Is there anything more assuring than the first rains of harvest season to remind us of what’s most permanent and important in a world that often seems too full of calamity, change and commercialism?
With lives limited more and more by the small square screen of our smart phones, we need to get splashed on the head with raindrops so we look around at what’s really happening. What’s more vital, another harvest of labor, fruit and communion or TV hearings about a Supreme Court nominee, emotional reminders of a pending wildfire anniversary or the drumbeat of the #MeToo movement?
The answer is that all these events are now part of our lives and they all deserve our attention and participation. But nature’s rains want to remind us to slow down and be here now. We need the rhythm of the seasons and another harvest to keep everything in context. As humans with over-connected brains we need the presence of Mother Nature perhaps more than ever.
Our calendars keep getting busier and busier, even without the crush of harvest. The Giants baseball season just ended but the surprising, upstart A’s are in the October playoffs. High school football and homecomings are happening. This is election season and candidate forums are filling our schedules. And, Sonoma County is launching into a commemoration of the tragic losses, gained lessons and reformations from last year’s wildfires.
Soon, after our many harvest salutes and parties over the next few weeks, we will send out holiday gathering invitations. Next ,it will be the last day to shop and ship our Christmas packages. No wonder we need to remind ourselves to take breaks, breathe deeply and go play.
Thank you, we say, to the early October rains for another autumn awakening of nature’s auras and aromas, comforting sensual blessings and sorely needed affirmations of why we live our lives the way we do.
All seasons are beautiful and inviting here in Sonoma County, with so much preserved open space, diverse landscapes, natural features and moderate climate.
Now is one of the best times to walk a trail, find a vineyard vista, visit a park or take long pauses under the redwoods, at the coast or somewhere beyond the tiny confines of our plugged-in psyches.
Right now, our winegrape growers, winemakers and harvest crews are picking up their pace to get the 2018 vintage through the crush and into fermentation tanks before heavier rains arrive. They are answering nature’s calendar, not so much their own. Perhaps, they were too busy last week to watch the televised Senate hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
For anyone who missed the spectacle that fixated millions of Americans, they will be spared trying to answer how the future reputation and soundness of the U.S. Supreme Court rests on what happened 36 years ago at a teenagers’ gathering in a Maryland suburb.
In total lack of coincidence, the first Tuesday of October has always been filled with both the flurry of activities of Sonoma County’s winegrape harvest and the convening of a new Supreme Court session.
This week, on Oct. 2, our harvest was progressing along patterns of work, weather and outcomes that have been scripted for over a century and a half.
That will not be the case at the Supreme Court, which now looks destined to be changed forever and broken off from its past. The blindfolded statue of Lady Justice has become the latest victim of the #MeToo age, no matter the outcome of a pending FBI Kavanaugh investigation.
It’s too bad the forces of Mother Nature couldn’t also preside over the rhythms and outcomes of our nation’s highest court. If only a little rain could wash away this travesty, too.
