By Maboud Swierkosz
This year there was one raspberry bush that offered a bumper crop. It was dusk, and I went to harvest and eat some of those orange orbs of sweetness. I have to admit that there was lust, a sugary hunger that drove me to primitive impulsiveness. I was just one creature feeding, surviving and self-soothing.
I swallowed a small palm full of raspberries and lurched towards the raspberry bush for more. Then I was suddenly stopped in my tracks as the images and memories of the life of this bush flashed before my heart’s eye. It had endured through times of draught, and of underground creatures eating its hair-like roots. It survived the death of its companion raspberry bushes as well as other green relatives in the backyard garden. It weathered storms and floods and even neglect by the gardener.
Well, I was stunned into stillness and just stood there. Then the wisdom of this plant arose in me in its visceral non-conceptual way. I was informed that perhaps, just perhaps, our purpose in life is to simply share our taste, our flavor that has ripened over the years because of our journey of life. This journey somehow instilling an alchemical flavor that bursts from the fruits that manifested as we have learned to be naturally true to the seed of the Beloved within.
Sometimes I’m touched by envy or confusion or a sense of not being enough. I get entangled in the bramble of the doubting voice of my limiting humanity. Then things seem so complicated. But the guidance from the raspberry bush was plain and simple. That it is just enough, just to be, while holding the intention to serve the Beloved Creation through acts of sincerity and loving kindness. The rest will all fall into place. Then our flavor, our taste, is an expression of praise coming from our partnership with the ‘hamd’, or as Shemsedidin Ahmed has said, “an essence (of Allah) that wants to come out.”
Now, as I look back at this experience I intuit the expression, the movement of certain wazaif coming through this small plot of earth I refer to as my backyard. The theme of being connected to the power of my purpose Ya Qadir Ya Muqtadir was present. The dynamic force of Ya Quddus, clearing away all that separated me from the voice of this particular form of Creation, so that I could stand quietly at home, upon the ground of stillness, in order to listen and receive guidance and wisdom Ya Hadi, Ya Hakim. Ya Matin delivered the message of endurance and persistence of the raspberry bush’s life as it remained true to its natural organic rhythm in spite of so much adverse conditions, Ya Sabur!
There is so much more to be said and discovered but I’ll leave well enough alone at this time. But what I’m learning is that as much as I tend to, and care for my backyard garden, I receive so much more care and support from this piece of earth. It is as though I am being cultivated and grown by the garden.