I have not come to the great grandmother oak tree for a long time, but I have been feeling lost, spinning, the world is too much. The old tree’s bark is rough against my hand, but the portal is open, a smooth mandorla scar that invites me to slip into the trunk.

My harvest in the garden this September has been the humble calendula. For centuries she was known among herbalists as marigold or pot marigold, a charming homage to the Great Mother of Christianity, pairing her with that most precious of metals. In the oldest herbals she is referred to in the plural simply as Goldes.

The song of Lammas sounds a note of melancholy as summer wanes. The faint coolness on the breeze, the shortening days … The image of the scythe, and the reaper who wields it, accompanies this time of year.