The Season Between

When the Earth Begins to Turn Inward

Before autumn arrives on the calendar, it arrives in the body.

You notice it in the evening first.

The sun slips away a little earlier. The air feels different against your skin. Mornings carry a coolness that wasn't there a few weeks ago, even when the afternoon still insists it is summer.

The prairie knows.

Fields begin to bronze. Seed heads replace the blossoms. Goldenrod burns yellow along the roadsides. The frantic green growth of summer slows, and plants begin doing something quieter.

They turn inward.

Energy that once pushed toward leaf, flower, and fruit begins moving toward seed and root. What was meant to fruit is ripening. What must survive another northern winter begins to prepare.

And whether we realize it or not, we feel the shift too.

The Long Turning

We are approaching the Autumn Equinox–the threshold between the bright abundance of the summer and the darker half of the year.

Around the Equinox, day and night come close to balance. Afterward, here in the North, darkness begins winning a few more minutes each day.

For generations, this season wasn't simply decorative.

It was work.

It was gathering herbs before frost. Digging roots. Drying plants. Preserving fruit. Putting up vegetables. Saving seed. Preparing firewood. Filling shelves and cellars with enough to carry a household through winter.

Autumn asked a very practical question:

What will you carry with you?

Maybe that question still belongs to us.

The Medicine Moves Downward

There is something I love about watching perinnial plants this time of year.

Above ground, they can look tired. Leaves yellow. Flowers Fade. Stems become ragged. The beautiful parts–the parts we tend to notice first–begin disappearing.

But the plant isn't finished.

Its priorities have changed.

FOr many perinnial herbs, autumn is an important root-harvesting season. As the growing season winds down, the plant begins storing resources below ground, preparing itself for dormancy and the winter ahead.

Roots that spent the summer supporting leaf, flower, and fruit become the place where the plant holds what it wll need to begin again.

It is a reminder that not every productive season looks like blooming.

Sometimes the important work happens where nobody can see it..

The Gathering Season

This s when my own attention beging shifting too.

The apothecary starts feeling different.

Elderberries become syrup. Herbs are dried and tucked into jars. Teas start sounding better than iced drinks. Warming spices creep back onto the workbench. Oils become deeper, woodier, earthier.

And somewhere between the last hot days of summer and the first truly cold night, I begin wanting to make things that feel like autumn.

Not because a marketing calendar says it's time.

Because the land does.

This is the season of elderberry and apple, roots and resins, cedar and fir, cinnamon and smoke. Of kitchens smelling like something has been simmering for hours. Of jars lining shelves andn the deep satisfaction of knowing there are provisions tucked away for the colder days ahead.

Out ancestors called it preparation.

We might call it nesting.

Either way, the instinct is old.

Before the Equinox

We don't need to rush into the next season.

There is something worth noticing about this strange little stretch between them.

Summer hasn't entirely released us.

Autumn hasn't completely arrived.

We're standing in the doorway.

So over the next few weeks, pay attention.

Notice what is going to seed. Notice which plants disappear first. Watch how quickly sunset beging creeping backward. Listen to how the sounds outside change as summer beging to quiet.

Make something with what is abundant now. Dry an herb. Gather apples. Brew tea when the evening turns cool. Step outside after dark and look up at the moon.

And maybe ask yourself the same quetions autumn has asked humans for generations:

What do I want to carry forward–and what am I ready to leave behind.

The Equinox is coming.

We'll meet there soon.

The magic is in the making.

–The Coopper Comapss

Northern Prairie Botanicals