Although I grew up as a city girl, a memorable period of my childhood was spent in the English countryside. Of those days, I recall most fondly the harvest season.

This Thanksgiving let us remember that we are part of the vastly diverse and potentially functional family of humanity.

Midsummer marks the glorious bounty of the ripening season. But how can we, separated from the agricultural process appreciate the atmosphere of the season which we cannot see?

Throughout world mythology, the goddess of the good ground, the grain, the autumn harvest, has been appropriately portrayed as a knowledgeable mature woman of the world.

At the harvest, one can easily imagine that the Earth Goddess has offered up Her life in the form of the fruits of the land, and that in doing so, commits the supreme sacrifice.

Autumn is inexorably associated with ripe maturity, harvest and death, as well as the implicit understanding of an eventual rebirth, the offer of resurrection.