Autumn, When the Light Is Slant and Low

Old Capitol Columns

For some odd reason, being even more deeply involved in my day job than is usual (aka: The. Brief. From. Hell.) has resulted in a stronger than is normal need to honor my inner Hestia when I’m not at work. Whenever I can catch a moment, I’ve been weeding the herb bed, making pies, knitting, packaging seeds that I’ve harvested, and cutting basil to turn into pesto (or, as G/Son, who loves it, says, “Green Noodles”).

I’m getting old; I realized today that I’m not too many years away from my croning. And the older that I get, the more that it seems to me that my work as a priestess involves some of the more “mundane” tasks that I’ve always loved: walking along the Potomac, weeding the herb bed, knitting fingerless mittens for my family as we head into Winter, packaging up the seeds that I’ve harvested this year to share as Yule gifts and at my local, annual Seed Swap, sitting in the Autumnal sun to warm my toes while I “gather wool” as my own grandma used to say, trimming the wicks in my altar room, mixing incense for the more-and-more-targeted spells that I do. Today it occurred to me that it may soon involve taking on a few students; that still seems a bit presumptuous to me.

The other week, just at the height of the madness at work, one of my nephews said that he had to take some vacation and would like to come stay with me and see D.C. (I think, perhaps, that some young lady’s change of heart may have had something to do with this handsome young man wanting to spend his vacation with his old aunt. If I’m right, there’s a young lady out there who has no idea what she’s missing.) Goddess knows, I have a guest room and I know how to use it, and, so, I spent a lovely week with my own brother’s son. For the first time in my life, I found myself being the “old one” who told the family stories (good and bad), hoping against hope that at least some of them would stick. (My grandma made the world’s best lemon meringue pie, just about the time that she was able to vote. My dad learned to type on a boat headed out from California to the Pacific Ocean in WWII. My mom and dad met in Chicago. They built their house from scratch in Boulder. . . . You get the idea.) I pulled out an old stash of family photos that I’d forgotten, including one of my father’s mother’s mother sitting out on a step, shelling peas, in a long dress and apron. Guess what’s going on my Samhein altar? I tried, as hard as I could, to root and ground this young person in the history of his family, at least their history after they landed on these shores.

My nephew and I ate at some good places in DC, had a lovely dinner with friends out on my porch (my favorite moment of the entire summer may have been when, a glass or two of wine in, my nephew told his old aunt and her old friends, “I’ve had sex — a lot of sex. And I’m going to go on having sex. A lot of sex. And teaching kids about only abstinence is nuts.” You know, I don’t think that’s something that I could have told any of my aunts, but, as I believe that all acts of love and pleasure are rituals of the Goddess, I was delighted to hear it from my nephew), and wandered around the National Arboretum.

This morning, I went to the local farmers’ market. Several of the farmers were announcing that today was the “Last Day for Peaches!” There were demonstrably fewer varieties of tomatoes, and, a sure sign of fall, the ladies who spin yarn were there. (My yarn stash is out of control; I made myself walk the wide way around their stall. But next week, or the next, or the week after that, they’ll draw me in.) I came away with corn, tomatoes, and kale, as well as a jar of horseradish dill pickles. (I keep waiting for pickles to be the new hard boiled eggs, the new cupcakes, the new mac-n-cheese. You mark my words; it’s going to happen.)

My point, and I do have one, is that, once you’re grounded in your own landbase, it’s all just pouring god into god. You can dance into cronehood, you can harvest whatever grows, you can foster your own brothers’ sons. It’s all just God/dess pouring God/dess into God/dess.

I came home to sit out on my screen porch and realize that the light is now slant and low, the light of early Autumn. The leaves of my Japanese maples are in awe.

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