A time to gather, layer and harvest.

on how September feels.

Hello, I am so glad you have found your way here… I’m Lyndsay — mother, creative and storyteller with a background in interiors PR.

Step inside Story & Thread., a cosy, layered home where the threads of creativity, interiors and mothering meet. Here, we unearth the stories from the seasons of our lives, with a house & a garden at the heart, and everyday beauty as our guide…

Writing with flowers.

“Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now

how comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of the air and the endless

freshets of wind?”

—Mary Oliver.

Dearest reader

How are you feeling as we approach the autumn equinox here in the northern hemisphere (or of course, the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere)?

It is a pivotal time when the balance of light changes — where here in the UK, we tip into more hours of darkness than light, heralding our entry into the colder, darker (but cosier) half of the year.

This time, I am noticing that autumn feels not only like a season of transition and movement, but also a continuation of all that has come before — it is time to gather, harvest and integrate, it signals the completion of one cycle and the beginning of another…

For me, that has meant the introduction of The Beauty Thread., a new membership as part of Story & Thread. Featuring a seasonal series of offerings, The Beauty Thread. is an invitation to notice, hold and create beauty in our own worlds, woven together by the ever-changing seasons, both around us and within us.

It is steered by my closely-held belief that by taking time to pay attention and observe, we can place reverence on the stuff of the everyday that is subtly embedded into our lives, adding a textured, tactile layer of meaning that nourishes us from the inside out.

You can find out more about what is included as part of The Beauty Thread., here.

The schooling of September.

September, as it unfolds, feels like an initiation and a deep immersion. Since the beginning of the month, there have been sweeping changes, and some challenges, that have melded our days differently and ushered in a new way of being. As summer drew to a close and the faint outline of school emerged on the horizon, I don’t think I realised quite how much I was holding the anticipation of being on the cusp of something, something that seemed in many ways, unimaginable.

Nevertheless, we walked through the school gates nearly two weeks ago, thankfully finding a place of adventure, play and growth on the other side. It is a tender and heart-swelling, magical and tiring time — as I traipse back through the woods after drop off, I feel both empty and full. Watching my little girl — a sensitive soul who didn’t leave my body willingly for much of her first year — find her feet in shiny school shoes and walk through the wooden gate to the reception classroom each morning (so far…!), feels beyond belief in some ways and perfectly natural in others (after months and months of ‘playing school’…!).

It certainly marks the introduction in a new chapter of mothering — one in which after orbiting around and existing alongside her day and night for so long, she makes her own way through an uncharted land of new experiences and self-discovery — whilst I am of course, there to wrap her exhausted, ravenous body and inspired, animated mind into my arms when the day is done.

Alongside the shifts that have come with the start of school, and coinciding with the final day of my daughter’s ‘settling in’ week, my son required me to envelop him when he became unwell at the end of last week — to protect, observe, listen, tend, and mostly to hold him, whilst medication was administered through masks, needles and tubes piercing his soft skin and making its way into his tiny, ‘squiggly’¹ veins. Fortunately, after a night on the ward, his recovery was almost as swift as his decline.

Somehow amongst these early autumn winds of change, uprooting us from our previous slow summer existence, I have not felt stirred up by the whirlwind of overwhelm — rather I have been plunged into the experience, this September shift does not feel separate from me, but part of me, anchored in my body, and in the earth.

September fullness.

These September days feel very much like living in the realms of both late summer and early autumn simultaneously — there is a burgeoning at the edges, just like in my wardrobe that contains both the linen and cotton of wistful summer dresses, alongside thin layers and heavy jumpers for the cooler mornings and evenings.

The garden still feels full — soft pink Japanese anenomes dance and swirl on their long stems in the warm breeze, asters make their way up the fence interwoven with clematis tendrils, sweet peas still reach and tumble, poppies, calendula and cosmos continue to flower, weaving whimsical colour where they grow. If you look closer, there is a browning at the edges, a loosening, crumpling, and fading — but I don’t feel drawn to cut anything back quite yet, rather I want to hold onto the last shimmers of summer a little longer, celebrating them in their entirety as they reach completion, whilst seeing them in a different, lower light, as if through antiqued glass.

Cosmos magic.

The wholeness of autumn.

Autumn undoubtedly embodies movement — it is a transitional time, taking us from the expansive, golden days of summer into the cool, starkness of winter, with a whole host of beauty held in between.

And yet as well as forward motion propelling us towards the next season, I am realising that autumn is more than a shifting, mutable season — it is about integration and a continuation from the learnings of summer. It is the completion of a cycle and the beginning of a new one.

It is a time of coming into wholeness — by gathering, layering and harvesting, by bringing together all that we need for the colder, darker seasons ahead, before sifting out what is no longer required.

It is the beginning of a shift from manifesting growth outwardly, to tipping inward — from an energy that is required to grow upward towards the light, to turning the volume down and releasing effort, in order to move towards a quieter, unseen growth and expansion below ground level.

Earth-bound in early autumn.

This time, rather than my attention being on the scattering and fluttering of leaves from early autumn trees, I sense each leaf being received by the cushioning of the earth. The shedding of leaves from the trees doesn’t feel like a loss, but rather a fulfilling conclusion — a necessary, intentional shift towards the focus on root extension and nutrient gathering underground, laying foundations for growth when the light returns.

Star-like asters, September’s birth flower.

This year, rather than mourning the fading and falling of tired petals, I see the dappled patina emerge that feels more unassumingly beautiful than their previous iteration. I witness the seed heads become heavy and dry, until they are shaken and scattered by the wind, some destined to find their way into the soil where they will rest until the perfect conditions align. Where plants that have flourished over the summer begin to wither, I am not seeing the beginnings of emptiness, but instead pockets of opportunity for tucking seeds and bulbs into the darkness of the earth in the coming weeks and months.

Finding completeness.

So I’m welcoming it all — the holding of more than one thing — my two favourite, overlapping seasons of late summer and early autumn, alongside the delicate tenderness of holding my children close and watching them fly.

I am not being drawn out into the turbulent overwhelm of feeling ‘behind’ whilst I am deeply embedded in life — I look to the trees and see that they are in no rush to shed their leaves, that the time will come. Instead, I am gathering all of life in towards me, as if to be woven into a web spun in silk — soft and strong, intricate and complete.

I am surfacing in September to see the beauty of this mist-laden, bronze-tinged time, by noticing the star-like asters in the garden; the jewelled dahlias in the hazy flower fields; and the promise of a beautiful new notebook that landed on my desk as a birthday gift, heralding a time to dream anew. I am searching the sky for the lingering glow of the harvest moon — listening as it whispers that it is time to gather, to collect, to layer, to harvest, and to find myself embedded in the fullness of life.

How do the September shifts feel to you?

Thank you so much for reading — I would love to chat more in the comments about how your September is going, or of course feel free to send me an email with your thoughts, I always love to hear from you.

1. The word used by one doctor to describe my son’s veins when trying to locate a viable entry point.