Early autumn in therapeutic work: the search for the children in the apple tree

"When the last of earth left to discover/ Is that which was the beginning;/ At the source of the longest river/ The voice of the hidden waterfall/ And the children in the apple-tree..."

September, again. It has arrived in Oxford in a fit of biblical deluges and blustery gales. The last traces of summer and its heatwaves have been swept away, readying the city for the onslaught of the next academic year. School children wear shoes not yet scuffed, students haul boxes from pavements into new homes. As for the adults? We just keep moving, whatever the season, heads boughed to the wind and faces upturned to the sun, whenever it might shine again.

Oxford is a strange place; a city of walls as much as anything, demarcating colleges and university owned buildings, siphoning vast swathes of land for those with the privilege to cross the threshold. Should you not be associated with the university, it’s as much a place defined by where you can’t go than where you can. Yet hidden wealth comes in many forms and, this year, summer has left us a parting gift: a particularly abundant harvest of apples. Though the fruit trees spilling from private gardens onto public pavements won’t solve the wealth inequality of this city, they offer a small form of sustenance in their own way, free to all.

August was a fallow month, in which I took a break from my client work. All summer, I’ve watched the apple tree in the garden grow heavy with fruit. Now, there’s the distinct vinegary scent of cider brewing on the breeze, as those not collected lie fermenting in the sodden earth. It’s got me thinking of T.S.Eliot’s The Little Gidding, the last of the Four Quartets:

“Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.”

September is often its own gateway to childhood, what with its memories of going back to school. It’s a time that might evoke different emotions: excitement, joy, anxiety, fear. It can often feel a bit frenetic and frenzied, as though we have to hit the ground running as we launch into another year. Getting caught up in this way risks overlooking the gateway altogether, as we dash on past in attempts to keep up with others.

To cross the threshold of the consulting room in September is its own opening of the gate, ready to look at old earth with eyes anew. Sessions with existing clients feature the emotional souvenirs of August, of all that has passed since we last met. During the break in our work, my clients have been out in the field, so to speak, testing some of the fruits of our labour that we’ve thus far tended together. Be it travelling to geographically far flung places, or new emotional spaces within their relationships with others, they’ve each had their own adventures of sorts.

Each client meets me with a proverbial apple basket all of their own, a fresh harvest of the summer fruits of independent insight. Time away has fostered growth of the work we have done together throughout the preceding year, putting into practice what it means to continue emotional exploration alone. New clients might be opening the gate for the first time, ready to embark on an education in the self with the same trepidation that the first day of school once held.

Some baskets are spilling over with freshly picked, sweet and shiny fruits. Some of the apples, though, are yellowed and bear tender bruises of where they fell. A few are beginning to wither, and one or two even come with small worms. Some, late bloomers, are still on the trees out in the field; they’ll fall into place when they’re ready. However these iterations of self knowledge arrive, they’re all welcome, ready in equal measure to get our teeth into or return to the compost, where they’ll eventually grow into other ideas and emotions.

In these sessions, in the stillness between the waves of life, we might hear small voices emerge for the first time; the ‘...children in the apple-tree/ Not known…’. It might not be the first time we’ve looked for them, but it may be the first time we have truly seen them. Below the tree, there is always new earth to discover as we trace the roots of the self; the end of summer, the end of all our exploring, as Eliot wrote, is of course to arrive at where we started, and perhaps come to know the place for the first time.

It also raises a variation on the old philosophical question: if a child psychologically falls from the apple tree of innocence, and nobody hears it, did it ever really happen at all? Of course it did. In the later years of adulthood, therapists bear witness to the myriad of injuries sustained, from the emotional equivalents of scraped knees, cuts and bruises, to the more lasting impact of an unnoticed concussion, to broken bones of the psyche never set to heal properly. We hold the uneasiness and devastation that might grow from knowing things that only adults should know.

At this time of year when the work presents us with the old anew, and thus the opportunity for new found depth in the work, the idea of the harvest can be a helpful frame to work with. To harvest is to gather, to take stock of what we already have in the work, what we might be running low on, and what might be missing. It’s a time of coming back down to earth, of grounding the self and assessing what might be needed to get through the winter.

Next week brings the Autumn Equinox, marking the point at which the Sun will illuminate the Northern and Southern Hemispheres equally, signalling the tilt towards the winter months. Wherever we look right now, be it to the sky or the social and political landscape we live in, it’s hard not to feel the impending inevitability that darker days are coming, that the waves of the sea are higher than ever.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at the turn of the season and the onset of darkness, thinking about how environmental, social, and political shifts interact with mental health. In light of the Equinox, I’ll be looking next at the impact of the shifting hours of light and darkness, and what this might mean emotionally. Beyond that, I’ll be thinking about Autumn as a time of transition and separation, working with the mythology of mother daughter relationships through the story of Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, and Persephone, Queen of the Underworld and Goddess of Spring. Later in the season, we’ll take a look at the Autumn Budget, thinking about ideas of financial health in terms of the political, but also the personal, and what we might forecast in terms of mental health outcomes.

So often, darkness might feel frightening: a place holding the unknown, waiting to be filled with monsters of the mind. Yet darkness is its own gateway, for it is the soil in which we grow. It offers an opportunity to bed in and dream creations of the past and future, as we think about mythology, human biology and political ecology. It’s a place of exploration, of all that has yet to be imagined.

For now, in the dreary light of a mid-September morning, I’ll leave you with some food for thought to see the month out: which of the apples in your life might be looking for some safe earth to fall on? Which may already have landed, and come bearing bumps and bruises? Are some already beginning to wither, show signs of rot, perhaps be in need of discarding? Who might be hungry, with nothing to eat at all? As for any worms you might find, I offer a gentle reminder: they’re an essential part of the process, but best left to the earth.