The picking and gathering activities of all seasons are remarkable and important but the autumn harvests of the just completed growing season are the final preparations for this winter and often prized and stored against drought, famine or lack, for many years to come.. Prayers, intention, labor and the growth supporting warmth and moisture have produced the fruit, nut, vegetable, green that feeds all beings. Beings such as ourselves, the four-legged, those that swim, fly, slither and crawl that eat more than water, minerals, air and light, as do the seed beings.Most of these plant beings also produce valuable medicine seeds, roots, leaves and stems. The abundantly produced,gathered and stored skebyak, the green beings, and their seeds will feed, clothe and house; they will provide materials for tools and most importantly, they will provide instructive stories which will be told during the long winter nights and in the coming years. The genetic imprint of the seed nourishes our bodies and contributes intelligence from the natural world, the elemental directions and colors, the physical cycles of other living things- composted materials of all kinds-, electric solar emanations, the life carrying vibration of the water beings, fire charges from the fire beings, manifold Spirit breaths carried by the ethers, winds and air beings and minerals released by the rock beings.
The abundance of the autumn harvest is a life metaphor which speaks of and demonstrates a mutual and respectful interaction representing the basic giving-away and receiving nature of duality of Spirit as it evolves out of our minds and the mind of the Creator, assuming and manifesting in physical form, life incarnate.
And this physical form itself, may change it's face many times and undergo a multitude of shifts. The cycles of life suggest many possibilities of being. Spirit may once again enliven a two-legged form or the intelligence may elect to merge with the water beings, sprout as a grass, shrub or tree, run with the fire, air or wind beings, join with the salts, crystals or minerals, fuse with a direction, color or animal or to dance with the Mother Earth. Spirit can and may elect to expand concurrent knowingness with many of these beings, then as now, alive in a living world.
The principle objective ceremony is that of cultivating and maintaining a mindful consciousness, healing, personal ritual, prayer, sacred movement, gratitude and high intention is to honor and celebrate right relationship with ourselves and all of these beings so that perceptions of separation with the Creator, ourselves or anything else are narrowed, closed and made whole...this is harvest made enduring, whole and ongoing. Seed is what carries the harvest of wisdom, knowledge and new life forward.
