FALL 2 - Lost in the Shire

There is that opening scene from "The Lord of the Rings", in which the camara pans through a grove of fruit trees of the Shire. In that moment you see Frodo Bagins reading through a tome of long forgotten lore. Tales of lands that he could only dream of but will soon walk across. Adventure sounds grand when one reads from the safety of a protected Shire. When I first remember reading "The Fellowship of the Ring", I felt that same wanderlust surge over me. The feeling of walking from ones home out into the unknown, with distances and lands passing before me. With every step further, a slice of the world was added my own. In greater detail due to the act of walking. And yet it was all just a dream of travelling like such, something for another persons life.

The bins click by as I pick in my own Shire. Heavy with Red Spartants, they come down by the bag full. With each turn of the ladder, the limbs of the tree grown and spring back with their baughs reaching towards the Heavens. Released of thier summer burden, it seems now they catch the tussling wind through thier leaves. Rustling out a summers worth of energy. The breeze moves like waves through the sunlit canopy, and I myself much like Frodo, dream of far off places, while surrounded by the beauty of the Shire.

The sounds of the harvest abound every where. The tractor putters through the rows, hidden in a sea of green leaves and red bins. The clack of ladders being moved about the trees by other pickers seem to keep pace with my own. The farmer, an old Hungarian walks around checking the apples. This harvest is a culmination of all his care through the summer, beginning with the explosion of color back at the spring bloom. His light temperment always seems to impart a sense of deep patience that is held within this man. A reason I've returned to this orchard in particular, there is always more to learn.

As I find myself picking, I try and find that flow, where there is only the moment of action leading effortlessly, neither lingering nor forced. A task harder to accomplish then it sounds. There is where the balanced pace comes to this work. One which the old Japanese Fillet staff at the cannery knew well. It is one of those old lessons, to find a state of mindfulness in your actions. It seems that no matter the type of work, this act can bring a good state of being to the day. As I reach up for the next apple it seems that I can feel it before it enterns my palm. With a slight twist, it's weight falls into my hand flowing down to the bag. Action all in a flow as the day wears on.

Watching the sky, I have been keeping time by the passage of the sun moving along the Ecliptic Plane. I'm in the field before dawn, watching it rise from behind the ridge overshaddowing the Orchard. Through the day it follows it's steady course just up from the southern horizon before settingbin a brilliant glow near the lakes edge. I can almost see Apollo's Chariot as it moves across. But with night fall, the planets come out one by one following the same eliptical plane. It gives a man the moment to look at the world in a different perspective. Seeing the universe in a slightly bigger slice, knowing that what is in the sky is part of the same picture as the orchard that I pick in. One begins to feel the joy of Cupernicus' bodhi moment, when he saw things in the sky and the earth as connected for what the really were. Sharing in the greater motion of things.

Somehow as I take my break under these apple trees, with all the days thoughts swirling, it is just nice to take it all in, then enjoy you tortillia w/fresh veggies and the moment of rest before finishing out the day. For fall has that reflective sense to it, yet the urgency to bring the harvest in before the cold comes to the valley. So we'll work till the job is done, and move on once again.