"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.
