In The Beginning...

     There's an ancient apple tree outside my window. Gnarled and scarred, she sits, an elegant sentinel in my yard. Now, in the depths of winter, she is stripped of her leafy cover, so stands nearly naked, all her age-spots and wrinkles on full display. It doesn't seem to bother her. She doesn't even seem to be bothered by the fact that scores of bruised and battered apples still dangle from her upper branches. Days ago, snow lay balanced in narrow piles on even her smallest twigs. Today, her gray silhouette stands only slightly darker than the gray sky; rain pelts her outstretched branches and slides down her trunk, soaking into the already saturated earth. In this season, my apple tree shows her antiquity. She is a hag.
     "Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).
      When, eventually, spring arrives, I will know it by the millions of bright green leafbuds that appear on those ancient branches. Even before the weather has completely turned, even before the harbinger robins arrive, life will spring forth from what look like dead sticks. Within weeks, leaves and white flowers, growing and blooming in complete abandon, will engulf the wooden skeleton, turning her into a soft and plump picture of virginal youth.
     Summer will follow with the swelling of hundreds of green apples, that in turn beckon a menagerie of deer, birds, insects, and shy nocturnal creatures, gleaners all. Autumn will turn the lady brilliant yellow, the color of lemons and daisies, before she is once again denuded by the elements.
     "Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know." (John Keats). In the course of one year of seasons, the lady is born, grows in beauty, swells with creativity, and dies. Each spring she is reborn; each winter she dies. 

     Grant your blessings that my mind may be one with the dharma.
     Grant your blessings that dharma may progress along the path.
     Grant your blessings that the path may clarify confusion.
     Grant your blessings that confusion may dawn as wisdom.

     Grant your blessings that I may be like the ancient apple tree:
     She absorbs the energies of earth, air, fire, water, and space.
     She uses them to nurture and nourish herself, to grow and develop.
     Then, she transforms the infinite energies in her own unique way,
     Providing food, shelter, stability, oxygen, and beauty to others.
     She does all that gracefully and peacefully, without worry or anxiety.