It is easy this time of year to slip into meditations on death and dying. It is autumn and leaves cover the ground, a few trees still cling to their leaves but whips of wind will strip them bare in a few short days. The gardens have been put to bed and the last of our kale was harvested for breakfast this morning. We are surrounded by signs of what no longer is, of life lost. This is the rhythm of seasons, of change, but as I get older I seem to fear this change, this loss of life, a little more each year. I have spent years living in places where the variation in temperature does not swing it's pendulum as extremely as it does here. To be honest though, at least then, I craved winter. I craved the hibernation that never came. But as we stand on the doorstep of winter's silences, life laid dormant, I am holding, fists clenched, at least for the next few weeks as I adjust to the internal drive to be outside and the psychological resistance to bone chilling cold, on to the vibrant memory of the glory days of Spring, Summer and Fall.
Last summer I spent some amount of time culling flowers from the earth and pressing them between pages of absorbent paper and cardboard lashed together with cotton straps. As of this week the last of the flowers in our garden have given way to crumpled vestiges of their former selves. It was the Black-Eyed Susan's and the flowers of bolted Parsley that held out the longest, but now they hang slack leafed and wilted, waiting their turn to return to the soil below. I have to continually remind myself that flowers, by their very nature, bloom so that they may reproduce. Their dying is also an act of re-seeding. Dried flowers stand sentinel on their stalks as the wind picks up their seeds and scatters them near and far to grow anew. Surrounded by these images of life snuffed out, waiting for new growth and having spent a little too much time recently reading depressing articles on climate change, I find myself compelled to find a way to hold on to the beauty that was last season.
I have slipped the straps off of my flower press and sorted through the flowers found in fields, purchased at the farmer's market and grown in my own back yard. There are many. Some have held fast to their colors, others have faded. Some are hearty and their petals strong, while others crumple at my touch. I know the names of many, but others are strange beauties that intrigue me and I long to know better. Thus begins a conversation whispered between brittle leaves and lingering needles. I stare at these fragile lives quieted by my press and the passage of time. They are not as vibrant as they were a few short months ago when they stood in full feather on their stalks en plein air, but they are here before me. Their shape has changed, but they still speak volumes in color and contour. I have meditated on their petals and leaves, pistils and stamen and found stories echoing loudly, longing to be told. In response to these echoes I gathered needles and yarn, paper and glue and set to stitching conversations on to the page reflecting color and configuration.
These are the results and I am a bit excited about them. Sure they don't bring the actual flower back to life, but maybe they give it some new life or harness the essence of what it once was. I have a stack of flowers waiting to tell their stories and listening to their echoes is sure to help me through these winter months. I guess it's one way of dealing with the winter blues. That, and dreaming about the seeds to be planted in the Spring.