(Wind)Fall Foliage

Imagine a magical car that produces its own fuel for running long distances smoothly and even for repairing itself when necessary. Its owner needs nothing to do to keep it healthy and thriving and elegantly speeding along. A beautiful sight to behold! A trusty vehicle in all seasons.

What would you think of the owner of such a great car, when he constantly drains the self-produced fuel away and has it removed from his grounds, spending a bundle for the action?

The free fuel is then burned somewhere or blended and spoiled with other materials, poisonous stuff, effectively converting the high-power racecar fuel into some kind of low quality ship’s diesel.

This product then is bought back by the car owner at a price; he then proceeds to drive his car with this inadequate fuel. Result: The car’s engine doesn’t whine and complain much but after a while its performance deteriorates.

It is dying a very slow death. So slow that its owner can delude himself into believing that he is doing the right thing.

What do you think about such a car owner?

Well, if we cart away the fallen leaves of our trees in autumn, we are such a driver. We weaken the trees to the point of dying a slow death. We rob them of the most natural nutrition there is, of the most natural protection and soil renewal. And we rob ourselves of the best soil there is. Beautiful, fragrant, fertile soil, into which the leaves would have turned in a very short time.

And let’s not forget the leaf blowers with their sound and air pollution. We rob ourselves of healthy air and valuable mineral oil and of the level of health we would attain when doing that easy exercise of raking. And let us not forget the tax hikes because the carting away by the communities costs millions and millions. We pay for the removing, we pay for the return, we pay left and right.

And all this in the name of an artificial daydream of a so-called “beauty” or “curb-appeal”? Friends and neighbors, it is a very small step towards real beauty and common-sense. As in so many similar cases it is not a question of a huge effort towards the Right and Beautiful and Human

It is a question of NOT doing something, of letting go. Is a well sprayed, poisoned, fertilized and manicured lawn “beautiful”? A lawn on which children are not allowed to play?

Or is a meadow beautiful, on which all the herbs grow we need to stay and become healthy? And on which children can be children.

At all times much of the concept of beauty is an acquired taste. Behind the smokescreen of the commercials lies real beauty.

So: We cart away and pay. We get it back in much lower quality – and pay. Sounds familiar? We are doing the same with our food. The solution? Simply stop doing it.

Care for a recipe of our ancestors, practiced for millennia? Do the raking and mulching of your leaves during waning moon (between full and new moon). You can watch the mulch vanish in the earth in no time. Waxing moon slows the composting process.

Rake a part of the leaves around the trees to form a disk the size of its crown. Mow the rest of your meadow-to-be lawn with all the rest of the leaves in it. During waning moon. Have fun with the result.