Trust The Wheel, Eat The Pie

I think I’ve always been a little made for autumn.

There are, obviously, the sweaters. The wool socks. The boots. The smell of wet leaves, wood, apples, and something quietly simmering in a kitchen. There is the changing light, making the whole world feel as though someone has turned the volume down a notch.

But I think it’s also because I’m deeply nostalgic.

I love the things we recognize before we even name them. A smell that takes us somewhere. A song that brings back a time we had almost forgotten. A certain temperature that reminds us of another year, another home, another version of ourselves. Autumn has always had this ability to let the present coexist with everything that came before it.

There is something melancholic about that. Melancholy isn’t necessarily sadness. Sometimes, it is simply the very acute awareness that something is beautiful precisely because it won’t stay this way forever.

So yes, I look forward to autumn. And this year, it arrived with a lot of movement.

Our first craft market of the season has just come and gone and, honestly, it was wonderful. I had my usual little worries beforehand — will people understand the collection, will the products find their way to the right people, will all of this work once it leaves my studio? — and then the weekend arrived and there were people at my table, conversations, smiles, purchases, discoveries,  other passionate makers around us, and that very particular feeling of watching something I spent months building begin to belong to the world.

It was a beautiful way to begin autumn. Because that is what this season is about, in a way: what has been cultivated with attention beginning, finally, to circulate.

And I think that is what interests me more and more about the idea of harvest. We could easily reduce it to what we managed to produce over the previous months, but a harvest is much bigger than its final result. An apple doesn’t exist simply because someone picked it. There is the tree, the soil, the rain, the sun, the insects, the seasons, the person who grew it, the person who picked it, the person who sold it, the person who brought it home, and then someone who cuts it up and turns it into a pie.

And somewhere along that chain, there is us, hungry and sitting at a table with a plate in front of us. I like thinking about that around Mabon because it slightly changes the way I understand gratitude.

Gratitude isn’t only the feeling that something makes our lives better. It can also be the recognition of a relationship. I receive something, and that receiving comes with responsibility. But it can also be much simpler than that: sometimes being grateful simply means recognizing that something beautiful is happening and allowing ourselves to fully experience it.

I think I need to remember both.

Because I can look at autumn and think about everything it represents: harvest, change, the passing of time, the land preparing for winter, everything that needs to be preserved, shared, or protected. But I can also simply step outside on a crisp morning and want to smile because the air smells like autumn.

Both can exist at once.

I can know the leaves are going to fall and still be happy to watch them change colour.

I can know the season is temporary and still let myself completely sink into it.

I can be aware of the cycle without stepping outside the present moment just to observe it.

Maybe knowing that something is cyclical is precisely what allows us to appreciate it more deeply.

Indigenous perspectives on our relationship with the land often bring me back to this idea of reciprocity. We don’t have fur to protect us from the cold, nor claws or fangs to feed ourselves. We learned to live in relationship with what surrounds us, to use what the land provides and to develop ways of caring for it in return.

The land gives. And we have a responsibility not to take without consideration. Not to waste. To protect what allows us to live. To pass on what needs to continue. To understand that we are not separate from the cycle simply because we have built houses, roads, grocery stores, and apps that let us order our apples with three clicks.

And perhaps gratitude begins right there: in recognizing that what we receive did not simply appear around us, but that we are part of an enormous web of relationships that allows us to be here. That idea brings me directly back to Writuals.

Because this business was born, among other things, from a very concrete concern for the environment. I wanted to make beautiful stationery without unnecessarily contributing to a throwaway culture. I wanted to work with recycled paper, produce locally, think carefully about my materials and packaging, and pay attention to what I use and what I leave behind.

Over time, that intention has become much bigger than material choices. It touches the way I want to do things, how much I produce, what I keep, what I reuse, and what I can make carefully rather than quickly. It is about the idea that an object can have a lifespan, a story, and a purpose that extends beyond the moment it is purchased.

And that reflection has taken on a whole different dimension since Rosalie was born.

She was born during a summer when wildfires changed the sky. I remember the strange feeling of watching the news, seeing the smoke maps, looking outside and understanding that something enormous was happening elsewhere while holding a brand-new baby in my arms.

Since then, every season I experience with her seems to carry another question.

What kind of autumn are we handing down to her?

What kind of spring? Summer? Winter?

What will still feel familiar to her in twenty, thirty, fifty years?

And what will have changed?

I don’t ask these questions because I have an answer, or because I think a stationery business is going to solve the climate crisis. That would be a fairly ambitious conclusion for someone who spends an embarrassing amount of time choosing between two paper weights. But I do believe we all have some responsibility for what we tend. And maybe that is where the idea of harvest becomes especially interesting to me this year.

I don’t only want to ask: what is this season giving me? I also want to ask: how am I preparing myself to receive it? What is my responsability?

Am I leaving enough room to notice it? Am I giving myself permission to enjoy what is here without immediately thinking about what comes next? Do I still know how to receive something without immediately turning it into a goal, a memory, or a project?

Because I already know autumn will pass. I know the leaves will fall. The apples will be gone. The markets will end. The days will get shorter. This version of Rosalie, with her new sentences and endless questions, will disappear almost as quickly as it arrived. And yet, I don’t want to spend this season already saying goodbye to everything it contains.

I want to be grateful while it is still here.

Maybe that is part of preparing ourselves for a harvest: preparing our attention, too.

Making room for joy.

For nostalgia.

For the simple pleasure of a shared meal.

For a cold day when you finally get to wear exactly what you’ve been waiting six months to wear.

For the pleasure of seeing people gather around a market table.

For a child discovering apples and squash.

For a home evolving with our growing family.

For a collection that is finally out in the world, somewhere between my hands and someone else’s.

And then, once we have received all of that, asking ourselves how we can care for it.

That is where gratitude meets responsibility.

If I am grateful to the land, what does that gratitude change about the way I live on it? If I am grateful for the people who have helped make my life what it is, how do I participate in that exchange in return? If I am grateful to experience this season with my daughter, how do I care for the world she is growing up in?

Receiving and protecting are not opposing gestures. They are part of the same movement. I think about that when I look at everything that makes a harvest possible. The land giving. The person planting. The person tending. The person picking. The person turning apples into pie. The person serving it. The person finally sitting down to eat it. It takes all of those people, all of those relationships, and all of that time to arrive at the small moment when someone takes a bite.

And maybe the best way to honour that moment isn’t to hold onto it. It is to actually experience it.

To eat the damn pie.

To enjoy the people while they are around the table.

To let a season be exactly what it is, without asking it to last longer.

And then, when the time comes, to let what needs to leave, leave, and continue caring for what will make the next harvest possible.

That is what I want to carry with me into this autumn. Not only the idea of harvesting, but the idea of participating in the harvest.

Of receiving with attention.

Of being present in what is here, even while knowing everything is moving.

Of recognizing what has been given to me without forgetting what I can give in return.

And remembering that being part of a cycle doesn’t mean constantly looking toward what comes next. It can also mean being exactly where the cycle has brought us, now.

This autumn, that is here.

There is Rosalie, talking more and more, the apples and squash we will probably go pick, friends we want to spend time with, a kitchen we are renovating to meet our growing needs, a collection that has just launched, and a market calendar that is beginning to fill up.

Our first weekend was wonderful. And I really want to let it be wonderful. Not simply file it away mentally under “great start for the next thing.” I want to experience it for what it was: a beautiful moment made possible by a lot of work, a lot of people, and a lot of things coming together.

And then keep going.

Because the season continues. The cycle continues. And so do we.

So, happy Mabon.

May we recognize what has been given to us, prepare ourselves to receive it, savour it while it is here, and care for everything that will make the next harvest possible.

As for me, I’m going to put on the cardigan I’ve been waiting for since April, eat pie, spend time with the people I love, and try not to already be nostalgic for autumn while I’m still living it.

With an impressive collection of wool socks, a new series finally out in the world, and a few apples just waiting to become a pie,

Sarah
Atelier scriptural Writuals