October

Quotations for Gardeners, Walkers, and Lovers of the Green Way
Poems, Quotes, Folklore, Myths, Customs, Holidays, Traditions
Celebrations, Sayings, Poetry, Quips, References, Links
Ideas, Gardening Chores

Compiled by Karen and Mike Garofalo
Valley Spirit Center, Red Bluff, California

Quotes      Links      References      Gardening Chores      Photos     Walking     

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Quotes

The Month of October
Poetry, Quotations, Sayings, Facts, Information, Quips, Aphorisms, Lore

"In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of months of thought
and care and toil.  And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such superb colour effects as
from August to November."
-   Rose G. Kingsley, The Autumn Garden

"I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand, shadowless like Silence, listening
To Silence."
-   Thomas Hood

“He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination
is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.”
-   Henry James  

"I have come to a still, but not a deep center, 
A point outside the glittering current; 
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river, 
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains, 
My mind moves in more than one place, 
In a country half-land, half-water. 
I am renewed by death, thought of my death, 
The dry scent of a dying garden in September, 
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire. 
What I love is near at hand, 
Always, in earth and air."
-  Theodore Roethke, The Far Field    

"Corn and grain, corn and grain,
All that falls shall rise again."
-  Wiccan Harvest Chant

"Just before the death of flowers,
And before they are buried in snow,
There comes a festival season
When nature is all aglow."
-   Author Unknown

"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on 
the feelings, as now in October." 
-  Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the moon, summer with the breeze, winter with snow.  When idle
concerns don't fill your thoughts, that's your best season."
-   Wu-Men

"A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun."
-   W. S. Merwin,  The Love of October

"The sweet calm sunshine of October, now
    Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold
The pur0ple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough
    drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold."
-   William Cullen Bryant

"The clump of maples on the hill,
And this one near the door,
Seem redder, quite a lot, this year
Than last, or year before;
I wonder if it's jest because
I Love the Old State more!"
-   David L. Cady, October in Vermont  

"The scarlet of maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
to see the frosty asters like smoke
upon the hills."
-   William Bliss Carman  

"My tidings for you: the stag bells,
Winter snows, Summer is gone.

Wind high and cold, low the sun,
Short his course, sea running high.

Deep-red the bracken, its shape all gone,
The wild goose has raised his wonted cry.

Cold has caught the wings of birds.
Season of ice – these are my tidings."
-  Irish Poem, Translated by Caitlin Matthews  

Samhain, Halloween: Extensive Bibliography, Links, Lore, Poems, Prayers, Preparations, Crafts, Rituals, Quotes      

"The leaves fall patiently
Nothing remembers or grieves
The river takes to the sea
The yellow drift of leaves."
-   Sara Teasdale

"Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. 
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."
-   Samuel Butler

"She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples,
to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last."
-  Willa Cather

Hydrofarm Hot House Seed Starter 11-by-22-Inch   

Secrets of Plant Propagation: Starting Your Own Flowers, Vegetables, Fruits, Shrubs, and Trees 

Gardening Resources  

Vegetable Information

Vegetables and Melons 

Hydrofarm Jump Start Indoor Grow Light System 

Plant Propagation A to Z: Growing Plants for Free  

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners  

Hydrofarm Germination Station with Heat Mat  

American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual    

Burpee Seed Starter: A Guide to Growing Flower, Vegetable, and Herb Seeds Indoors and Outdoors

Plant Propagator's Bible

The New Seed Starter's Handbook

RION MLT3 Mini Lean-To Greenhouse

Seed Sowing and Saving: Step-by-Step Techniques for Collecting and Growing  

"You ought to know that October is the first Spring month." 
-  Karel Capek

"October is nature's funeral month.  Nature glories in death more than in life.  The month of departure
is more beautiful than the month of coming - October than May.  Every green thin loves to
die in bright colors."
-   Henry Ward Beecher  

"Your tombstone stands among the rest;
neglected and alone
The name and date are chiseled out
on polished, marbled stone
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn
You did not know that I’d exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
in flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
one hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
and come to visit you."
-   Dear Ancestor 

"Perhaps the most famous icon of the holiday is the jack-o-lantern.  Various authorities attribute it to either Scottish or Irish origin.  However, it seems clear that it was used as a lantern by people who traveled the road this night, the scary face to frighten away spirits or faeries who might otherwise lead one astray.  Set on porches and in windows, they cast the same spell of protection over the household.  (The American pumpkin seems to have forever superseded the European gourd as the jack-o-lantern of choice.)  Bobbing for apples may well represent the remnants of a Pagan 'baptism' rite called a 'seining', according to some writers.  The water-filled tub is a latter-day Cauldron of Regeneration, into which the novice's head is immersed.  The fact that the participant in this folk game was usually blindfolded with hands tied behind the back also puts one in mind of a traditional Craft initiation ceremony."
-   Mike Nichols, All Hallow's Eve

"The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide. 
The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf. 
The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills...  
Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay; ... its time of 
flowers and even of fruit was over."
-   Charlotte Brontë  

"Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn."
-   Elizabeth Lawrence

"Stone Lagoon and sky
become one--
deepening fog." 
-   Michael P. Garofalo, Above the Fog 

"Colors burst in wild explosions
Fiery, flaming shades of fall
All in accord with my pounding heart
Behold the autumn-weaver
In bronze and yellow dying
Colors unfold into dreams
In hordes of a thousand and one
The bleeding
Unwearing their masks to the last notes of summer
Their flutes and horns in nightly swarming
Colors burst within
Spare me those unending fires
Bestowed upon the flaming shades of fall."
-   Dark Tranquility, With the Flaming Shades of Fall  

“But I remember more dearly autumn afternoons in bottoms that lay intensely silent under old great trees”
-   C. S. Lewis

"Between the heavens and the earth
The way now opens to bring forth
The Hosts of those who went on before;
Hail!  We see them now come through the Open Door.

Now the veils of worlds are thin; 
To move out you must move in.
Let the Balefires now be made, 
Mine the spark within them laid.

Move beyond the fiery screen, 
Between the seen and the unseen;
Shed your anger and your fear, 
Live anew in a new year!"
-   Lore of the Door  

"The stillness of October gold
Went out like beauty from a face."
-   E. A. Robinson

"When all the cows were sleeping
And the sun had gone to bed,
Up jumped the pumpkin,
And this is what he said:

I'm a dingle dangle pumpkin
With a flippy floppy hat.
I can shake my stem like this,
And shake my vine like that."

"Clouds gather, treetops toss and sway;
But pour us wine, an old one!
That we may turn this dreary day
To golden, yes, to golden!

Autumn has come, but never fear,
Wait but a little while yet,
Spring will be here, the skies will clear,
And fields stand deep in violets.

The heavenly blue of fresh new days
Oh, friend, you must employ them
Before they pass away. Be brave!
Enjoy them; oh, enjoy them!"
-   Theodor Storm,  A Song in October 

"October's poplars are flaming torches 
lighting the way to winter."
-   Nova Bair

"As I went out walking this fall afternoon,
I heard a whisper whispering.
I heard a whisper whispering,
Upon this fine fall day...

As I went out walking this fall afternoon,
I heard a laugh a' laughing.
I heard a laugh a' laughing,
Upon this fine fall day...

I heard this whisper and I wondered,
I heard this laugh and then I knew.
The time is getting near my friends,
The time that I hold dear my friends,
The veil is getting thin my friends,
And strange things will pass through."
-   The Veil is Getting Thinner 

"How innocent were these Trees, that in
Mist-green May, blown by a prospering breeze,
Stood garlanded and gay;
Who now in sundown glow
Of serious color clad confront me with their show
As though resigned and sad,
Trees, who unwhispering stand umber, bronze, gold;
Pavilioning the land for one grown tired and old;
Elm, chestnut, aspen and pine, I am merged in you,
Who tell once more in tones of time,
Your foliaged farewell."
-   Siegfried Sassoon, October Trees

"O suns and skies and clouds of June,

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather."

 

 

"Great Goddess, Mistress of cats,
Lady of love, beautiful Vana-Goddess,
Fulfill my greatest needs, O glorious one.
Teach me the magic I need.
Give me a glimpse of your deep wisdom.
Teach me in dreams. Enrich my life.
O Lady, you are Golden-Tears of Asgard
Lady of love, beautiful Vana-Goddess,
You are the Shape-shifter, the Sayer,
The Independent One.
Give me the strength and the magic I need."
-  Prayers to Freyja 

 

"October's the month
When the smallest breeze
Gives us a shower
Of autumn leaves.
Bonfires and pumpkins,
Leaves sailing down -
October is red
And golden and brown."
-   Can Teach Songs

"Listen!  the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves!"
-  Humbert Wolfe 

"To all the ancient ones from their houses, the Old Ones from above and below. In this time the Gods of the Earth touch our feet, bare upon the ground. Spirits of the Air whisper in our hair and chill our bodies, and from the dark portions watch and wait the Faery Folk that they may join the circle and leave their track upon the ground. It is the time of the waning year. Winter is upon us. The corn is golden in the winnow heaps. Rains will soon wash sleep into the life-bringing Earth. We are not without fear, we are not without sorrow...Before us are all the signs of Death: the ear of corn is no more green and life is not in it. The Earth is cold and no more will grasses spring jubilant. The Sun but glances upon his sister, the earth..... It is so....Even now....But here also are the signs of life, the eternal promise given to our people. In the death of the corn there is the seed--which is both food for the season of Death and the Beacon which will signal green-growing time and life returning.In the cold of the Earth there is but sleep wherein She will awaken refreshed and renewed, her journey into the Dark Lands ended. And where the Sun journeys he gains new vigor and potency; that in the spring, his blessings shall come ever young!"
-  Two Samhain Rituals, Compost Coveners, 1980  

"O hushed October morning mild, 
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; 
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all. 
The crows above the forest call; 
Tomorrow they may form and go. 
O hushed October morning mild, 
Begin the hours of this day slow. 
Make the day seem to us less brief. 
Hearts not averse to being beguiled, 
Beguile us in the way you know. 
Release one leaf at break of day; 
At noon release another leaf; 
One from our trees, one far away."
-   Robert Frost, October

"Fall is not the end of the gardening year; it is the start of next year's growing season.  The mulch you lay down
will protect your perennial plants during the winter and feed the soil as it decays, while the cleaned up flower
bed will give you a huge head start on either planting seeds or setting out small plants."
-   Thalassa Cruso

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells."
-   John Keats,  To Autumn

"The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on."
-   Emily Dickinson,  Nature 27 - Autumn

"Burning the small dead
branches
broke from beneath
thick spreading
whitebark pine.
A hundred summers
snowmelt rock and air
hiss in a twisted bough."
-  Gary Snyder, Burning the Small Dead   

"Along the side roads the bright gold of thin-leafed wild sunflowers gleams from its dust covering and attracts the eye as quickly as mention of easy money.  Purple ironweed is diminishing in the pastures; thistles are down to their last silken tassels; goldenrod pours its heap of raw gold into the general fund."
-  Rachel Peden

"Bittersweet October.  The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause 
between the opposing miseries of summer and winter." 
-   Carol Bishop Hipps

"Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time." 
-   William Cowper

"The harvest moon hangs round and high
It dodges clouds high in the sky,
The stars wink down their love and mirth
The Autumn season is giving birth.
Oh, it must be October
The leaves of red bright gold and brown,
To Mother Earth come tumbling down,
The breezy nights the ghostly sights,
The eerie spooky far off sounds
Are signs that it's October.
The pumpkins yellow,. big and round
Are carried by costumed clumsy clowns
It's Halloween - let's celebrate."
-   Pearl N. Sorrels, It Must be October  

"The winds gives me
Enough fallen leaves
To make a fire"
-  Ryokan

"Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God."
-   Jean Anouilh

"All still when summer is over
stand shocks in the field,
nothing left to whisper,
not even good-bye, to the wind.

After summer was over
we knew winter would come:
we knew silence would wait,
tall, patient calm." 
-   William Stafford, Tragic Song  

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-  e.e. cummings

"Halloween.
Sly does it. Tiptoe catspaws. Slide and creep.
But why? What for? How? Who? When! Where did it all begin?
'You don't know, do you?' asks Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud climbing out
under the pile of leaves under the Halloween Tree. 'You don't really know!'"
-   Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree  

"October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band."
-   George Cooper, October's Party

"silence
seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest-
the end of songs"
-   Michael McClintock, Letters in Time

"I see that old hammock out back, 
Swaying lightly in the wind 
That Autumn oft expels in October, 
Waiting for me to come and dream, 
But the bulbs that fill my tired Hands, 
leaving trails of rusty earth 
Must first be laid to rest, 
I must tend to their needs first."
-   B. R. Jording, Fall Planting

"To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. Against the shadow
of veiled possibility my workdays stand
in a most asking light. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song."
-  Wendell Berry  

"Delicious autumn!   My very soul is wedded to it, 
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth 
seeking the successive autumns."  
-   George Eliot  

"All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to
field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken."
- Thomas Wolfe 

"To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air.  What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet.  Some of these apples might be labeled, “To be eaten in the wind.” It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit. . . The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past.  It is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New England.  I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples.  Ah, poor soul, there are many pleasures which you will not know! . . . the end of it all will be that we shall be compelled to look for our apples in a barrel."
-   Henry David Thoreau

"There ought to be gardens for all months in the year,
in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season."   
-  Sir Francis Bacon

"Heat lingers
As days are still long;
Early mornings are cool
While autumn is still young.
Dew on the lotus
Scatters pure perfume;
Wind on the bamboos
Gives off a gentle tinkling.
I am idle and lonely,
Lying down all day,
Sick and decayed;
No one asks for me;
Thin dusk before my gates,
Cassia blossoms inch deep."
-  Po Chu-i (772-864), Autumn Coolness
   Translated by Howard S. Levy and Henry Wells 

"When clear October suns unfold
mallee tips of red and gold

children on their way to school
discover tadpoles in a pool,

iceplants sheathed in beaded glass
spider orchids and shivery grass,

webs with globes of dew alight
budgerigars on their first flight,

tottery lambs and a stilty foal
a papers slough that a snake shed whole,

and a bronzewing's nest of twigs so few
that both the sky and the eggs show through."
-   Flexmore Hudson, Mallee in October

"Wheels of baled hay bask in October sun:
Gold circles strewn across the sloping field,
They seem arranged as if each one
Has found its place; together they appeal
To some glimpsed order in my mind
Preceding my chance pausing here --
A randomness that also seems designed.
Gold circles strewn across the sloping field
Evoke a silence deep as my deep fear
Of emptiness; I feel the scene requires
A listener who can respond with words, yet who
Prolongs the silence that I still desire,
Relieved as clacking crows come flashing through,
Whose blackness shows chance radiance of fire.
Yet stillness in the field remains for everyone:
Wheels of baled hay bask in October sun."
-   Robert Pack, Baled Hay  

"No regrets cloud my thanks
no fear of the river,
slower now than the swift moving channel
I deigned to cut
in the exuberance of youth.

The River Lethe trickles through cracks
opened several summers ago
but not before I earned,
and still hold in my own right,
the gold coin Charon will demand,
though not a word be spoken,
not a breath exchanged.

As we make passage on the River Styx
I know not what lies ahead,
less of what I've left behind,
but I will go to complete
my preterdained journey to the otherworld
as the Ferryman leaves me off
and guides his boat
back to earthly shores."
-   Kaaren Whitney, The Ferryman  

"Now that she is middle-aged, my wife
likes to stand before the window
and comb her hair

Her only makeup a trace of cloud
the landscape of a graceful
poised maturity"
-  William Marr, Autumn Window  

"Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush."
-  Van Morrison, Moondance

"Withered vines, gnarled trees, twilight crows,
river flowing beneath the little bridge,
past someone's home.
The wind blows from the west
where the sun sets, it blows
across the ancient road,
across the bony horse,
across the despairing man
who stands at heaven's edge."
-   Ma Chih-Yuan, Meditation in Autumn
    Translated by David Lunde  

"The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall."
-  Autumn Leaves, Lyrics by Johnny Mercer and Jacques Prévert  

"When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather."
-  Helen Hunt Jackson, October's Bright Blue Weather

"I will dance
The dance of dying days
And sleeping life.

I will dance
In cold, dead leaves
A bending, whirling human flame.

I will dance
As the Horned God rides
Across the skies.

I will dance
To the music of His hounds
Running, baying in chorus.

I will dance
With the ghosts of those
Gone before.

I will dance
Between the sleep of life
And the dream of death.

I will dance
On Samhain's dusky eye,
I will dance."  
-  Karen Bergquist, An Autumn Chant

"Give me the end of the year an' its fun
When most of the plannin' an' toilin' is done;
Bring all the wanderers home to the nest,
Let me sit down with the ones I love best,
Hear the old voices still ringin' with song,
See the old faces unblemished by wrong,
See the old table with all of its chairs
An' I'll put soul in my Thanksgivin' prayers."
-   Edgar A. Guest, Thanksgiving

"Like someone who opens a door of glass
or sees his own reflection in it
when he returns from the woods
the light falls so variously here at the end of October
that nothing is whole or can be made into a whole
because the cracks are too uncertain and constantly moving.

Then you experience the miracle
of entering into yourself like a diamond
in glass, enjoying its own fragility
when the storm carries everything else away
including the memory of a freckled girlfriend
out over the bluing lake hidden behind the bare hills."
-   Henrik Nordbrandt,  The Glass Door
    Translated by Thomas Satterlee 

Samhain, Halloween: Extensive Bibliography, Links, Lore, Poems, Prayers, Preparations, Crafts, Rituals, Quotes      

"The green elm with the one great bough of gold
Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, --
The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,
Harebell and scabious and tormentil,
That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,
Bow down to; and the wind travels too light
To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;
The gossamers wander at their own will.
At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.
The rich scene has grown fresh again and new
As Spring and to the touch is not more cool
Than it is warm to the gaze; and now I might
As happy be as earth is beautiful,
Were I some other or with earth could turn
In alternation of violet and rose,
Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,
And gorse that has no time not to be gay.
But if this be not happiness, -- who knows?
Some day I shall think this a happy day,
And this mood by the name of melancholy
Shall no more blackened and obscured be."
-   Edward Thomas, October  

"If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,
I will break the door, I will wrench the lock,
I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors.
I will bring up the dead to eat the living.
And the dead will outnumber the living."
-  Ishtar's Descent Into the Underworld

"Look, how those steep woods on the mountain's face
Burn, burn against the sunset; now the cold
Invades our very noon: the year's grown old,
Mornings are dark, and evenings come apace.
The vines below have lost their purple grace,
And in Forreze the white wrack backward rolled,
Hangs to the hills tempestuous, fold on fold,
And moaning gusts make desolate all the place."
-  Hilaire Belloc, October

  "Autumn is marching on: even the scarecrows are wearing dead leaves."
-   Otsuyu Nakagawa

"Looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
An thinking of the days that are no more.
-  Alfred Lord Tennyson

"It was a morning of ground mist, yellow sunshine, and high rifts of blue, white-cloud-dappled sky.  The leaves were still thick on the trees, but de-spangled gossamer threads hung on the bushes and the shrill little cries of unrest of the swallows skimming the green open park spaces of the park told of autumn and change."
-   Flora Thompson 

"I know the year is dying,
Soon the summer will be dead.
I can trace it in the flying
Of the black crows overhead;
I can hear it in the rustle
Of the dead leaves as I pass,
And the south wind's plaintive sighing
Through the dry and withered grass.

Ah, 'tis then I love to wander,
Wander idly and alone,
Listening to the solemn music
Of sweet nature's undertone;
Wrapt in thoughts I cannot utter,
Dreams my tongue cannot express,
Dreams that match the autumn's sadness
In their longing tenderness."
-  Mortimer Crane Brown, Autumn Dreams

"Lord, it is time.  The summer was very big.  Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose.
Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetiness into the heavenly wine."
-  Rainer Maria Rilke

"A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can."
-   Denise Levertov, Variation on a Theme by Rilke  

"Harvest home, harvest home!
We've plowed, we've sowed
We've reaped, we've mowed
And brought safe home
Every load."

"Now's the time when children's noses
All become as red as roses
And the colour of their faces
Makes me think of orchard places
Where the juicy apples grow,
And tomatoes in a row."
-   Katherine Mansfield, Autumn Song

"Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words."
-  Dylan Thomas, Especially When the October Wind  

"In the time of autumn floods, a hundred streams poured into the river. It swelled in its turbid course, so that it was impossible to tell a cow from a horse on the opposite banks or on the islets. Then the Spirit of the River laughed for joy that all the beauty of the earth was gathered to himself.  Down the stream he journeyed east, until he reached the North Sea. There, looking eastwards and seeing no limit to its wide expanse, his countenance began to change. And as he gazed over the ocean, he sighed and said to North-Sea Jo, "A vulgar proverb says that he who has heard a great many truths thinks no one equal to himself. And such a one am I. Formerly when I heard people detracting from the learning of Confucius or underrating the heroism of Po Yi, I did not believe it.  But now that I have looked upon your inexhaustibility -- alas for me ! had I not reached your abode, I should have been for ever a laughing stock to those of great enlightenment!"

    To this North-Sea Jo (the Spirit of the Ocean) replied, "You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog, which is limited by his abode. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, which is limited by his short life. You cannot speak of Tao to a pedagogue, who is limited in his knowledge. But now that you have emerged from your narrow sphere and have seen the great ocean, you know your own insignificance, and I can speak to you of great principles."
-  Chuang Tzu, Autumn Floods, Chapter 17, Translated by Lin Yutang

"In harvest time, harvest folk, servants and all
Should make, all together, good cheer in the hall
Once ended the harvest, let none be beguiled
Please such as did help thee, man, woman and child."
-   Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry

"Once more their weird laughter of the loons comes to my ear, the distance lends it a musical, melancholy sound.  For a dangerous ledge off the lighthouse island floats in on the still air the gentle trolling of a warning bell as it swings on the rocking buoy; it might be tolling for the passing of summer and sweet weather with that persistent, pensive chime."
-   Celia Thaxter

"October, the tenth month of the current Gregorian calendar and the second month of Autumn’s rule, derives its name from octo, the Latin word meaning “eight,” as October was the eighth month of the old Roman calendar.  The traditional birthstone amulets of October are opal, rose sapphire, and tourmaline; and the calendula is the month’s traditional flower.  October is shared by the astrological signs of Libra the Scales (or Balance) and Scorpio the Scorpion, and is sacred to the following Pagan deities: Cernunnos, Hecate, the Morrigan, Osiris, and the Wiccan Goddess in Her dark aspect as the Crone.  During the month of October, the Great Solar Wheel of the Year is turned to Halloween (Samhain Eve), one of the four Grand Sabbats celebrated each year by Wiccans and modern Witches throughout the world."
-  Secrets of a Witch  

"Across the land a faint blue veil of mist
Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
The drooping cherry orchards of October
Like mournful pennons hang their shriveling leaves
Russet and orange: all things now decay;
Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,
And sad the robins pipe at set of day."
-  Siegfried Sassons, October

Apples of the Immortals 

Apple Lore and Facts.  By Susa Morgan Black, OBOD. 

Apple Branch in Dianic Tradition 

Apples:  Iounn, Norse Goddess 

The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual.  By Alexei Kondratiev.  Citadel, 2003.  320 pages.  ISBN: 0806525029. 

Apple Tree Wisdom 

Golden Apple in Mythology 

Pomona: Roman Goddess of Orchards, Fruit and Plenty

Mabon, Autumnal Equinox, Alban Elfed

"On the first page of my dreambook
It's always evening
In an occupied country.
Hour before the curfew.
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The store-fronts gutted.

I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn't be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on."
-   Charles Simic, Empire of Dreams  

"In the great silence of my favorite month,
October (the red of maples, the bronze of oaks,
A clear-yellow leaf here and there on birches),
I celebrated the standstill of time.

The vast country of the dead had its beginning everywhere:
At the turn of a tree-lined alley, across park lawns.
But I did not have to enter, I was not called yet.

Motorboats pulled up on the river bank, paths in pine needles.
It was getting dark early, no lights on the other side.

I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches.
A delegation would appear there in masks and wigs,
And dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living."
-   Czeslaw Milosz, All Hallow's Eve
    Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan  

"October is the tenth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days.  October begins (astrologically) with the sun in the sign of Libra and ends in the sign of Scorpio. Astronomically speaking, the sun begins in the constellation of Virgo and ends in the constellation of Libra.  The name is from the Latin Word "octo" for "eight". October was the eighth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period (summer in the southern hemisphere) was divided between January and February.  In the old Japanese calendar the month is called Kan'na dzuki (神無月)."
-  Wikipedia  

"Crispy air and azure skies,
High above, a white cloud flies,
Bright as newly fallen snow.
Oh the joy to those who know October!

Colors bright on bush and tree.
Over the weedy swamp, we see
A veil of purple and brown and gold.
Thy beauty words have never told. October!

Scolding sparrows on the lawn,
Rabbits frisking home at dawn,
Pheasants midst the sheaves of grain,
All in harmony acclaim, October!

Brown earth freshly turned by plow,
Apples shine on bended bough,
Bins o'erflowed with oats and wheat,
And satisfaction reigns complete. October!

Radiant joy is everywhere.
Spirits in tune to the spicy air,
Thrill in the glory of each day.
Life's worth living when we say, October!"
-   Joseph Pullman Porter

"I want to tell you what hills are like in October
when colors gush down mountainsides
and little streams are freighted with a caravan of leaves,
I want to tell you how they blush and turn in fiery shame
and joy,

"Summer, goodbye.
The days grow shorter.
Cranes walk the fairway now
In careless order.

They step so gradually
Toward the distant green
They might be brushstrokes
Animating a screen.

Mist canopies
The water hazard.
Nearby, the little flag lifts,
Brave but frazzled.

Under sad clouds
Two white-capped golfers
Stand looking off, dreamy and strange,
Like young girls in Balthus."
-   Donald Justice, October

"As autumn returns to earth's northern hemisphere,
and day and night are briefly,
but perfectly,
balanced at the equinox,
may we remember anew how fragile life is ----
human life, surely,
but also the lives of all other creatures,
trees and plants,
waters and winds.

May we make wise choices in how and what we harvest,
may earth's weather turn kinder,
may there be enough food for all creatures,
may the diminishing light in our daytime skies
be met by an increasing compassion and tolerance
in our hearts."
-   Kathleen Jenks, Autumn Lore

"There was something frantic in their blooming, as if they knew that frost was near and then the bitter cold.  They'd lived through all the heat and noise and stench of summertime, and now each widely opened flower was like a triumphant cry, "We will, we will make seed before we die." "
-   Harriette Arnow

"The word "Diwali" is the corruption of the Sanskrit word "Deepavali" - Deepa meaning light and Avali, meaning a row.   It means a row of lights and indeed illumination forms its main attraction. Every home - lowly or mightly - the hut of the poor or the mansion of the rich - is alit with the orange glow of twinkling diyas-small earthen lamps - to welcome Lakshmi, Goddess of wealth and prosperity. Multi-coloured Rangoli designs, floral decorations and fireworks lend picturesness and grandeur to this festival which heralds joy, mirth and happiness in the ensuring year.  This festival is celebrated on a grand scale in almost all the regions of India and is looked upon mainly as the beginning of New Year. As such the blessings of Lakshmi, the celestial consort of Lord Vishnu are invoked with prayers.  Even countries like Gkyena, Thailand, Trinidad, Siam and Malaya celebrate this festival but in their own ways.  This Diwali festival, it is surmised dates back to that period when perhaps history was not written, and in its progress through centuries it lighted path of thousands to attain the ultimate good and complete ecstasy."
-  Malini Bisen, Diwali Festival, India

"Crisis is part of me.
Beneath my glass skin
Is a typhoon of savage passion. On October's
Desolate shore a fresh carcass is cast up;

October is my empire.
My gentle hands control what is lost.
My tiny eyes survey what is melting.
My tender ears listen to the silence of the dying.

Terror is part of me.
In my rich bloodstream
Courses all-killing time. In October's
Chilling sky a fresh famine erupts.

October is my empire.
My dead troops hold every rain-sodden city.
My dead warning-plane circles the sky above aimless minds.
My dead sign their names for the dying."
-   Tamura Ryuichi 

“On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads,
as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels . . .”
-   Charles Dickens

"There comes a time when it cannot be put off any longer.  The radio warns of a killing frost coming
in the night, and you must say good-by to the garden.  You dread it, as you dread saying good-by
to any good friend; but the garden waits with its last gifts, and you must go with a bushel basket
or big buckets to receive them."
-   Rachel Peden

“There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen,
as if it could not be, as if it had not been!”
-  Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Aye, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath!
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, 
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief
And the year smiles as it draws near its death.
Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay 
In the gay woods and in the golden air,
Like to a good old age released from care,
Journeying, in long serenity, away.
In such a bright, late quiet, would that I 
Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks
And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,
And music of kind voices ever nigh;
And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass."
-  William Cullen Bryant, October

"October is marigold, and yet
A glass half full of wine left out

To the dark heaven all night, by dawn
Has dreamed a premonition

Of ice across its eye as if
The ice-age had begun its heave.

The lawn overtrodden and strewn
From the night before, and the whistling green

Shrubbery are doomed. Ice
Has got its spearhead into place.

First a skin, delicately here
Restraining a ripple from the air;

Soon plate and rivet on pond and brook;
Then tons of chain and massive lock

To hold rivers. Then, sound by sight
Will Mammoth and Sabre-tooth celebrate

Reunion while a fist of cold
Squeezes the fire at the core of the world,

Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart,
And now it is about to start."
-   Ted Hughes, October Dawn

"In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail.

Pleasant summer over
An all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The gray smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all,
Flowers in the summer
Fires in the fall!"
-   Robert Louis Stevenson, Autumn Fires

"Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods."
-   William Allingham

"I long for the bulbs to arrive, for the early autumn chores are melancholy, but the planting of bulbs
is the work of hope and is always thrilling."
-   May Sarton

"Fresh October brings the pheasant,
The to gather nuts is pleasant."
-   Sara Coleridge

October

Links and References

American Indian Lore for October: "How the Turtles Back Was Cracked," Cherokee  

Ancient Greek Samhain Festivals.  By John Opsopaus. 

Annie's Month of October   Always a delightful compendium of facts and information.  Provides a kid safe Christian perspective.

Ante Diem III Nonas October - The Pagan Left  Information on Quan Yin.  

Ante Diem III Kalendas October - The Pagan Left

An Annotated & Illustrated Collection of Worldwide Links to Mythologies, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Sacred Arts & Sacred Traditions.   By Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

Apple Lore and Facts.  By Susa Morgan Black, OBOD. 

Apple Branch in Dianic Tradition 

The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual.  By Alexei Kondratiev.  Citadel, 2003.  320 pages.  ISBN: 0806525029. 

Apple Tree Wisdom 

Apples - A Teacher's Cyberguide

Apples:  Iounn, Norse Goddess 

Apples - October Lore 

Autumn Season Celebrations, Mabon, Autumn Equinox, Alban Elfed (September 21st) Celebrations and Activities    There are many activities for Samhain that are also done on Mabon - all related to harvesting and preservation during the early autumn season. 

Autumn - A Celebration of Tradition in Vermont

Autumn Greetings, Customs and Lore    Mythology Myth*ing Links: Autumn Equinox.  A 60K list of carefully selected and informatively annotated links about mythology.  

Autumn - Quotes, Poems, Sayings and Quips for Gardeners   

Autumn Quotes     

A Brief History of Halloween  

Cuttings - October.   Short poems by Mike Garofalo. 

Daoist Health and Spiritual Practices 

Day of the Dead, Halloween, Samhain:  Extensive Bibliography, Links, Lore, Poems, Prayers, Preparations, Crafts, Rituals, Quotes      

December: Quotes, Poems, Lore, Myths, Sayings, Celebrations

Diwali Festival, India  

Diwali Festival, India

Diwali Festival, The Lighting of the Lamps, India  

Fairies, Elves, Nature Spirits:  Lands Spirits, Alfs, Wights, Lars, Trolls, Dwarves, Sidhe, Devas, Otherworld, Little Folk, Ancestors, Ghosts 

Fall/Autumn Poetry   

Fall, Autumn - Quotes, Poems, Sayings and Quips for Gardeners   

Flowers: Quotations, Lore, Myths, Resources   

German and German-American Customs, Traditions and Origins of Holidays  

Greek and Roman Autumn Festivals 

The Green Man (Powers of Spring and Summer): Bibliography, Links, Quotes, Information, Lore, Myths, Role  

Green Way Blog

The Green Wizard   

Halloween:  Extensive Bibliography, Links, Lore, Poems, Prayers, Preparations, Crafts, Rituals, Quotes  

Land Spirits, Nature Spirits:  Fairies, Elves, Alfs, Wights, Trolls, Dwarves, Sidhe, Devas, Otherworld, Little Folk, Ancestors, Ghosts 

Leo's Lyrics Database  

Lore and Magick of the Harvest.   By Asherah. 

Mabon, Autumnal Equinox, Harvest Festival

Maples and Japanese Culture   

Michaelmas Lore   A Christian feast in honor of the Archangel Michael. 

Months: Poems, Quotations, Sayings, Lore

Mrs. Ritter's First Grade Critters  

Nature Spirits:  Fairies, Elves, Alfs, Wights, Lars, Trolls, Dwarves, Sidhe, Devas, Otherworld, Little Folk, Ancestors, Ghosts 

November:  Quotes, Poems, Lore, Myths, Sayings

October Calendar - School of the Seasons

October Holidays and Celebrations.    Compiled by Sue LaBeau.

Octoberfest

October Literature Connections   

October: Quotes, Poems, Lore, Myths, Gardening

October - Poem Hunter  

October Poems    Catholic poetry about Our Lady, Mary. Mother of Jesus Christ.  

Old French Sayings about October   

One Old Druid's Final Journey - The Notebooks of the Librarian of Gushen Grove  

Pathways in the Green Valley Blog.   By Michael Garofalo. 

Quotes for Gardeners    Over 3,500 quotes arranged by over 140 topics.   

Reinventing the Halloween Night 

Ritual of the Labyrinth: Ta Hiera Laburinthou.  By John Opsopaus.   

Red Bluff, California.  Natural History Studies at our Home and Gardens.  Valley Spirit Center.  By Karen and Mike Garofalo. 

Samhain:  Preparing for Samhain and Halloween Celebrations on October 31st   

Seasonal Celebrations

Slavic Pagan Holidays - Autumn

Some October Poems 

Summer: Quotes, Poems and Sayings for Gardeners

Thesmophoria - Ancient Greek Autumn Festival

A Season For Reasoning 

The Spirit of Gardening

What to Do about Halloween?

Wicca Holidays and Sabbaths 

Yuletide, Winter Solstice:  Preparing for Yule and Saturnalia on December 21st   

Zen Poems

A warm October,
A cold February.

When leaves fall early,
Fall and Winter will be mild;
When leaves fall late,
Winter will be severe.

Squirrels gathering nuts in a flurry,
Will cause snow to gather in a hurry.

Much rain in October,
Much wind in December.

Full Moon in October without frost,
No frost 'till November's Full Moon.

October Attributions

Astrological Signs:  Libra,  September 23 - October 22

Astrological Signs:  Scorpio,  October 23 - November 22

October Birthstones:  Opal

October Gemstone: Jaspar

October Flower: Calendula

October Gardening Chores

Red Bluff, North Sacramento Valley, California, USA

USDA Zone 9

Removing dead and non-productive vegetable crops. 
Ordering seed and garden catalogs.  
Remove all peppers in case of frost.  
Reduce watering as temperature drops. 
Watering plants as needed.
Being attentive to the effects of the cold dry winds.   
Planting potted trees and shrubs in the ground.  
Placing cold sensitive potted plants in protected areas or indoors.
Planting bulbs.
Prune and mulch perennials. 
Storing and repairing tools.
Fertilize with 20-9-9 or 15-15-15. 
Trees without leaves need little or no watering.
Picking pumpkins, squash, colored corn, and other crops for Thanksgiving decorations.
Finish all digging and construction projects before the first rain.
Bring in wood and kindling to rain free storage areas.  
Repair roofs on sheds and house.  
Add fallen leaves to the compost pile.  
Be prepared for chilling frosts.  
Collect seeds from plants.  
Start pruning berry vines.  

October Gardening Chores and Tips

Oregon State University October Tips

Earth Wise Creations Tips for October - Zone 9

The Gay Gardener - October

Online Flower Poetry

Online Flowers

Ambient Flowers Online

Largest Flower in the World

Gardening Tips - October - New York Botanical Garden

Top Garden Projects for October in the Pacific Northwest by Ed Hume

52 Weeks in the California Garden by Richard Smaus

The Garden Helper Tips for October - Northern U.S.

Tips from the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County, California

Farmer Fred's Monthly Gardening Chores for Central California