Orillia, Ontario. CAN – October 16, 2012

“Harvest” is a word that carries more than pumpkins, grapes, and apples. It’s one of those old words with deep roots. From Old English hærfest, meaning “autumn” or “plucking time,” it marks both a season and an action — the bringing in of what was sown.

The idea is simple: gather what you’ve grown. But language gives it layers. Farmers harvest crops. Fishers harvest the sea. Loggers, sadly, harvest forests. Even surgeons “harvest” veins. The word has traveled from barns and fields to operating rooms and boardrooms, taking on meanings both earthy and clinical.

In Sonoma County, harvest means grape bins stacked on flatbeds, the thrum of de-stemmers, the glow of floodlights in vineyards at midnight. It means kids picking apples in Sebastopol, backyard gardens yielding squash big enough to feed the neighborhood, and the annual scramble to put zucchini to use before it turns to compost.

But harvest has always been more than food. We harvest ideas, experiences, even friendships. Each autumn, we gather what the year has taught us — the mistakes, the small victories, the unexpected kindness. Some of

it is nourishing. Some, like a bitter walnut, you spit out and leave behind.

The figurative sense of harvest shows up early. A 14th-century English preacher wrote of “harvest of synne,” warning parishioners that their deeds would ripen, for better or worse. By Shakespeare’s time, the metaphor was common. Think of Measure for Measure: “Our natures do pursue, like rats that ravin down their proper bane, a thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die.” Not exactly cheerful, but it shows how long people have linked harvest to reckoning.

Still, the word is not all judgment. At its best, harvest suggests plenty, generosity, and the cycle of giving back. Communities gather to share what’s been brought in — from Gravenstein apple pies at the county fair to backyard tomato swaps on neighborhood porches.

Words ripen, too. “Harvest” has grown from its narrow field sense to one of life’s broad metaphors. To harvest is to collect, to take stock, to be present to what has come of our efforts.

This season, as grapes come in and the light turns softer, maybe it’s worth asking: what are you harvesting? Not just from the soil, but from your own days.