September, the number nine, and the Elder at the gate

The Energy of September

The light is different now. You can feel it in the mornings, that first cool breath before the day warms up and pretends it is still August. The blackberries are going soft on the vine. The evening comes a little sooner than it did last week, and the body notices before the mind does.

September is a hinge month. Summer has not left and fall has not fully arrived, and we stand in the doorway between them. This is the season of the harvest table, of gathering in what grew while we were busy living, of deciding what is worth carrying into the dark half of the year. The plants are doing this work openly. Seed heads are drying. Roots are pulling energy back down into the earth. Everything that spent the summer reaching outward is now beginning to turn inward.

The body wants to do the same. You may find yourself craving warmer food, longer sleep, a slower pace, and a little more quiet. That is not laziness. That is the body reading the season correctly. Let it.

Back to School, Even for Grown Folks

There is a particular energy that moves through September, and it does not care whether you have children in a classroom. It lives in the sharpened pencils, the fresh notebooks, the smell of a new box of crayons, the clean slate. Somewhere in most of us, the year still starts in September, no matter what the calendar says.

This is a good thing to work with instead of against. September asks: what do you want to learn this year? What practice have you been meaning to begin? What do you already know that is ready to be deepened?

For those of us on the herbal path, this is the season for study. The harvest is coming in, the drying racks are full, and the long evenings ahead are made for reading, note-taking, and sitting with the plants in a slower way than summer allows. You do not need a syllabus. One plant, one book, one question you keep returning to is enough. Pick up your notebook. Your inner student has been waiting.

The Number Nine

September is the ninth month, and nine is a number worth pausing on.

Nine is completion. It is the last of the single digits, the end of a cycle before the return to one. Across many traditions, nine holds the energy of fullness, of a thing brought to its final form. In the Yoruba world, nine belongs to Oya, the wind at the gate between the living and the dead, keeper of the marketplace and the cemetery both. Her number is the number of endings that make room for what comes next.

In numerology, nine is the number of the humanitarian, of wisdom earned by living through the whole cycle, of letting go with grace. In tarot, the nines are the cards of near-completion: the Nine of Pentacles with its garden fully grown, the Nine of Cups with its wishes granted, the Nine of Swords with its long night before the dawn of the ten. Nine is where you stand at the top of the hill and look back at how far you have come.

Nine months is a pregnancy. Nine is the length of a gestation, the time it takes to bring something fully into the world.

So the question September holds is not only what will you begin, but what is ready to be finished? What have you been carrying for nine months, or nine years, that is ready to be born, or ready to be released?

Elder, the Chosen Herb

It is fitting that Elder stands at the gate of this month.

Elder (Sambucus nigra, Sambucus canadensis) is the plant of thresholds. She holds the doorway between summer and fall the way she holds the doorway between the living and the ancestors. Her white flowers came in early summer, and now, in late August and September, her berries hang in dark purple clusters, ready for the harvest.

Elder is Oya’s plant, and this is Oya’s month. The wind, the change, the storm that clears the air. She is the old woman at the edge of the village who has seen everything and is not impressed by your excuses. Across the diaspora and across Europe, Elder has long been called the medicine chest of the country people, and she has long been treated with reverence. You ask before you cut her. You thank her when you take from her. In many traditions, the elder tree is where the ancestors sit.

Her berries are the medicine of the season ahead. Elderberry syrup, elderberry oxymel, elderberry wine, elderberry in the honey jar with ginger and cinnamon and clove. She is warming, gently drying, and supportive of the immune system as the cold season approaches. She moves the lymph, encourages the sweat that breaks a fever, and holds the body through the passage into winter.

A word of practice: the berries are cooked before use. Raw berries, stems, and leaves are not for eating. Simmer them, strain them, and let the heat do its work. That is not a caution to be afraid of. That is Elder teaching you to slow down and do the thing properly.

If you have access to Elder this month, go and sit with her. Bring an offering. Ask what she wants you to release before the dark comes in.