Reaping is a term that has shown up often lately in movies and fiction.  I’m thinking of it in conjunction with this time of year, when I take a walk at the battlefield and find hay rolls in freshly-mown fields – and realize it’s probably the last mowing of the year.

We’re at the time change, away from daylight savings time, this weekend.  Dark will be sooner.  Days will be shorter and colder.  Winter is coming (with a tip of the hat to Game of Thrones).

It’s a time of year I love.  I like cool (or cold), crisp days with the angle of the sun getting lower and lower.  For me, winter is a wonderful reprieve from the heat of the South, from the intense sun and humidity, from sweating every time I go outside.

Jewell Mansion in Chickamauga, GA

It’s a more comfortable time.  A darker, quieter time.

And so I think of reaping, of gathering up what I’ve learned in the past year.  Of reflecting on my returning health and energy.  Of storing up my gratitude for being through with chemo and surgery and radiation –  of almost being through with their effects.  Of applying the life lessons I learned during cancer treatments to my everyday, nearly-healthy life of today.  Of living more in the present, being very aware of the shortness of life, of its preciousness, its beauty.

I wish you all a time of reaping, of gathering in all that you found fruitful this year.  My barns are full, very full, of all that bore fruit for me this past year.

I hope yours are, too.

Have a blessed time of reaping.