Natural Product

—

I was looking at my lemon tree the other day, letting my eyes wander over its bright green leaves, the kind of green that still has plenty of yellow in it. In amongst the foliage were three dark pink bulbs of unformed flowers, ready to unfurl and be white and grow fruit. And it struck me that these two parts of the tree were on the opposite side of the colour wheel to each other—green and pink, staring at each other across the prism. It reminded me that if you want to tune into something that is innately your own thing, to unravel and metamorphose, then it will feel like it is sitting across the table from you, out of reach (but visible!) and that is the point. From where you are, it will look like an almost alien-amount of change that needs to take place, but within the act of natural transformation it will feel correct, almost a relief, to experience what it is you were meant to be when all the elements align. Sun (encouragement), rain (research).

But then, who is the bee? The one who comes along at just the right time to say just the right thing, to usher forward a new wonder, turn wood into fruit. Who is the creature that, by doing its own work, creates a vibration with everything it touches, shares ideas, keeps the whole garden in conversation, and at the end of the day delivers a box of honey — the sweet outcome of work done in harmony with others, without diluting anything of its own in the process.

It would seem that at different times in our lives, we are both the flower and the bee. We have the ability to draw on both sets of innate skills: processing and sharing. Two acts of complete attention, which an energy healer once described to me as love. (She also picked up on my second child before I did, finding two heart beats in my body, questioning if my heart had a murmur, or whether I was in an accident. A week later, I discovered I was pregnant. Two heartbeats. Two complete bodies with active channels and pockets of blood and vitality, pushing and pounding, working together in unison but complete in their unique forms.)

Multiples are within us again and again, which is a nice reminder when your singular sluggish body decides it is just all too much, we can lean into the idea that another part of us will always emerge.

—

[Image credit: still from the documentary Radical Neighbouring by Campfire Stories ]