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Today is a day devoted to produce — apparently! I read something about apples this morning that really resonated with me, and I heard something about tomatoes that did the same.. 😀

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I’ve been listening to Plato’s latest session with his rehab class this morning. He talked a bit about raising children and how our job as parents is to act like a trellis to support them as they spread their vines and grow. He compared parenting to growing tomatoes where the vines wind all over the place. He said:

Tomato plants are very imperfect in terms of the form of them. The perfection of a tomato plant is not in its form, it’s in its fruit that it produces. And we focus on the form so much we miss the point of the fruit.

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I love the idea that we get so caught up in the superficial, shallow parts of ourselves and others — be they kids OR adults to my way of thinking — that we miss what they’re really all about. How they think, what they feel, what they hope for…

I had also read a paragraph from Joseph Goldstein’s Insight Meditation that kind of captured that thought.

A friend’s son was in the first grade of school, and his teacher asked the class, “What is the color of apples?” Most of the children answered red. A few said green. Kevin, my friend’s son, raised his hand and said white. The teacher tried to explain that apple’s could be red, green, or sometimes golden, but never white. Kevin was quite insistent and finally said, “Look inside.” Perception without mindfulness keeps us on the surface of things, and we often miss other levels of reality.

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Both of these quotes ring so true to me. The last two years as I’ve been “digging around” in my thoughts and memories I’ve learned to be patient enough with myself to look below the surface of me to see what’s going on beneath. I’ve also learned to follow the paths of my life — no matter how twisted and knotted they may have become — to see where they lead and what I can learn from them. And I sincerely hope I’ve learned to do the same thing for the people in my life. That would include ALL OF YOU!

You guys are the tomatoes and apples in my heart’s basket. There are so many of you on here I’ve gotten to know well. Christina (The Rolling Writer), Fimnora (Quantum Hermit), Plato (Plato’s Groove), Linda (Spiritual Dragonfly), Raili (soulgifts — Telling Tales), Jane (Making it write), Opher (Opher’s World), Colleen (Freeing My Muse) Badfish (Badfish Out of Water), S.T. (Writing With Some Ink and a Hammer), Safar (Blisters, Bunions & Blarney), Anna (Anna Cottage), Clare (Clare’s Cosmos), and oh so many more… I consider you all my family (as well as my fruit!)

And I’d just like to thank you for being here for me for two whole years while I worked at my “dig site” learning about how to really SEE myself and others (and weirding out from time to time!.😀 ). The whole lot of you truly are a gift I give to myself every single day… I love all you crazy apples and tomatoes! (There’s a pear, an orange, and a few grapes in that basket, too..😉 )

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Picture Credits: 
cupcake — tumbir: Oddly Together
apples & tomatoes — PBase.com