A Solitary Orange Tree

Today I heard a 9 year old child named Colin who has brain cancer say: “If you want to be a fireman, then be a fireman.” Here is a young boy facing his own immortality speaking with words of wisdom and courage. Too often it takes us years to do what we have always wished and dreamed of. It didn’t take him long to follow his heart’s desire. Recently they declared him a policeman in Ithaca and his spirit soared. Unless a miracle happens, he will not be able to carry out his duties for very long, but I believe he has already fulfilled more than most of us. He has accepted his life with its limitations and has not let them define him, but rather he has imagined and fulfilled a greater purpose.

What does it take for us to allow flexibility into the “rigid” parts of our psyche? Sometimes it is leaving the familiar and journeying to a new place in our lives or perhaps getting older or sometimes it may be an illness. For me now it is listening to this “voice of a child” inside me. What I have accomplished in life is good – excellence in education, fulfilling work, lasting friendships, a wonderful son, but now I am pursuing this new “discovery” of being. It springs from the core of who I am and is not defined by success or money. It comes from within and it is about finding a deeper understanding.

Carl Jung wrote: “the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are.” Colin has lived his life time and has been able to become what he always wanted to be even at his young age. But what about those of us who have been able to live into our later lives and still seek to know and understand the mysteries of them. Jung believed that aging was not so much about the decline of the body as it was of discovering the essentials of living. What will this second or third part of our journey’s shape be? Perhaps it will be shaped by self-awareness, individuation and wholeness. That is what I see through the keyhole.

I thought about all this when I came upon this photo – a singular orange tree in Rome. You can see it at Santa Sabina Cloister. It is said to have been brought to Italy from Spain and it is very old. The larger garden around it contains many bitter orange trees and extends over the area of an ancient fortress built near the basilica of Santa Sabina by the Savelli family between 1285 and 1287.  All of these gardens sprung from one solitary orange tree still growing in its singular place. Our lives are similar to this solitary orange tree – unique, mysterious, unknown and ever seeking the privilege to grow into who we really are. And while we grow into our true selves, we are always grateful for the larger garden around us, which shares with us its beauty and its fruit.

Santa Sabina Cloister, Rome, Italy