Hear this blog post read aloud:
Our 5th of September Stories of Our Lives session was a lovely celebration of Autumn , bringing together stories, memories, conversation, creativity and the sharing of our new Autumn panel which was designed with community input. (Read more about that project Windows through the seasons.)
We began by sharing pieces of writing about Autumn from earlier Stories of Our Lives sessions. From there, the conversation went in all sorts of directions. We remembered school days and new terms, gathering apples, conkers and crunchy leaves, Freshers’ Week, preserves and crumbles. (I felt very hungry by the end with the mention of so many delicious flavours and textures!)
We talked about abundance and harvest, but also about drawing inwards, resting, healing and getting your breath back.
We also talked about the cycles of the seasons and the ways they can mirror our own lives. Autumn as a time of change, gathering, giving back, letting go, making meaning, nurturing ourselves and beginning again.
We finished by writing and drawing on wooden leaves, which people could take home or hang in the community garden, before going outside together to see the new Autumn panel.
Read on to see the beautiful thoughts and stories that the group wrote afterwards:
Jane Graham
Autumn
The sun shines low on stubble fields, a golden path towards green trees heavy with the abundance of fruit to be stored for winter food. Gathering this harvest, simple, everyday people, thankful for the sun, earth and trees in clean, clear air that provide each year for our needs. These trees were planted many generations ago. They have only Nature to care for them. The joy of harvest time is knowing we will have a store to draw on and share with others.
Quiet is this place – a peace garden, surrounded by the people who in their time shared this annual bounty. Do they feel our feet above them? Do they know we enjoy the crunch of brown leaves? We listen to the evening call of birds seeking a place to rest when the moon will shine and change gold to silver. Breezes, tremulous as a sigh, stir the air with warmth. Shall we go home? No, stay and listen to the long loud silence and become a part of the whole wonder of the world.
Jolene Sheehan
Autumn comes as a surprise again.
Oh, hello grey skies and frequent rain!
We'd forgotten you were drawing near,
although of course you do each year.
An ambivalence then, at first relief,
when the demanding sword of the sun is sheathed.
But then comes its closely shadowing grief,
that summertime and life itself is so brief.
So we squirrel away, pile leaves and bottle up
the many jewelled moments of gratitude and love,
savour each taste of what has been,
breathing in this moment of ending and beginning.
And then turn to and let fall
the ripening sadness of it all,
because nothing ever lasts in its exact form.
But from the changes, something new is born.
Tony Goulding
The coming of autumn which the group acknowledged at our last meeting should be considered neither as the end of summer nor as the harbinger of the cold months of winter. Rather, it should be regarded as part of an ever-repeating cycle.
There is much in Nature that follows a similar cyclical pattern. The water cycle – the evaporation over the oceans giving rainfall over land which in turn feeds rivers returning water to the sea. Then there is the process where dying vegetation rots and enriches the soil, promoting new growth.
The eternal rhythm of the changing seasons is echoed in verse by Percy Bysshe Shelley in his poem, “Ode to the West Wind.”
“If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind”
Jean Thompson
Autumn
Spring bursts upon the world like a young girl. Fresh and full of emerging life from the dark of winter. Summer then follows and like life is rich and full. Full of energy but not the green naivety and uncertainty of an earlier unformed life.
Then autumn. Wonderful autumn. Knowing the heat and passion of that earlier season is past and it is time for calmer reflections. The colours of autumn are a reflection of that time; rich and deep. The leaves growing yellow and orange but not yet desiccated and fallen from the trees. The shine and colour of conkers as they emerge fresh from their prickly cases. One of the jewels of nature, unsurpassed. Nestling in and protected by their spiky case. Who would guess that hiding inside is such a jewel? The rich unmistakeable colour of the conker. Like a middle age of nature before the sere of a winter echoing the dryness old age comes along.
The natural rhythm of life like nature. Each season and age has to have its place.
Recently, out for a walk on a lovely autumn Sunday afternoon, I came across someone walking their delightful little dog. He was snuffling along the pavement and the owner told me that he loves to find a conker. He doesn’t do anything special with it. Just smells it and licks it and maybe pushes it a little way along the pavement. By that time I had a pocket full of fallen conkers so how could I not put one or two on the pavement in front of him? Well worth the small sacrifice to see his delight as he investigated this fruit of the season. On the same walk through the little park near to where I live, I came across a little mound of conkers, just behind one of the benches. Intriguing, had it been a child gathering a stash for a later project? Had it been one of the many squirrels skittering about, building up a larder for the winter ahead? I resisted the temptation to take one or two for my collection. They obviously meant more to someone or something more than they would mean to me. I walked on leaving them to their rightful owners, but pleased that it is not just me who has a place in their heart for conkers.
Sue Ash
Autumn Celebration
“Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower” Albert Camus French philosopher, author, and journalist
When I think of Autumn my mind immediately recalls archived visions of the beautiful colours of Autumn leaves, both before and after they fall from the trees. But this meeting took place during the transition of seasons, with clear signs of Autumn approaching. The flowers have mostly disappeared, replaced by their fruits and seeds, enabling the continuation of their species and winter food for many other species.
Thus the we talked about the many ways the harvest marks the end of Summer and beginning of Autumn, bringing back memories of our childhoods which included picking wild blackberries to make jam, apples and pears to store in a cool place for several months, and collecting conkers and acorns to use for games. And, as is still today, farmers working night and day to produce bales of hay to store for use for another year. During my childhood many fruits and vegetables were seasonal treats because, to a great extent, we relied on UK ‘home grown’ produce.
However, the colours of Autumn were also a feature of the discussion – how could we talk about Autumn without these? Occasionally we come across Autumn scenes that are particularly spectacular, and the poem below remembers one of these times:
The Performance
On a dark and windy night
Driving mile after mile
The stage unfolds
Music in my ears
Fills me with
A joy for life as
I delight in the
Performance before me
I am witnessing the
Merriment of Autumn.
Like giant snowflakes
Vibrant crowds rich
In red and gold
Leap and dance
In my spotlights
A celebration
Of the natural beauty
That surrounds us
Ever changing
Ever renewing
Just as we can
If we look to learn
Margaret Kendall
I found it powerful to revisit our blog post from Autumn 2020. At that time, we were unable to meet indoors because of the Covid pandemic, but our online meetings helped us through. I remembered well Linda Rigby’s evocative descriptions of her childhood as I read out an extract of her writing, six years later.
I missed seeing the countryside, especially the hills, during those months when we weren’t allowed to travel during Covid. It did me good to be reminded not to take days out, or walks in the park, for granted. I resolved to be more like Linda and relish everything about the Autumn. She said:
“As a child, I remember collecting rose hips for rose hip syrup, blackberries and wind fall apples and pears for crumbles. Beech masts, acorns, ash keys, just for fun. Feeling a chill in the air and a distinctive earthy smell when out playing in the woods admiring the beech tree leaves, especially, changing colour. Enjoying kicking up the piles of crisp, crunchy fallen leaves.”
Linda’s words stayed with me the following day on a sunny walk round Hollingworth Lake near Rochdale, where I took these photos.
“I still love the sights, and smells of Autumn, and kicking up the crispy coloured autumn leaves”
and I will too, when those leaves begin to fall.
