A deep loss, a gift and blessing the apple tree

Prayer as a way into mindfulness

Photo by Tom Swinnen on Pexels

At the end of last year David, one of our long time Sangha members here at the temple, passed away. It was sudden and we were deeply affected by the news. David had practiced with us for around eight years, and had spent many hours in the temple garden. He tended to our compost heaps, and had created many of the hidden paths that we wind our way through in our mindfulness walking practice on Saturday mornings.

Meeting his grown up children for the first time and showing them around the temple and the garden was a bitter-sweet experience. It was good to connect and we all shared memories of our different experiences of David, from him donating a hand-carved wooden drum that he had made, to his regular offerings of Clive’s apple juice when he joined us for meals, to my appreciating his quiet presence in the library as I bustled past with my own head full of the days work.

David’s children wanted to offer something to the garden as a way of remembering David, and we settled on an apple tree as the perfect memorial.

I had planned to espalier the sapling against one of our garden walls, but a closer inspection of the wall revealed that the brickwork needed a lot of attention. We chose a spot in the centre of the lawn instead. Perhaps a more fitting place for a memorial tree.

On Sunday, Satya and I dug a big hole, and planted the sapling. We surrounded the roots with lots of the compost that David had lovingly tended.

The digging was a pain. I was anxious about choosing the exact right spot: somewhere that would receive enough sunlight, somewhere that wasn’t too close to the other trees, and somewhere that no one could criticise.

I was in my head, and not very connected to the tree, or to the Earth, or to the meaning behind the action.

Later that day, when I was just sitting quietly, a half-formed thought floated across my mind. I had a vague memory of hearing about people giving apple trees a drink of cider when they were planted. Maybe I should do something like that, I wondered. A feeling of rightness arose with the thought.

I didn’t look up the tradition, choosing instead to simply follow whatever impulses arose alongside that feeling of rightness.

Late in the afternoon I was kneeling in front of the sapling. I had a bottle of Clive’s apple juice in one hand, and a glass in the other. I poured from the bottle into the glass, and from the glass onto the soil around the tree.

As I poured, I prayed that the tree would make deep roots and thrive in this spot. That its blossoms would be bright, and its fruit abundant. I apologised if I hadn’t chosen the exact perfect spot, and set an intention to care for the tree as best I could. I prayed that those receiving the fruit would do so with thanks, and I remembered David.

I poured some apple juice for myself and took a sip.

A great stillness settled over me. I had a strong sense of the presence of the tree; of its life both completely separate from mine, and how unique that was and will be, and of how connected we both were, each a part of the same great whole.

And, for a moment (perhaps in the space between imagined and real) I had a sense of the trees appreciation for being met in this way.

I looked up the tradition of pouring apple trees a drink. It’s part of wassailing. Every year I say I’ll go wassailing at local orchards, and every year I don’t quite make it. Perhaps this will be the year.