A fruitful rest? Somehow this tips on its head all our culture tries to tell us. That we earn fruitfulness, that it only comes through striving. And rest is a means to an end. But what if we’ve misunderstood the very nature of life? THE FECUND FALLOW And what if all this waiting;this trembling body … Read more
If we pick every flower, what is left for passers-by to savour? And if harvesting fields, orchards, vineyards, and woods takes everything, what about the next generation of growth? Where will it come from? Our cycles for judging fruitfulness and success have become catastrophically short-term, and the consequences are all around. We think we have … Read more
How do you pick your plums, apples, or any fruit you eat? You likely take them off the supermarket shelf, ready selected and potentially wrapped. And because most of our fruit is grown in highly engineered monoculture, picking will be a uniform, mechanically assisted process. But at what cost? There’s an obvious cost to the … Read more
These are delicious Victoria plums from my home county of Kent, the ‘Garden of England’. Their fragrant smell and juicy, sweet taste remind me of the fruit farm where I grew up. They are extraordinarily evocative. For the last few weeks, we’ve been able to buy tree-ripened plums. Yet these last few are verging on … Read more
Walking down the lane, I picked up these gorgeous plump acorns. This year they have been particularly large, and the blackberries are following their lead. Yet what makes them so big? It’s not their individual capacity for growth because fruitfulness is not a solitary action. An acorn cannot determine its own size. Instead, it’s the … Read more
None of us can produce good fruit on our own. Even when we’ve let go of the identities and ideas, the things and the memories that have previously defined us, we are still not alone. Every creative idea, each insight, whatever is healthy and lovely, is the product of some form of germination. And has … Read more
We’ve been schooled to pay attention to what we can see. And our metrics for success tend to be observable. Yet the reality is it’s what’s below the surface that counts. What is formed and shaped in the hidden places bears lasting fruit. Stay with it.
What do our words create? Life or death – the words we use shape us and infect those around us. Clarity or confusion – reality is created through what we say because it filters what we see. Possibility or problem – doors open or close through the language we use and the tone of our … Read more
I spied this gorgeously coloured leaf while walking up the green path in the late afternoon. Lying on a damp mat of mushed leaves, this one shone like a gilded emerald and took my breath away. It was the only one, and I wanted you to see it too. Because you are as distinctive as … Read more
Talk to the farmers, foragers and growers – they all have their versions of where to find the best fruit. And it’s usually far from the roadside, the place where everyone walks by. It has to be sought for, often in hidden places yet it’s worth it. So what about us, where’s our best fruit? … Read more