A Ritual of Harvest

Autumn is here. Not astro­nom­i­cal­ly, not “offi­cial­ly” here, but there is always one day when you can feel the vibra­tions of autumn in your bones, in the trees, in the wind. And that time came last Thursday.

I left home to do the last har­vest before the Dark Half of the Year (dur­ing that time I only har­vest things for spe­cial pur­pos­es, either good or bad), ready and will­ing to har­vest the last bits of mug­wort, worm­wood, hops, and what­ev­er I would find. The weath­er was strange. The sun was shin­ing that day, but the wind and the clouds appeared and dis­ap­peared con­stant­ly. The wind was no longer a sum­mer wind, it had some weight, strange weight on it.

And so, I gath­ered the herbs, went down a few paths, and as I was com­ing home, teardrops start­ed falling. At the cross­roads, I decid­ed not to get back home, but took anoth­er path, to vis­it a good friend of mine: a fig tree. Fig trees are tra­di­tion­al­ly relat­ed to the Dev­il, as it is thought that the Cross made to cru­ci­fy Christ was made of fig tree wood. Their roots and their trunk are filled with knots as if they were pop­u­lat­ed with damned souls. But their smell, sweet and bewitch­ing, has always attract­ed me since I was a kid. I made sure to find a fig tree when I arrived at the place where I live now, and so, I try to min­gle with it as often as possible.

That being said, I went to vis­it my old friend. I was har­vest­ing mar­velous hys­sop in the mid­dle of the path when I heard a voice behind me. “What are you car­ry­ing, remeira?” (Remeiera is a Cata­lan word for ‘heal­er’). It was an old man, smil­ing sweet­ly, with a cloth bag in his hand. He was sur­prised to see my bas­ket full of worm­wood and said that nobody used that herb in the region. I explained a few med­i­c­i­nal usages for the plant and did not men­tion any oth­er thing. But we car­ried on talk­ing. He spoke to me about how much he loves plants, how often he goes to the woods just to smell them, and then, out of a sud­den, he said: “Hey, do you want to see my gar­den?” I agreed and fol­lowed him to an old wood­en fence by the path­way. He opened the fence, and there was a fan­tas­tic amount of plants and fruit trees, all of them lush, green, vibrant, and immense­ly well tak­en care of.

He pro­ceed­ed to show me a patch of wild sage he was espe­cial­ly proud of and urged me to take some branch­es. I had nev­er smelled a sage like that, he smiled even more speak­ing about its smell. Then, he showed me his apple trees, rasp­ber­ries, dan­de­lions, etc. I had nev­er seen a per­son so proud of his gar­den, and he kept talk­ing about the time he spends there. Then, his expres­sion changed, and said worryingly:

You see, my father always said: “We take so many things out of the earth, we must return some­thing to it. We, peo­ple who love nature, must take care of these things.”

He smiled again. Pre­oc­cu­pa­tion was gone. We kept speak­ing and he said I would be always wel­come. He gave me four apples. I thanked him and went away, towards the tree. There I offered the fruits of the har­vest, and got back home, as it start­ed to rain again.

It is real­ly hard for me to explain what hap­pened that after­noon in a log­i­cal sense. But log­ic plays no role in here, so I will stick to my first thought, and con­sid­er myself greet­ed by a Keep­er of the Land I live in, and will cher­ish that har­vest cer­e­mo­ny forever.

The thing is that, Rit­u­als, as we envi­sion them in cur­rent Witch­craft tra­di­tions, are a series of marked steps to reach a goal which ulti­mate­ly tran­scends the mun­dane. But after this inci­dent, my con­cept of rit­u­al has become a bit more organ­ic, and I have under­stood that we do not get to decide on the steps we make, but the rit­u­al is marked by Spir­its, and the only thing to be done in our part, is to fol­low them with­out fear.

One thought on “A Ritual of Harvest

  1. Oth­er very incom­plete details I might add to the lat­er Westernized/Christianized tra­di­tions of the fig tree:

    Fig leaves were woven and placed over “Adam and Eve’s”, the first humans, sex­u­al repro­duc­tive organs, gen­i­talia. The pow­er of their sex­u­al­i­ty, coiled at the base of their spine, dor­mant illu­mi­na­tion and regeneration. 

    The fig tree is then, of course, asso­ci­at­ed also with the pri­mor­dial sto­ry in Gan Eden, the “Gar­den of Eden”, also con­sid­ered in lore to be a civ­i­liza­tion, the par­adise of Cre­ation. A gar­den is care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed rather than the uncul­ti­vat­ed, wild Nature. A cul­ti­vat­ed area or enclo­sure. Knowledge.

    The fig tree, in these regards, also asso­ci­at­ed with the “Tree of Knowl­edge of Good and Evil”, or the “Tree of Light and Dark­ness”, the “Tree of Knowl­edge of Life and Death”. The World Tree, the Knowl­edge of Life and Death with­in cycles, sea­sons, meta­mor­pho­sis through time. The mys­te­ri­ous process­es, struc­ture of Cre­ation. From which they “ate”, “par­took”.

    This fig tree, of course, in these asso­ci­a­tions is tied to the Ser­pent, the World Ser­pent, the Cos­mic Ser­pent of the mate­r­i­al or phys­i­cal uni­verse, in all its lev­els and cycles, stages, from which all nat­ur­al forms are born with­in it. With this, braid­ed with the mys­ter­ies of the body. 

    All of these cor­re­spon­dences of tra­di­tions deeply asso­ciate with mys­ter­ies, cer­e­mo­ny, ritual.

    The fig tree, in this regard, is also inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed, entwined if you will, with the cru­ci­fix­ion of the Christ, the KRST, who was trans­fixed upon the World Tree, the Tree of Knowl­edge of Light and Dark­ness, Life and Death. The KRST is the anoint­ed male trans­formed into a king, (the “hus­band­man”, “bride­groom” of the Moth­er God­dess, and thus the god who weds the (Daugh­ter) of the Moth­er) who goes through the full process of life, death, and res­ur­rec­tion, mys­ter­ies of Cre­ation, becom­ing anoint­ed as the hus­band or king, the god. Impaled, strung, staked to the Tree of Knowl­edge of Life and Death, self-sac­ri­ficed with blood upon it and so becom­ing a part of it, he trav­els the Tree. (The Tree from Gan Eden). The keys, the secrets of life and death. This is also asso­ci­at­ed in lore with the secrets and mys­ter­ies of Marriage.

    The coun­ter­part of the KRST, the male ini­ti­ate, is Mary Mag­dale­na, Mary “of the White Tow­er, the Ivory Tow­er”. Daugh­ter, priest­ess of the Moth­er. The Great House of the Moth­er, from the begin­ning of civ­i­liza­tion (She to whom the mys­ter­ies were giv­en). In var­i­ous tra­di­tions, the ivory tow­er is of the ocean and the Moon. The realm of illu­mined Nature, the illu­mined Animalia.

    Anoth­er tree, the aca­cia tree, thick­ly aro­mat­ic and sweet, is asso­ci­at­ed with this rit­u­al­is­tic cru­ci­fix­ion upon the World Tree, the Mys­ter­ies of the Moth­er, Cre­ation. In tra­di­tions it’s said the KRST, the hus­band­man hung upon the World Tree, the Tree of the Ser­pent, wears a crown of thorns. And these thorns are of the delec­tably sweet (often described as ‘heav­en­ly sweet’ and ‘can­dy-like’) acacia. 

    And what is his head, his crown, anoint­ed with? Extreme­ly potent, beau­ti­ful aro­mat­ic oils.

    The aca­cia is also ascribed in tra­di­tions to the “Burn­ing Bush” up at the top of the Holy Moun­tain or the Moun­tain of Cre­ation, which was ascend­ed and then descend­ed. The Burn­ing Bush blazed with a very mys­te­ri­ous “fire” unlike any oth­er, a fire which burned the tree/bush with beau­ti­ful, strange, mys­ti­cal flames, but did not con­sume or destroy it. “Liv­ing flames” as I’ve heard it described, a mys­te­ri­ous fire giv­ing flame and light from which the voice of a “god” spoke. A god with­in the sweet, aro­mat­ic Tree, the bush.

    The thorns of this Burn­ing Bush are placed as a crown on the head of the dying-res­ur­rect­ing KRST. Crowned with the branch­es of the mys­ti­cal Burn­ing Bush. Again, into the skin. Into the head, the skull.

    The leaves of the sweet fig tree in the pri­mor­dial Gar­den were sewn togeth­er and placed (some say as an ‘apron’, hav­ing heavy rit­u­al­is­tic con­nec­tions) over the repro­duc­tive organs. (And all the anoint­ed KRST in dying “rap­ture” upon the World Tree wore was a woven “loin cloth”. A woven tex­tile). A woven cloth from the fig tree. 

    The cru­ci­fix­ion upon the Tree of Knowl­edge of Life and Death took place upon “Gol­go­tha”, the secret “Place of the Skull”. Also called a “secret (arcane) gar­den”… The return to a Garden. 

    “Lift­ed [as the ser­pent] between Heav­en and Earth”. Lift­ed upon, with­in the Tree.

    The secret Place of the Skull, in eso­teric tra­di­tions, is also asso­ci­at­ed with the Moon. The lunar ener­gies, world. The cycles of fer­til­i­ty with­in the Moon. The Moon com­ing to full­ness, fruition. The Ivory Tow­er of the Moon in the Garden.

    It’s here that the cru­ci­fix­ion upon the tree from the “midst” of the Gar­den of Eden, the Tree of Knowl­edge of Good and Evil, Light and Dark­ness, Life and Death took place and the ini­ti­ate, changed, trans­formed, rose. 

    And so, so many more traditions.
    Tra­di­tions that, (tra­di­tions say), come from the very begin­ning of humankind and the knowl­edge that came from the very begin­ning of civ­i­liza­tion. A beau­teous, sun­lit and shad­owed secret Garden.

    All from a man and woman eat­ing from a fig tree.

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