Liquid Gold
We have been stewards of FoxHaven, our 100acre wood in West Grey, Ontario, Canada for 6 years. In these years we have listened deeply to what the land is asking of us. There has been repair and restoration and redecoration both inside and outside of all that dwells here. Three years ago we found our Mother Tree. An ancient maple tree as wide as she is tall stands sentry at the centre of our land In all seasons I return to her base and listen, leave offerings, and express gratitude for this land entrusted to us. She inspires our endeavours. Last Spring we planted an orchard and this past Fall, a poppy meadow pollinators garden. This land has been so good to us, and we have given our sweat and equity to her. A reciprocal relationship is well established.
Late this Winter, unbidden, I received the message to tap Mother Tree and receive her offering of sweetness. Oh, and how sweet She is. I have never Sugared before and the whole process, the learning, the gathering, the rendering, the filtering, and the finishing is such an alchemical process. After three boils and 13 pails, our Sugar Bush has yielded maple syrup that is best described as liquid gold. Reciprocity indeed! We are told by the ancients ones, that what is offered up with the right attitude is sanctified and returns as grace. In this case, grace in a bottle to be shared with our loves.
At a recent conference, I had the opportunity to wade in deeper to the Cain and Abel story. As the biblical text narrates, Cain was the first son of the world parents, Adam and Eve. Abel was his younger brother. Both sons had been taught to make offerings of their toil, their labour to the Almighty, to the highest value. They had been taught to render their sacrifice unto the Lord. To offer up the work of their hands to something greater than themselves. Both boys worked, one in the fields and the other in the stables. Both boys made the offerings but only one offering was pleasing to the Lord. Abel was lauded for his offering of meat and Cain was not for his offering of grain. And this is what is key in our psychological understanding, the realization of his inadequacy in the presence of the highest value known, made him angry instead of contrite.
Genesis 4:6-7 tells us: “Then the Lord said to Cain: Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it.”
We all know where this anger went, how it festered, how it ripened into nihilism and then murder. Cain could not bear to see the manifestation of his rejected ideal, the emergence of greatness in his younger brother, so he slew him. Oh, we know all too well how we kill off parts of ourselves rather than grow. We marginalize and reject others rather than seek to understand and integrate a call to greater depth and breadth. We slaughter the future rather than surrender the past. Too often this story of Cain and Abel is told from the point of view of a critical God rather than from the point of view of a resentful and embittered choice. Yes, choice. When Cain becomes conscious of his inadequacy, rather than look to Abel as an example he could strive toward, he doubles down and destroys his own future as well as his brother. And for that, God marks him. The stain of Cain is painful realization, unconscious guilt.
We are surely marked by the sins of our fore-bearers. Adam and Eve are sentenced to toil outside the Garden of Eden for their desire to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The first fruit of this choice is Cain. The one who will, like his parents, like us, succumb to the temptations that always lead to choices and consequences. Cain’s anger was a choice. Adam and Eve, not the serpent, made a choice. Choices always have consequences. Some are a curse, others are a blessing. Herein is the nature of reality. Knowing this is the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Knowing this is consciousness. Knowing this is maturity. Knowing this is hard. And when our choices are less than the truest and highest and holiest aspiration in ourselves, we must bear the stains, the scars, the regrets. The criticism, the judgment, the sentence comes ultimately from within, not without. Wisdom is knowing this.
As consciousness grows, so do our choices. As we act on those choices, we either taste the sweetness of life or we toil in bitterness. Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Judas and Yeshua are offered to us by the old stories as polarities of choices. It is not the sins, the betrayals, or the crimes of these choices that mark us, but rather the unwillingness to suffer the consequences. If we face the consequences of our choices with humility, that will redeem us.
At four o’clock in an insomnia predawn morning, the choices of a lifetime will revisit. The many missteps, the ripening regrets, the searing sins stack up and threaten to define our worth. A psychological tower of babel rises. Our trunks are gnarly, many of our branches are broken, and the storms of life have had their way with each of us. But, what is also true is this: like the Mother Tree that both anchors and reaches up from the centre of FoxHaven, there is sweetness yet to be tapped. Something of this wisdom whispers in the silence and the darkness yields. The light quickens, the dogs stir, the birds awaken, and a new day, a new season, a new choice begins, again.
Tap into this. Render this. This too is your birthrite. Liquid gold.