Miguel's Blog

From Olive to Oil

I grew up in a very religious family and at an early age I learned a lot of wisdom from my spiritual upbringing. One lesson that always stuck out to me was the analogy of the olive. I remember hearing in church that the olive must go through the shaking, the beating, and the pressing in order for its oil to flow.

From that moment in my childhood throughout my journey into early adulthood, I’ve always viewed myself as an olive. The oil is the valued prize that comes from the process that an olive must undergo. My life has been full of moments that felt like shaking, beating, and pressing. These moments were extremely uncomfortable and even forced me to question the purpose in all of it. However, seeing how far I’ve come in my life and reflecting on all of the amazing lessons that I have learned, I believe that this is my oil flowing and the uncomfortable process was worth it.

Now being in Greece, we had the beautiful opportunity of visiting an olive grove and learning more specifics about the process and what makes good oil. Our amazing presenter provided us with a wealth of knowledge and shared insight that I would’ve never imagined. We learned that green olives and the darker olives are most times the same olives, just picked at different times. Also, the more green in color the oil the better prepared the olives were. Rainfall impacts the size of the olives. And sadly, it’s been a struggle to find employees to pick the olives for the oil making (a common problem we are also facing in America). And most importantly we learned that an olive must be shaken, beaten, and pressed in order for the oil to be created…just like me.