MABON, WHEN THE FORESTS WERE NAKED AT THE EQUINOX

- Would you like an apple? - he said, as he sat down by the fire.

- Yes, the ones from your apple tree are always very sweet! Tell me the secret, grandfather.

- Nature and the earth keep the secret and in Mabon they give us apples. But now it doesn't feel like autumn anymore," he said with a sad look. - I hardly recognize this land anymore, and I have almost forgotten how it all used to be? Before in autumn we used to celebrate the second harvest of the year. We used to make apple compote and apple pie, we used to pick willow sticks and make baskets, we used to make canned food for the winter, scarecrows for the crops.... We celebrated that summer was coming to an end, and so we prepared ourselves to rest and gather strength for autumn and winter. We enjoyed the home, the calm and our forests...

- But I no longer recognize our forest. In autumn I would take off my shoes and smile as my feet stepped on the fresh ground, fluffed by the thousands of leaves falling from the trees. The trees were shedding them to enter the winter's rest. But I haven't seen that carpet for a long time now. Our forest is now only full of eucalyptus trees and under them grow only gorse and ferns. I hardly see any more white hawthorns with their beautiful red berries with which to help our blood and heart. I no longer see stramonium, feared and used to relieve our lungs and rheumatic pain. The old willows are no longer in the way to soothe our pain and let us caress their soft buds in spring. Gone are the vast fields of chamomile, mallow, hypericum, lavender.... The beautiful and shy purple gromwell struggles to survive among the gorse that suffocate it. I don't see alder trees rocking their leaves on the river bank. The bees have no heather to make that rich honey that your grandmother used to prepare for the winter. The rowan no longer adorns the paths with its little red fruits and its magic. I don't remember when I last saw a birch tree, with its beautiful pale mottled bark. And the yew... it was here long before us, but we have made it disappear.

The mornings were damp, the days were warmed by a gentle sun, the rain was fine and steady, and the nights grew colder and colder. But now everything is different...

- And what can we do, grandfather? I'd like to see that forest you're talking about!

His look, then, seemed to change. It was still sad, but at the same time there was a thread of hope in his eyes, a little sparkle at the bottom of his pupils.

- You see, there are many ways we can help. - he said as his gaze was lost in the flames - Collecting seeds from native plants to recover them, not cutting the species that benefit us when the roads and fields are cleared, keeping green areas with flowers so the bees can continue to collect and make their honey or try to suppress or limit the use of chemicals in the crops. But, most importantly, dear,, you have just done it now all by yourself. By taking an interest in it. Asking me what we can do. Being aware that something really needs to be done. That change is still possible. It is in your hands. Because this is the only way to stop and, who knows if someday, to enjoy and live again all that I have lived. For me, of course, it would make me very happy.

It has been some years since, next to a fire very similar to the one that now burns next to me, my grandfather and I had that conversation. From my window I can see the continuous coming and going of the bees that, tirelessly, take advantage of the last hours of light among the lavender bushes in the garden. I listen to the wind, swaying the branches of the birch trees just beyond and, as I do so, I count the days until the road to the house is again covered in the various shades of green and brown as oaks and chestnut trees begin to lose their leaves again and, between paragraphs, I savor one of the delicious apples for which my grandfather had no secret. It's just... IT IS POSSIBLE. I want to see that forest, that autumn...Blessed Mabon, Blessed Autumn Equinox !!!

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