The Olive Tree World
The olive tree has been celebrated and referenced in the cultural works of every society. Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven". Aldous Huxley wrote: "…I like them all, but especially the olive. For what it symbolizes, first of all, peace with its leaves and joy with its golden oil." Federico Garcia Lorca wrote: "Angels with long braids and hearts of olive oil." Lawrence Durrell wrote in Prospero's Cell, "The entire Mediterranean seems to rise out of the sour, pungent taste of black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat or wine, a taste as old as cold water. Only the sea itself seems as ancient a part of the region as the olive and its oil, that like no other products of nature, have shaped civilizations from remotest antiquity to the present."