There’s a massive oak tree in my backyard. I didn’t know it was there, or more accurately, that it was an oak tree because of course I knew the tree was there. But there’s a difference in knowing something exists in physical form, taking up space, doing whatever it is that trees in my backyard do, and in knowing there is a Mighty Oak in my backyard whose canopy covers the entirety of my back deck and beyond into the side yard.
Let’s rewind the clock for a brief moment so I can tell you how I came to know of this Oak’s existence, or perhaps more accurately, how the Oak made its presence known to me.
I live on top of a hill, which hill is at the top of the town in which my mailing address resides. I am tagged and attached to that zip code and to that street number, both of which comprise my mailing address.
Side note, when I submitted a change of address with my last move, which of course resulted in my now residing in the house on the hill with the Mighty Oak out back, apparently the US Postal Service weren’t the only ones I notified. So interesting how networks work, right? The behind the screen scene of sending and receiving and communicating and connecting and coordinating the happening of things fascinates me, even when I’m not thinking about it at all!
Back to out back.
In late September when the weather is at its perfect and peak combination between day and nighttime temperatures we bask in the back deck outdoor eating opportunity. We plug in the string of lights we have strung across the deck and which lights interlace the beams of the grape arbor gracing the entire southwest corner of said deck. Underneath this grape arbor resides a rectangular table with glass top I bought from my friend’s found-in-her-basement-pile. There were six chairs to complete the set and I bought bright and big new cushions, gold + blue + porcelain white, which have now in six months’ time, collectively absorbed more rain than all the bathtubs I filled for personal soaking in as many months. I love baths.
Back to being on the deck.
I heard the first acorn drop in the middle of a September afternoon when I happened to be walking through the family room. The family room is deck-adjacent; they share that outside wall, and the sound was so loud to startle me from my focused-with-a-purpose walk into the kitchen. I probably needed to replenish my tea for the afternoon hours yet remaining at my desk. I like to brew a matcha tea latte or an apricot green tea blend to stimulate my brain in spite of the sinking sun.
After that first drop landed loud, they were everywhere and at all times falling, acorns from heaven, as it were. I know Moses said that’s where the manna comes from, right? Anyway, acorn drops became the background musical accompaniment to my entire day and even the lullaby that woke me in the middle of the night. Constant contact with the deck, with the roof, with the steps leading up to (or down from, depending on which direction you’re walking) the same deck. That deck was littered and laid with a brand new seasonal carpet on whose surface to walk would require an insurance policy against it.
Safety first, am I right?
That carpeting — and my cautious covering of its distance to take the trash out — is what caused me to look up as if for the first time. Where was this abundance coming from? And that’s when I really saw the Oak for the first time — as an actual Oak! My mind exploded considering that this one massive tree was born out of one tiny acorn such as were now littering my entire 1000 square feet of deck.
Everything this Oak Tree needed to become and to be exactly who it is — thriving and living and giving of its current abundance — was contained within just one of these tiny acorns.
This tree, which has been behind me all along, made its resourceful, resource-full and resource-filled Self known to me in an out loud and like a juggernaut kind of way. I see you, Mighty One. I finally see you and I won’t unsee you now.
As a quick post-script, most of the acorns are now gone, disappeared one at a time, and I imagine them taken, tucked away and stockpiled by each of the families of squirrels and chipmunks living in my backyard, just like this Mighty Oak. Look at all the living going on here! Look at each of them in their resourcefulness and not one of them doing anything other than exactly what they’re born, wired, and know instinctively to do, which instinct is all they know.
My pause and wonder is looking at myself now. What if I stopped questioning and overthinking and doubting myself and just allowed my inner wiring to operate itself? Believing that what I’m not seeing behind the screen of my own eyes is a well-tuned network of sending and receiving and communicating and connecting and coordinating the happening of things? All the things of my massive living loving life? It’s all here already, the seeds long ago planted and now grown into me giving away, dropping, and sharing the abundance of mySelf.
I hope you get to stand underneath the canopy of my resource-full love.