NEW : a wish tree awaits you in the vegetable garden

In Japan, a love story is at the origin of the wish tree.

The weaver goddess Orihime fell in love with a mortal named Hikoboshi and decided to leave the world of the gods to marry him. Years later, brought back to the celestial world by her parents and separated from her husband's world by an impassable river - the Milky Way - the lovers and their two children sink into grief. To soothe them, the Gods allow them to meet again on the seventh night of the seventh month of each year.

This is how the Japanese celebrate Tanabata on 7th July. On small coloured sheets called tanzaku, everyone writes their wishes and attaches them to bamboo branches. Legend has it that Orihime and Hikoboshi will grant their wishes, but only after the bamboo tree has been thrown into a river, or burnt, around midnight or the following day.

 

In India, the Kalpataru tree grants wishes.

A symbol of eternal life for Hindus and a link between mankind and the Gods, this sacred tree is anchored to the earth by its roots and to the sky by its branches.

Legend has it that children who entrusted their wishes to the Kalpataru saw their wishes fulfilled... but at the same time, their opposite was realised: along with the sweets, they received a stomach ache. As adults, the tree granted them the wealth they wished for, along with greed, power and anxiety... Once they were old, some asked for death, and in exchange were reborn... somewhere in the cosmos.

A child, observing the result of these wishes, always accompanied by their opposite and suffering, felt so much compassion for others that he forgot to desire anything. Having thus cut himself off from all attachment, he alone became a liberated man.

Tradition has it that, while entrusting your wishes to a tree, you detach yourself from them by handing them over to the gods.