The Song of Acorns

Every year the transition to Fall is announced with the thud of acorns falling on my tin roof. It’s a ritual I’ve grown to love and have come to predict after staying in one place for a few years. In general I’ve started to pick up on the seasonal rhythms and musical accompaniments of my home, whether it is the bird outside my bedroom window in Spring, the clap of thunder in Summer, the sound of the wind stirring up leaves in Fall or the snap of branches underfoot in Winter. But the acorns mark a very special window of time, a season transitioning.

A few years ago I sat talking with a friend under similar trees. A series of acorns, bizarrely, started landing on my head every few minutes and my friend, also a shaman, asked, “What were you thinking just now?” I love the idea that nature might prompt us to pay closer attention to our thoughts, or listen closer to a knowing voice inside. It may also be nudging us, like Fall itself, to let go of the old so that new can make its way through. As the acorns ping off my roof, jostling me out of thought, I know they are speaking to me, asking me to pay attention, reminding me to downshift my gears, to honor this threshold into a slower season, to remember the beauty in this annual dying process.

Above all, they remind me that we are made of rhythms that shift and change as the calendar flips by. That the body’s rhythm and pace in summer will be different in Fall, different in Spring, different as we get older. No wonder I’ve been extra tired lately. I was not heeding the call of the acorns to make adjustments to my routines, my diet, even my wardrobe. Every year, the acorns trumpet a new earthly frequency and, ultimately, an invitation to align with the coming season in what can best be described as harmony.