The Acorn Ritual

Each who follows a magical path, I think, will eventually come to find a certain amount of unaccustomed ritual activity appearing in his or her life. Unfortunately, in the times in which we live, ritual is a process that is often misunderstood. The word may even give rise to vague misgivings; certainly this is so when it is used in the context of uninformed discussion concerning Earth- and Nature-centered systems of spirituality, unfamiliar religious practices, and the like. It is sometimes forgotten that culturally approved ritual is commonly present at most all the important events of our everyday lives: it is attendant upon our births, our passages from childhood to adulthood, our keeping of various holidays, our marriages, and of course upon the times of our ultimate departures. Such common, everyday ritual gives outward form to the beliefs we hold about those events.

Personal ritual is really not so different. It evolves to give an outward form to the most important personal beliefs one holds. Depending upon one's spiritual orientation, it might also be thought to do something else: to provide a means to focus intent to the accomplishment of a particular desired end. This is a significant point, if one happens to believe that all the things of the world are interconnected on a level transcending the realm of external appearances.

The Acorn Ritual is something that appeared in my life around three years ago. (This is being written shortly before the northern Winter Solstice of 1998.) I'm putting it here for you not only as an example of the sort of personal ritual I've just been talking about---and how such things sometimes come into our lives---but also in the way I would plant a seed. If it feels right to you, feel free to call it your own. The outward form of the thing is exceedingly simple, as you will see . . .

There was a time, not so long ago, when ancient forests cloaked our world in green. In the course of a few short centuries we have destroyed much of that, and now we seem intent upon taking what is left. It is a sort of blindness, I suppose; a blindness that comes of thinking the world belongs to us, rather than the other way around. It is just the sort of blindness that can hide from us the fact that we are rushing down a road toward the edge of a precipice . . .

One day early in the fall I was out walking, thinking about all this. I was passing through a place of suburban houses and neatly manicured, chemically treated lawns, when I came upon a small oak tree. On the ground beneath it there were heaps of fallen acorns. The sad thought occurred to me that none would ever be a tree: There was not a square foot of earth for a mile around where a seedling might escape the ravages of the lawn mower or the weed-whacker. Without giving the matter another thought, I stopped there for a moment and filled my jacket pocket.

Another day, another walk. This time I was out along the edge of a field devoid of trees. It was a rather cold and windy day, and I stuck my hands into the pockets of my jacket.

Acorns.

I looked around. There were many places I could see where a tree might grow unnoticed. Over there, close against the fence, where the mowers could not reach. And there, along an untended weedy boundary line.

So . . .

I took out my knife and loosened the soil and planted what I'd been carrying in my pocket. As I left, I felt a very pleasant sense of satisfaction.

It was The Acorn Ritual, in its seedling state . . .

By the following year I was becoming involved in Drumming Circle. The circle I belonged to---and still do---loosely follows Lakota tradition; I suppose it was inevitable that ritual and ceremony would be on my mind, and that certain traditional beliefs concerning our spiritual relationship with Nature were beginning to seep in. There were also books about natural magic I'd been reading with a great deal of interest. Simple ritual had much to do with all that, too. When the next fall rolled around, I found myself purposefully gathering fallen acorns wherever I happened to find them.

The acorns I gathered, I placed in a pewter bowl upon the mantle of my fireplace. A special place, after all, is important in defining any ritual. There they rested over the winter, beneath leafy oak branches I had hung upon the chimney. Soon they were in the company of a deer antler, and I realized I was becoming involved in some sort of defined ritual process. I looked at them from time to time, promising they would be in the good earth come spring.

When spring came, the acorns went back into my old leather jacket. I carried them with me constantly, thinking of the oak trees resting in my pockets. And whenever in my walking I came upon a likely place, one or two would be planted with a prayer and a blessing.

In the years since, I have repeated this little ritual with ever-growing satisfaction. I intend to continue doing so as long as I can walk and gather acorns. I have also begun to tell a few likely friends about it. After all, The Acorn Ritual is a simple thing that has real and positive results---both inward and outward---and the more who know, the greater those results will be . . .

"One can count the acorns in a tree, but not the trees in an acorn."

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© 1998 Gregory S Hargrave (Yopo)