There’s wonderful news tonight. A friend has given birth to a baby girl. Her text message reads, “she is perfect.” I cannot stop smiling.
On my walk tonight, I carried an acorn in my pocket. I had picked it up on the shore of Clearwater Beach this summer after sitting meditation during sunrise. At the time, I thought it was a pebble; never really noticing how light it was for being a rock or how it tapered slightly to a charcoal spot on one end.
It was earlier this week that I recognized it as an acorn. Rolling its smooth, indented shape in my sweater pocket, I mindfully stroll through the first cool evening in November. On the walk, I step on fallen acorns and delight in the popping sound that is made as they crack open onto the pavement, piercing the crisp air.
Halfway into the walk, I approach a live oak tree lit up with spotlights. It stands looming over the edge of a roof. The flourescent light detail lumpy roots and deeply grooved bark. Oblong leaves cluster along crooked branches and cast a glowing graphical pattern. Standing silently against the night, it has a mystical presence. I feel as if I have stepped inside a children’s book.
The wind stirs soft movement across its branches. I continue to rub the acorn in my pocket. A connection occurs.
This large oak tree is a transformed acorn. With lots of sunshine, rain and soil, its potential took shape into a tall tree. It has taken many years of living to reach such great heights. In the crevices of its bark must be many stories of change.
I reflect on how we are all acorns… how we all contain great potential… how life grants us much to weather. But somehow, if we stand softly and silently… we can also stand strongly and tall. We can observe the constant wind of change. We can take root in knowing that life is a process of growth. We simultaneously are the acorn and tree… we deepen our knowing stance while stretching toward unknowing skies. We continue to breathe… connecting to the inner child within us.
I cannot wait to visit my friend and her newborn… a sweet soul… perfect with acorn potential.
Dogen teaches that, “You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.”
How momentous it must be… to study how your heart now lives outside of you. In a seven pound baby, barely a day old, my friend holds an extension of her self… reflecting back at her is how fragile yet promising and perfect life can be.
I send her a text message back, “you are both perfect.”
I really appreciate the Dogen quote. Yes, becoming a mother is when I became a child again. The blessing of motherhood has been the greatest blessing of all…a blessing and the birth of my soul.