“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Out of small things, big things grow. Out of one small change, many changes can come. Healing happens because you say one word, you make one move, you try one more time. An acorn produces an oak, which in a good year can produce 70,000 – 150,000 acorns. One seed. One tree. Exponential change.

Exponential change. But not immediate change. Oaks take a long while to grow. They are lovely young trees, but you don’t get the full effect for at least a decade, sometime two. But they are growing every day. And it is hard to remember that we are growing everyday too. It can be so hard to see.

One seed. One new behavior. One new belief. One act of faith. And faith in trying something new. Faith in your own voice. Faith in the world to hold you and nourish you as you grow. The beginning act is so small, but it is with an eye to something bigger. An eye to something that will take hold, will root, will reach all the way to the sky.

One seed. One acorn. When it takes root, it is an oak. Maybe a few acorns. Maybe a few oaks. Here’s the thing you can’t imagine: these changes combine. They mingle. The become something new. These acorns grow. They become a forest. They change the landscape. They change the ecosystem.

Many years ago I braved asking for a cup of tea. It was a form of help I could ask for. And today when I was stuck, I called a colleague for help on a work problem. Asking for tea was the first acorn I planted. Today’s request was one of her many seeds. It is slow and nearly invisible work to change the way we behave, to change the way we protect ourselves in the world. But it is not small work. It is life changing work. It is landscape changing work. Plant one new acorn. Make one new change. Your inner landscape will never be the same.