The tiny incident of the forced strawberry

As a strong advocate for learning from direct experience it threw me to read this morning ‘All knowledge from experience, valuable as it may be, is imperfect and merely provisional.’ (from 365 Tao – reference in my comment below).

Then I remembered the tiny incident of the ‘forced strawberry’ on Saturday. Are you sitting comfortably, preferably with a bowl of super-ripe berries at your side?

Thinking I was giving a sweet summer treat to a friend, I popped a strawberry into his mouth. He screwed up his face, bit off the end and said, ‘FORCED. You have the rest.’

I, on the other hand – probably due to being almost sugar-free – tasted a sharp but near perfect English strawberry. Hmm… note to self to dip his strawberries in sugar next time!

Different interpretations, and both accurate given our different vantage points / tastebuds. Perhaps glaringly obvious and barely qualifying for a Linked In article!? But a third element – the non-human – arrived this morning.

What did the ‘forced strawberrry’ want to ‘say’ to me?

‘It’s clear that if you force me, I’m not as sweet as if you let me come to natural, full ripeness. ‘

This is exactly what I needed to hear: to be an unforced strawberry! Without urgency, without fear of not doing enough or forcing through an overwheling number of undone items on my ‘to-do’ list. Paradoxically, and with beautiful irony, this was also the message my friend had offered me a few days earlier which I’d dismissed… It took a little not-quite-ripe fruit.

Aha! Thank you little forced strawberry.

But backtracking a small step, what enabled me to hear the message? I nearly dismissed the blunt comment as rather rude, given the beautiful offering and doubt I’d have received the fruit’s message.

I wonder if it’s because when you inhabit the empty space of accepting you don’t know each other’s context, you provide room for the ‘verbing’ or action that’s happening to have its own life? Then something creative or deeper can emerge. Tasting was happening. I got curious about what a forced strawberry was and it’s tiny seeds lodged somewhere…

This is the ‘no man’s land’ of consciousness which - if we’re only feeding from our screens or heads - AI can fill up with data and measurement can shrink.

You may have a different interpretation or insight about the forced strawberry. I’d love to hear it if you do.

I’m stopping now. Mrs Binks, ginger tiger, has given me her message, by sitting on my handwritten draft and inviting me to join her in a midday snooze in the glorious sun.

Waking, I look for a quote from John O’Donohue’s ‘Anam Cara’ which seemed pertinent and instead find this glaring at me:

‘We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined programme or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practise a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives.’

Strange, I just learned that the upcoming Full Moon is a ‘Strawberry Moon’! Enjoy your ripening, rest assured the harvest is on its way…

p.s. This is the last #wednesdaywords for nine weeks. Prepare to enter a bulging old barn full of pregnant ewes. Nine lambing lessons are readying themselves for birth on #woollywednesdays. Subscribe to my newsletter – link here to get all nine delivered to your in-box ahead of publication or take them week by week here, on twitter and on my YouTube channel.

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