harvest

Rosmerta, the Most Providential

“Write what you know” is how the saying goes, but I think that’s a little limiting. I don’t think you should write from a position of ignorance, but if you want to write about something you don’t know much about, you can always read up on it before you do the writing.

I’ve often said that one of the things I like about this blog is the discovery that comes with doing research and fact-checking – the serendipitous learning that happens along the way.
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celebrating the harvest

It’s been a while since I mentioned the Modern Pagan Prayers project. But today is Lammas – the traditional First Harvest – and this week the third of the books became available to buy on Amazon, so I think it’s a good time to talk about the project again.

I’m really quite proud, as the publication of Turn of the wheel means we – my co-author Lucía Moreno-Velo and I – have managed to complete three books in little more than a year. It’s an appropriate time for us to pause and celebrate the harvest of this writing collaboration.
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autumn memories

Despite the glorious flowers still to be found in window boxes and tubs around the town, summer is officially over: the days have been getting shorter and Thursday was the Autumn Equinox.

I think all the local churches have either had their harvest festival or have it scheduled for tomorrow and the thought of harvest has reminded me once more of Spain. We didn’t pay much attention to the garden but even untended trees produce blossom and fruit as the year turns.
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I’ve mentioned before that there’s an old guy who keeps cerdos on the plot of land alongside the olivar. Just two pigs, each year: one for each of his daughters. I’ve started taking the windfalls across for them when I walk down to the village.

When the guy isn’t there, I leave the bag by the chair where he sits each day, morning and evening, watching the pigs get fat. Sometimes one of the other viejos del pueblo joins him and they put the world to rights while the old burro grazes patiently, tethered to an olive tree.
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the fruits of the earth

While each grape dreams a dream
of champagne-bubble destiny, figs
turn to honey on the branch. Pumpkins swell,
and melons hoard up sunshine, sprawled
voluptuous on their beds of straw.

There was just enough blue sky to take the photo this morning – yes, figs do sometimes grow vertically upwards, and although they look less appetising, the honey-brown ones that are beginning to wrinkle are the sweetest. The clouds are gathering again, though, so the poor melons and pumpkins are more likely to be ‘bathing voluptuous’ in fields all around the Valle del Tiétar within an hour or so.