I love fresh figs!
I picked a whole bunch from my neighbor’s tree after I asked him and before I told him I already ate a bunch of the figs from his tree that hung over the sidewalk. Isn’t that neutral territory?
I’d eaten a lot already but I wanted more and I heard him rustling around in his back yard and said ahem… hello… excuse me.. and other noises you make to be noticed when on the other side of a high fence. To attract attention without being rude. After telling him his fig tree is wonderful and because of it I will plant one, he was very happy to allow me to eat more figs and even brought me a sturdy step ladder.
I ran with my little dog, Lily, down the alley to fetch a container for the fig harvest and noticed a man with some garden tools who said nicely to notify me but not scare me that I may not want to go that way because there were bees that were angry because of something he did, he wasn’t sure what, but it was a tense situation. So I thanked him and turned around to go the longer way.
Figs are best eaten right after being picked off the tree. Do not bake or sweeten or otherwise tamper with their original nature.
If you google figs, you will see “why you should not eat figs” followed by warnings of diarrhea, digestive upset because of their anti-constipation effects. You get thrown right into the bowels when you are innocently inquiring about figs.
I wanted to go deep but not into the colon.
Second and third questions were- do they have side effects and will they make me fat?
If it were up to me I’d say:
Figs are joyous!
Figs are good!
Figs are in my neighborhood!
Eat figs instead of pigs!
Or I would lead with the fact that figs are inverted flowers. You are eating hundreds of flowers when you eat one fig. They are not a fruit, technically, they are a syconium, inverted flowers inside a pod. A famous monk said flowers project the energy of love.
I did read something about the female wasp getting trapped inside the female fig while laying eggs and then her body is absorbed completely by the fig leaving no trace so don’t worry, you won’t eat the wasp and I’m glad to have cleared this up.
Peace, prosperity, and fertility are associated with this syconium. In fact, Buddha was sitting under a fig tree when he hit his stride of enlightenment.
New subject: the river and the reservoir. The above photo is @Peoria just outside of Corvallis. I put in at the left side of this photo, a calm no current side channel. On the right side is where I got into the flow of the main part of the Willamette. This river flows north.
No one was on my schedule so I scheduled with the river.
I started out talking to my dog but once on the water we shifted into telepathy. That way we could listen to the wind, to the birds.
The above photo was a stop to swim and look for agates. Dog sniffed bushes.
An osprey dropped into the rocks with shallow water- it wasn’t fishing- it made calling sounds from the edge of the river then quickly lifted off and shook its whole body mid-flight to shed excess water. Never noticed that before.
I used Uber for the first time, getting picked up by the side of the road and taken back through farmland to my car. Mehmet was a little thrown by my gear and dog but was a good driver. I asked him how he liked his job and he made a face that gave away he didn’t really like it. I’ve learned more about Uber and can understand not being excited to work for them.
After I got home I walked my dog and stopped to talk to a neighbor who beckoned me from his car by slowing and rolling down his window. He said what’s your dog’s name again? Oh, it’s a female? She acts like a female, and I reflexively said yeah and then heard my inner voice say, what the hell is that supposed to mean? My dog was standing still, breathing and looking off into the distance. I noticed my reaction.
A few days later, a chance to go to the reservoir came up. It was a hot day so I spent most of the time in the water making jokes about getting “into the weeds” as people say now when talking about policy or complex things but I was actually in the weeds. The water weeds, I am not sure what they are called. It was cool and watery and bendy and a mood lifter.
I think later this week I will return to the reservoir to paddle over water to a secret blackberry patch against the bank, which you can’t walk to, you must swim or boat. The berries hang sweet and plump right off the water.
When I was there there with my friend, we bobbed in the water and whooped because to whoop out loud on the water is natural. My lungs want to open and dump and bounce the tunes of exhale and then intake the fresh air.
I want to be like the osprey, dip into the water, lift up, and shake my whole body while in flight.
And everyone neath their vine and fig tree
shall live in peace and unafraid,
Everyone neath their vine and fig tree
shall live in peace and unafraid.
And into ploughshares beat their swords
Nations shall learn war no more.
And into ploughshares beat their swords
Nations shall learn war no more.
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