Picking raspberries has some things in common with loving. I realized this a while ago when my wife and I spent an idyllic late afternoon in a raspberry patch. The weather was flawless, the fruit abundant and succulent, and our conversation as intermittent and intimate as the breezes which intertwined us.
We joyfully, carefully labored among the many bees already at work. As we picked, we would eat raspberries, as well as place them into containers. When both our stomachs and our containers had sufficient raspberries, we went home to make jam.
If you can put love into food, and I believe you can, love was in that jam. We enjoyed giving much of it away. And every time I tasted that jam, it transported me back to that raspberry patch, and to our sharing in nature’s bounty.
The most obvious thing raspberries has in common with love is thorns! Yet with love, as with raspberries, the fruit is well worth an occasional prick and loss of blood.
Timing is very important to both. You must give love time to mature and not get frustrated when things don’t move as rapidly as you would like. Have faith in the process, and strive to be there at the right time. As is said, “The timing is everything.”
You need to be patient and persistent. You may have to return to your love patch time and again, without giving up or getting discouraged. You never really see growth, but only its results. And you can sure tell when the fruit is ripe. Love relationships, like raspberries, are either coming on or decaying. As the poet Gibran said, “A love that is not always springing, is always dying.” Yet what seems dying, can surprisingly spring again, in both nature and the soul.
You cannot be in a hurry and enjoy the process. Nor can you find all the fruit. Slow down, appreciate the harvesting as much as the consuming of what you harvest. Put some of the fruit away for later, and eat some right now.
Harvest what is fully ripe, but also some of what is under ripe, for the under ripe adds body and taste to the jam. Take whatever is offered in love, even if it has not yet fully matured. As a whole, the harvest will always satisfy.
Spend some time on your knees, for it will give you a very different view. You can see the fullness of the plant only from ground level. Only the humble worker can harvest all of love.
Much of the process is out of your control, from the soil conditions to the weather. What you do is essential, but do not assume responsibility for everything. You usually harvest what others have planted, anyway.
Pick carefully, gently pulling the raspberries into your palms. The fruit is quite crushable. Be sensitive. Let love guide your grasp.
You get more raspberries when you harvest with another. It takes two to make love work; and the fruit of common labor far surpasses that of a single effort.
Others will come after you to pick what you miss. Do not try to get everything, for there is more than enough fruit—and love—to go around. Do not be possessive.
What you drop will not go to waste. Birds and insects will find much of it, and unseen fruit will enter the soil to generate tomorrow’s plants. Nothing of raspberries or love is ever really lost.
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