Tonight millions in the States and around the world will celebrate “Halloween” and dress up, go from door to door for mass-produced sugar. Millions more will “shun the devil” and celebrate “Harvest Parties” and the like, usually involving the same sugar. A few may celebrate All Saint’s Day in a church or Samhain in an open field. There’s a lot of discussion and debate about this holiday, and what it means, but basically it’s part of the fall celebration and marking of the time that the world goes from Summer to Autumn. Why is that such an important time? Historically, autumn is when you must have your crop harvested. The cold wind, frosts, and snow of winter are coming, and you must prepare for the hard times ahead. This transition is taken at stride by most of us, but it was very important to our ancestors, even until the first part of the 1900′s.

Up until the last few weeks, I really didn’t appreciate the meaning of the “harvest season”. I mean, I know what harvest is, and I have read about how Halloween and Thanksgiving go back to one time or another when someone had a good harvest. I get that. I know what a harvest is, gathering in the crop in the fall. But have you ever really considered the meaning that would have before supermarkets, international transportation, winter hardy hybrids, greenhouse veggies, canning, frozen foods, etc. Just imagine for a minute that you are a person living in the Middle Ages or earlier. You work all year long for the wheat and corn. And then an early frost kills everything. Maybe you have enough to last a month or two. But not the whole winter. Snow is on the ground, and there is nothing green growing. There won’t be any crops, not even many wild plants until the next spring.

Today, if we run out of something, we can go to the store and get it. We have fresh tomatoes, oranges, lettuce, and even watermelon and peaches year round, thanks to greenhouses and long-haul transportation from warmer places. Our harvest celebrations are less about plenty and thanks than about overindulgence and commercialism. Thanksgiving, although about the least commercialized of all holidays in the US is still full of unnceccesary “traditions” that involve going out and buying things. We no longer move with the rhythm of the earth and the stars, so solstices and equinoxes (which mark the ends and beginnings of harvest seasons, telling people when to plant) don’t mean anything to us anymore. When we do think about them, they seem like primitive and superstitious events to celebrate. We tend to think about the stars in relation to telescopes or horoscopes. They no longer mean anything in our daily lives (if we can even see them).

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I got a little taste of what it would feel like to have a bad harvest. My little garden that I tried to start (a bit too late, in August) is very pitiful due to neglect and poor soil. So not much help there. We had some unexpected expenses that just about wiped us out, and our car was not starting. To top it off, it was desperately time for a grocery-shopping trip. We had a bag of potatoes, a box of chicken in the freezer, some seasonings, ketchup and milk. That was about it. The flour ran out, so no bread. No pasta or rice, either. When we ate our last carrots, I got a little antsy. However, we did still have chestnuts and walnuts from the neighboring farm. We weren’t going to starve. We had plenty of friends to help us out in a real fix. And I knew there was money coming eventually. There finally was, and a great deal more on the way, but it was a scary time.

We’re fine now. But just for a week, we got a little taste of what it would be like to have a failed harvest. To spend the winter trying to stretch that one bag of potatoes, looking for edible things in the woods. Hoping to get some fish or a rabbit, a wild duck. Hoping one of us doesn’t get sick from malnutrition (it would take me a while, but my hubby and kid are both skinny as a pole). It was actually a good experience, to know what that feels like. I know this year we are truly thankful for what we have, and willing to make due. So as you’re gathering your candy on Halloween and preparing your feast at Thanksgiving, take a moment to consider what the “harvest season” truly stands for. It’s nothing religious or superstitious wishy-washy stuff, quite a bit more down to earth. Survival.