Tricycle | Awake in the World

In the Green Gulch glasshouse we are nursing a decidedly ailing Bodhi tree that pines in every cell of its being for Mother India. Our Bodhi tree, Ficus religiosa, or the sacred fig tree, is a descendant of the original enlightenment tree under which Shakyamuni Buddha took his place more than 2,500 years ago. Inclining longingly toward the Indian subcontinent where it thrives as a robust, stout-hearted being, our fog-bound Bodhi tree stoically endures the coastal cold of these late autumn nights, yearning for sun-ripened mango breezes and for a certain saffron-robed sage of old. All gardeners have their pet plants; the Green Gulch Bodhi tree is mine. I wipe spider web traces from underneath its elegantly tapered heart-shaped leaves and repot it every few years.