.

We no longer live in an agrarian society, and yet the seasons are still a part of us. Their energy need not be confined to the actual planting, tending and harvesting of food. For while we may not plant actual seeds to grow, tend, harvest and preserve, we can use the energy of the seasons to generate what we need to nourish our own lives and the lives of others. The seeds of our efforts whether edible, useful, or otherwise productive can be sown in the spring for our eventual harvest and use in the fall. Then during the winter months they can supply what we need to sustain us and keep us from the cold.

May you harvest what you have grown for yourself and enjoy it in the future.
 

I love to hear from readers and would be honored if you would comment and let me know any suggestions or thoughts. If a friend sent you this, you can sign up at my web site, www.heartwingslovenotes.com, where more love notes can be found in the archives.

Blessings and Best Regards,
Tasha Halpert
 

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