Brigid’s Ritual, Part 9

For Harvest celebration this year we enjoy a feast. I make a pesto sauce from my magnificent basil plant, then toss it with pasta, butter, and cherry tomatoes from the garden in a cast iron skillet. Delicious. To reap a literal yield and prepare a dinner from its fruits is not only satisfying –but also traditional for this holiday.

After the meal we sit out in the yard surrounded by thriving flora, including giant lotus plants, elephant ears, and Japanese maples. It’s a hot August evening. The heat index settles down into the 90’s. From our camp chairs, several paces from the small fire, we call quarters and invite a few chosen gods and goddesses.

The metaphorical aspect of Harvest commences, toasts to each other’s accomplishments –gains we realized this year. We speak of scoring points in our businesses –better working conditions, improving financial peace of mind. We acknowledge creative and personal harvests, and our long term relationship, still growing after twenty two years. We raise mugs to our rescue canine companions, who revel in a loving routine with us. All three are elderly now, and we honor them as often as we toast. Dogs are angels on earth for a short time.

To end up, I offer up a hearty salute to the harvest of hope shared by sane Americans coast to coast. The ideal leaders appeared on the national stage the moment we desperately needed them. And now, at long last, we imagine our freedoms restored and democracy living to celebrate a 250th birthday. A joyful, capable, and eloquent woman of color and a genuinely likable midwestern white man have brought us home. We look to victory in November. Most of us don’t want control freak politicians in our bedrooms, doctor’s offices, and libraries. We don’t want cruel laws against women, non-Christians, and LGBTQ people. And now our voices scream out a stadiums and hangars across the country: We Will Not Go Back!

How wonderful, as we sit in our lovely yard around a sacred fire pit, to feel hope, to toast the real possibility of a future free of dour authoritarian puritans at the helm.

We close our circle, still from the comfort of our camp chairs. Sometimes it’s too hot to move much. We rally, though, and venture on to our screened-in porch. The hummingbirds zoom and dive around feeders, the crows come calling for peanuts, and our dogs post up –on duty –carefully watching. To be sure, a fight looms ahead, to vanquish zealots at the ballot box in November, then face off with election deniers and potentially violent cult members. But today our Harvest gives us strength, grounding, and –yes –happiness, both personal and beyond.

Laurel Owen, August 2024