This part of the year can be a tricky time. Late summer tiredness meets the pressures of autumn’s harvesting. Amongst this: blackberry season. I think they are one of the only fruits I’ve never bought from a shop. Every year since I can remember we have gone out to pick them, bake them with apples and pears in crumbles, freeze them for future use, or eat them on walks as a snack.
My dad said as a child he and his siblings would be sent out every weekend to pick them, and then Grandma Vida would prepare blackberry puddings of various sorts in bulk for the next week.
I love blackberries' accessibility and abundance, ripening in sequence from green to red to black-purple, in country hedgerows and suburban streets.
I love the magical tangled warp and weft of the brambles. Their pricking of my fingers reminds me of the spinning wheel of the year. When the prince hacks through a desolate forest of thorns to Sleeping Beauty’s castle, perhaps blackberries grow there to provide some comfort along the way.
If you would like to harness some of this season’s ‘back to school’ feeling to help you reflect or reset, I highly recommend my dear friend’s newsletter: Xandua Tarot. Magda writes: ‘Want to start your week with a little more intention? To bring together the personal, political and spiritual? Looking for a quick read full of reverence for the natural world and a heavy dose of cynicism for capitalism?’ Sign up!
Magda also recommended me this great podcast episode on the power of blackberries, from Elder Hour. Hosts Chelsea Selby and Juliet Diaz discuss the history and folklore of brambles, and how blackberries relate to both vulnerability and self-protection.