Summer Māras: Late Flowers, Bees, Berries and the Slide into Autumn + a Grumpy Bull!

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(Among the ancient signs of the goddess Māra are black animals- fitting then for her day that the black bull seen above showed up just outside the acreage, in his summer pasturage on the farm- grumbling and bellowing across the way to his home turf on the neighbours' property, presumably there was a cow over there he wanted to get to. I wasn't that near, but he turned toward me right away as you see in the next photo- a wire fence wouldn't stop him if he came my way, I didn't stay in his line of sight for long!)

View across an area of long grass with occasional poplar saplings. A wire and post fence cuts across the image, on the other side is a pasture area with some wind shelter fencing for cattle, made of vertical weathered boards. Farther back another pasture area with tall grasses maturing to gold. Beyond that a line of lowish willows, backed by distance darkened poplars. The sky is grey with some texture to the clouds suggesting a modest approaching thunderstorm or showers, already falling in the distance.



Another cross-quarter day has rolled around, meaning we've reached the beginning of another season in the traditional division of the year into eight parts  (4 seasons, each with a beginning marked by a cross-quarter day, a middle marked by a solstice or equinox and a second part). In the Latvian traditon this day (variously noted as August 6 or 15) is named for Māra/Great Mother, an ancient goddess to some extent conflated with the Virgin Mary since Christian times.  As a primary deity, she is given 4 days through the year. This one, called Summer Mara marks the end of summer, the beginning of Autumn, associated with harvest and abundance in many European cultures.

(For more about Māra, see this previous  August Māra blog post  )

Two barely purple potato flowers- one showing the thick cluster of longish orange stamens inside- hang facing mostly downward from thin stems attached to a terminal stem with blurred dark green potato foliage in the background.



In more northerly or cooler places, like here in West Central Alberta. grains are ripening in the fields, but harvest of the fields is not quite here, yet. Gardens should be delivering yields. My planting efforts were a bit late and limited this year, so I don't have the peas I usually have but there should be some, soon, along with some beans, hopefully. Radish pods (delicious when young) are ripening and potatoes have begun to flower. More abundant are 'crops' I claim no credit for: weedy raspberries are everywhere and my planted ones are fruiting as well. Wild saskatoons are ripening, and I've been able to sample a few handfuls the Waxwings hadn't found yet. Wild currants and gooseberries (which pop up in garden beds too) have given me juicy handfuls and dogwoods too are everywhere- I snack on a few bitter white berries when I pass a bush on the way to check the mail. The sour cherries in the garden are just pre-peak ripeness- those are a bit large and hard to pull for the birds, so I usually have longer to eat those. Apples and Sorbus/Rowan/Mountain Ash are not quite there yet. 
See videos that correspond to these photos (berries) a little farther down, Spectra/Peertube links as always at the end.

Semi-close view of several close growing stems of a shrub with many narrowly oblong leaves, pointed, medium green with visible venis radiating from the centre vein, arcing out and toward the tip, from both sides. The leaves are a somwhat shiny medium green, dulled a bit from road dust which the rain has moved a bit towards tips and low points. Many berries in axial or terminal clusters are visible, ranging from tiny just forming through near/bull size gree or gold to mature white. The light is a bit orangey from smoke.


The palish pink palm of my hand faces upward, cupping a handful of berries. The berries are deep shiny red, lightly covered with short brislty hairs which in some cases have trapped white fuzz from airborne seeds and/or spider silk.

The palish pink palm of my hand faces upward, cupping a handful of berries.The berries are deep purply-blue coated in a light powdery/waxy bloom that makes them appear lighter except where it has rubbed off.

The palish pink palm of my hand faces upward, cupping a handful of berries.The berries are typical raspberries, if smallish, composed of numerous 'cells' forming a rough globe, flat on the stem end, orangey to red a bit translucent with occasional short hairs.



For each of the annual season beginnings/endings I focus on the signs in nature and garden of the shifts, the progression of the seasonal cycle of birth/germination/growth and flowering/seeding/senescence/death. We now see the early signs of Autumn: grasses and grains golding, plants going to seed, birds that have left the nest maturing, gathering, feeding for the migrations or long cold season ahead. Yet as the season of growth draws to a close, still there is much of life to celebrate: many flowers continue to bloom and others have just begun. They still buzz with bees, flies, wasps and butterflies even if more of those bees may be found sluggish or unmoving clinging to flowers on cool mornings or damp afternoons.

A patch of narrow vertical flowering spikes packed all around with tinky light violet flowers. Some spikes are nearly finished with only a few flowers left at the tips, the lower parts ruddy green with little roundish bumps of pre-seeds.Others still ahve many flowers even buds yet to develop. Near the centre two medium sized bumble beens work flowers near one another both facing up and to the left. The background is blurred green foliage and more flower clusters. The light is a bit orangeyfrom smoke haze and edges are darkened suggesting the darker season to come (this is true of most of the photos in this post)

For now we'll celebrate the remaining flowers and the sweet berries, even as the days shorten and we know the cold days creep closer.

Clusters of the flat heads of Tansy flowers- like the centres of daisies, with no petal-like ray flowers. They appear here in late summer, echoing the sun with their golden disks, holding the magic of medicine or poison in its parts, (honey-sweet flowers, pungent leaves) intimating the dark days to come in its dense dark foliage.

Now for the videos: meditative moments in the late summer garden, a short walk in the bush on the farm, and several short looks at some of the berry bounty of the season.


Short walk on the farm


                                        Red-osier Dogwood


                                           Skunk Currants


                                          Wild Raspberries


And- the Spectra/Peertube video links:

I finish with one of our several abundant wild Asters, flowers that begin in mid to late summer and carry on well past the early frosts of autumn. This one is a species in the genus Eurybia, named for one of the most ancient of Greek goddesses- ostensibly associated with sea but also with the movement of the stars, weather and winds- this suggests to me that she was one of the ancient nature deities, so a sister or even another name for, the Great Mother, Māra we celebrate here.


A cluster of pinky-lavender wild Aster flowers, not fully open and looking a bit sparsely endowed with ray flowers, still they colour the days joining summer to autumn. Blurred mid-green foliage behind and a few ripening seeds on a grass or sedge suggest the advancing season.



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