The Eternal Now ... or pie?
A poem about mysticism, and a feral apple orchard.
When I read the titles of books written by mystics, or the first lines of their prayers, I think that I want what they have. The longer I listen to them talk, though, the more I think I’d rather have some apples.
"Whenever I hear the mystics talk" Whenever I hear the mystics talk about appearance and detachment and illusion, I want to walk out back into the apple orchard, rest my weight against one tree’s trunk and low-angled boughs, and feel its bark scrape close along my skin. Whenever I hear the mystics talk about the via negativa and silencing the senses, I want to go and stand in the apple orchard under a dapple of turning leaves, to hum in harmony with drunken bees that gorge on autumn’s sun-fermented windfalls splattered wanton and brown among the weeds. Whenever I hear the mystics talk about dissolving the self into the All, the One, I want to fill a basket with apples from the orchard, sun-warm, picked one by one from low-angled boughs, carry them home to peel and slice before they cool, enfold them in spice and soft pastry and heat them again, then go to the mystics where they talk in this mortal moment, in the Eternal Now, and invoke their reverent silence with a slice each of blessing, of apple, orchard, earth, sun, spice, and for an added consolation spoonfuls of ice cream melting on the top.
I grew up in a small town that was formed through a series of enthusiasms, some sustainable and some not. At one point in its history a lot of people planted orchards, and some of the orchards were passed along and maintained; others, as that enthusiasm waned, got … left. Over time the abandoned orchards were moved in on and surrounded by housing — which is how it came to pass that the house I grew up in was built on a lot that backed up into a half-acre or so of gnarled, unpruned apple trees, surrounded waist-deep by weeds and blackberry vines, accessible only by narrow deer trails and bearing fruit (pretty good fruit!) the size of a nine-year-old’s fist.
The kid I was, hanging out in the orchard after school or all day in the summer, didn’t think much about God and not at all about mysticism. I was too taken up with mud and apple blossoms and the rough brush-by of wild grasses, with the dexterity needed to steer a bicycle down a track scarcely wider than its tire, or with scouting the least stickery route through a stand of blackberries. Life in the orchard was a sensory immersion in the here-and-now of Creation; as my senses and my heart opened to that immersion, I found an unnamed awareness of the Creator slipping in along with the smells and colors and textures.
And that, for better or for worse, is the way I experience God: not through the Prayer of Quiet or silencing the mind and the senses, but by living as far into my senses as I can, paying attention to the suchness of God’s glorious imperfect mortal creation and using my glorious imperfect mortal body as a starting point. Deep bows to the mystics, the paths they walk and the truths they know; turns out, I have a different path. It leads into the apple orchard.
Sometimes another's words manage to fulfill many desires all at once. Here, though I already felt connection, I am reassured that our conversations with god or goddess would sound very much the same. That makes me smile. Here, I am also reminded of the girl who ate apples endlessly from the gnarled tree in the yard of the tiny lakeside cottage her parents owned when she was a kid, and it is a sweet, sweet memory. I'm sure there will be old orchards in whatever comes next for us. Thanks for this!
This is so beautiful. I started reading it when I was about to make lunch and I have sat down (very hungry) to read it through and then re-read and re-read. We have two apple trees in the garden and last year I collected apples from both of them (and two neighbours who were giving away apples, and a woodland) and made cyser and vinegar. I don't drink that much so I have reserved one bottle of cyser to give an offering to the apple tree/god/gods/goddesses every night. I just pour a little on her roots and say thank you, around Wassailing time I also sing to her but it is very out of tune and doesn't feel like much of an offering.