Yesterday’s Pumpkins Become Tomorrow’s Seeds
The memory of this Pumpkin Patch will never rot
Pacific Northwest Pumpkin Patch
Last Fall, just about Halloween time, we took a drive and found this sprawling pumpkin patch.
Pumpkins are a fall classic. They are also a symbol for the transitory. A carriage will turn back into a pumpkin at midnight. A pumpkin is usually made into the fat, squat butt of a joke. It is orange. It sometimes stands for wishful thinking, such as “The great pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch on Halloween…”
Or, is some cases, the pumpkin is belittled for pumpkin spice trends that come and go.
I love pumpkins.
These pumpkins, more than a vast mile of them, have rotted by now. But they are still in my head.
I can feel the nip in the air, the surprise of bright orange against muddy green. The swift moving stream one had to cross to get near them. The sense of all these round, silent orbs that were too late to harvest into jack-o-lanterns, and had no other fate but to become seeds.
Be the seed
Pumpkins remind us that all of us can become seeds. Not just of genetic material, or course, but seeds for flavoring the world, coloring the world, surprising the world, and even adding humor or holiday cheer to the world.
For me, it’s winter, and I am in warm Kona, Hawaii. In just a few weeks I will be back in the Pacific Northwest for a short time. But, really, we are wherever our minds transport us to, when we need to go there.
In my February visit, I will be looking for slivers of green clues to crocus and daffodils popping up through semi-frozen ground. The seasons wheel and fly. It will be spring before we are even ready.
Stop and notice the signs of changing seasons. These are the days of your life. They are the signals of beauty, color, food in fruit, or land in rest.
I love this pumpkin patch, and hope to go there to stare out against what looks like a field of mud. Destined, in just a few months to flavor your pumpkin spice latte, or pies.
It’s actually a field of promise.
Keep the promise in your heart.
