The Apricot Tree

"I found you under the apricot tree,
and woke you up to love"

- Song of Songs

In summer, it is lush with green leaves and an abundance of fruit. But as the days grow shorter, and the months grow colder, it appears to be dying. The lush green leaves turn yellow, and drop to the ground. Any fruit that has not been picked lies rotting on the ground. Any passer by may consider the tree to be ugly, a picture of desolation.

The absence of life in nature does not illicit joy in the human soul. But we can all understand how refreshing it is to lay our eyes on green fields and carpets of flowers on the countryside.

But the barren apricot tree by the old broken down fence does not always inspire such sentiment. If only we could see beyond the surface of things! We all know that the apricot tree is not dead just because there appears to be an absence of life in its branches. Its roots lie in the cold, dark earth, doing mysterious, unseen, silent work.

Modern science can explain it rationally, yes, but is it any wonder earlier, less enlightened generations considered the mystery of such things? The hunger for enlightenment as a means of completion in the modern mind has destroyed the capacity for mystery.

The soul is the roots of a person doing unseen, silent work beneath the perception of the naked eye or the rational mind. Of course, the soul does not do its own work, but is fed by the nutrients in the dark earth.

Plants require darkness to produce growth - hiddenness. When they are exposed, away from the snug damp beneath the earth, they are starved. And then, they truly die.

Autumn 2006

I was reminded of the changing seasons again this afternoon, while I was peering out the flyscreen door watching four or five small, mottled brown birds pecking at the grass.

They were moving along the lawn in a little band. Foraging for goodness knows what... Seeds, worms or bugs.

A small bird with a faintly green breast dived out of a tree and somersaulted mid air, catching an insect, then alighted on the stunted lemon tree.

Balls of erratic insects hovered in the air above the grass and driveway, illuminated by the slowly diving afternoon sun.

The first leaves have fallen from the Apricot tree by the fence. The acidic yellowing of their plump green leaves foretell the coming of winter. The seasons change. This is my second autumn in the hermatige. Leaves fall and rot and soak the earth with nutrients. Then bud and flower the following spring. Growing again. Each seasons death, and each seasons dawn, I am asking the same questions...

How/will I be fruitful?

What is wrong with me?

Will I ever be fruitful in the way I dreamed I would?

Is Gods all conquering love a reality in my life?

A few faint threads of a spiders web are discernable. Illuminated by the gold sun that slowly drowns in the calm ocean of sky.

the left side of my face is tender to the touch. It can be hard to believe that a deep, all conquering love surrounds you, and lives in the deepest recesses of your heart, when everything in your life looks to the naked eye to be so loveless.

Asking the Birds For Forgiveness

"Every day and every hour, every minute, examine yourself and watch over your self to make sure your appearance is seemly. You pass by a little child, you pass by spitefully, with foul language and a wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your face, ugly and profane, will perhaps remain in his defensless heart. You may not know it, but you have perhaps sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you did not foster in yourself a disceet, active love.

Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to aquire it, for it is aquired with difficulty, it is dearly bought, one must spend a great deal of labour and time on it, for we must love not only for a moment and fortuitously, but forever. Anyone can love by accident, even the wicked can do that. My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds; it may seem absurd, but it is right none the less, for everything, like the ocean flows, flows and comes into contact with everything else: it may be madness to beg forgiveness of the birds, but, then, it would be easier for the birds, and the child, and the animal if you were yourself more pleasant than you are now. Just a little easier anyhow."

- Fyodor Dostoyevski
The Brothers Karamazov

Autumn 2005

The day is waning now. Dusk settles. The cement outside my door is cold underfoot. The grass is cold and expectant of frost. Birds no longer fossick in the grass, stalking the dry, warm earth.

Now they sit in the high, fragile branches of trees. They contemplate the setting sun. The branches are lit by the gold fingers of the sun. A flame with days end.

Four birds, small enough to cup in your palm alight, one after the other in the top branches of the tree outside my door. They all look west, towards the setting sun. What do they see? They are as small as sparrows, but their beaks are a little longer, their bodies less plump. One of them lets out a shrill little exclamation. Others preen and look about.