The Acorn and the Oak

Blathering, abstract thoughts

Disclaimer. I can’t get my mind to sit still and make sense today. It is skittering around with so much to tell you. Even as I type these neat sentences there are 100 more trying to squeeze out, like three people trying to fit through a doorframe at the same time in a screwball comedy. I had so many posts planned and this is none of them.

I experience September like falling in love. Every year.

The flat, garish light of summer giving way to the diffuse, golden light of autumn, and the world teetering on the brink of winter’s wane.

September, the new year. “It makes me want to buy school supplies”. The promise of earth’s greatest show - the leaves turn scarlet and bronze, gold and crimson.

But this year is not only a mast year for the oak and the apple but for me. The trees’ branches are overfull of seeds, of fruit, of promise, and I - my world is overfull of beauty and soft, golden light, and a bounty of friendship and love.

It is my first September living in amongst the trees, undistracted by the bustle of people and the rush of traffic. Just me and them. Day after day.

I have walked amongst them, and harvested their fruits. I have stirred their jam, and watched them flourish. Now they are looking ahead to their fallow time. Exhausted and turning back towards the earth from the sky to rest.

Years ago I adopted the oak leaf and acorn as a sort of personal talisman. The English Oak. Native to these shores, as I am. Strong and enduring and wise as I aspire to be.

Behind my front door in London is a tiny ante room no bigger that an English telephone box. I have no idea why this space was left by those who ‘did’ the house, but it is extremely useful as a dog containment system. I wallpapered it in Robert Kime’s ‘Robur Blue’ (Quercus robur being the Latin name for the English Oak tree) so that the acorn and the oak leaf are the first things you see on arrival.

Before I bought my home in London four Christmases ago, I had had 17 addresses in my 33 years. But the oak puts down deep, deep roots. Rooted, it symbolises stability.

The acorn in turn symbolises potential and growth. New beginnings. Within the tiny acorn lies the promise of the mighty oak, so tall and vast that it could tickle the toes of the Gods.

The oak was believed by some to be a portal to another world. An entrance. Some believed that acorns contained all the knowledge of the universe, and that by eating them one could gain wisdom (in fact I suspect one only gained a tummy ache but I haven’t tried snacking on acorns myself).

The oak and acorn together symbolise the natural cycles of life. Cycles of growth, loss, and renewal.

And here now the acorns have appeared in amazing abundance. Some still as green as an elf’s ears, and others already mahogany brown.

Today would have been David’s 33rd birthday. There is a concert in his memory this evening.

And so I am gathering my things to drive back to London, and I feel a wrenching sadness. I want to stay here among the trees. Their huge branched arms promising protection, not yet shedding their leaves. I already hear the music sung by those who have David in their hearts, and the soaring agony of their voices. It is echoing in my head even as it is yet unsung.

I stood beneath the old, old oak in the field beside the barn and marvelled at it’s arms stretching so far away from it’s turk. All part of one enormous whole. Standing small beneath it I imagined the branches like feathered wings, creating a vast canopy of protection, swooping around me. The whole tree closing gently around me like a room. A home.

Let me stay here in the quiet, sheltered by the great, wise, stable oak. Perhaps a portal to another world will open up and take me to him. And we can go back to the moment when our friendship was as an acorn, full of untold potential.

Yes, September makes a poet out of even the most cynical of us.