Fruit

Skin, flesh and stone: the symbolism

June 21st 2013
All fruit has a covering of different thickness and hardness variously called skin, peel or shell. Sometimes you can eat it, but usually it is thrown away. Under the covering is the flesh, which is eaten. Then, at the centre, are the pips or the stone, which are mostly thrown away. But if the stone is kept and planted in the soil, it ensures the reproduction of the species. How are we to interpret these three elements of the fruit? The skin that envelops and protects it corresponds to the physical plane; the flesh, where the currents of life circulate, corresponds to the psychic world, and the stone, which ensures reproduction, corresponds to the divine world. Transposed to the sphere of virtues, we have the skin of the fruit as wisdom – protecting, keeping and preserving – and the flesh of the fruit as love, for love is what is eaten and sustains life. As for the stone that is planted, it represents truth, for only what is true is able to perpetuate life.