We naturally equate Autumn with harvesting, but when we look to nature we see that it is also about seeding and deep planting. Fungi fruit at this time in more profusion to sow their seeds on the air, trusting they will fall to mulchy earth or grubby wood. The oaks scatter their acorns to be taken and buried, that is to say planted, by the nut-feeding mammals. The squirrels are laying down a store, they are harvesting, but the tree has other ideas: it is planting.
This is the time when we put bulbs into the earth to sleep through the winter, warm in the soil, to germinate and rise in the spring. Even the hacking back of bramble bushes, has this two-fold dimension. If we cut back consciously, it is an opportunity to give thanks for the blackberry sundaes and yoghurts and crumbles and the fruit we may have preserved in freezers or jams. And it is also about reminding the plant to rest through the Winter to begin again in Spring. We think of “seeding” and “planting” as new beginnings, but there is a sense in which pruning is also planting. Nature is rarely as black and white as we like to imagine.
And so it is with us. We plant and seed, even as we cut and harvest. Internally and externally.
Having talked about my harvest last week, I’m turning my mind now to what I am seeding in my life, both literally and figuratively, practically and spiritually.
I have put bulbs into the soil. Flowers for spring, and garlic. There are onion sets still waiting my attention. I over-seeded the lawn and the field after the drought had broken, but my avian friends have taken more than their share of that, so further sowings will keep pace with the rain until
the frosts make it unviable. And yes, I do appreciate the irony of trying to sow a lawn under a bird table.
Therein is also a lesson for my internal world and my social world. Some of my seeds will naturally fall on stony ground, and some of will be snaffled from where they land before they can take root.
The lesson here is to make a choice. I could decide that seed on the lawn near the feeders is a waste of time, effort and money. Or I can decide that maybe some of it will take a hold, give it a go and see what happens. I could decide that there is no point seeding my own personal growth until I have finally resolved the unhelpful habits that impinge upon it. Or I can decide that if I keep working on the good stuff, some of it will take root.
I decide that the grass seed that does not bed in and become grass, will bring in ground feeding birds which are also a joy. I decide that for all the undoing of the ‘good’ the ‘good things’ are themselves a pleasure and a joy in the doing of them.
No contest. Keep seeding. Regardless.
Here then is what I am seeding and planting this Autumn.
I am seeding “better health” – by working on those unhelpful habits and working on the helpful ones. There’s a lot of stony ground around here. A lot of neglected feeding and watering. I am not a good farmer in that regard…but I trust to nature a lot. I trust that if I keep planting and get a little better at pruning the interlopers away from my seedlings, good things will grow. That has to be better than abandoning the plot.
My health seedlings include paying more attention to what and how and when and how much I
eat and drink. They include improving my sleeping processes. They include my well-being practices of journalling and tai chi and rope flow and swimming and walking.
They also include becoming more protective of my own “spirit”, my own “energy”, my “heart-space” or “soul-space” or whatever you choose to call it. There is a lot going on in the world out there, and I am increasingly limiting my exposure to it. There are those who would say this amounts to burying my head in the sand, and maybe so. The truth is that I choose not to live in fear. I choose not to live in anger.
I try not to live in a state of perpetual judgement of others and their beliefs and actions. It seems to me that so much of the “information” that we are bombarded with every second (if we choose to
fully engage with the media of all colours and kinds) is uncertain when it comes to factuality, and is almost always phrased in a way to engender fear, heighten concern, create further division, fuel anger.
And I am saying “no” to all of that. I am prioritising my own health and wellbeing and centredness.
In doing so, I am seeding calm. I am seeding kindness. By choosing not to engage with the fear and anger agenda, I am planting my own inner garden, but doing so in trust that I can share the fruits of that with the world.
If I am in a good headspace, I can seek out the “good stuff” that really is still happening out there: the beauty, the wisdom, the positive action (as opposed to the angry rants that achieve nothing but more alienation) and I can share it – seed a little more calm, a little more wisdom, a little more happiness.
I am seeding creativity. Mostly my own, but hopefully encouraging others on their creative explorations.
I continue to attend writing courses and groups and to scribble away at random hours. I continue to wander about with a camera in my hand. I write down the bizarre thoughts that escape my dreamscapes in the middle of the night or the early morning. I have – as I’m sure all writers have – a store of half-fruited stories, poems, essays, ideas: seed potatoes that really do need to be put into the ground.
I am working on my own improvement here, but this feels like a communal garden, where every thought shared might be a seed that someone else will snaffle and take away. Writers are born squirrels. We filch whatever we find and either we eat it or we plant it. Sometimes it feels like a community allotment, where we all show up in our wellies and do the best we can and try to learn from each other about what to plant at this time of year, and how we might need to tend it through the winter.
I am seeding friendship. I spoke last week about harvesting friendship – but I know that while some friendships are cut-&-come-again plants, that will reward us as long as we tend them well, others are one-season-wonders. As we tend and nurture our relationships and networks and loves and companionships, we must also recognise that not all are meant to flourish for ever.
People walk into our lives every day. And every one of them is a seed, the seed of a friendship, or a business relationship, or co-operative relationship in some other sphere. Every one of them is a seed in the wind. Unidentified, unclutched, uncultivated. And we can have no idea what they might grow into if we were to plant them in the soil of our lives.
To be fair: they may turn out to be invasive weeds that we really wish we had never encountered, but the point is they may be flowers who could bring us joy, they may be food plants to feed our soul.
I am not for one minute suggesting that we need to seek out every possible connection in every day. That would be exhausting and counter-productive. We can, though, become aware of the wayside seeds that might be worth catching or picking up and potting on. Who knows?
When we plant, we must have at least half a thought for what we wish to harvest when the seasons come round again, or we will starve – either literally or emotionally or spiritually. We must plant that which we wish to grow, and we must have an eye on the urgency or lack of. There is no point planting acorns if we want a harvest within twelve months. No point putting in cabbages if we have corn mill to feed.
We need to be aware of how long things take to grow. Education takes time. Study maybe a never-ending process of learning, correction, improvement progress with no end-point to be reached.
And how much depends upon the harvest? Will we starve without it? Or do we have stores laid in, can we afford to wait for our tiny seedlings to grow as slowly as they need to?
Do we want to put our efforts into the few plants that will keep on giving? Or are we willing to risk a plot or two on the one-offs and the maybes…the plants that may not like our soil, and those that will in any case give their all in one bright season and must then be lifted and replaced? Do we want grain or fruit? Or flowers? There is nothing wrong with growing purely for the beauty of the plant. I harvest my acers and wisteria only with my eyes, but they are welcome all the same.
As with all things ‘growth’, however, there is no certainty. We can seed and tend, but the only thing we can actually ‘grow’ is our own self. Everything else has its own life going on. And everyone else, likewise.
So yes, we must have half a thought for what we want to harvest when we plant, but maybe we can also reserve half a thought for the wild seeds. We can spare corners for sowing wilderness –in our minds as well as our gardens. We can have set-aside patches were we invite others to sow: people, birds, squirrels, whoever passes through our physical and metaphorical gardens.
I love the idea of guerrilla gardening, where people take over neglected plots and plant stuff in them. I contemplate the idea that there are such spaces in my soul-space and wonder who might wander in under cover and plant something I know nothing about until it blossoms.
Whatever it is you want to be harvesting a year, or five, or ten, from now – maybe this Autumn is one in which you sow as well as reap.
Sow consciously & deliberately. Sow wildly & with abandon.
Do both and you will be rewarded with abundance.
