The Corpse and the Tree
In ancient Lycea, on the Spring Equinox, they planted their orchards. Figs, pears, and apples. They dug holes in rows for the new orchards.
Then the priests came and the sacrifices were made. Doves, goats, and bulls were sacrificed and buried in the earth as rich fertilizer and promise of abundance to come. They asked that Demeter and Dionysus would bless the harvest and grant them growth.
Then the saplings were planted, and one by one, the corpses were covered by roots and earth.
The Lyceans were observant people. As the seasons passed, and saplings matured in to fruit-bearing trees, they saw that those trees that had the greatest sacrifices beneath them, grew the quickest, bore the best fruit, and grew taller than all the others.
One year, an elder offered himself as a sacrifice.
"I am an old man. I have lived a long life and I may not survive another winter. I have given my life to my people and I wish to give them one last thing. Take my life and bury me beneath the young saplings, that my body may continue to give the gift of life even as I pass. May the gods accept me as willing sacrifice!"
And so it came to pass that the Lyceans began to sacrifice consenting elders. And sure enough the trees planted over the corpses of these most prized citizens grew taller, bore juicier and richer fruit. But the fruit was always strange. Purple apples, orange figs, and speckled and polka-dotted pears.
And while the juice was rich, the first fruits were always too sweet or too sour or too bitter to be enjoyed by itself. So the Lyceans would mix the first fruits with other fruits, intermingling the new flavors with the old.
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Down down down
In the clutches of worms and roots and soil
Old love, old bodies, old life.
Like blackened seeds
prepared to give new life
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When He was resurrected, He was unrecognizable to those closest to Him. A new body, a new Man. I like to imagine that His acne scars were gone, Gis beard shortly trimmed, and finally wearing new clothes. A yogi teacher with a fresh cut, a skin care routine, and a brand new fit.
What would it take for me to do the same? To patch over the heartache and old tired wounds with baby-fresh new joy, to scrape off the rust stains from self-doubt, to shock my friends, and lovers, and teachers with a brand new man?
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What body of mine am I willing to sacrifice? What will I lay down at the roots of some freshly planted tree, knowing that this sacrifice will make me more fruitful than I have ever been?
What tree will I plant over the corpse? What strange fruit will I choose to grow?
