Planting Seeds

                            Fruit in the Garden of Eden

"Things don't just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don't live in some crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be."
                                           Sharon Salzberg

One of the great pleasures here in Costa Rica is the fruit--it's not just good, it's sensational, it's a sensory experience like none I've ever had. This is nothing like fruit purchased at Wal-Mart, or grown on corporate farms using genetically modified seeds. Some of it is not pretty--you won't see it piled in bins at Publix, or Winn Dixie, or even Whole Foods. I bought two oranges yesterday from a farm stand down the beach. They are green on the outside, and a little rusty, but inside they are brilliant orange and so fragrant and sweet you just can't reconcile the difference between them and oranges we eat in America. I see now why people in other countries are not happy about our genetically modified seeds getting into their food supply.

There is a deeper lesson here for me. It has to do with a value system that says the way something looks is more important than its quality. For every alteration we make, we take one step away from the truth of the thing. We tinker with the laws of nature to create something that is superficially pleasing to the eye, whether we're talking about human beings, or avocados. What we end up with may look good, but it's not real, and in making these changes we lose the very real perfection of the natural state. An orange with no seeds and beautiful skin is not the same, whether in flavor or in nutritional value, as an unaltered orange. Who knows what the karmic consequence of all this tinkering is; perhaps our epidemic of Attention Deficit Disorder, or our ubiquitous anxiety.

Bigger is not always better; we are not always right. We can learn a great deal from cultures who live differently, more simply, and closer to the earth. These are some of the lessons I will bring home with me from this "Garden of Eden."

                                         In the Spirit,
                                             Jane