A Grafting Year
I recently learned about the Tree of 40 Fruits. When I first stumbled on the surreal fact of its majestic existence, I thought surely it was a fallacy. When I searched for more information, this plentiful fantasy morphed from mirage to material, and I learned that yes, there is in fact a tree that bears 40 different kinds of fruit at once. An artist and naturalist named Sam Van Aken has lovingly and painstakingly created the marvelous arbor through a years-long grafting process in which branches from stone fruit trees are grafted onto a host tree, in the end bearing, you guessed it, 40 fruits.
The grafting process has a high failure rate. Many branches never bear fruit, and the ones that do take many years to mature. But once they do, dear god, what a marvel she becomes. Her blossoms are kaleidoscopic. A mosaic of baby pink, fuchsia, bright white, and bubblegum blooms gives way to sumptuous stone fruit, bringing this miracle of creation to fruition, literally.
I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you this lassoed me by the neck and yanked me down a rabbit hole so existential...
In my descent, I learned that the vast majority of modern fruit looks nothing like its ancient predecessor, and not for the GMO reasons you think. Almost all modern fruit is the result of grafting. Most wild fruit (apples, pears, watermelon, grapes, mangoes, avocados, citrus, and virtually all stone fruit) is small, sour, and bitter when sown by seed. We have the fruits we know and love today solely because ancient civilizations grafted from rare and miraculous trees that bore plumper, juicier, sweeter fruit. The source of systemic grafting is most likely ancient China circa 4000 BC. The practice then traveled west through the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, Greece, and Rome from 2000 BC to 100 CE.
In ancient records, these rare and miraculous source trees are referred to as gifts from the gods, prodigies, heavenly omens, astonishments, marvels, and signs of god’s favor. Historical documentation supports that ancient peoples were genuinely awestruck when they stumbled upon these rare trees bearing sweet, juicy fruit. Philosophers and poets spanning time and space, from Pliny the Elder to Mary Oliver, have long revered the miracle of succulence; these “groves touched by God” have inspired thousands of years of prose and pondering alike.
Let me clarify: grafting isn't some modern, unnatural evil. It doesn't require a lab coat or mysterious chemicals. It isn't a means of controlling or even truly modifying nature. It's a means of exalting her, a means of perpetuating what would otherwise be an ephemeral and elusive miracle of creation.
Yes, many miracles happen unprompted, seemingly out of nowhere, with no human interference. But that's an incomplete story. We must bear witness to miracles, and we must recognize and honor them as such, lest they become nothing but phantoms, slipping swiftly through our fingers. Like a god-touched grove left untasted, fruit rotten on the vine, if we don't stop to savor our miracles, they're absolutely no good to us.
Beyond purely divine gifts, lie the miracles of co-creation and manifestation. Not in the watered-down “love and light” sense, but in the true essence of what it means to make something manifest. It starts with the gods’ favor and continues with our gratitude, honed intention, faith, and mundane effort. Living one's truest, most beautiful life, like grafting fruit trees, requires breaking, mending, tending, a tolerance for failure, and plenty of patience.
Once revered as a sacred skill and mystical art, grafting has always been a crucial component of sustaining Earth’s most rarified, luscious, ambrosial offerings. To truly live in the realm of the sublime, we must participate. We must join hands with the divine and create. The gods give us glimmers, but if we want to live a truly glimmering life, it's on us to notice and exalt them, to do the hard work of integrating and perpetuating them.
For me, this has been a grafting year. At its tail end, I find myself somewhat raw and vulnerable, eager to mend the breaks and breathe new life, eager to see my naked branches blossom and bear luscious, ripe, abundant fruit. I'm nowhere near harvest season, but I can feel its promise firing through my neurons, from the tip of my fragile branches to my subterranean roots.
I insist on co-creating a life so beautiful and surreal that it's hard to believe. I insist on the succulence and perpetual delight of a miracle well savored. I insist upon my own abundant fruition.
If we want to live a miraculous life, then we'd better get grafting.
XO
Sapling of 40 Fruits
Alexandria
Ritual Diet
(TW: Disordered Eating)
I fell off the wagon again.
Yep, this hearth witch, who literally does magic for a living, has lost hold of her daily rituals for abouttt three months now, according to the last dated entry in a dusty journal and mounting pile of Dunkin receipts.
Life has been liminal in recent months, the undercurrent of uncertainty being the only constant. A period riddled with conflict, strife, and fear, but also brimming with freedom, resilience, self-discovery, ecstasy, and connection. In this electrified ecosystem, even simple rituals like making my own coffee in the morning and journaling a few times a week have felt untenable (I feel silly admitting this because it sounds so trivial, but I trust you, dear readers, with a good-faith take).
I strive to be a person who remains ritual-devoted when I’m deep in the belly of chaos and untethering, to connect even more with these practices when life is unsteady. That’s like… the whole point, isn’t it? To ritualize one’s life is not simply adding a dusting of sugar on top of the pastry; it’s the secret ingredient in the dough. It’s using good butter, kneading by hand, and not rushing the rise. Our rituals sustain us, elevate us, bring us nourishment, and enhance pleasure. How do we lean into that, insist upon it, in seasons where we don’t feel enough like ourselves to practice meaningful self-care?
I sat down with my journal this morning, the latest entry dated 7/23 glaring judgingly at me, and I was forced to face the vastness of the space between myself and my devotion. Where have I gone?
On one hand, I have plenty of grace for myself. I’ve been living in The Tower. So what if I wasn’t able to tend the altars and wax poetic as I hurled toward the ground with a crumbling fortress? Rituals are a practice of presence, and when the present feels untenable, simple daily rituals can be uncomfortable, seemingly aimless, exhausting, and even painful.
On the other hand, I’m disappointed in myself. I feel I’ve let myself down by releasing the reins when the path became unclear. Oscillating between surrender and total detachment with a few glimmers of grounding for the sake of retaining a shred of sanity. I’ve been numb, I’ve been high, I’ve crashed out, I’ve been both manic and depressed. All frenetic, intense, quickly shifting, nothing steady. There is perhaps no time more crucial for devotion to ritual than this, and while it is not a moral failing to fall off for a moment, the hot shame of self-abandonment still finds a way.
As I sat face to face with 3 months of dissociation and detachment, feeling regret creep through my veins, my nervous system began preparations to overcorrect. To make some grand plan to not only get back on the wagon but get a new wagon, a better wagon, a shinier, faster, prettier wagon (to pimp my wagon, if you will), and place myself firmly at the helm. It was then that my pattern recognition kicked in with great clarity - is this… a diet?
Because of the collective culture we reside in, I’m regretfully confident that almost everyone reading this can empathize with the feeling of a “diet starts tomorrow!” proclamation. The grief of a perceived failure, stoking feelings of panic, regret, and shame, bleeding almost seamlessly into self-determination and forced power of will. Before you know it, you’re drafting the new and improved fitness plan, the one you’ll definitely stick to, no really I mean it, for real this time, this is the one. This cycle, anchored in shame, catapults us to extremes and keeps us far, far away from true wellbeing and nourishment.
I’m seven years into my recovery from disordered eating, and I am staunchly anti-diet culture. I practice gentle nutrition and intuitive eating, and I do not restrict, diet, or pursue smallness at all anymore. I still have challenging mental days and insecurities that feel insurmountable at times, but I am wholly devoted to pushing against the cycle of shame that ripped apart my body and psyche, beginning well before I had any business being aware of my size and desirability.
We’ve been instilled to believe that engaging in this shame-controlled cycle is moral and correct. We are applauded for denying the natural wisdom of our bodies through “willpower” and staying on the hamster wheel of diet-culture at any cost. Standing firmly in my rejection of this violent cultural norm, refusing the perpetual restrict-binge pendulum swing, and finding my way to a more whole and nourished existence is my proudest and greatest achievement. It has opened my life to my most exalted gifts and talents (in the kitchen, of course), deeper intimacy and pleasure, and the honor of offering others a bit of hope for their own escape. But while I stopped dieting years ago, those neural pathways are worn and eager to be re-tread.
I struggle with the role of “discipline” in my life. When deep presence and self-devotion fall to the wayside, my brain metabolizes it like a failed diet (and attempts to correct it in kind).
These parallels will be recognizable to anyone who’s had the displeasure of being ensnared by diet culture (or Catholicism, funny how that works):
Purity & Perfection
I’ve already ruined it, it doesn’t matter what I do now. If I can’t do it perfectly what’s the point of doing it at all?
In dieting, this is having a donut for breakfast and deciding the whole day is fucked so there’s no point in being “healthy” the rest of the day.
In ritualistic living, this is something like getting distracted by a dopamine addiction or doom scrolling in the morning (ie: modern life), and instead of engaging in whatever routines you still have time for, scrapping it all and deciding it doesn’t matter because the morning is already tainted.
Unending Commitment
If I can’t do it every day, consistently, forever, it’s worthless.
In dieting, you’re never free. Even if you achieve your goal, you are bound and gagged by the maintenance phase. Forever is part of the deal because if you lose control, you lose everything you worked (suffered) for. 98% of all attempts at intentional weight loss fail within 5 years. It’s a losing game.
In ritual, this mindset manifests as the idea that if you’re not prepared to devote yourself to something consistently and indefinitely, it’s not worthwhile. If you can’t commit to meditating every day for the foreseeable (and unforeseeable) future, don’t bother doing it at all. If you don’t make coffee for the ancestors daily, it doesn’t count. If you don’t stay current in your journal, there’s no point in writing anymore.
Shame & Self-Flagellation
I fell off the wagon because I am weak, distracted, or lack willpower. This is a failure, and it’s all my fault.
In dieting, we know exactly what this looks like. Self-blame and shame over “falling off the wagon”, which is actually a natural self-protective mechanism the body employs when it (rightfully) perceives our brazen attempts to shrink it as a threat. Restriction, even mental restriction, leads to bingeing and insatiability. It is not the body’s natural state to feel out of control around food. This happens as a result of all of our attempts to control it. 98% of diets do not fail due to an endemic of weak willpower; they fail because they’re unnatural and unhealthy, and our bodies are wiser than our shame.
In ritual, this can be heightened greatly by religious trauma. When we aren’t perfect or consistent in our practices, we feel guilt and self-disappointment. When we don’t make the most of the New Moon or the Solstice or tend our ancestral altars daily, a sense of unworthiness and shame arises that only serves to further distance us from ourselves.
Willpower & Grand Plans
Diet starts tomorrow.
In dieting, this is when you’ve pulled yourself up off the ground and you’ve just concocted the ultimate solution. This time, you’re not going to fail. This time, the plan is rock solid. Starting tomorrow, you’re brand new. Sure you’ve spent countless hours (YEARS really) and thousands of dollars dedicating yourself to every method under the sun; keto, fasting, IIFYM, low-fat, carb-loading, protein maxxing, crossfit, calories in calories out, 2-a-days, 3-a-days, 1000 calore deficit, HIIT, power lifting, no days off, juice cleanse, stimulants, no eating after 7pm; but this time it’s different. Diet starts tomorrow.
It was at this point in the spiral that I saw it: The Ritual Diet.
As the “7/23” scrawled atop my last journal entry mocked me from the page, my brain began her warmup; she was ready to make a grand plan. Another checklist, another regimen, another commitment, another framework of self-accountability. Maybe new rituals will solve my inconsistency. Maybe more discipline will do it. And you know what, maybe it would. Maybe discipline isn’t a dirty word in nature, but in nurture only (or lack thereof).
My relationship with discipline, and likely yours, has been complicated by an entrenchment in diet culture and traditional Abrahamic religion. Their rigorous, unrelenting nature requires body / mind / soul devotion but offers little in return. They’ve made me distrustful of devotion and unsure how to inhabit it harmoniously.
So how do we remain self-devoted in seasons where we don’t feel like ourselves? Beloveds, I have no idea. But I do know this: I am my own prodigal daughter. I always return home. I always return to myself. No matter how far or long I stray, I find my way there, and back again.
And maybe that’s the true devotion in the end.
XO
Diet culture dropout & devotee in training.
Alexandria
