The Apple Tree

I had bought the corn cob pipe as well as the raisin and honey flavoured tobacco just as the old man had requested.

After traveling through the picturesque Cavalho vineyards, I had eventually come to the small mountain lake that few people knew about. It was too far off the beaten track for most.
He was there waiting for me. Well not really waiting. He was just there.

Don't ask me why but as I looked at him I began to think of an apple tree. It goes on making apples whether there is someone near or not. An apple tree is a whole circle without fragments. It makes apples regardless of whether there are storms, war or the plague.
An apple tree is focused and does not care whether those sitting under its branches are happy or in deepest pain. It just goes on making apples.

He asked me if I had brought the pipe and tobacco. I nodded and gave it to him. Without any show of emotion, he charged it, lit it and took a few puffs.

My obviously burning desire to talk to him had no effect on him. There was so much that I wanted him to tell me. He did not give me an encouraging sign nor even a sympathetic glance. It was as if I wasn't there.

Finally he did speak.
"Are you aware of your intuition? Are you in touch with it?"
"No, I don't really believe in it. In the past when I've acted on my gut feel, things have gone wrong."
His eyes were not on me. They didn't grow wide in amazement nor narrow in puzzlement. E was just deep in thought. In fact, I wasn't sure that he had heard my answer.

"I sense that you're in pain. Your past is haunting you. A part of your life is in turmoil. You seem to be faced with issues that don't seem to be resolving."

I wanted to cry out "yes, yes and yes" but I somehow felt that he was not interested in my answer. I wondered whether he was in any way concerned with my problems.
There was no reaction at first. He began to look again at the pine trees and the blue water of the lake just as he had been doing before I came.

Then a strange thing happened within me. It seemed to me that I was suddenly feeling better. My worries seemed to evaporate. I wondered why I was now beginning to feel some joy again. I wondered if I had not just made a mind boggling discovery.

I was seeing a picture form in my mind. He was whole. He was a full circle. I was just a heap of fragments. Not only that, he was not going to try and piece me together. He would just be there.

The moment that I realized that I suddenly felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. I remembered hugging our apple tree on the farm long ago during times when I was a little sad. There were times when I had embraced it and wept copiously but it had just remained an apple tree. Because of that I had learned to love that tree.

I recalled that when I had tried to share my pain with my friends they had either tried to change me or had withdrawn from me.

Of course it's always comforting to have a friend to talk to. The trouble starts when they try to help but aren't able to do so. In spite of their caring, the pain always seems to stay the same. The pain just appears to go deeper and perhaps become less obvious... but it's still there. Haunting one's inner thoughts.

I looked at him curiously and could not help asking "why did I come to you?"
"Well you already know that or else you soon will...but there is something else first."
"What?"
"Tell me what your limitation is? Is it your body or your soul?"
"My body, of course. I can only run that fast and think that quick."

"Could your body walk on water?"
"No. Of course not."
"Could your soul walk on water?"
"O yes. I'm sure that it could even dance on water."

So your soul can but your body can't? They seem to operate at different levels in your case hmmmm? You seem to be fragmented."

He puffed on his pipe for a while.
"So you're fragmented and your soul is the missing piece that's not helping you."
"But at least I have a soul."
"But not one that can make you walk on water!"
"OK I have some limitations."
"Who told you that?"
"No one told me. Life taught me that."

He sucked on his pipe again. He was obviously enjoying his smoke.
"You know that this tobacco that you brought me is really first great stuff. Let me see how I can thank you?"
"Please don't worry Mister. It's OK. My pleasure."

"Well it's time for you to go but please indulge me, son. Let's first do something together before you go."
"Like what?"

"Let's get going. Give me the laws of gravity."
I couldn't remember where I got my information from. From some old text book? The Scientific American? A web site? Anyway I gave him the laws one by one.

"How do you calculate the velocity of a moon so that it can overcome the force of its planet's gravity?"
I gave him the answer in very simple steps and even did a sample calculation for him in my head.

Before the afternoon had ended, I had done all of the calculations needed for a successful moon landing.

When I eventually came to fully realize what I had done, I was suddenly stunned. In a state of awe I asked him "how could I possibly have done all that?"
"It's that simple. The human being only uses a tiny fraction its mind and soul potential. A pitifully small amount. Perhaps less than one thousandth of the possible capacity."

"Here today, for a while, you used your full potential. Just using maths as an illustration. In the same way your soul is waiting for you to savour it to its full potential."

"Wow Mister. Using my new full potential will I ever suffer pain, dismay and failure again?"
"That will depend on you but with this new found inner power you've become a whole. You've become a full circle and not a bag full of fragments. You've become what God intended you to be."

He gave his first smile revealing his tobacco stained teeth.
"You see you've become an apple tree."

"When I go from here, will I retain this phenomenal ability?"
"No, perhaps not all the time. But you'll at least know what wholeness means and you'll be aware that you are capable of achieving it."
As I turned around to go I heard his voice again.

"O by the way. Your orbit calculations were spot on."