The planting of trees and eating of their fruit connects and restores us to our ancestral home. And now that the winter rains have passed and the new fruit has begun to form, we distinguish between last years fruits and the fruits of the coming year.
A festival that could easily have faded away with no system of offerings nor priests to receive them when the Temple was destroyed. Yet like a tree, it continues to produce sustenance if we attend properly to its growth.
The Celts wassailed their orchards, while some of their southern neighbors awaited the prognostications of a burrowing rodent. Halfway between the dying and the rebirth, my ancestors offered the last fruits to the priests, to keep them regular, I suppose. Nobody needs a cranky priest!
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