THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE continued
Katherine Smith
Kate Smith is the clinical herbalist and health
coach of Made Whole. She grew up in the
bamboo forests of Pinebluff, and is back in
the Sandhills after a decade living in Alaska,
Ireland, and Appalachia.
Through
The
Grapevine
All things Natural Living
Acorns
by Katherine Smith
When the earth contracts around hoary
roots and sap-leached herbs wither beneath
fallen leaves, life still shudders in the oaks.
Listen, and you will hear it. Acorns thumping
on the dirt road and pinging on the tin roof. In
a season otherwise known for its thinning, the
oaks thud down plump promises. The earth,
they remind us, is always providing.
What causes the acorns to fall when they
do, I wonder, scooting on my knees through
duff and leaves. Are they drunk on the mother
tree’s fat and starch, or do they at last snap
in the early winter wind chugging through
the canopy, or do they just know, as all wild
things do, that it’s their time to let go? I gather
them into an old canvas bag and lay them
to dry on a sheet in full sun. Tomorrow, I’ll
crack them open to separate the dark meat
from the papery skin and hard shell and leach
out their tannins in a nearby creek. Once all
the bitterness is washed downstream, they’ll
be ground down. The sweet, nutty flour is
perfect for hot cakes or to substitute wheat in
a family recipe of dense ginger cookies. When
our homesick bellies take in a bit of wild, our
hearts again mimic what is without, within.
November is the month for such timeintensive
tasks as acorn processing. The Celtic
name of the month, Samonios, means “seedfall.”
It was considered the first lunar month to
a people who knew that as day is born of night,
action is born of slow contemplation. It’s the
time to gather the sun-bleached threads of the
year and sew the edges in. Learn to take time,
to knit, to weave baskets from willow and
pinestraw, to restring an instrument. These
homely meditations remind us who we are
before the light comes again. The dropping
temperatures encourage our bodies to rest, to
enter the realm of sleep, to listen to the stories
told in our dreams.
The dimming days between Halloween and
Solstice were once said to suspend sensitivity
THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE continued
Acorns
to the subtleties. Leaves of mulberry-red,
pumpkin skin and rust decompose, and
everyone knows there’s poetry in the musk.
The color of sunset is tilled underfoot as
we walk through the shortened days glazed
with gray. Sweetness burrows underground.
Everything is crisp—the air, the candied
apples, the fire crackling in the fireplace.
There’s something electric in the bleak.
What better time for holidays of gratitude
than now? Even after such a year as this, there
is a table encircled with the ones we were
given to love and the life of good food going
on to live in us. Just outside, seeds fall from
trees. They fall bearing a whole year’s worth of
labor and hope. They fall trusting whatever on
earth will break it open. It’s here that we hold
the unspeakable miracle of new life beginning
in the very moment everything it knows ends,
THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE con't. next column THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE con't. next column
and give thanks.
In dark seasons and somber times, threats
of scarcity can hedge us in; close our open
hands reflexively. But even now, as the cold
constricts and the first snows fall, mockernuts,
black walnuts, beechnuts and acorns fall too,
right into our yards and laps. There’s a saying
that whatever medicine you need will come to
you. May you collect with open arms.☐
For the Chipmunk in My Yard
by Robert Gibb
I think he knows I’m alive, having
come down
The three steps of the back porch
And given me a good once over. All
afternoon
He’s been moving back and forth,
Gathering odd bits of walnut shells
and twigs,
While all about him the great fields
tumble
To the blades of the thresher. He’s
lucky
To be where he is, wild with all that
happens.
He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows
Living in the blond heart of the wheat.
This autumn when trees bolt, dark
with the fires
Of starlight, he’ll curl among their
roots,
Wanting nothing but the slow burn of
matter
On which he fastens like a small,
brown flame.☐
Meet the team at NextHome in the Pines, led by Owner/Broker Kelly Curan.
No. 140 The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. p.33