The Master of the Fruit

I see these visions in dribs and drabs…sacred testaments to a man once kept chained in some unholy place.

Indeed I have felt the lash of life bear down upon my heart, and I’ve survived the sting of a million lessons roughly hewn upon my mind. I’ve heard the ridicule of a thousand angels singing songs from their hellish spaces, and I’ve seen the fires pour from those pearly gates created by those who have called my name in the sweetest song.  I have walked in the heavens and hells of my own design, never truly understanding my own power, a power I freely ceded to those whose words I read and whose ideas I saw as more important than my own.

To those who believe that the strongest marble or thickest block of granite do not feel the sting of the hammer or the chisel, let me assure you that every great work of art suffers some in the unmasking. It is in the relentless toil within the pain that we uncover that which exists. It is in answering the voices in our heads that we write the sweetest song.

My siren, my sweet siren, I’ve heard you in the mangled tone of my own forgotten promise! You’ve dashed me upon the stones of my surly sea, and hurled me upon lone islands where I’ve had no choice but to strip bare and languish in that great despair. Still, I have cast a line to the Great Sea, and reaped the reward of sustenance until I learned to paddle on my own, to beat the breaking waves confining me to the sand, to bask alone and with great promise upon the languid Sea.

I see you in so many things, in so many ways. In the delirium of a great thirst I’ve seen you hold a chalice made of stone. In the pain of great hunger I’ve heard you comfort me in song.  There is no one good way to find you, my love.  I’ve sought you in the my reddened skin left blistered by the Sun, in the cracked lips that bleed as I feign a smile at nothing in particular.

I have found you in the smiles and in the tears, in the suffering and in the truth of great joy. I’ve known you in the empty spaces, and held you in arms left empty by the root of my existence.  I have learned so much in the tools I have been given; from the ax I’ve used to chop down the tree on which I’ve been bound, to the saw I used to cut the shackles of the chain, to the key I used to unlock the bindings that tied me to a paradigm I’ve long since cast away. Like a kite I flew, pretending to be free, yet always tied to a thing that kept me safely rooted to ground not of my own choosing.

I challenge you, my Great Love, not in because of who you are, but because of who I am. I do not dare pretend that you can grasp that which cannot be held, or see that which lies beyond your vision. I do not dare fantasize about your arrival, since there seems no place for you to go. I do not have a single moment’s wish to be you, or them, because to be me is to love the world. You need me, much like a barren tree needs a single fruit, much like a dried riverbed needs a single drop of rain.

You may find your anger in the lack of blossoms or in the lack of rain you thought was coming, but I assure you that you will find abundance in the absence of your own expectations. Do not overlook that sweetest drop of rain, or that fruit that hangs in desolation on your heart, for they spawn a seed on barren ground, a promise upon that cracked and lonely landscape.

Do not focus on the dropped petals on the ground, but the fruit they’ve birthed. Do not focus on the dryness of the soil, but the promise of a single drop of rain. Till your soil there, and plant the seeds that heaven bore in the gift that heaven-sent, and know your power as the Tiller of the Soil, as the Planter of the Seed, and as the Master of the Fruit.

It is not the eating of the apple that gives you pain, but your reaction to what it’s shown you. It is not the taste that drives you mad, but its absence. It is not the shame you find resting in some other’s eyes, but the vision you have of what they want to see. Rise up above the surface, break ground with who you are, and know the power of the Great Creator who feels nothing but joy in every struggle.

That is your destiny if so you choose. Or you can die with only knowing the limitations of your potential and the walls you have built around your possibilities.  Coffins, it seems, surround us long before we find ourselves in such sweet repose.

Sing to me, my Great Love! Tear down those walls of encumbrance, and be wicked with those limitations I have set before me. Splinter the wood and bend the steel on which I’ve bound my flesh, and let my soul rise high above the barren fields I have toiled. Let me not see any height as too lofty, any summit as to difficult to climb, or any soil to rocky on which to plant my seed.

Let me, and not the winds I feel swirling around me, nor the rains I pray fall upon my furrowed rows, nor the Sun I pray shine upon my hopeful destiny, be the Master of the Fruit I sow.

It is in You that I see everything, and in everything that I see You. Onward we go to create the footprints we were meant to bear in every song, in the sweetness of the nectar we were meant to taste in every kiss. Such love will forever be etched in the monument of time, for eternity it shall stand.