Divine sparks in the beauties of nature

edited by Carlo Lapucci

RicKnowing the world we live in is one of those vital necessities in order not to exist as strangers in an environment that slowly becomes hostile to us.

The Lord, when he placed Adam on earth, placed him in a garden and made him recognize the creatures so that they were given a name (Genesis II, 19) and were friends with the new being of Creation.

Today, children encounter plants and animals in supermarkets in the worst condition they can be found in: food objects, uprooted from their environment, now lifeless. For this reason, a corner in which we find a bit of the history of long friendship, of age-old knowledge, of the metaphorical mirror and often of the great symbolic dignity that some plants had in certain times, can restore some of the direct knowledge of nature which, Since the beginning of the industrial revolution it has been slowly taken away from us.

Few know why in the paintings the Baby Jesus in the Virgin's arms often holds a fruit or a flower in his hand and they think that this is a coincidence. The peach, for example, represented the truth and as such is a symbol of Christ who says of himself: I am the way, the truth, the life. 

The peach tree (Amygdalus persica or Persica vulgaris, of the Rosaceae) is a plant of not great height, 4 - 5 metres, with lanceolate leaves, which the name says originates from Persia, but it seems to come from China. It is said that it was brought to Greece by Alexander the Great's eastern expedition. It is grown in many vegetable gardens and gardens, near homes on lands that are not in harsh climates. Because it sheds its pink flowers early while it is still without leaves at the end of winter, after the almond and apricot trees, generally in February - March, it heralds the Resurrection.

Christians took from paganism the image of the peach combined with a leaf, used in iconography to indicate the sincerity of the words (the language: leaf) which come directly from the heart (the fruit) and therefore becomes the sign of the Truth. Plutarch warns that the tongue combined with the heart symbolizes the sincerity of what is said.

The fruit was consecrated to Harpocrates, the Egyptian god Horus whom the Greeks placed in their Olympus as the god of Silence. He was in fact depicted as a child with a finger in front of his mouth in the gesture with which he invites himself to be silent, keep secret things quiet, control his tongue, meditate. The asterigma was often placed in monastery rooms where silence was to be observed.