Apples

The sky and a ceiling of leaves coalesce to form hand carved beams of fruitwood arching overhead and hung with ripening orbs of knowledge.

Apples and Sausage, Cider, Applesauce Cake with Spice Icing, Apple Pie, Apple Bread, Snitz.... comfort food, autumn food, apple food.

As I sat in the orchard, two terriers and I, munching on this "forbidden fruit" the world glowed in sunshine, that special crisp sunshine which warms but does not overheat on a late September morning, that radient sunshine which focuses the world to angles I never saw before and a freshness I thought lost with the last days of spring, that mellow light of sunshine which polishes worries and wrinkled frowns until the relaxed smiles of contentment are all that remain. Juice driped from my fingers and each bite contained the sweetness of both summer and frost.

The Golden Delicious, the Winesaps, the juice to make a nectar-fed bee jealous, fruit to feed the body and the soul. And it seemed to me much more the "tree of life" than the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." After all, an apple a day will keep the doctor away. This has been said for so long no one remembers who first uttered the phrase, perhaps it Johnny Appleseed, or perhaps it was one of the arguments the snake used in the garden. Perhaps it is true anyway. The most dangerous deceptions always contain some truth.

We have gotten away from the garden in our society, away from the true Source of life and knowledge. Our polished lies and lifeless polished grocery apples stock our shelves and fill our stomachs. Oh, they still contain some truth and they are still apples, but had you been with me this morning... we could have talked about the truth, about Knowledge and Knowing, about good and evil. If you sat with the dogs and I in the honest autumn sunshine under an organic roof of apples perhaps with one bite you would have known. I think you would have tasted it. The difference between good and evil.