Unity with Autumn Leaves

Last year I designed a Unity Art practice that opens the doors of creative healing, to heal our connection to the earth and Creation. 

We are all a part of nature, but some of us have built walls to keep nature separate; we've been taught that we are more important than other parts of nature, and that's a hard lesson to unlearn. And when we begin to care more about nature it's easy to become overwhelmed, and then we need more walls to protect ourselves from feelings of anger and guilt.

My practice includes the intentional steps of collecting, observing, preparing, creating, sharing and giving thanks. What I'm finding is that it's easy to find ways to connect to the earth, and  - with intention - any simple task becomes a path to healing.

Agenda:

1. Set leafy intentions

2. Collect leaves as a sacred activity

3. Observe leaves

4. Create leaf mold to cultivate abundance

5. Leaf mold thanksgiving

1. Set leafy intentions:

These past weeks I've been giving attention to fall leaves. To understand leaves, I dug into the science:

During the summer, trees produce sugar from carbon dioxide and water, by the action of light on the chlorophyll contained in the leaves. Then in the fall that process slows down as trees prepare for the winter. Senescence is the process of the leaves changing color and falling off the trees - the level of chlorophyll in plant cells diminishes, along with other chemical changes; it's the end stage of the growing season for a deciduous tree, an important step towards dormancy, which allows the tree to survive the winter.

The leaves that fall act as mulch for the tree, protecting its roots from cold, locking in moisture, enriching the soil, and providing food and habitat for beneficial insects. 

Leaf senescence is dependent on the tree variety and environmental conditions, including temperature, sunlight, and moisture, so the onset of color and leaf-fall is ever-changing.

My intention this month has been to "notice the changing season and marvel at its beauty; gather fall leaves in a sustainable and loving way; honor the cycle of leaf life and death; and use my creative fire to forge a stronger connection between me and the leaf spirits".

2. Collect leaves as a sacred activity:

Unity Art collecting has three parts - listing, exploring, and gathering.

My list is simple: I want to collect leaves for mulch, and leaves for art. These are my Unity Art supplies this month.

Next comes exploring: When I set an intention to "explore for leaves, notice the changing season, and marvel at its beauty" my walks take on a new kind of focus: They become a meditation - I move slower and look at the trees and sidewalk with new eyes (walk like a little kid). I look for the best colors and take lots of photos.

That leads to sustainable gathering: I'm gathering leaves to use as mulch in my garden, but my hawthorn tree leaf senescence is always late in the season; they don't start falling until December, when it's so wet and cold that all we can do is pile them up under the trees.

This week I pulled aside last years's leaf fall and dug out buckets of 2-year-old good, composted leaf mold. As I gather leaves, I remember that the tree needs these leaves too; however, in our area, a thick layer of leaves can retain too much moisture, so, in partnership with the trees, I take some but not all of the leaves.

And I take just a moment to commune with the tree-donors to acknowledge what they have created, and the amazing cycle of life that has taken place. (Thank you, thank you.)

3. Observe leaves:

Once we've gathered some leaves, we take a crucial pause: Sit down, take a breath, and look at the leaves, to really notice them, and recognize them as being amazing and significant. 

It's always helpful to look through the eyes of a young person. My young people are 9-months and three years, so our observation is very tactile. Some ideas:

• We made this fall sensory jar that I found at Lemon Lime Adventures.
• Have fun crushing dry leaves into powder
• Use a magnifying glass.
• Paint on leaves with a roller (we did that last year).
• Hang leaves from strings for a leaf mobile.
• And, of course, leaf pile jumping!

I've worked on observing leaves with my adult class too. Last year we made these meditative blind contour leaf drawings - drawing while looking mostly at the subject (the leaves), and not looking at the paper. The goal is to really SEE the subject. 

This year we made pastel leaf drawings. 

4. Create leaf mold to cultivate abundance:

Leaf mold is fall leaves that have decomposed over the course of 1 to 3 years, depending on your climate. It's produced by fungal decomposition instead of bacteria, which makes it slower than regular compost, but easier - you don't need to turn it or worry about the temperature. 

Nature has provided us a clear path to follow; when we don't allow our leaves to compost, we rob our soil of important nutrients. Leaf mold is rich in carbon, and should be added to all garden beds, especially to acid-loving plants. Carbon is what feeds the microbial life in your soil and the microbes are the key to healthy soil and a sustainable garden. Adding 2-inches of leaf mold in the fall will make a big difference to your soil for years.

Benefits of leaf mold:

• Leaf mold serves as a soil conditioner rather than a natural fertilizer; it's poor in nutrients, but high in minerals. It releases minerals that the tree collected from deep in the soil. 
• It creates an environment where earth worms and other beneficial soil life thrive, and these critters bring the nutrients, such as worm castings.
• It retains 4-1/2 times its weight in water. 
• Leaf mold changes the structure of the soil - the little root hairs of the fungus grab onto the soil particles, which helps bind loose soil, and at the same time helps to break up compact soil. The fungus will move into the surrounding soil in all directions, which improves the surrounding soil. 

I could go on! But many of us systematically remove this layer of decaying leaves and twigs from our urban forests, blowing, sweeping,  and even vacuuming valuable leaf mulch away. 

I've been pretty haphazard in my leaf use, but this year I'm putting a system in place: I've gathered buckets of my already composted leaves to use as mulch this year, and I've also built a simple leaf bin to stash last year's leaf fall, which is laying all over the place in piles, not quite ready to use as mulch yet. And if I have time, I'll make another bin for this year's leaf fall - since many of my neighbors blow their leaves out into the street, I can collect those with impunity.

How to make a leaf bin: 

Supplies: Chicken wire, stakes (I used metal stakes I had on hand).

Choose a spot out of direct sunlight, so the leaves can retain water all year. Make your bin 3-feet wide by 3-feet deep, then add the fall leaves to the bin - no greens like regular compost - just fall leaves. You will get leaf mold quicker if the leaves are shredded first, such as by running a lawn mower over your pile.

Then, sit back and relax - don’t turn the pile or do anything with it until it is time to harvest the leaf mold. In a temperate climate, you will need to wait at least a year (and potentially 2) for the leaf mold to break down fully. Add the resulting leaf mold to your garden during the fall to let it breakdown a bit more and give the worms time to pull the leaf mold down into the soil before planting the following spring.

5. Leaf mold thanksgiving:

The natural forest environment has a layer of chunky organic compost, duff, or humus that covers the topsoil, where a fascinating diversity of arthropods, spiders, insects, centipedes, millipedes, earthworms, slugs and snails, beetles, mites, grubs, fungi, and ants live. Songbirds, crows, squirrels, snakes, lizards, frogs, salamanders, raccoons, opossums, skunks, coyotes and others patrol or frequent the duff layer to forage for food.

Leaf litter is an essential plant food source that breaks down surprisingly quickly on your garden beds, as tiny organisms and microbes work and digest bits of it, and larger animals physically shred, dig, and burrow through, looking for seeds. 

This week I spread out a thin layer of this precious material on all my vegetable beds, then loosened the soil a bit with my fork, and planted fava beans. Have plenty so it will go onto my flower beds as well. 

And I'm not taking it for granted: I'm sharing a gift, a leaf mold dinner, offered by my trees to my entire garden ecosystem, which is part of the cycle that will feed us again next year - and I'm so grateful.