November Woods

Every November, beginning in 1979, this poem floats back into my mind, bringing with it a brief but poignant sharpness of long past grief and regret.  My husband and I were in Botswana for a three year term with Mennonite Central Committee, and my mother was newly widowed a few months before we left, back in Virginia. I left for Botswana confused and steeped in guilt, caught between a husband who wanted to go and a mother, alone, who desperately wished we would stay.

From a world away, I put together a scrapbook, of sorts, filled with poems and pictures I cut from South African magazines and mailed it to her in time for the first anniversary of my father's death. Even to me at the time, it seemed a pitiful offering, but it was the best I could do, so far removed from her day to day struggles.  This poem isn't a great one, not of literary excellence or note, but it does convey the essence of November and the memories I carried of the season, in a land where there was no time of year that remotely resembled autumn in the east.

November Woods

Lovely are the silent woods, on grey November days.

When the leaves fall red and gold, upon the quiet ways.

From massive beech, majestic oak and birches white and slim,

Like the pillared aisles of a cathedral, vast and dim.

Drifting mist, like smoking incense, hangs upon the air.

Along the paths where birds once sang, the trees stand stripped and bare.

Making Gothic arches with their branches interlaced,

And window-framing vistas, richly wrought and finely traced.

It is good to be in such a place, on such a day.

Problems vanish from the mind and sorrow steals away.

In the woods of grey November, silent and austere, 

Nature gives her benediction to the passing year.

                                                      Patience Strong

Autumn Brilliance

The exuberance of autumn is already winding down and we are moving into a more subdued season. But even as we watch the last of the leaves swirl down and pull our sweaters more tightly around us against the November chill, this is a good time to think about next year's autumn landscape and what it might offer to us and to migrating birds and butterflies. What follows is a piece I wrote a few weeks ago for a native plant landscaping newsletter. Just as the bulb catalogs arrive in early spring so that we may gaze upon our landscapes and muse, "what if?" now is the time to consider what we might want to add to our autumn landscapes.

If you were asked what you treasure most about autumn, 

what would you answer? Would it be the magnificent color of the mid-Atlantic landscape, or the cool crisp days that call you to spend as much time as possible outdoors?  How about the sights and sounds of migrating warblers, thrushes and sparrows, foraging in the underbrush or perhaps the dwindling song of the season’s crickets and katydids on warm sunny days or chilly evenings?

Each year, as fall approaches I am restless to become a part 

of its story, to be a participant in its grandeur, and to add 

whatever I am able to the glory and abundance of the season. PIanting for autumn has become an integral component of my landscape planning, and as I work to meet the needs of birds and insects, I also revel in the seemingly endless palette of color possibilities. Surrounded by hues of reds, yellows, purples and oranges, I delight in the presence of grey catbirds, bluebirds and cedar waxwings picking berries from the Virginia Creeper and native viburnums that grow in the hedgerow, and thrushes, towhees and brown creepers busily scratching though the leaf litter below. Every autumn the yard is filled with migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds stopping by to nectar at the garden phlox, white turtlehead, obedient plant and jewelweed on their way south. Sparrows, indigo buntings, goldfinches, and chickadees perch unsteadily on seed heads of goldenrods, asters, black-eyed Susans, green-headed coneflowers and native grasses swaying in the breezes and eating their fill.

Planting for beauty and wildlife’s needs in autumn can be one

of the most rewarding aspects of the season. This autumn, take a look around your landscape and notice where you would like to have more color. Our native shrubs and trees take on tones of reds, purples, oranges and yellows and many have colorful berries that will be appreciated by birds needing nourishment as they migrate or prepare for winter. Herbaceous plants for shade that flower well into fall include: zig-zag goldenrod, blue stem goldenrod, white wood aster and blue wood aster. Herbaceous fall flowering plants for sun include: garden phlox, white and pink turtlehead, smooth aster, New York aster, and several beautiful goldenrod species. Of particular note for late fall color in sunny spots is the duo of the bright yellow late black-eyed Susan and the lovely fragrant, light purple aromatic aster .

What better way to enjoy the glorious season of autumn than being outdoors in your own yard, surrounded by birds and bees and butterflies, crickets and katydids, a participant in the natural world and immersed in the beauty and vibrancy of the season. 

Sowing Hope

Anne Lamott wrote, "I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer." I thought of this line today, as I was preparing a garden bed for a very late planting of winter salad mix, and will add, "so is being a gardener." Even in southern MD, November 5th is too late for planting anything but garlic... but, why not? What do I have to lose but a few seeds? And, perhaps I will gain fresh greens at least through early winter, if the row cover provides enough protection through the coming freezes.

The author of the book of Hebrews wrote, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Faith is that revolutionary patience that believes that God is at work, even when we can't fathom what he is up to and what he is working to accomplish in us. Determining to trust is not all that removed from planting. Both require determination and work, both must wait for evidence that we have not hoped in vain, both need us to weed away hindrances to growth and both, when we are patient, bring about a bountiful harvest. 

I spend much of my gardening days now winding down the season, removing frost-killed plants, adding compost and mulching the empty beds.  At this time of year, it requires a good measure of faith to picture the garden in spring, filled with tender seedlings holding the promise of another year. The garden and I both are tired, ready for a slower pace and some well earned rest, but we are not finished yet. Next year's bounty depends on my labor now and the soil organisms making use of what I feed them. Soon enough the ground will freeze and rest will come and there will be energy again to look towards spring.

An old friend wrote me yesterday that the Pennsylvania land conservancy for which I still do occasional landscape consulting is looking for someone local to take over the service. And I completely fell apart at reading her words…emotions of grief and fear of loss of meaning suddenly gripping my heart.  Even though I knew that this prospect is what is best for the conservancy, I felt like it wasn't best for me at all.  I feared losing the connection and what has seemed like a thin lifeline to central PA.

But maybe that is exactly God’s intent…what do I know?  After thinking more clearly last night, I have some different feelings…maybe even feelings of relief and of adventure.  I’ve been thinking, now and then, of adventure lately…that maybe all my adventures of this life are not yet over and that more await.  Holding on to what is safe is not the way to find them, but letting go and seeing where life and God take me seems the more positive approach.  Holding on to the conservancy and my involvement, hoping that nothing changes until I get back again someday, picking up where I left off, now feels like a narrow and restricting kind of mindset.

 Yes, there is fear in letting go, isn’t there? I like knowing what I can count on and where I can be of use and how.  But what if something wonderful awaits, instead? I am slowly, slowly being dragged towards the possibility that  more is waiting for me than I realize and to letting go of my hold on what use to be. Still, I want to have a plan for the future, a goal to work towards, and right now I don’t. It hasn't shown itself, as of yet, just as the seeds I planted yesterday are not yet visible.

So, if God and life are moving me away from my old familiar role, then that is the fork I will follow and believe that for the conservancy and for me, it is the right path. I’ll continue walking down the one set in front of me, whether I know where it is taking me or not…In the words of the Wailin' Jennys, “It’s a long and rugged road, and we don’t know where it’s headed, but we know it’s going to get us where we’re going. And when we find what we’re looking for we’ll drop these bags and search no more, cuz its going to feel like heaven when we’re home.”

Holding On and Letting Go

I've been wrestling with a perennial dilemma, one that occurs at this time of year, every year. Fall is a time of pervasive restlessness, contrasted with a time of nestling into where I am...of wanting to fly off with the waterfowl on adventures to new places but,at the same time, wanting to pour my energy into the home place, planting new plants in support of next year's birds and pollinators. I am not the first to say, but do agree, that autumn is a bittersweet, melancholy kind of time, a savory, glorious bursting of brief unparalleled beauty preceding the starkness and silence of winter. It is a time of letting go, and I intentionally hold on to the promise that autumn's developing tree buds will be next years leaves and flowers.

This year, I am wrestling more deeply than usual.  We left my much-loved old home in PA and moved to southern MD three and a half years ago and have lived on the farm where I work, for two.  The farm is a beautiful old property, set high on a hill overlooking the Potomac River, a patchwork of fields, woodlands and marshes. Today the woodlands are ablaze with color, and the marshes are filling with ducks and migrating sparrows who will stay through the winter. Today I feel at home here....and thus my deeper wrestling.

It is dangerous to fall in love with a place you do not own and know that some day you will be leaving.  Granted, the argument can be made that it is also dangerous to fall in love with a place you do own, because you have no assurance about how long you will be able to stay. I know that I won't be working and growing old on this lovely old comfortable farm, however, and, even amid the joy and gratitude of living here, I feel the early stirrings of grief for when we will have to leave. All the more so in autumn.


In Pennsylvania I had an acquaintance who knew as much about native plants and ecosystems as anyone I have ever known. He was an electrician and lived in a city apartment, yet started thousands of plants for restoration projects under lights in his living room.  I once asked whether he had a garden and he simply answered, "The world is my garden." I marveled at his detachment from and his investment in so many places to which he had contributed his love for the land.  He has become something of a model for when I feel the attachment to one place too keenly and fear having that attachment broken...but I am not there yet, and secretly doubt  that I ever will be.

The tensions of holding on and letting go characterize love, no matter who or what our hearts embrace and the more deeply we love, the more deeply we grieve when faced with loss.  Autumn is a time for remembering the graces and gifts I have been given through the year, for recognizing the abundance the earth supplies and even for gratitude that, as the trees prepare to sleep, I are blessed with the visual feast all around me, brief though it may be. And so I accept that the beauty of autumn, in my heart anyway, is tinged with the coming sadness for when it will be over, and that I will also find beauty in the bare sculpture of the trees and the crispness of snow as winter approaches. I am reminded that my life is a continual, loving experience of holding on and letting go and that it always will be. And I determine, once again, to try my best to live with gratitude, in the moment.