Autumn ~ The Ripe Earth

Collect

We walked through my brother-in-law’s vineyard Sunday at sunset, picking grapes. [Luke snipped the clumps (he loves these grapes) and collected them in his sack while I took pictures and ate grapes.]

Connect

"At no other time than autumn does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke

[We have been reciting the following poem while walking together in the mornings. It is one of my favorites that Levi memorized years ago.]

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

~Emily Bronte

Grapes and Laundry

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

~E. B. White

Doing Good, Making Honey (Lectio Divina!), and Bearing Grapes

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee
makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season
without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

~Marcus Aurelius

Create

Photo above.

[I should have used the headings Eat, Digest, Grow/Transform for this Lectio Divina!]