The Ripening
Richard Mabey reflects on the wisdom of the autumn season…
‘Just why temperate trees shed their leaves in the first place still isn’t understood. It may be partly because tree roots don’t easily absorb cold winter water and need to reduce the moisture lost through the leaves, and partly to help rid the tree of toxins that have built up over the summer. But what happens before the great shedding is a transfer of sugars and nutrients (up to three-quarters of the dry weight of the leaves) back into the woody parts of the tree for safe keeping over the winter. What remains after the chlorophyll has gone are the natural antioxidants – yellow and orange carotenoids – that help protect the now-vulnerable leaves, and the flurry of chemical activity going on inside them, from the rays of the sun. And there is another protective chemical, the bright tomato-red anthocyanin, that is specially manufactured for the autumn. The season’s high colour isn’t a sign of deterioration or decline, but a detox of vitality. Keats wrote ‘To Autumn’ in September 1819, already aware that he was mortally ill with tuberculosis, yet still found something uplifting in the season. Do we all share part of his feelings, and intuit the truth about the Fall show, that it is not about decay at all, but about ripening, battening down the hatches, preparing for the next new beginning?’
~ Richard Mabey ~ A Brush with Nature – 25 Years of Personal Reflections on the Natural World
5 Responses to “The Ripening”
“Ripening” is a much more resonant and accurate description of the Fall Blessings for me. Great share, thanks Philip!
💚💛🧡❤️🌱🌿🌻🍂🍁
Morning All, the Fall is my most favourite time of the year, stemming back from childhood, when my parents took us to Burnham Beeches regularly for a fun day. I now live in The Forest of Dean, and have a local village area, named The Green. I walk by several times a week, greet the varied trees, I sense their observation of me. Squirrels, are now pinching apples from an opposite garden, aren’t we blessed? Love, Margaret.
Just had a patient in discussing – J.B Handley’s book- How to end the Autism Epidemic.
Apparently parallels for complementary medicine confusion and disinformation…… anyone read it yet?
It describes a ripening of scientific discernment, by all accounts…..
Regarding leaf drop- recent advances in water science have discovered a 4th phase of water which is a gel!
Apparently sunshine energises something called elimination zone (Ezee) water which is a closely knit lattice of hydronium ions-( yup H6O2) and as sunlight hours decrease the Ezee levels in plants drop and this triggers a lovely change in colour and their mysterious deciduous return to mother earth…..somehow!!!
Also thought to possibly explain the Bermuda triangle sinking of ships where surface Ezee is disrupted and no longer holds the hulls up- a step on from Archimedes………..
Please read Wallace Stevens poem: “Sunday Morning”
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