Whilst it may not seem that way,i do take some quiet pleasure in our garden.As well as its reality,it has several imaginary parallels inside my head.It is untidy and unruly at present,though that is not criticism intended especially as i do so little to tend it.Behind its overgrown untidiness,i like to think of it as a cottage garden,although the house it backs is simply a suburban house in one of the more prosperous neighbourhoods of this borough,not i think noted for the landfalls of the bourgeoisie.
One of the special places in our garden,is the plum tree.It is gnarled and twisted,not in the best of locations and not even particularly well looked after.It is pecial to me for several reasons.
Without meaning to be too mystical or otherworldly about it,it is for me a place of God.This may mean nothing to atheists or agnostics-i would not know,but i admit i still have a "foot"or something,in the spiritual and follow a spiritual path.As usual with me,it is an "odd" path.I say that simply because i can't help but see and experience myself as in some way at odds with,a misfit in the world.I often feel alien,alienated and like i'm essentially in the wrong place at probably the wrong time,and that i don't altogether belong here.
Anyone reading this might put that down to what i am about to say next,but i believe that it is deeper and reaches back further.I think i have carried a lot of these feelings most,if not all of my life.
When we moved here,some 22 years ago probably,the tree was in full fruit and it felt like a welcome to the house.It fruited richly without our bidding or participation.Large,sweet healthy food,produced by nature,almost without anyone's assistance.Yet it was 12 years later that it took on an even greater significance for me.It produced a rich harvest in the summer of 2002 as i was sent away from work,sick with my first episode of clinical depression,which was a frightening and further alienating experience as for a time i became increasingly disconnected from"the world",if not reality,and everything seemed like ash grey dust,seen through the strange brown red tints of a continuous dusk,that the song"At Night"by Shakedown highlights for me,and helped crystallise as an image,which gave me the insight.
So it must actually have been during the ensuing late winter or early spring that the tree took on anew significance>with no fruit,and only perhaps a few leaves,it showed itself more starkly.For some reason i would over a few days stand by it,probably briefly but for what felt like quite long periods.....
I do not and have never had aural hallucinations-i do not hear voices.If i hear anything it i the sounds of my own body or imagination,and i have always known that.On this occasion,a voice inside my head said quietly to me"i give you your life back".I am clear with myself that this was(is)the product of my own imagination,but that it was not,at the same time my own voice.At the same time i had a sensation of intense light under the tree,and an equally intense impression that i should not look up.This was not our of fear,though it may have been in awe or something similar,somehow knowing that to look on the face of God would take me somewhere else.Having with some sense of relief been given my life back,i was not about to give it up again quite yet.
I got better eventually,although getting better did not in any way it seems to me follow on directly from these moments,but i did get better,and it was as if it were part of the message as the result of my own efforts.This is not ingratitude,or a rejection of God but if you like a living out of the idea that"God helps those who help themselves",which it seems is an element that far too many believers leave out of the account or their story.If creation means anything,we are indeed co-creationists with that God.
I do something to tend the tree every year although probably not enough.I go to it frequently.It does not need to be transformed aesthetically or any other way.It seems to me it reflects what it is,something useful and productive in a little bit of the mess of the world,tucked into a space between fence and a room and a shed and at the edge where the earth/dirt meets concrete.it clings on,like much of life does,asserting itself until it does not assert itself.
And it is still the place of God for me.Nor some idyllic location but its just well here.or there.
Every July,like its never happened before it fruits.I always expect it at the wrong time and it always catches me out,like the God of surprises or a trickster God.The season is very short.From the faint turn from green to red,to fat rotting and fermenting fruit is probably just two weeks.Sometimes the fruit overflows and i can't keep up,sometimes sit is less so,but partly because it is all special to me,i always try to share the harvest.I am nothing special but somehow i have always believed in sharing what i can and i feel particularly obliged to do so,in celebration of two things-that the fruit is freely there for me,and in honour,if not exchange for having my life back.
So it is July now.The harvest will come this month sometime.When i was employed i often took bags of fruit to work with me to give away.Sometimes some came back to me again in fruits and pies.The last couple of years I have shared the crop with neighbours.This year i hope to share it with friends and and comrades and campaigners.whatever,it feels like it is important to pass the blessing and the spirit on.
So let me know,if you are in the neighbourhood and would like some,though as i write the fruit is still small and green so it won't be quite yet.Welcome.
d2/08072013
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