Harvest Meditation by Spiderwomon
Autumn Equinox, 1995

Please take a seat and clear your mind of what fills it now and hear my words:

As you are sitting, close your eyes and feel the yellow of the sun

Reach up with your arms and let your fingertips touch that yellow

Now, lay back, with your arms extended and become a ray of the sun

As we all lay in a circle, we form the sun - we are all rays of this vivid starburst.

Look down to the Earth and see the fields ripe with the summer's abundance

Find your self in the center of this abundance holding a large willow basket, eager to begin your autumn harvest.

Step first into an expanse of sweet corn

See the erect, regal, green stalks of corn

Observe a ripe ear on a particular stalk which extends to you

Under its scruffy whiskers kernels that sparkle like gold shine through.

You are reminded of your own riches - both tangible and intangible

Reach out and pick this ear and put it into your basket.

Leave the corn field and enter an orchard; an apple orchard

See the beauty of these trees, these majestic symbols of the Goddess

Feel the fullness of her boughs - full of ruby red apples of knowledge

Reach up, way up, and pick two. Put one in your basket and eat the other. Taste and enjoy this fruit - for in this garden tasting an apple is not forbidden.

Now move toward an onion field which beckons you

Once green, now browning spikes point up to you, tempting you to dig below..Pull gently and the ground gives birth to an iridescent, opal bulb, full of body and character and strength

A vegetable with the power to make you feel the power of tears

Add this to your growing harvest.

Notice ahead thick bushes of ripened raspberries

Sharp brambles protecting their precious, succulent garnets

The sweet nectar of these berries remind you of your own sensuality - your own ability to feel, express, extend all that is soft and loving and warm to others

Take your time here and pick plenty of these supple jewels for your basket.

Step away now and look around you

Find a patch of fruit or vegetables that appeals to you

Enter it, admire its offerings, select a precious gem of your own to harvest

Choose a resource to sustain you in the rapidly upcoming time of cold and darkness.Capture some warmth and light and savor its presence.

With your arms now laden with this basket of bountiful treasures, it is time now to rest

Take your harvest to the grassy knoll in the sun just beyond and sit and bask in the glory of its healing heat

Rest in contentment knowing you have collected that which you need to give you strength and nourishment in the winter days to come.

Put yourself back in the sky now

Become the sun once again

Shine down upon yourself and your gatherings

Absorb the energy of the fruits of your labors, bless these seeds you planted in the Spring and nurtured to fruition through the summer

Be the sun Shine down upon all that is good and good-giving  Give the light of hope to all you shine upon.

When everything you have touched with your rays is full of your brightness, open your eyes and rejoin our circle.