The Perfect Harvest

 

11.04.2022 THE PERFECT HARVEST During the autumn season, I often find myself battling with a never-ending to-do list. Between saying goodbye to summer and the preparation for winter, I always feel the need to catch up with the world around me. I felt this urgency a few weeks ago while visiting my childhood home. My mother, an avid gardener, spends the majority of her free time planting and tending to vegetables, which leaves her with an abundance in fall. My parents were away for a week in early October, so my mom asked me to survey the gardens and pick what I could from the last of the season’s harvest, especially from the old apple tree in the backyard. Red and gold apples hung like orbs from the unassuming tree, its branches bowing under the weight. With my bushel baskets in hand, I looked at the hundreds of apples on the tree and was instantly stressed by the task. Fortunately, picking apples is slow work. As I plucked them from their branches one-by-one, I noticed the variety of shape, texture, and color amongst the harvest — each apple different from the last. After a few bushels worth, I felt a new gratitude for all the time and work that brought the apple to my hand — all of the sunny days, birds, bees, and flowers that worked in tandem to create this now ripe fruit. Being forced to slow down and fully experience the backyard apples offered me a small opportunity in my day to be present, despite the hurry of impending tasks. The three pieces below highlight the ways we can find small, but essential moments of presence as the seasons change and to-do lists grow. I hope they offer you a moment of stillness this weekend. —Martine Panzica, Digital Editorial Assistant, Lion’s Roar

How to Eat an Apple Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lilian Cheung show you that the simple act of eating an apple mindfully can bring you many delights. Look at the apple in your palm and ask yourself: When I eat an apple, am I really enjoying eating it? Or am I so preoccupied with other thoughts that I miss the delights that the apple offers me? For most of our lives, we have eaten apple after apple without giving it a second thought. Yet in this mindless way of eating, we have denied ourselves the many delights present in the simple act of eating an apple. Why do that, especially when it is so easy to truly enjoy the apple?

The Do-Nothing Farmer’s Guide to a Perfect Harvest Mark Frank’s five steps to successfully doing nothing — in your garden or any other part of your life. I begin the outside part of my day by slowly and deliberately walking through the fields and beds. I make note of something new every time: a fresh bit of growth, an insect that has just returned for the season, a place where a varmint has nibbled, the first setting on of fruit. In the evening, I walk again and note more changes, for the early garden and the late garden are very different things. These endless changes are the steps of our dance through the wild world.

Do Dishes, Rake Leaves: The Wisdom of the Ancient Homemakers Karen Maezen Miller on how the domestic practice of ancient Zen masters can lead us to intimate encounters with our own lives. Looking for greater meaning in life, some people think that housework is beneath them. Cooking and cleaning are beneath them. I know that feeling well. Sometimes they seem so far beneath me that I can’t see the bottom. I can’t see the beginning or the end. Is there a point to doing the work that seems pointless? The work, with no visible end, no redeeming value, and no apparent urgency? Yes. It’s the wisdom of the ancient homemakers.

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