There's something peaceful and centering about baking bread. The velvety softness of freshly-sifted flour...the warm, sour smell of proofed yeast...the constant rhythm of kneeding the dough and forming the loaves or boules or what-have-you.
I've been baking. It's my celebration of the season. It's bringing nature's bounty--wheat, millet, barley, oats, nuts and seeds, etc.--into a flavorful concoction that can be shared with friends and family. It's celebrating the bounty She offers to us...and embracing it as it should be.
Looking out my kitchen window as I mix or kneed or wait for the oven timer to "ding", I can see the chill breezes play in the pecan tree. Squirrels scamper in its limbs, glut themselves on the last nuts clinging on the branches, nest in its topmost reaches. Smoke lazily billows from our neighbor's chimney. The errant cat wanders through from yard to yard...anticipating dinner and watching for diversions (a mouse, bug, or bird).
The world is starting to bed down for its annual rest....and I'm baking...'putting up' for the forthcoming season as it were. I've a cup of soothing tea beside me, bread scenting the entire house as it bakes in the kitchen behind me, and sleeping pets purring and snoring as appropriate all around.
That I could freeze this moment in perpetuity....
I love your phrase, "The world is starting to bed down for its annual rest..." I watch out my kitchen window, too, as I'm doing dishes...leaves slowly falling away, trees getting quiet and still after a full summer of abundant growth. There is something so appealing to me about bare trees - the grace of the limbs, the lace-like patterns of the smaller branches and twigs. Nature sleeps naked and unashamed and gloriously beautiful.
ReplyDeleteBlessings of the last harvest to you and yours,
Heartsong
Mmmm, I can practically smell the bread baking here in the study lounge!
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