Green Witch Column: The Sweet and Dark Power of the Veggie Bin

I’ve recently gone in for seasonal food. Just some. Just a big, beautiful bin of veggies and fruits, delivered every Thursday, to our side door. It started with planning for a new baby and ended with me, elbow deep in apples, finding the Goddess in my kitchen. Let me explain.

I was eight months pregnant and the idea of how busy we were going to be suddenly became real. Friends signed up to bring us meals in the first new baby weeks because we were going too busy to cook, they said. Let alone go grocery shopping.

So, I ordered a CSA bin. That is, a Community Supported Agriculture bin. I found New Roots Organics on the Web. They deliver a big old Rubbermaid tub full of produce every Thursday. It’s all organic. I kind of have a thing for frogs, so I love that. I love the whole thing. Thursdays are a little like the Christmases of my childhood. I open the bin and the gleaming vegetables and fruits lie there, greens and oranges and reds, dewy and fresh. Like exotic fish, but without the stink. Sometimes there are things I don’t know how to cook, but, like most CSA’s, my bin contains a sheet with recipes for the contents every week. Plus, I discovered splendid table.com, where I can put in an ingredient and get a list of recipes.

Now, not everything in my bin is local. There is a company that has an all-organic and all local bin. That would be purer, more “environmental.” The average fruit or vegetable on an American plate travels 1,500 miles from the farm, and I know that’s not ideal. But the all-local one doesn’t deliver. I’d have to pick it up and with a new baby, that would be the end of that. So let me make a plug here and now for compassion with ourselves! I’ve worked as an environmental advocate for twelve years and I’ve learned to be a little gentler than I used to be. I’m looking for ways to be closer to the magic by eating food that embodies the season. I’ve also learned that "the best is the enemy of the good." (Voltaire) I’ve learned that healing the planet and ourselves is going to be a long, deep ritual and it has to do what good rituals do: build us up, not tear us down. And opening that bin of beautiful, organic, seasonal food every week builds me, inside and out.

The problem comes in October. It’s the apples. Bajillions of them, it seems. Okay, only four a week. Plus four pears. If I were uber-healthy, I’d eat all that fruit. But the weeks go by. Leaves falling, beautiful blue days, bright cold nights. The season of gold. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday take on a different meaning. Not the start of the week, but the end of the week. The Vegetable Week. It’s a mad race to finish eating the veggies before the next load comes. I manage to use up the squash and the mushrooms, which I have heard are full of moon energy. The greens start getting washed, ribboned and tossed into anything hot. The carrots are grated, chopped and sprinkled cold on everything else. I learn how to make roasted pears. I mash them for the Fox (this is our baby’s middle name) and he gobbles them up.

But the apples. One or two a week don’t get eaten. I store them in a basket of woven willow. With plenty of cool circulation, they keep. Okay, that’s not true. I mean, I do keep them in a woven willow basket but it’s on the counter in the sun so it’s more like hot circulation. I had to compost a few… well, let’s say a half dozen. I hate rotten fruit; I hate the smell, the flies. So, I tossed the apples in the worm bin. Better them than me and the flies, I say.

Anyway, pretty soon it’s Mabon; I smell the crisp air, look for the rise of the harvest moon, and feel the balance. We are at the pivot point between light and dark, between the abundance of now and the scarcity of the long months ahead. I’ve got a pile of apples and four more coming in this week’s bin. That’s the sweet and dark power of the veggie bin. Makes you eat the season. Makes you eat fall, eat the harvest, the sum of a year’s work. So, I give in. Time to count my blessings, time to sort my harvest. Time to make apple bread.

I start the ritual by assembling my ingredients. Add to that list a jar of apple cider and a pot to heat it, a candle, a bowl of rainwater, some beautiful fall leaves. I set up a simple altar on the kitchen table. I put the cider on the top of the stove and turn the heat on medium-low. Light the candle. I pick up the bowl of rainwater and carry it as I walk clockwise around the kitchen to cast my circle of intention. I sprinkle the water as I walk, saying, “Thank you, Mother for the sweetness of your harvest.” I think of all the good things that happened this year. I think of my new son. “Thank you for the Fox.” I sprinkle some more water. The candle flickers. “Thank you for this warm house when winter comes.” I name all the blessings of summer. I have to go around and around; our kitchen is not that big and I speak until my heart is empty. Finally, I say, “bless this house in winter, Mother. Protect us and keep us close to you. Bless this bread that will feed my family.” By now, the apple cider is starting to scent the room, so I turn the heat down to low and pour a cup. And I start to cook.

The recipe is from a book called “Celebrating the Great Mother,” by Cait Johnson and Maura D Shaw. But the practice is older. The feast of the harvest goes back before the pilgrims, probably back before the written word. And the apple does, too. It belonged to Aphrodite, as well as Eve. Was cut open horizontally, to show the five-pointed star that is the Goddess’ symbol. I count my apples as I did my blessings. Eight apples to be peeled and cored and diced. My son is in the high chair behind the yellow kitchen table and the windows show a purple-grey sky. I turn on the oven, which for this feast will be south’s fire.
The apples are earth, as are the flour, the raisins, the baking soda, and the salt. Water is here, and the aroma of spices. Clove air, cinnamon wind. The Fox is satisfied with a toy I have suction cupped to his tray. My kitchen is not the grove, not the gathering of witches and drummers I usually worship with, but the Fox’s coos and his hand on the toy are a rhythm. My hands swim in a sticky perfume of apple juice and I feel the presence of the Star Goddess as surely as I did when Raven called Her out of the night sky. I feel the Green God as surely as I did when Canyon threw up both arms and shouted for the trees in the sycamore wood. This, my friends, this sugar in my hands, this is union. This is ripeness.

I am a witch because of this. The way life is made of elements fit together like puzzle pieces, the way the seasons tell the story of life and death and because I like to feel it, the roaring out of the top of my head when we get together and sing and dance and chant in a circle until the ravens come and roost around our heads in a circle of black-winged celebration caws saying “Yes!” back to us. I am a witch because I want to worship with my life.

“Eating represents our most powerful engagement with the natural world,” says author and local food proponent Michael Pollan. “It transforms the landscape more than any other human activity and it transforms and defines us.”
Yes. Let me be transformed by food, then. Let my worship be an act of love and also an act of chewing. Not obedience, not guilt. Not interested in that. This worship struts. This worship is naked in the leaves. This worship bakes.

This worship is hungry.

The apple bread is ready. I cut a thick piece and put some really good butter on it. Tasting it is like breathing the sweet air of an orchard at dusk. It is good. It feels right and I start looking forward to a year of these seasonal tastes. Tasting that fall is rich, that winter is filling, that spring is fresh and summer is sweet.

I think of English essayist William Randolph Inge, who said, “All of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat.” My gods are nature gods; the closer my food is to the life source, the stronger my magic. So I come to you, my witchy friends, in this harvest time of the year. The table is set, the magic shimmers on this local, or organic, or seasonal food. Food that carries all Her magic, all Her life force. The apple bread smells awesome. And I say to you: Let us eat.

Ritual Resources
The easiest way to eat seasonally is to go to a farmer’s market and look at what is being harvested in your place in this time. The farmer’s market is also the closest thing to the community commons that I have found in this day and age. To meet the people who grow my food, to see my neighbors, to wear a fabulous new seasonal hat. All of these things make the farmer’s market a good time for me.
There is an amazing rebirth of farmer’s markets around the country and you can find one near you at www.localharvest.org by entering your zip code. That web site will also help you find CSA’s in your zip code. The weekly bin is more of a commitment, but also more of a convenience if, like me, you have a hard time making it to the farmer’s market every week. www.eatwellguide.com will help you find restaurants, bakers, co-ops and more, as well as farmer’s markets and CSA’s.
If the farmer’s market or CSA don’t work for you, don’t despair. You can tap into the root of the season by following some simple principles and by feeling the energy of the season. Look around. In fall, listen to the desire for warmer, heartier foods. Start going down to roots like carrots, sweet potatoes and onions. Spice things with ginger, peppercorns, mustard seeds. In winter’s icy embrace, the warmest foods of all are meats. You can find grass-fed meats of all kinds at http://www.eatwild.com/. Don’t underestimate the importance of grass-fed. That is the ancient cycle. That is the way earth makes meat. If you are vegetarian or vegan, you know the winter lure of brown foods in grains and beans, in spicy sauces and in dense breads. When spring finally arrives, the new green that is everywhere should be on your plate too. Lettuces, parsley, swiss chard. Greens, baby. Greens. The spring bird-song that I hope you are enjoying may also appeal to the predator in you. Spring means new life, and our bodies remember that means eggs. Summer is the explosion of fruits and vegetables: strawberries and summer squash, corn and broccoli and plums. Go crazy. Eat the season. Blessed be.

This piece appeared in my "Green Witch" column in Sagewoman Magazine, Issue 77. If you are looking for ways to bring more ritual, more sacred, more goddess into your life, please check out Sagewoman! I have since switched to Full Circle Farm CSA, which delivers, has pick up points close all over,  and allows substitutions!)