November is a tough month for me, in some ways even harder than my other Struggle Month, February. I don’t think I’m alone in this. November is when the dark descends so early that we barely have time to acknowledge that it’s afternoon. The first frosts and freezes smack into us. I have to wear gloves to manage the pitchfork for morning barn chores. The potted plants I’ve forgotten to bring in or pitch are brown and drooping on the deck. I have to plan filling the horses’ water trough around hard freezes. The mares are grouchy because the good grass is all gone. Delilah shirks her barn dog duties more and more, and is touchy about stepping onto the cold grass to pee.

There are things I like about winter, but it’s hard to remember them in November. It’s not calendar winter yet, but I’m in hoodies and scarves and have my hand warmers next to my barn clothes. I move more slowly and want to sleep more. I want fires burning whenever I’m home, even though I know that means we’re going to have to budget for more wood and I’m going to have to find the time and energy to stack it. Thanksgiving is pleasant, but not enough to pull me up from the doldrums. Yule and Christmas are still a ways away, as is the lovely month of January when I really do just snuggle in and bliss on the solitude and snowflakes for a while.

I’m still adjusting, I guess. Trying to wrap my head around how swiftly the years are flickering by, especially the bright summery parts of them. It feels as if I just barely put my heavy winter barn clothes away.

I rushed homeward the other day, having worked, then spent a little time at the library writing, my head full of must-dos and have-tos and lists. As I drove up the hill toward Sharpsburg, I suddenly pitched all the must-dos out the window and pulled abruptly into the parking area off Rt.34 by the battlefield.

I had noticed idly on the way to work that morning that the corn still stood, tall and dry and golden-brown, in the fields leading to Burnside Bridge. I had been dying to walk a corn maze all through the Halloween season but (as is bafflingly always the case) was too busy to actually do it. I love being surrounded by tall grasses, so Demetrian, as well as the spiritual and psychological gifts that come from mazes and labyrinths.

I decided that just getting lost in a big corn field was exactly what I need to do on that exact day.

I walked the Three Farms trail for about half a mile, looking into the dry rustling rows and getting excited about picking my spot to plunge in. In a vale between two hills with rows of trees to use as sight markers, I took a deep breath, said a simple prayer, and stepped into the tall cornstalks.

It’s probably harder to do when the stalks are green and growing, full of sap and Mother energy. Now they’re brittle, rattling against each other with a sound that makes you think of insects, and mad-eyed crones, and collecting firewood. I was respectful of their aged limbs, trying not to trip or carelessly snap them.

Thin patches in the rows encouraged me to move to my left, eastward, up the hill. I got lost in the simple act of finding my way forward, no destination in mind, no task at hand, not even looking around to keep the treetops in sight. I fell into a kind of rhythm, like Fremen walking to avoid calling a sandworm. Step step. Pause. Gently move a heavy stalk. Step across. Move up the row. Halt. Listen. Duck under a leaning frond. Examine an ear of corn, its inner kernels exposed and hard in the chilly air, deep gold and red and brown.

I topped the hill, but couldn’t see anything around me. Just the corn stalks, rising high over my head. The sky was a cool, uniform grey above me, a brighter circle where the sun tried to burn through. I stood motionless, listening. The birds fell silent. I could just hear my breath, and the snap of cornstalks breaking a little ways away, coming toward me. After a few moments that too stopped, and I stood in silence, in the cornfield, under the monochrome sky.

My heart was pounding hard when I moved on. I came to a small clearing, the cornstalks skimpy and stunted, a big hole disappearing into the earth in the shelter of some rocks. It looked like a groundhog hole, but next to it were a couple of piles of scat, oddly beautiful, deep purple and full of berries. They were the size of my doubled fists, surely too big for groundhogs? I snapped a photo, thanked the beings and spirits for tolerating my presence, and moved on. I could feel eyes on me from all around as I moved back into the rows.

I saw a treeline ahead and made for it. The corn rows grew thicker, forcing me to move over, back, and over again in order to go forward. Almost as if the corn field was reluctant to let me out.

It felt so odd stepping onto thin grass on the verge, the trees looming over me, next to an ancient fieldstone wall. It was like waking from a dream. This was a path used only by the farmers, far off from the National Park trails. I could see the flat fields below, to the east, near the Antietam Creek. I turned west and made my way back up the hill, the cornfield on my right. I figured I’d make my way back for a bit, then summon up my courage and plunge back into the corn.

But at the hill’s crest I saw the line of trees I’d used as my marker to make my way in. Majestic, nearly naked, they towered against the watchful sky. I couldn’t resist them. I walked under their bare branches, picking my way through broken rock and gnarled roots and animal lairs, their bony fingers clicking at me in a sharp yet hushed language, similar yet not the same as the murmur of the corn.

The treeline ran out before I was back on the Park trail, leaving a thick band of corn to navigate. But as I came down past the last trees, back in the little vale between the hills, I suddenly found myself in Other.

A dozen or more boltholes were scattered between the last tree roots and corn rows, nestled into rock and earth and root, dug into the trunks of the older trees. As it flashed through my mind how dangerous it would be to ride a horse across this ground, I heard drumming. I neared one of the holes. The drumming was coming from within. I moved toward another, and heard it there too, like an echo from a memory. But I could feel the vibration under my sneakers.

A flash of brilliant gold pulled my eye to the field to the east, the one I’d walked into at the beginning of this adventure. It looked like sunset reflecting off a windshield or a window, but it was right in the middle of a field of corn, nothing else around. I watched for a few moments, but didn’t see it again.

The drumming faded away, but the sense of watchfulness increased. I stood motionless for a few minutes, wondering what the correct thing to do could be. I was so tempted to call out, to peer into a hole, to sing a greeting, to ask for something, I didn’t even know what. A boon, or just a glimpse of whatever dwelt there in the bounds of this enchanted space. But while I can be a foolish old witch at times, I try not to be actually stupid. I know my lore. I whispered an apology for not having an offering, and may have mentioned my status as a Demetrian priestess, just in case anyone might care.

Still feeling danger all around, I walked back into the corn. In about five minutes I emerged from the field onto the path, and the ordinary world settled around me again.

Or almost. As I stared back across the stiff ranks of brown-gold corn, to the rising crowns of trees past them, I was shaken by the rare grip of ekstasis, the enthousiasmos of the Gods, in this case, of Her. Tears sliding down my face, I reached into my pocket and found a beautiful polished stone of opalite that I’d picked up at the Ren Faire a month before and forgotten. Whispering fervent thanks, I threw it as far as I could into the corn.

When I turned back to the trail, a woman was coming down the hill toward me. Her face was a study in politeness and mild worry. Clearly she’d seen me gesturing, praying, throwing the offering, the trace of tears still on my face. I smiled brightly at her and said hello, she replied in kind, and we went on our paths.

Even in dull November there are gifts.