After living
in the wine country of northern California for a while, I grew tired of
whining. I wanted to segue from sour grapes to sweet, luscious blackberries.
This is how blackberry love begins …
A friend and I were taking a walk
near her rural home at sunset when she exclaimed, "I've got to stop and
pick some of these delicious blackberries!" Yet until she said that, I
hadn't noticed the blackberry bushes all around us.
I was amazed. Here I was,
surrounded by a potential source of nourishment, readily available, delectable
and free, and I hadn't even seen the bushes dripping with ripe blackberries
until my friend pointed out what was right in front of me. It reminded me of
the quote from The Little Prince, by
Antoine de Saint Exupery: "It is only with the heart that one can see
rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
I wondered how many times potential
partners or friends might be right there in front of us, yet invisible, until
someone points them out to us. "Oh, here's a blackberry, and it's
ripe." Iridologist and holistic health pioneer Bernard Jensen called
blackberries "one of nature's most perfect foods for healing". And
when we truly heal, we do so on every level of our being.
So I began to pick blackberries,
and to walk the path of wise relationship.
Gift #1: Zen and the Art of Blackberry Picking. Look for the berries that are ripe to be plucked
right now. In this instance, the mantra might be, "learn to discern."
If we choose berries that are overripe, they're going to squish in our fingers
and we'll have juice all over the place. If we choose a berry that's too red,
we'll have to tug to get it off the vine, and it's going to be bitter. An old
commercial playfully vowed, "We will sell no wine before its time!"
Forcing a berry to be yours as it's clinging tenaciously to the vine will
result in whining. The perfect berry comes to you with a very slight pluck;
tugging isn't necessary.
Gift #2: A Grasp That Equals Your Reach. Robert Browning wrote, "Ah, but a man's
reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?" That’s poetic, but
if we live this way in terms of relationship, we'll be forever hungry, grasping
for berries that are always just slightly out of reach, or not quite ripe.
After picking berries for several days, I developed a certain dexterity. I
became adept at angling my arm in between the thorns to find just the berries that
were ready right then, even if they were slightly above my head or a bit of a
stretch from where I was standing. Sometimes the choicest morsels are a slight
stretch outside our comfort zone. I began to get the sense of how to connect
with them, and it became this wonderful dance: "Oh, hello berry
bushes!" There was a grace, an ease, to my berry picking, and it was fun!
Relationships can actually be fun.
Gift #3: Visual Acuity.
My resonance, my homing signal, for "ripe blackberries" grew keener
by day. Like anything else, you get better with practice. I learned to scan
ahead as I walked down a row of bushes. On the way out, I'd pick the ones that
appeared ripe. On the way back, I'd notice ripe blackberries that I'd missed
the first time. I was enlarging my visual field, engaging my peripheral vision:
"Ah, there's someone Spirit has placed in my path whom I didn't notice
before, that I ought to consider." By looking again, we raise our sights
to the highest possibility.
Gift #4: Choose Ye This Day Which Berry You Would Serve. My friend’s two dogs trotted along beside me,
happily devouring any berries I tossed their way, ripe or not. There will
always be people who are so hungry that any blackberry is better than none.
They're willing to take the bitterness just to have the taste. However, unripe
fruit will only give you heartburn. Nourishing berries feed your soul as well
as your stomach. Once I started tasting the sweetest, most perfectly ripe
blackberries that were ready for me, I couldn't return to a less discerning
method of selection. There was just no comparison with a berry that was right
for me, right now.
In this same light, it's most
important to know what kind of berry you
are. Are you so ripe that anyone who comes within range is going to get drenched
in berry juice? Or are you clinging to the vine so steadfastly that if somebody wants to pick you, they're going
to have to tug, and you're still not going to come loose? Are you hiding on a
branch that's so low to the ground, or so high up, that no one can see you in
your ripeness because you're invisible to the eye? Or are you ripe, sweet,
available, and ready to be chosen?
I encourage you to know your
ripeness level right now, because that's going to shift over time. Then, you
can forage for the blackberries who are ripe to meet with you at this time, and
enjoy the beauty, the elegance, the joy of the quest. When you find the berry
who is right for you, there's going to be a fruitful recognition. And you can
savor the sweetness of this remembering for a long, delicious time.
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2001-2016 Amara Rose. All rights reserved.
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