Harvest Me

birth·​day: a perfect encapsulation of both/and.

Is it the end of a cycle or the beginning?

Yes.

Do you want to be alone or do you want to be with friends?

Yes.

Do you feel melancholy or excited?

Yes.

Maybe it’s just me who feels this way about birthdays. A question in the form of a statement.

I like Western astrology because according to that symbol system my sun sign is in Libra. Libra is a Latin word which can mean “balance” or “weighing scales,” never one side without the other, both/and as fuck. Identifying myself with a set of star scales is a whimsical, functional lens through which to view my chronic indecision, and constant, sometimes crippling, awareness of the parade of paradoxes that define the human experience.

Adding to the inherently dualistic nature of a birthday, mine comes in the middle of the transitional month of October. Where I live, October is the time of final bounty and withering, best captured in the word “harvest.” In the moment of one death, the continuance of another’s life. We are here to ripen, and pass on. All our growth and strivings to reach a moment of edibility, for something we make or do to become fuel for another. Separation from other living beings is not only an illusion but an impossibility. Alone, we die. We die alone.

With mortality set on the table like a celebration cake, birthdays invite a sugar rush of reflection. My musings are honest and cliché. How do we collectively give ourselves what we both already have and desperately seem to need more of: interdependence, connection, belonging? How can I, as an individual, nurture these values in my field, how can I be of good harvest?

Birthdays are for wishes. Wishes are prayers that sparkle with flame. I pray I get to stay earth-bound for long enough to wholly ripen. Like an everbearing strawberry, I think it might be my fate to bloom both early and late. May this metamorphic movement of midlife embrace reaping and tilling afresh. Let the crops be rotated, let all yield be shared. In breath. Out candle.

-----------------

For anyone reading this in real time, my warmest invitation to join me, celebrated wordsmith Eric Braman, and the incredible Hillsinger Cello Duo for a night of togetherness at the historic Art House in Eugene, Oregon.

HARVEST ME
Sunday November 2nd, 7:30pm
Tickets at https://www.eugenearthouse.com/movie/harvest-me

A performance that blurs the line between music and poetry, ritual and art. Through themes of harvest, loss, and rebirth, the audience is invited into deep, participatory listening: to words that sing of reckoning, to cello lines that mourn and celebrate in the same breath. Expect an evening of sound and spirit, where words fall like leaves, music rises like flames, and something wholly new is born in their meeting.