Fall New (Hunter) Moon
Last night was a black moon, defined as the second new moon in a month. This is relatively rare, the last one occurring on March 30, 2014 and the next one on August 30, 2019. (earthsky news) This black moon precedes the rising, tomorrow night, of a sickle moon that will mark the start of the Jewish New Year on Rosh Hashanah. It’s also the beginning of the Muslim New Year.
Autumn is upon us now. Cooler nights. The possibility of snow next week. The Chinese, again according to earthsky news, say weeping is the sound of autumn, a part of its essential sadness. Not something to be avoided, but embraced, a regular part of the Great Wheel as it turns and turns again. My own response to this season used to be so pronounced that Kate and I had a phrase for her to say, “You seem to be slipping into melancholy.” That way I would know that my inner atmosphere had begun to mirror the outer, gray clouds and a wet chill had crept into my bones.
This conforms to Michaelmas as the springtime of the soul. Sadness is a way we consolidate past experiences and sort them out, learning from them and choosing which aspects of the past to embrace and which to let go. When our tears are over, we are cleansed and renewed, ready for the next phase of life. Autumn gives us an annual opportunity for self-renewal. This Great Wheel, natural cycle phenomena matches up exactly with Rosh Hashanah and its climax, Yom Kippur.
This is the time of soul renewal. And I’m ready for it. Bring on the gray skies, the inner turn. My favorite time of the year.
Black Mountain, which is covered in lodgepole pine and actually green as a result, has small gold flecks this morning. Those few aspen groves on its slopes have begun to turn, as have more and more aspens between here and Evergreen, but not those on our property. Too, Orion appeared in the southern sky a week or so ago, the early morning southern sky. On Shadow Mountain Orion and the changing of the aspens are true harbingers of autumn.
Palisade, Colorado has had a bumper peach harvest. There is a small area on the Western Slope that has an ideal peach growing microclimate. They have other crops, too: lavender, apples, sweet corn, strawberries and vegetables. The newspapers have carried photo spreads of workers in the orchards with peach baskets gently picking and placing the delicate fruit into baskets. Back in Andover, this time of year, the honey harvest would be in, the raspberries just beginning. I would be out planting garlic and pulling the last plantings of carrots, beets, leeks and onions. This is the peak harvest season, when the land and its workers combine to feed millions, even billions of people.
Being so far removed from farms and large truck gardens feels strange to this former Midwestern lifer. No more so than in this long harvest season. Corn pickers and combines have begun to roll through fields. The state fairs have swept up 4-H’er raised cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens. The vegetable harvest has peaked. Self pick apple orchards have hayrides and cider stations set out. Not there, though.
Labor Day does mark the winding down of one season long harvest up here: tourist dollars from Denver folks. July and August are the heaviest tourist months for our favorite mountain town, Evergreen. We’re not a winter tourist destination, at least not like the ski resorts, so the roads will have less traffic and fewer visitors in Evergreen’s restaurants.
