'The Orchard'

The sacred orchard is older than agriculture. In Persian mythology, the bagh — the enclosed garden of fruit trees — was paradise itself, the word that became our word for paradise. In Celtic tradition, Avalon — the isle of apples — was where the dying king was taken to be healed and returned. The Norse goddess Iðunn tended the orchard of immortality, and the gods aged when her apples were taken. The apple has been the sacred fruit in more traditions than any other: knowledge, immortality, love, temptation, healing, and the particular kind of sweetness that changes everything.

Every spring, the same party. The invitation arrives by the same means it always has: a slightly warmer breeze, a longer afternoon, a patch of sunlight lingering where it didn’t yesterday. The plum girls arrive first — impatient, extravagant. The apricots cautious. The apple last, and most. The orchard keeps the same calendar it has always kept. The trees do not need to be told when to begin.

This is what it means to be oriented by something older than the self. The tree does not consult the forecast. It knows.

This is for the woman who shows up at the same celebration every year and never, not once, takes it for granted.