Photos by ALANA ADETOLA ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY

When the cool finally starts to creep in, I feel an anticipation like no other deep in my bones. Every year the wheel turns and spirals, the clockwork ticks over to September, and I grab my first-remembered tools of magic. A perfect pen, a new notebook (and just where did this giant stack of pretty, empty journals come from!), a delicious pile of stickers, carefully saved images, and dried plant-ephemera. If I want to get maximally nostalgic, I splurge on a new box of crayons just to huff the smell and spend a moment putting them into
perfect rainbow-order.

Inner-child me is delighted: Time for sweaters and scones and perfectly sharpened pencils. With everything laid out, I start to plot and plan and dream. Lists on lists on lists. (Autumn must-dos: Gotta pick apples. Gotta revisit my favorite dark-academia books. Gotta hide behind the blanket during that part of The X-Files rewatch.) Piles of vision-board materials from ripped-out magazine pages. At least half of these are spiced baked goods I must seek out and savor. Soothing music pulses in the background. This is a full-on montage. This ritual always features a cup of tea, steaming hot, because the oppressive heat of summer has blessedly given way to harvest time. This feels like the deepest magic to me every year: to be chill enough to want warming up again. This is the time to speak new worlds into being, to cozy up to a stack of books, to blend summer herbs that have been drying and are at last ready to steep. Something in me thrills to this preparation.

The harvest is here, and now we alchemize our labors into the tools that will carry us over the threshold from one year to the next. I’m packing my wagon on the Oregon Trail with just the right supplies to make the journey. I’m choosing the very best outfit for my first day of school. I’m setting aside lavender, rose hips, and sweet citrus for a long cold time ahead where soothing potions will make all the difference. At the tea shop, a wise owl watches over me while I blend. Under a starry blue ceiling, I painted her with a fierce expression to remind me to keep doing the work. She stares at me from the wall as if to say, “Don’t you already know what you really should be doing?” I feel like I can always use a reminder to return to the center—to question if my current work is truly mine, that which I love, work that calls to me with fascination and wonder. It’s so easy to get distracted, to trip into something “good enough” and forget what my real work is.

For me, the only way to discover this true work is to stop, slow down, and listen deeply. What has been catching my eye? What song lyrics snag in my brain? If my plans were canceled at the last minute tonight, what would I love to do with that surprise free time? If I could wipe the board of my life clean and start anew, what would be different?

These breadcrumbs lead me to what I need to know, and in the crisp air of autumn I seem to see them more clearly. Maybe this is from a lifetime of heading “back to school” as a student or a teacher, but I think there’s something essential about this rhythm deep in all of us: In autumn we instinctively slow down, turn inward, and dream differently. We sense that we can slow and deepen into more complexity. We can hold a paradox and examine it slowly, like a cup of tea warming in our hands. I prefer to dream in as cinematic a setting as possible. To romance the edges, to place myself in a story. My tea shop is filled with dried herbs, materia magica picked from my forest garden and ready to be turned into potions. These plants and their properties, their myths and tales, enthrall me and keep me mixing, sketching, experimenting, and sipping.

I adore how the sun once hit tiny seeds in my garden, and that energy blossoms into calendula blooms, spicy and rich in beneficial antioxidants, with an intensity so golden it feels like I’m saving the sunlight for later as I dry the petals for tea. When my body needs support, these plants will be there, carefully kept in autumn for a year of adventure. I saved the seeds last year, planted them in winter, and brought them around again in a spiral that goes on and on. They nurtured countless bees. They bloomed in the sun, in organic dirt I tended; they soaked in rain and sought the sky.

They persist—and it buoys my ability to persist to see it. I mail packets of tea all over the world, but I think the best magic comes when you make it yourself and share it with someone you love to have a cozy chat with: You welcome in a moment of rest and reverie. The botanicals bloom in the swirling water. Ideas unfold like music, layering over each other. The tea itself breathes steam into the air. Like any good potion, it transforms you in the moment, and it also holds the moment, present and precious. So here is a tea ritual for you to blend your own elixir, and then share it over a little talk with your best friend, your familiar, or with yourself in your favorite journal.

TEA TUTORIAL

“Golden hour” captures the fading light of a cozy autumn day, and this recipe makes a full pot of tea so you can share it with cottage guests. The fruits and botanicals blend to be a delicious and soothing support, full of anti-inflammatory ingredients (like calendula) and vitamin C to bolster your immunity and resilience.

Ingredients
5 apricots
1 tablespoon dried calendula petals
1 tablespoon chamomile blossoms
¼ teaspoon nutmeg (best grated fresh)
3-inch strip or 1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1 teaspoon rose hips

Pour 4 cups of boiling water over the blend above and steep five-plus minutes for a strong cuppa. Delightful with a touch of honey or maple syrup, and the extra stores well as iced tea for later. (This recipe is for dried ingredients, but you can always use fresh fruit, herbs, and flowers as well—just double the recipe so the flavor stays at full strength!)

TEA RITUAL

Now that you have your tea brewing, settle down with your journal or your friend, stir some sweetness into your cup, and ask: