Autumn

The descent into darkness, the descent into ourselves. The interface between mind and body.

My contributions here have been infrequent, despite my best intentions. The past few years have found me increasingly physically occupied with very limited time to write. After finishing my last book in early 2019, I believe, I was ready to start the next one. But I also had some important projects at home that had been lingering for years at that point. So I thought I’d ‘get them out of the way’ before starting any new writing projects.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken on 2 major building projects, reignited my Bioregional Herbalist Apprenticeship, and launched my Foraging in the Sonoran Desert course - both of which are live, in-person, hands-on, minds-present events that call for a great deal of my time and energy.

As I took on these additional tasks, I have still worked to address the unfinished tasks over the past few years. In fact, my 2020 was so active and so often away from home that I was often envious of all those who stayed home for months, organizing their home life, working on unfinished projects, tackling new ones. I was often living the opposite.

An irony of living in the low desert is that the winter time, or cold season, is the best time to be outdoors and active all day long. Although my body has learned to manage the heat quite well (and I spent numerous 10 hr work days this past summer, all outdoors), it is rather invigorating to be working in sub-80 degree temperatures again. Where much of the country is seeking to hibernate and turn in during the winter, we’re getting active - or at least I am. And when the rest of the country/northern hemisphere is exploding into activity, it is often best for us to turn the activity down during the bulk of the day. But I haven’t been doing that.

That said, I am looking forward to this winter.

As we descend further into autumn, I can feel the bracing cold air of the morning just waiting to return. That which makes the fingers and other joints stiff and limits range of movement until our bodies have sufficiently warmed is something we’re all experiencing at some level.

In the Sonoran desert, where I dwell, although the mornings may be cool, the days are often still hot through October, exceptionally so this year. So it may not feel like a “real autumn” to many transplants from further northern climes. However, there is a descent into darkness happening nonetheless.

Our days are shorter due to the sun rising further and further down the eastern horizon. The balance is struck at the autumnal equinox and we steadily move into longer nights from there.

These longer nights have been an invitation to rest (something that easily eludes me during the shorter nights of summer), and in that dreamy rest a re-communing with my soul.

It’s not just in the earlier onset of night, but the coolness lends itself to fire as well. As I may sit at rest before a fire in the autumn, there is a feeling of something coming, something I’m not entirely aware of but is awaiting me, in some form, at the depth of winter.

For this is the season of the ancestors and it is said that our connection to them is much clearer by the proximity of their presence at this time of year. I may add that it is an opportune time to rekindle our relationships with them as the quality of autumn is reconnection with self, and we are made from our ancestors, in many regards.

I will make an altar in our home to our deceased ancestors, those known and unknown, each year as we approach samhain, the cross quarter day with which Halloween is associated. This is a joyous time in the tradition of my ancestors because, I feel, the darkness was embraced, and it is from the darkness which all things begin and emerge.

Samhain is the culmination of autumn, the passing from autumn into winter. It’s a threshold, a portal along the path of the wheel’s turning, a key point after which the world is different again.

It is said that we pass through these portals along the pathway of our lives. Although moments can become compressed in our minds as potent markers of change, I feel these “portals” often exist over a period of time, not always at equal intervals. Perhaps it is that I am closest to the autumn portal of my own life that I feel such a resonance with it now. For I longed for spring as much as anything as a young boy, just as I relished summer adventures as a young man feeling the never-ending bliss of myself free within Nature or celebrating life with friends, just as a summer should be.

Now I feel the weight of autumn - or is it the weight within me? Only autumn’s nature acting upon the weight that I carry, a weight which no longer serves me.

I just need to sit with that for a moment

Nature has taught me many things, each of which were alive within me, waiting to be discovered. And I have lived in memory, in knowledge, of these teachings and I have also lived in ignorance of these teachings. It’s a continuum, perhaps without end or beginning, but simply continuing.

Autumn is the time of year I begin holding these thoughts for examination, taking them with me into the cave of winter to chew on them, sleep and dream with them, and listen to the reflection of my thoughts in the calm, bubbling creek with soft light and dead leaves all around. The after effects.

Autumn dances with the wind. The wind carries autumn and propels us into winter just as it’s cleared away the remnants of summer - if we allow it to.

The wind is here then gone, persistent and upsetting, destructive, calming, exacerbating, easing, dehydrating, and inspiring. What generates the wind? Is it an expression of the signals conveyed by Mother Earth, in her seasonal harmony, by way of the plasma pulses sent to her by the Sun? Where does the wind come from? The ocean, a mountaintop, an expansive desert, a cave in a deep, dark canyon?

Right now I am sitting listening to pounding rain. A moment ago, I was watching hail smack into the earth coming to a bounding stop as gravity, I presume, pulls it to its halt. A parched earth is satiated for now. We are approaching the curtain drop on autumn as we’re ushered into winter.

What have I done with myself this autumn?

Was I productive? Did I meet the needs of my inner being?

I sense that winter will give me those answers if I am willing to listen. But that is it - we receive the answers once the test is over. We are then being quizzed on how well we can prepare for the next round.

Seasons are about anticipation, as well as presence within the moment.

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For some years now I have spent more time talking about herbs and gathering herbs, while only occasionally ingesting herbs during the summer. But once autumn fully sets in, I may become more focused on seeking out the herbs my body needs.

I have spent plenty of hours studying herbs (one never fully and completely knows anything), and I have begun to release a great deal of information, for a few years now, from being held captive within my brain in order to relieve myself of the burden of carrying it.

Nonetheless, I can turn to plants, or herbs on the shelf and feel what relevance it has for me in a given moment or for a period of time to come. Let’s call it an intuitive knowing.

Each year I’ve been inclined to gather herbs from the wild that call to me and I collect them in a tea or better yet I make an oxymel, and that becomes my therapeutic potion for the weeks or months to come.

Right now, I don’t have anything. Or what I’ve made is nearly used up. And I was ready to head out into the desert this afternoon to do some gathering from the land - until the rain came. But there may be time ahead nonetheless.

One herb that I regularly come back to during the autumn season is chaga (Inonotus obliquus). What’s funny, for someone like myself, is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen chaga growing before. I know where it grows, how it grows, what it grows on, and its properties. I’ve made tea and other preparations with it hundreds and hundreds of times. But it surprises me how much I tune into it despite not really having a relationship with the living fungi.

Chaga (inonotus obliquus) growing on birch (Betula species)

I first tried chaga about 18 years ago. I was not a coffee drinker at the time, but it’s color and to some degree, its bitterness, reminded me of coffee. The thick darkness of the brew was wholesome and nutritious, and it didn’t taste like a mushroom (a plus in terms of tea). I took to adding spices like ginger, cinnamon, clove, and cardamom, along with a little honey and I had a favorite morning drink.

My idea at the time was to support and strengthen my immune system (now I’m no longer sure what the “immune system” really is) but I discovered how it very lightly stimulated by brain activity. In such a way that it was not agitating, nor was it physically stimulating. This lent itself to enjoying slow, quiet moments, savoring stillness, yet actively exploring my thoughts amidst the calm and tranquility.

When I taste my chaga extract, it’s cool, it’s sweet, and only slightly bitter. My lungs fill and expand with ease and I feel myself settle more deeply into my body. My face becomes a bit warmer while I feel the energy move down into my gut. The lingering flavor becomes a bit sour which resonates with my gut, but also my heart. There’s a space opening within my heart and I can feel the breath circulate around it creating a sense of fullness and ease within my being. There’s no desire to do anything, but to simply be with the feeling.

Yes, autumn.

I see why my mind comes back to being with chaga at this time of year proving once again there’s something I can trust about my inner knowing. It sees/feels patterns and overlapping patterns which are sensory oriented connecting my inner experience and memory with the world around me.

This is the healing energy of autumn that I seek and chaga is awakening it within me.

As the veil is thinning, our programmed expectations of the world around us may be challenged, if not stunned. Allowing our heart-minds to descend into the primordial sources within our beings to recover truth, a connection to what is real, however unclear or confusing it may initially appear.

Many blessings on the journey!