For thousands of years, autumn was a time for harvest. It was a time to pick fruit and reap grain. It was a time to process and preserve produce for storage in attics and cellars, cribs and silos. It was the most labor-intensive season of the year — the big push before the fallow months that followed.
Even before the era of agriculture, ancient peoples used this season to hunt and trap, forage and gather, building up caches of food in anticipation of the arrival of winter.
Today, autumn is more likely to find people gathering data rather than grain and bagging groceries instead of game. But the rhythms of our ancestors remain embedded in our bones.
Pay attention, and you’ll notice that as the leaves start to fall, your energy begins to rise. In the coming weeks, you’ll experience an upwelling in animation. The lethargy of summer’s heat breaks; cooler air stirs the spirit. Even in our modern world, the ardor of autumn lives on, and you should be prepared to take advantage of it — to bring in a harvest of your own.
All year long, you’ve been planting seeds — intentions for a new product, a piece of writing, a household project. Ideas have been growing in your consciousness. Now is the time to thrust in your sickle upon them.
Harvest wasn’t an individual endeavor, but a communal one, and you’ll likely recognize a greater drive to reach out to others. Take advantage of this stirring as well. Send that text. Host that party or get-together you’ve been meaning to.
Use the crisp, fire-tinted vigor of the season to bring all you can into the barn of your life; create a storehouse of successes, satisfactions, and connections that will warm and sustain you in the cold, dark months to come.
