Acorn
The Fire Within
Given earth water and air the seed must obey the fire within
Does the spring-loaded seed in fertile ground really have a choice? Does the moment arrive when it thinks: “Shall I sprout or not?” I don’t think so.
Of course, yes, they are alive, but alive does not always mean choice; in that we humans are amazingly fortunate — though we rarely appreciate it.
But what sort of life does the seed harbor?
Or, let’s take an acorn. Burrowed in fertile ground, does it dream of oak? Does it roll up tiny acorn sleeves and say: “Time to get to work.”? Would be great if it did but I don’t know (as in doubt it).
The amazing thing about the acorn, or any seed for that matter, is not only that it knows to start growing but that it also knows when to stop growing. There are no five hundred feet tall oaks around, at least not in this day and age.
The blueprint it cradles from its very birth is the wonder of seeds. And as it sprouts, every oak is true to the oak process.
Does the acorn think of itself as “me”? Does it think at all? I don’t know. Does it think of all other acorns surrounding on the forest floor as siblings? I don’t know. Does it realize that not all acorns will become oaks, that most (all but one, in fact) will probably become squirrel or pigeon food. I don’t know.
We humans claim to love and revere and to be moved by miracles.
Tall, white, bewinged creatures with raised swords rising up in the air (angels). Lazarus returning from the dead. Seven loaves of bread and two fishes feeding four thousand.
Those are the kinds of miracles we profess to love and to be profoundly moved by and (as often, I believe) to disbelieve. But what about the acorn? Truly, as amazing a miracle as any in the Bible, surely.
Some clever person once said that a miracle is simply science we have yet to understand. Levitation as nullifying gravity, for example. Once we understand gravity to the point that we can nullify it, yes, we can, just like the angels, rise up into the air — no longer miraculously.
I’m sure that one day.
I think the problem with acorn as miracle is that we “understand” it. It is comprehended science, we say. I must ask though, “Do we? Do we really understand the acorn?”
Well, they teach us in school, third grade no less, fourth at the latest, all about it.
“Do they? Do they really? All about it?”
Yes.
Oh, I very much beg to differ. They teach the observable sequence of planting an acorn to then rise as sapling to then rise as oak. But what do they teach about the life inside, the life that breaks the acorn shell, much like a chick pecks his way out of the egg; the life that knows what to do next; the life that soon (in tree-time) will soar the sky with a trunk stronger than Samson and branches fairer than elves, and that will soon grow acorns on its own to fall to the ground and become pigeon and squirrel food all but one.
They teach us nothing, nothing about this life; for this life is not yet understood by science so this life is still, by all accounts and definitions, a miracle.
An acorn miracle.
© Wolfstuff
