Acorns and Oaks
I remember reading something about becoming able to see the oak in an acorn. For many years, I tried to see the oak tree, yet all I ever saw was the acorn. Recently, I came to realize that I was looking with the wrong sense. I was using my eyes instead of my soul.
From within, from my heart, from that “thing” that I know to be a deeper part of myself, I feel into the acorn to know the oak. I hear the calling of the giant oak pulling through an anonymous acorn in the gravel by the sidewalk along a busy road.
I “see” now, that through all of its stages, the oak is always an oak. We humans like finish lines, time lines, reference points to measure things and declare them done, being grown up, feeling accomplished, this or that. In our tendency to measure, we can obscure the vision of our heart.
What part of being ill is health? In a single sneeze we can expel thousands of “invaders.” The sneeze was our health – yet it is so often declared a symptom of our illness. How can we measure the exact pivot from disease to health? When is the acorn declared an oak?