Planting Orchards

I was driving the other day along a route that I often take, and I got stuck in traffic for a bit.   Unlike a lot of people, I enjoy time sitting in traffic because it provides me with time for more introspection.  And on that day, I happened to look over to the right and I saw a sign that advertised for an orchard nearby - apples, that is - and since it's fall, they were apparently offering hot cider for tasting.   Aside from the fact that I love fall, and hot cider is a delicious treat, the sign caught my eye for another reason:  the orchard. 

Orchards of any kind offer a fascinating example of legacy.    The planting of the fruit trees for the establishment of the orchard requires diligence and care.   For some types of trees, fruiting does not occur for several years, after the tree has reached a certain maturity.   While there are ways to enhance the fruiting experience, and growers likely know all about these, the reality is, no matter what methods are used, a tree isn't simply planted one day to bear fruit the next.  And multiply this times the magnitude it would take to create a working, productive orchard, and you'll realize it's quite a project! Growing and developing (and then maintaining) a fruiting orchard requires patience and diligence, of course.   But it also requires a silent understanding of time and the gift and cycles of nature.  I believe that our lives should encompass this type of silent understanding.   We have lost our knowledge; we have amnesia.  We have ascribed monetary importance to gifts left to loved ones when we depart.  But this is erroneous, and we need to reimagine how we see these gifts.     

Here in the west, death is mostly an industry.   To bury a loved one (or cremate their physical remains) you must be able to financially afford the costs associated with it.  There are programs available, of course, to aid those who are "less fortunate" as it were, but overall, there is still a cost associated with dying.  This excludes, of course, any remaining outstanding debts accrued if the departed was significantly ill for a longer period of time before their demise.    And then there are additional frivolous costs associated with the administrative burden of closing out the matters of the departed's estate.   I could go on, but you get the point, I'm sure.   So here, we are mostly concerned with the money - if you die, people want to know how much money they are going to get when you're gone, as if money is able to console them in their sorrow. So here in the US, whenever you heard the word "legacy," it's generally used to describe the amount of money the departed has left behind to their heirs.   Implying, of course, that if you haven't money to leave behind, then you have no legacy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.   A legacy, really, is a harvest that is left for someone else to reap.   It is planting an orchard whose fruit you will never see or taste. It is watching the saplings grow from small sproutings to young trees whose roots begin to reach deep into the earth.   It's knowing that somewhere in the future, fruit will hang from the limbs, and humans unknown to the planter will enjoy their rich taste long after she or he has gone.    A legacy is affecting the future, without living to see it.  It can include financial gifts, of course.  But the most important legacies may have nothing at all to do with  monetary rewards, and may instead come from small seeds of changes sewn during the often-ignored moments of life.   

I'm hoping that we can all learn to become gardeners, and that we will learn to see this life we've been gifted as an opportunity to affect change, even if we ourselves never physically see the change we're moving toward.  We must learn to think beyond the boundaries of the limitations of our biochemical lifespan, and move away from the system of immediate (but destructive) gratification we so intensely pursue.    

I hope we'll learn to think like the orchards do.