I've had this song stuck in my head for a while. I think it just really speaks to my love of orchards and tress that produce fruits and their connection to home, abundance and paradise.
There is a lot of art and poetry and philosophy on oranges and their representation of everything from Eve in the Garden to happiness to the return to nature in modern life.
I remember when I was twelve my mother took my sister and I to Greece and Israel. On Crete we stayed above a little breakfast cafe that had fresh orange juice every morning that tasted like real oranges. And on Naxos (I think) we drove past acres and acres of orange trees, limbs heavy with fruit. People would walk past the trees on the edge of the orchards and pick the oranges that hung over the walls. At the time, I was tempted to take some as well but I thought it would be stealing, although I recognized there were so many oranges that they were falling from the branches and rotting on the ground. Now, I am reminded of Leviticus 23:22
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the LORD your God."
I wonder if this was the intention of the orange farmers on Naxos. If they had seen me walk by and look longingly on their harvest, would they have told me to take some? I hope so.
This is a practice I wish wholeheartedly to take up when my gardens are my own. To put up signs on the edges of my fields and gardens that say anyone may take from whatever they can reach.
But it's also something I feel I can practice without a farm. Whether here or at home or at school, when I see strangers pass in person or in my notes, I want to ask:
"Is there anything I can give to you? Here, I have more than I need, take some. Have an orange."
