Tania Kettle

Ok, so now I have my very own fig tree, let's talk about figs, baby.

Well, first off, Ficus carica has been cultivated in the Holy Land for more than 5000 years.

Actually, and I swear, hand on heart, I did not know this, the Jewish bible commentators believe that the fig tree was there at the beginning of time.  

That the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden was the fig tree.  

What was that tree of which Adam and Eve ate?  Rabi Yosi says, It was the fig tree...the fig whereof he ate the fruit opened it's doors and took him in.

(Midrash, Bereshit Raba, 15, 8)

In fact, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all agree that figs trees have been part of human history since Day dot. In all three religions, a fig tree was present in the Garden of Eden along with Adam and Eve. God had given the couple all they needed and the freedom to do what they liked, but with one proviso—they must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In Western culture, we know this fruit as an apple. However, this may not be true.  

Purely because of the Latin bibles in the Middle Ages.  

Although they sound different the Latin nouns for an apple and Evil are the same: malum.

Oh c'mon, how cool is that? 

Right, so moving along, since I don't wish to talk about the right and wrongs of gardens and males, let's look at other beliefs...

What about Mithra, a Persian deity and Judge of Souls?  He was born out of a rock, beneath a sacred fig tree. Nude and starving, he hid himself from the screaming wind in the branches of the fig tree.  He ate figs for his first meal and made clothes from fig leaves.

Or how about how the Africa’s Congo Basin, believe the first hunter was born from a fig tree? And when he was cold and naked, he peeled the fig tree’s bark away and made clothing from it.

Or that in Hong Kong fig trees are known to be home to Spirits, and that two trees have become magickal Wishing Trees.  You would write your wish on a strip of purple paper, tie it to an orange and then throw it into the tree.  If the trees branch caught the orange then your wish would dangle in the wind, and then be blown by a breeze up to Heaven.  

In Sumatra, Indonesia, the Batak people call the fig tree their World Tree. Believing that their tree grows among the stars and that's it's roots reach down to earth, and if you are very clever and very brave, you can climb directly up to Heaven.

Did you also know, that it was a fig that Michelangelo portrayed when he painted the scene on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, in 1510?

Or what about that there are over 750 different fig species all over the world?

And that every one of those 750 species, has their very own fig wasp?

And how about this one...Fig tree flowers are actually hidden inside the fig which is why it was first thought they had no flowers.

What I love the most though, is that fig trees are known, in just about all cultures, to be divine soul food, and the fragile but quite magickal link, between the earthly and the Spiritual.

And now I have my very own, in my backyard, Tree of Knowledge.  

Where Spirits live and magick happens.

How freaking, unbelievably, super-cool is that?

Wishing you much love and abundance and a truly courageous heart.

T and Spirit

xx