Harvest Moon

This weekend is harvest moon: the full moon closest to the autumn equinox.

The time of reaping and celebration of the year's harvest. Where communities would traditionally come together. Sharing the work, sharing the rewards. Feasting together. Companions, literally people breaking bread together. The bread which they had tilled the soil for, scattered the seed, joined together to cut the wheat in fine weather, to thresh and make bales.

This is the time for bringing the harvest home - physically, spiritually , stocking our larders to see us through the cold, dark months ahead. Though most of us are cut off from the literal harvesting of our food, unless we have a vegetable garden of our own. Our food is disconnected from the farmers. Food is always there, on the shelves. We forget the joy of the harvest. The physical exertion traded for stored calories. The reliance on every member of the community to make it happen. Food is just food, a commodity, easy come, easy go. We don't need each other any more to survive. We don't need to celebrate nature's bounty: it is always there. And so whilst we are rich on easy calories and  in money in comparison to those rural farming communities of bygone days, we are poor too if we do not gather together, to feast, to celebrate and give thanks.

It is fitting that this weekend is a weekend of community celebrations here - a tapas evening at a new local cafe, eating with friends; our multi-generational community will share a life affirming luncheon at Saturday Pizzas; drinking together to celebrate a friend's birthday and then a motherblessing, a group of women gathering to celebrate and nurture a pregnant friend about to give birth, with love, massage, mindful connection... and of course food!

My children and I gathered wheat and barley which had sprouted on the roadside. We pounded it into flour and used it to make a harvest loaf together, watching the miracle of yeast and grain and water become our daily bread. We feasted on our harvest loaf and gave thanks for the turning of the seasons.

Do take the time over the next couple of weeks to celebrate with your companions. Take time to break bread, to raise a toast to each other and the farmers who provided your food, to the sun and the earth. To bring harvest home to you and yours.

This post is being contributed to the Big Lunch which celebrates communities eating together every June in the UK. Do take some time to check out their great blog.


To find out about Dreaming Aloud's Big Lunch experience do check out this post . And this one about  why I decided to get involved with The Big Lunch.


Do take time to read my posts on Radical Homemaking. 


For more on the spiritual and astrological aspects of this harvest moon time see Hey Allie 

Do you stop and smell the roses... and then eat them?!

Roses are red, violets are blue,

Both taste divine,

So why not try some too!

There is nothing more sensual, exotic and heavenly, for me, than the scent of roses... they are my favourite flowers... I have rose scented perfume, deodorant, face cream...putting them on makes me feel most goddess-like, despite the baby snot on my shoulder and hair that could do with a good brush! Did you know that essential oil of rose is supposed to be good for anger issues? Maybe that's why I douse myself so liberally in it!

I have filled our garden with roses, light and dark pink and yellow and white... I still am on the look out for a red velvet one which my dad has in his garden and a Peace rose that my mother has always loved. (The photographs here were taken when we lived in Cambridge, my college had the most beautiful rose garden which I photographed on my last day.)

How does your garden grow?

The weather has been against us gardeners this year. A month of chilly days and bitter winds has burnt the leaves and stalled growth of anything that was planted out. Six packs of seeds direct sown into the ground have produced not a sign of life. The slugs have been loving the damp and have chomped through all our sunflowers. Lettuce went from zero to past it with only one tasting.

We have been pruning back interloping shrubs and trees which have started to dominate, and which we have quietly hated for a year. The result being lots of bare patches.  So these past two days have been spent filling the gaps- thanks to the generosity of my father-in-law who stopped by yesterday with a boot full of sweet peas, cornflowers, stocks, sunflowers, courgettes and one random runner bean, we were on our way.

Then today we made a visit to the garden centre, my witchy fingers hungry for more herbs. I found a few: aloe vera, a lemon verbena and pulsitilla. And marigolds... but only French ones, our calendula officialanis that we seeded straight into the ground are looking very sad (does anyone know can you eat French marigolds?). Heartsease pansies, silver bedding plants and some yellow daisy types - our garden is looking distinctly less halopetia-ified, and the colours are singing. The purple side of my herb garden (thyme, lavender, rosemary and chives) are now counterbalanced by a sunshine yellow side of daisy types, courgettes, marigolds and golden marjoram and lemon balm.

And a fuschia to greet visitors to replace last year's one which bit the frost.. shortly before they fall over the sword and mop and pile of videos for the charity shop which fill the doorway.

The wild strawberries are fruiting more and more - and wonderfully the kids find them too sour, so they're all mine! The roses are coming out, as are the pinks and nasturtiums. And the fox gloves, how I love fox gloves, that I patiently planted last year are out- white fingerlings with purple ink splots.

The wind is wailing again, and my newly planted sweet peas are not happy. Come on summer, come on sun!

Cultivating Abundance

Welcome to the May Carnival of Natural Parenting: Growing in the Outdoors
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared how they encourage their children to connect with nature and dig in the dirt. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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It begins to be seen that the poor are only they who feel poor, and poverty consists in feeling poor.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Feeling poor happens very easily in our mainstream culture, due to our perpetual desire for more.

Shannon Hayes, Radical Homemakers

In our garden we cultivate many flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables, and even two chickens. But the thing we cultivate mostly is invisible, but most important of all: abundance.

Our garden is the location for regular celebrations with family and friends: cherry blossom picnics, royal wedding picnics, birthday picnics, sunny day picnics... When the cupboard feels bare taking a loaf of bread and cheese and a box of homemade biscuits outside transforms it magically, thanks to grass, sun and a friendly robin, into a feast fit for a king. Shared with family and friends it beats dinner in the finest Michelin-starred restaurant.

A boring afternoon “stuck” at home is transformed into a creative adventure when my sister comes by with a big sheet and we all paint it together.

A long day of gardening is magicked into sweetness as we toast marshmallows over a fire made of the cuttings, the flickering flames warming our spirits.

It is a hub for the other children who live on the estate who seek it out to play with water and stones, their fancy mobile phones and expensive toys abandoned to get on with the real work of childhood.

An Eden to call our own

Welcome to the Earth Day Blog Carnival

This post is part of the Earth Day Blog Carnival hosted by Child of the Nature Isle and Monkey Butt Junction. Each participant has shared their practices and insights of earth friendly, environmentally conscious, eco-living. This carnival is our way to share positive information and inspiration that can create healing for our planet. Please read to the end of this post to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. Happy Earth Day!

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For years I have dreamt of a garden. A garden to call my own. On my travels through Vietnamese mountain ranges in dilapidated buses and sitting in Zen temples in Japan I dreamed of a place to plant daffodills and strawberries. A little patch of earth to call my own.

This post marks a year to the day that that dream began. It is still very much a work in progress. But being a natural growing thing, it always will be. But oh what a work! There is something for every season and every time I walk around it, my soul soars. It really is our very own little patch of paradise on earth. One which we share with a robin, two blackbirds, multiple pigeons, sparrows and crows, butterflies blue, white and red, assorted worms, and less welcome slugs, wasps and mosquitoes.

There is nothing otherworldly about our garden. It is a small patch of earth in a housing estate.