Samhain, or the story of a confused animal
The time between All Saints / Samhain and the Winter Solstice
This time is marked by the daylight getting very short and the weather turning gloomy and wet with low pressure fronts coming off the Atlantic into the British Isles. It is a time of year, when the life forces have withdrawn into the Earth and all leaves and seeds from the wild flora have fallen to the ground, creating a thick carpet in windblown sites and where the earthworms have a feast, pulling the leaves down into their tunnels.
The day length and the darkness are pushing me towards hibernation. I can feel my body slowing down. Even basic things, like packing orders and (rather weirdly) driving anywhere, take longer because my movements and my thinking are more languorous and meditative. And yet the days are warm and, when the sun breaks through, it could be August. I shed jumpers on dog walks, and regret piling blankets on the bed at night.
If I don’t know whether I’m coming or going, the garden doesn’t either. I have roses in full bloom and, like so many around the county, the dahlias are only just starting. Samhain should mark the end of the harvest season; the pantry should be full and my feet should be up. But there are still cosmos seed to be collected, and dahlia seed heads to be dried.
And yet a bit of me knows that the earth, the soil beneath our feet, continues its work regardless of the weather systems swirling above the ground. This is a crucial time for the soil. The growth of the flowers and fruits that we have harvested all summer long has taken and taken and taken from it, and now it is time for us to give, for the soil to breathe in. A long, slow inhale taken, not by lungs, but by the mass of life forms that teem beyond our sight and largely beyond our awareness.
A lesson for us all. A time to give and a time to take. A time to work and a time to rest. There are still some things to do in the garden, such as planting more garlic, but largely, I want to leave the work to those more qualified, more nuanced and more skilled than me. The leaves that fall will be left for the worms and the shredders (the arthropods and the nematodes) and the idea of my clumsy boots trampling over their carefully orchestrated activity makes me wince. God forbid I would put their leaves through a mower.
One exception – I will be taking a few handfuls of leaves from each of my trees and putting them into the leaf mould pile. It is wonderful for adding to seed compost and, if the number of seed packets I have accumulated over the last two months is anything to go by, I will be needing a lot of seed compost. I pretend that I am adhering to one of the key principles of regenerative horticulture (crop diversity) but actually, I just love so many flowers that I can’t limit myself to a few varieties.
Samhain marks the time where I, as a human, turn to doing what I do best (having a glass of wine in the evenings, stewing quinces, and wearing woolly socks) and I leave the experts to do what they do best with the soil, in the full knowledge that the foundations for the fruit and the flowers that I grow next year are being laid down right now.
