Quick as Ripening Almonds

We are in the Three Weeks, the Bein haMetzarim, a time of mourning when we know more mourning is coming.

3 weeks are 21 days. The meaning of 21 is the almond blossom, the first blossom to appear as Talmud says it takes 21 days for the blossom of the almond to to ripen.
When Jeremiah envisions an almond branch, it is a warning to change directions quickly, as quick as the almond ripens. When Aaron’s dry staff bursts forth, it is during the height of Korach’s conflict. Is this almond branch a sign of hope? Of hurt? Both?

Almonds are rather well fortressed, with a hull and a shell; their sweet kernels protected by bitter compounds. What shells and hulls need removing from us during these days of mourning?

In Hebrew they are called shaked, the early watchers. What are these eye-shaped symbols watching? What are they calling us to watch, to place our attention on?

Aaron’s staff was created on the twilight of the first Shabbat (along with every other miraculous thing) and will be the very staff that ushers in the Moshiach Age. What miraculous things will you bring into the world when these 21 days of grief conclude? What part of yourself needs to blossom and ripen, even – or perhaps especially – during grief?

(And yes, the title is based of Augustus Caesar’s quote (attributed by Suetonius) “fast as boiled asparagus”