From hundreds of flowers in the cashew tree in our garden only some became fruits ! What a waste of flowers, was my thought as I watched this during this season!
It was then I read about this phenomenon, I was made even more curious about the multiple biological processes that take place in plant life.
According to the information in the internet, Cashew trees produce thousands of flowers in each season with about ten percent of them being hermaphrodite, are capable of becoming fruits. Most of the flowers can be male, which produce pollen and do not become fruits. The hermaphrodite flowers need pollination with the help of honey bees, stingless bees, wasps and ants. I remember feeling concerned about ants crawling on the flowers wondering if they were to damage the flowers. If the pollination rate drops because the pollinators are few, then the flowers do not get converted to fruits.
It is now known that only 4 to 6 percent of fertilised flowers become fruits if atmospheric conditions are unfavourable with high humidity, rain or cloudy days .
Sometimes a tree cannot support the weight or nutritional requirements of all fruits in formation. Some freshly formed fruits would get dropped by the biological homeostasis in the tree.
A tree lives its life. Its fruitfulness is conditioned by environmental factors in the soil, weather, pollinators and nutrition of the tree few months before flowering!
I remembered a parable Jesus of Nazareth spoke, recorded in the gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Bible chapter 13 verses 6 to 9: "A certain man had a fig tree which had been planted in the vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard keeper, 'Behold for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down!. Why does it even use up the ground'? And he answered and said to him, 'Let it alone, until I dig around it and put in fertiliser, and it bears fruit next year, fine, but if not, cut it down' " !
The parables have meaning beyond the obvious and the context! What strikes me is that a fig tree was in a vineyard. The soil and weather conditions needed for the two are different. The fig tree did not receive its fertiliser from what was spoken by the gardener when he offered to dig around it and fertilise it !
The Cashew tree needs the favour of the pollinators, nutrient soil and favourable weather for flowers to become fruits.
The 'human becoming' has a similar requirement!
Anna and I while attending the service of an infant baptism, listened to the exhortation given to parents in the liturgy. It was all about the details, rituals, habitual practices in a home and parenting presence.
During the last three years when Anna and I have been involved in parenting conversations with families, we proposed to parents to have a weekly audit of the parenting presence, through a check list to receive an insight about the promptness in about fifteen domains of engagements with their children. There are five phases in the developmental progression of children: Infancy, Toddler, Early childhood, Mid-childhood, Pre-adolescence and Adolescence. For each stage the engagement plan would have distinct domains.
A fig tree needs the environment that promotes it to grow. Its cannot grow well in the setting of a vineyard!
The childhood is a mystery to behold and unfold!
The home, parenting and schooling form the trilogy of the support system children need!
Out of the three, the parenting presence takes precedence in childhood formation!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
