The Gathering In

Seed gathering is my way of preparing for winter and for a season of stillness and quiet. The sun rises lower and lower over the horizon each dawn. This year light is filtered through trees that are losing leaves to drought and not to the natural process of chlorophyll withdrawal. But the light is still extraordinarily beautiful as it illuminates each branch and leaf, creating mosaic patterns on patches of parched dry ground.

Yesterday we had a light frost and I brought the last of my nasturtium and bean seeds indoors to dry upstairs in preparation for next summer’s garden.

While I collect seeds, explosive gunshots pierce the air in my backyard.

Bumper stickers warn me, “Don’t interfere with ‘our right’ to bare arms.” A threat? Apparently, having the “right to kill” is all many people think about.

I am never free of the awareness that death is in the air.

This morning I had an email from my friend and feminist artist Sabra Moore who lives in Abiquiu, New Mexico.

She writes:

“All the news is terrifying – I feel like Trump is, each week, becoming more unstable so I am keeping hold of the harvest here.”

I immediately thought to myself that “keeping hold of the harvest” is a way to deal with our current political insanity.

Unfortunately for me, the harvest is over.

Below: Artist/writer Sabra Moore in her garden