You might have noticed that the days are getting shorter very fast – in fact right now we are losing close to 4 minutes of light every day.
This was even more accentuated by changing from “daylight savings time” or BST “British Summer Time” to the real “Sun” time. So, we supposedly gained an hour and lost it seems, 1 hour of sunlight I the afternoon to find the extra hour of sunlight in the morning waking us up earlier.
The fact that the days get shorter this fast at this time of the year can be seen in nature as trees, rapidly losing their leaves, grey skies, drizzle, and this dynamic decrease of light and warmth accelerating the loss of life on perennial shrubs and trees and our vegetables slowing down drastically in their grow.
In our human lives we notice that we can feel low energy or even a bit more depressed and particularly in Scandinavia the suicide rates go up at this time of year.
It’s as if a “compound effect” happens with the lessening of these life giving qualities including the effect that as the leaves drop. Particularly in cities the CO2 content increases vs the O2 content of the air and pollutants are not filtered by the leaves any more.
In older cultures this time was recognized in the British Isles as Samhain, the festival of lighting fires to bring light into the darkness.
The Pagan cultures had three harvest festivals:
Lammas, harvest of the corn, on 1 August; the one of fruit and vegetables at autumn equinox, 21 September; and Halloween, the third.
At this time animals that couldn’t survive winter were culled, to ensure the other animals’ survival.
Also, it is noted that there was a lot of death around this time, and people knew there would be deaths in their villages during the harsh winter months.
Other countries, notably Mexico, celebrate “The Day of the Dead” from the 1.- 6. November to honour the deceased.
In Basel, Switzerland, they celebrate on the 11. November at 11:11 am the beginning of the Carneval/Fastnacht (Carne=Meat) possibly knowing they could feast on the autumn harvest of fruit, vegetables and culled animals to then enter the time of natural fasting through the lack of availability of food in nature around them.
Last but not least, here in the UK and in most countries, Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the end of First World War hostilities. Hostilities ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” of 1918.
You might ask is this all a coincidence or are humans just aware of greater cosmic and earthly rhythms, which affect all living beings?
It is possibly a time to celebrate life even more and realise how precious life is as we become aware of everything and everyone goes through death to be reborn.
It might be time to build our security on our inner values and virtues, rather than relying on outer deceptive allures.
This is reflected possibly in nature by building humus at this time more than any other time of the year.
So, if you feel a bit down, sluggish or disenchanted at his time take it as an opportunity to digging deep into your soul and like in the old traditions of “Samhain”, “Carneval” and the ‘The day of the Dead” parades, discover the masks we carry of our Shadow and traumas, which the old traditions were recognising at this time of the year.
Reach high into your being spirit truth and see how you could apply your divine will to shine light into the hidden realms of your your soul to release old fetters and thoughtforms to generate warmth in yourself and bring light to the soil by cultivating your garden and get it ready for the long expected winter frosts.
This will help to sanitize the soil form slug and snail eggs, from soil born pests and let the new formative forces of the hexagonal ice structure work deeply into your soil.
It’s a good time to work in all the crop residues and green manures and lime the soil to alleviate the increasing tendency over winter for acidification of soils.
Apply your will to collecting prunings, leaves and all the dead plants to building beautiful, living sculptures of abundant life in your garden, called compost heaps.
Make sure you remember to go to your biodynamic farmer, you might have helped to make the field and compost preparations for the next year to share with you their preparations to apply them liberally in your home or community garden.
Of course, if you don’t have access to a farm, you can always purchase them from the shop in the Biodynamic Association.
As we give homage to all those who have gone before us, let’s remember something that R. Steiner mentioned in the Agriculture Lectures.
All the work we did in life for others selflessly, the sacrifices we made to become more valuable to society at large and live our greater virtues are becoming the true fertilizers for the plants, when we lay our bodies into “Mother Earth”
A couple of practical tips:
This week:
Order your bareroot transplants for hedging, ornamentals, fruit trees and soft fruit
Order last of green manure seeds to sow next week
2. Nov.: Transplant biannual and perennial flowers
3. Nov.: Transplant last leaf crops into greenhouse
4. Nov.: Transplant biannual and perennial flowers
6&7. Nov.: Sow Broadbeans and Peas
8. Nov.: Plant Garlic
Happy times of Samhain, All Souls and Remembrance of all who have gone before us.
Hans-Günther
To learn more about working with the sacred soil and to plan your garden, join us on the 9th November in our one day practical workshop in Sussex.
For information and bookings go to www.whlu.org