spikey chestnut case

I am sitting on a hillside in the Ardèche, near the border with Lozère, in the south of France. The hillside is quite steep and craggy, but nevertheless it is covered with a chestnut forest, with a few pine trees mixed in. And I've just picked up an old chestnut shell, the outer case, and it must be from last year, I guess: I don't think it's the right time of year for them to be falling. But this discarded, empty chestnut case is incredibly spiky, so much so that it's actually quite difficult to handle.

And seeing this, it reminded me of a couple of things. Firstly, how some of us put up rather defensive masks, to kind of defend ourselves against the world, against other people. And these spiky shells, that some of us carry around, tend to make us rather unapproachable. Really, that's their whole point.

It reminds me – to go off on a little tangent – of something a lover once said to me. She said she liked to make love with a man because it was the quickest way to break through the masks, to cut through all that bullshit, and get to the real person, for there to be at least a chance of an authentic connection between two people.

And these spiky masks, these shells that we wear, are they really needed? I'm not so sure. I think deep down most of us have some, probably unconscious, doubt about ourselves, or perhaps some feeling of shame or guilt. And therefore we feel we have to hide ourself, our authentic self, from other people. And that's rather sad.

But the other thing this chestnut case reminded me of is related really, and that is how that sweet chestnut of the essential part of our being, our essential core, is like a sweet chestnut, that flame, the eternal flame of life. But we hide it, cover it up. We also put defensive layers around that. And the irony of that is, we cut ourself off from our own essence, from its beauty and its grandeur. And to get back in touch with our essence, we have to find a way through this spiky casing, and that's as difficult to handle as this chestnut shell that I picked up, in fact, even more so. But that really is the task we set ourself, when we embark on a spiritual journey: to break through these inner defences, and get back to that sweet chestnut at the core of our being.