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​The Grace of Dragon Fruit

“It sounds funny to say, but as a recovering addict, I find myself—not only in friends and family and the support they give—but also in growing dragon fruit. This plant teaches me patience, gives me purpose, and shows me how to care for something without expecting instant results. In many ways, it mirrors my healing—thorny, slow, and unexpectedly beautiful.
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I know that many Christians find God in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. I do, too. But I also find God in my backyard, in the dragon fruit—bright, strange, alive with possibility. Each time I tend it, I feel like I’m being tended to—like grace is growing right alongside the fruit.”


—Chris, member of St. Francis Catholic Church, somewhere in Southern California

​Dragon Fruit: A Living Metaphysic

A philosophy of dragon fruit begins with attentiveness. It means noticing how dragon fruit appears to our eyes—its bright, uneven skin in shades of pink or yellow, the green tips like small flames, and the speckled interior that looks almost like a star field. Its appearance is striking, even a little strange—an invitation to pause, to look again. It reminds us that beauty in nature is not always simple or symmetrical, but often layered, unexpected, and full of contrast.

Attentiveness also means knowing: learning the dragon fruit’s biology, its evolutionary history, ecological needs, and cultural significance. As a cactus, its lineage stretches back tens of millions of years—long before humans walked the Earth—shaped through slow and subtle interactions with bats, moths, birds, soil, and sun. Indigenous peoples of Central and South America were the first to cultivate and eat dragon fruit, long before it became a global commodity. Today, it is grown not only in the Americas but also widely in Southeast and East Asia—in countries like Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and China—where it thrives in warm climates and has become part of local foodways and economies.

From a process perspective, dragon fruit is not just a plant or food source—it is an old and experienced soul, carrying lifeways and patterns of resilience that we humans do not share, yet from which we might learn. Of course, it shares this depth of experience with countless other plants, each shaped by their own long histories of becoming—each a participant in the world’s evolving memory.

Such a philosophy may include growing dragon fruit, if we are able—caring for its climbing stems, attuning to the rhythm of its night-blooming flowers, and harvesting its fruit with gratitude. To grow dragon fruit is to enter into a kind of covenant—a practice of relational care. The grower becomes a co-creator, offering water, support, soil, and sunlight, while the plant offers beauty, nourishment, and quiet testimony to the life that pulses in arid places. Tending to dragon fruit is, in this sense, an act of prayer—rooted in soil and time, responsive to weather, mindful of the flower that opens under moonlight.
As we approach dragon fruit in this way, we might then wonder where, or how, it fits into a still more comprehensive metaphysic—one that takes into account the whole of existence: the stars and galaxies, the atoms and molecules, the people and planets, the many life forms that may exist in other realms or dimensions. What kind of world makes room for a fruit like this? And what kind of philosophy allows us to see it not as an isolated object, but as part of a vast, relational network?

Here the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, with his “categories of existence” as developed in Process and Reality, may offer insight. In Whitehead’s view, all things—dragon fruit included—are not static substances, but events of becoming, shaped by their relationships to other events. Every entity, no matter how small, is a process of integration: a creative unfolding of past influences and future possibilities.

In this light, the dragon fruit is not merely a botanical curiosity or agricultural product—it is a concrescence, a coming-together of sun and soil, wind and water, bats and birds, memory and potential. It inherits the past, responds to the present, and contributes to the future. It participates in what Whitehead calls the "creative advance into novelty," and in doing so, it mirrors the cosmos itself.

Whitehead’s Eight Categories of Existence and the Dragon Fruit

1. Actual Entities
   The dragon fruit is composed of actual entities—momentary units of experience. Each cell and molecular structure is a society of such events, coming into being through a process of concrescence. The fruit as a whole is a living community of these ongoing acts of becoming.
2. Eternal Objects
   Its bright pink skin, speckled interior, sweet taste, and elliptical shape are expressions of eternal objects—pure potentials that are realized within the dragon fruit's actual occasions. These potentialities are not created by the fruit but are drawn from a shared field of possibility.
3. Prehensions
   The dragon fruit prehends—or feels—its world. It integrates data from sunlight, air temperature, soil nutrients, and pollinators. These prehensions are the means by which the fruit becomes what it is, moment by moment, always shaped by its relational field.
4. Nexus
   It is a nexus—a patterned grouping of actual entities. The skin, flesh, and seeds are not isolated parts but coordinated processes, forming a coherent society of experience with its own emergent characteristics.
5. Subjective Forms
   Each prehension carries a subjective form—a particular tone or intensity of feeling. The plant may respond to drought with contraction, or to moisture with openness. These qualitative textures shape how it feels and integrates the world.
6. Propositions
   The dragon fruit offers propositions to those who encounter it—possibilities for feeling, interpretation, or action. Its unusual look and taste serve as lures for our attention: “Notice me,” it says, “wonder about me, relate to me.”
7. Multiplicities
   The fruit is an expression of multiplicity—drawing together countless influences, environmental conditions, and potentialities. Its existence emerges from a web of relationships across time and space: genetic inheritance, ecological history, climatic variation, and human care.
8. Contrasts
   The dragon fruit embodies contrasts—a central element of value in Whitehead’s philosophy. Its vivid external skin contrasts with its soft, delicate interior. Its cactus origins contrast with its almost tropical sweetness. In form, color, and taste, it harmonizes differences into a unity that is aesthetically striking. Such contrasts are not merely visual but experiential—adding richness to the act of perception and interaction.

Creativity

Underlying all of this is Creativity itself—the ultimate category in Whitehead’s metaphysics. It is the principle by which the many become one and are increased by one. The dragon fruit is an expression of this creativity. It is a site of ongoing improvisation, responding to inherited conditions with new acts of becoming. Every fruit, every flower, is a moment of novelty within constraint—a living testimony to the world's capacity for variation, adaptation, and surprise.

God
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And within this metaphysical landscape, God is not an external force acting upon the world but a relational presence within it. As primordial, God offers the range of relevant possibilities—the potentials for harmony, intensity, and value that living beings may actualize. As consequent, God receives and responds to everything that happens, including the growth, blossoming, and withering of a single dragon fruit. In this view, the divine is not indifferent to the world’s details but intimately connected with them—feeling with the world, and evolving with it. Dragon Fruit are part of God's own life even as the plants have their own agency.
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God does not control the fruit into being, but offers the possibilities from which it draws. Nor is God absent from its life, for the story of its becoming is held in God’s responsive memory. The dragon fruit, like all entities, is a co-creator with the divine: shaped by possibility, grounded in relationship, and contributing its own experience to the evolving life of the whole.
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Instructions for Growing
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Varieties of Dragon Fruit
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1. White-Fleshed Dragon Fruit (Hylocereus undatus)
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• Skin: Bright pink or red
• Flesh: White with small black seeds
• Taste: Mild, slightly sweet, sometimes bland
• Notes: Most common variety; widely available in supermarkets

2. Red-Fleshed Dragon Fruit (Hylocereus costaricensis or Hylocereus polyrhizus)
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• Skin: Bright pink or red
• Flesh: Deep magenta or dark red
• Taste: Sweeter and more flavorful than white-fleshed
• Notes: High in antioxidants due to the vibrant red color

3. Yellow-Skinned Dragon Fruit (Selenicereus megalanthus)

• Skin: Bright yellow with fewer, more pronounced spines
• Flesh: White with black seeds
• Taste: Very sweet and floral
• Notes: Smaller and less common, but often considered the best-tasting variety

4. Purple Dragon Fruit (cultivated hybrids)

• Skin: Pink to reddish
• Flesh: Purple
• Taste: Similar to red varieties but can vary by cultivar
• Notes: Bred for deeper color and richer flavor

5. Other Cultivars and Hybrids

Some dragon fruit types are crossbred for specific traits like sweetness, skin thickness, or climate tolerance. Notable examples include:
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• 'American Beauty' (magenta flesh, very sweet)
• 'Delight' (pink skin, light pink flesh, mild flavor)
• 'Physical Graffiti' (excellent flavor, vivid flesh)
• 'Yellow Thai' (hybrid with improved disease resistance)