Ode to Autumn

 

“Season of Mists and mellow fruitfulness, close-bosom friend of the maturing sun:

conspiring with him now to load and bless with fruit the vines that found the

thatch-eves run; to bend with apples the moss’d cottage trees and fill all fruit

with ripeness to the core.”     Keats

I love this time of year here in the UK, when gradually, day by day, it

is getting dark a little earlier and sunrise (if we are blessed with a sunny morning) is a little later. As Keats famous poem so evocatively describes it, Autumn has a magic all of its own. The many colours of the leaves, the fruits and berries and very lush flowers, the scents and sounds, and these days again, thankfully, more butterflies, bring such a joyous feeling to my heart. I have so many happy memories of childhood times at New Lands – the gathering of blackberries in the hedgerows, chestnuts and games with conkers – and decorating New Lands chapel for our Harvest Festival service. In those days I was not so aware of the terrible suffering of starving people around the world, but we were taught not to waste and to be very thankful.

Thankfulness is a wonderful quality and I still love (and sing!) the traditional Harvest hymns. ‘Thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the food we eat, thank you for the birds that sing, thank you God for everything.’ Such simple words but so meaningful, and especially so, I think, in our world today, when so many things seem to have become so much more complicated and stressful. Constant news from all around the globe can feel like a mixed blessing, and remembering to do the simple things, like offering the gift of a kind smile or sending an unexpected greeting brings its own reward in the heart, like a soothing balm, and ‘the mellow fruitfulness of Autumn’. In this season we literally reap the seeds of earlier sowings and nature reminds us all the time of the law of karma, giving a wonderful natural prompt. In the midst of everything which seems negative in our world, we are reminded how much we have to be thankful for.

There is a White Eagle book, White Eagle on Festivals and Celebrations which contains his inspiring teaching linked to the seasons. These words come from the ‘Harvest’ chapter about ‘A Law of Giving and Receiving’.

‘A divine law operates through both the act of giving and the act of receiving. Experience has taught you that by creating a condition of love and harmony deep within your own heart you draw to yourself love and harmony; by creating beauty within, you draw external beauty to you. In other words, as you give, so you receive. What you put into life flows back in full measure – this is inescapable law. It is impossible for any man or woman to give truly from the heart without receiving exactly what they have given.'