Just like that, the second harvest is here–the harvest that is true thanks given. This year, on 22 September, the Autumnal Equinox brings us the harvest of fruit and vegetables. Many of us have nurtured hearty seeds through the heat and drought. Under watering bans, the tomatoes split on the vine, the beans dried to dust. Under heavy humidity, the squash turned into a whole other fungal manifestation. Somehow the apples, pears, berries, and roots manage to become food. So, we give thanks.

I feel like the animism of Earth feeding us is all but totally lost in modern culture. It’s not just kids thinking potatoes come from the grocery store, or adults not understanding that Earth is alive. It’s that we aren’t just part of  her, we are her. She is us. We are Earth feeding Earth, and always have been.

Every mouthful of every meal is Earth feeding Earth. Every garden is Earth feeding Earth. Every seed we save for next year is Earth preparing to feed herself again. We have become so accustomed to being fed that we barely notice the feeding. We expect it. We buy food and call the transaction complete, forgetting the soil, rain, roots, fungi, insects, sun, and all the other lives that made that food possible. But Earth doesn’t feed us because we paid for it. She feeds us because this is what living systems do. I talk about this inherent reciprosity in From Elder to Ancestor, saying:

Naturekin want to be supportive of humans, because they inherently approach this reality from a place of interdependency. They know it is sacred order to tend All
Things.  So when we ask for something, they get right on it. However, there’s only
so much they can do without reciprocal support from us, as is the case with our
human relationships, and our Spirit Allies.

Living systems participate in one another. They sustain one another. They become a collective working together.

This second harvest is a chance to remember reciprocity, to do more than just give thanks for the food. We can give thanks to the Earth that is feeding us. Because when we sit down to eat, we are not receiving something from Nature. We are Nature, receiving from herself.

Mother Nature

I always struggle with the gendering of soul things, and for that reason am compelled to express ‘Mother’ Nature as less about gender and more the one who nurtures, the one who gives to grow, the one who teaches to thrive.