"Try to remember the kind of September When life was slow and oh, so mellow. Try to remember, and if you remember, Then follow."

"The breezes taste                 
Of apple peel.

The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his  hive,                        

Well-honeyed hum,                                     And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.         
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."
-   John Updike, September

September, no matter how old I am, has always felt like "back to school!"

“And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
 Unwillingly to school.”

William Shakespeare  

            

School,
Effort, and
Play.
Trying your best
Each hour of the day,
Making new friends,                                    
Being good as you can
Exciting discoveries,
Reading books with a friend."
-  Boni Fulgham 

September holds within itself a portal that seems clearer to me than all others . . .more pronounced . . . easier to apprehend. Fall-to-winter, winter-to-spring, and spring-to-summer are all portals . . . times between times, but their outlines appear to me to be less pronounced. It is for this reason, I think, that I am more aware of the magic and mystery of change at this time of year than at any other.

"The Druids call this celebration, Mea'n Fo'mhair, and honor the Green Man, the God of the Forest, by offering libations to trees.  Offerings of ciders, wines, herbs and fertilizer are appropriate at this time....  Mabon is considered a time of the Mysteries. It is a time to honor Aging Deities and the Spirit World...."
-   Mabon by Akasha

 

"September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret."
-   Alexander Theroux, 1981

"September's Baccalaureate
A combination is Of Crickets -- Crows -- and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze
That hints without assuming --
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher."
-   Emily Dickinson, September's Baccalaureate 

"The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf
shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many."
-   Oliver Wendell Holmes 

                                                                   
 

"There comes a time when autumn asks,
"What have you been doing all summer?"

I am blessed to live on an island in Washington state where blackberries grow like weeds along the sides of the roads, enabling one to simply go outside and pick them. I've been here in retreat from a lifetime of cities for 16 years and still the blackberry abundance delights me. It feels faintly like a Garden of Eden, just to walk about, picking dessert from the bushes!

"I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry -- eating in late September."
- Gallway Kinnell, Blackberry Eating  

"September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings. a prophetic breath of autumn.  The cricket chirps in the noontide, making the most of what remains of his brief life.  The bumblebee is busy among the clover blossoms of the aftermath, and their shrill and dreamy hum hold the outdoor world above the voices of the song birds, now silent or departed."
-   September Days   By Rowland E. Robinson, Vermont.

   

 

"I trust in Nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility.  Spring shall plant and Autumn garner to the ends of time."
-   Robert Browning

"Smoke hangs like haze over harvested fields,
The gold of stubble, the brown of turned earth
And you walk under the red light of fall
The scent of fallen apples, the dust of threshed grain
The sharp, gentle chill of fall.
Here as we move into the shadows of autumn
The night that brings the morning of spring
Come to us, Lord of Harvest
Teach us to be thankful for the gifts you bring us ..."
-  Autumn Equinox Ritual

"Shine on, shine on harvest moon
Up in the sky,
I ain't had no lovin'
Since January, February, June or July
Snow Time ain't no time to stay
Outdoors and spoon,
So shine on, shine on harvest moon
For me and my gal."
-  By Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, 1903

"The definition of a Harvest Moon is: the full moon closest to the fall equinox.  The Harvest Moon was thus named because it rises within a half-hour of when the sun sets.  In early days, when farmers had no tractors, it was essential that they work by the light of the moon to bring in the harvest.  This moon is the fullest moon of the year.  When you gaze at it, it looks very large and gives a lot of light throughout the entire night.  No other lunar spectacle is as awesome as the Harvest Moon."
Harvest Moon Lore

"I can hear
September's
leaf
following
me
down
the asphalt
surface
of Locust Street
cartwheeling
on pins
when suddenly,
it stops-- 

just

to see
if I'll turn
to look."

"The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if newborn;
There was nameless splendor everywhere,
That wild exhilaration in the air,
Which makes the passers in the city street
Congratulate each other as they meet."
-   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  

"By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather
And autumn’s best of cheer."
-   Helen Hunt Jackson, September, 1830-1885

Here's to the glory of September and the enthusiasm for change it offers! May we all feel renewed and delighted and eager for what's to come!