The Art of Life: Autumn on the Island

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Autumn on the Island

"Dig your hands into the rich, black soil; toil."

Pumpkin Perfection
c. Gillian Cornwall

This is a perfect late September day. The morning air, cool as a reminder of the harvest days ahead. I throw my mind one hundred and fifty years to the past and envision myself on pastoral lands and villages built of the stones dug from the fields by which they stand.

Simpler times are what I crave, time spent in a kitchen preparing food for the winter months - a pot of soup set upon the stove, bubbling with the goodness picked steps from the cottage door. I know I idolize farm life, which is silly because I've done it and it is hard work, but that time was spent in direct contact with our needs and survival. Our jobs have become the middle man between our physical needs and ourselves. I now wonder if I'd have the strength to provide for myself - to build a home, to work the land, to have my job be my survival.

I love to go right to the farm for the food upon my table. I fill my lungs with the scent of the land. My eyes open wide to the rich black soil and the red leaves of the blueberry bushes in the distance. I listen with love to the songs of the sheep and the cattle. I dream of the sensation of the cool, earth-damp squash or potato in my hands, fresh from the ground below my feet.

I am doubly blessed now our community mindset has shifted and many Victoria markets provide farm-fresh local foods grown with love and care for the land from which they arise.

It is autumn and I recognize the gifts of the earth. I fill my glass with deep, rich, BC wine and I lay a dish before you, replete with the wonders of this place, my home.

With recognition to the Lekwungen territory and the people on whose lands I live, play and work. I am grateful to the Elders and those who have gone before us - those who have cared for our mother Earth across time.

-Gillian Cornwall, September 25, 2012. Revised and re-posted September 28, 2014