The whole world seems so sour and fraught these days. I have spent many good long hours in one or the other of the gardens I tend, weeding and harvesting. The dirt always seems to be a good tonic for the blues.

Well, that, and wine.

August has come in with good grace this year–gentle skies and soft weather but with a cool nip to the morning air that speaks of the autumn that is ready to unpack its bags at the door. Even as I pick the heavy ripe tomatoes from the Early Girl plant that is taller than I, the pang of their loss is lurking around the corner. I have eaten tomatoes every day for a week and breakfast has been buttery-crisp fried eggs on a base of sliced tomatoes several mornings this week.

It’s time to plan the fall and winter garden but I’m not quite ready yet. I did put in some late-ish beans and cucumbers but the lettuces and other greens that will fare well enough over the winter must wait a few more weeks for their planting.

It is my responsibility to create this month’s Full Moon ritual at Mother Grove and I will honor this queer feeling of grief with an altar to Melancholia and a chance for my community to sit in a place of quiet and healing, if only for an hour or so.