Oak as Metaphor for the Wild Soul

Collection: Spirituality

Education focuses on important skills such as math and language, that are useful to participate in society. However, this often happens at the expense of developing equally important expressive and intuitive abilities and trust in our unique contributions and points of view, or what I call the ‘Wild Soul’. In this post I refer to the acorn as an image of our original blueprint that makes us into who we are. 

Acorn becomes an Oak

It is a well-known metaphor, of the tiny acorn that carries the majestic fullness of the oak tree inside it. I see three characteristics that are important in the process of acorn becoming oak, that can be used for us stepping into our majestic fullness as well:

1. Its unstoppable life force and creative drive that empowers it to grow roots and reach for the sun. In Traditional Chinese Medicine this force is called ‘qi’, and exists in humans, animals, and even inanimate beings. Where the tree’s sap stream transports nutrients and maintains biological processes such as growing branches, blossoms and leaves, our life force energy pumps the heart to circulate blood, grows our fingernails and hair, and takes care of myriad other essential processes to support our physical survival.

2. The external circumstances that influence its shape and form. Factors such as temperature, moist, fertile soil, light, space to grow its roots and branches, sudden environmental disasters, or animal damage to root, trunk, or leaf all contribute to the overall structure and expression of the tree. I liken this to our personality; we are equally molded by external circumstances such as prevailing winds that bend our branches in a certain direction, the depth of our roots that affect our sense of stability and so on.

3. The unique identity or blueprint that distinguishes oak from birch or hawthorn. No matter its circumstances, the tree always remains its ‘oakness’. On that level of being, there is just no way that the oak could be anything different than what it was always meant to be, even if it is restricted by a wall or would receive less light in a dense forest than in an open field. This is the original nature or wild soul that I am alluding to in my work.

For most westerners, this quality lies buried deep within. Perhaps we hear its whispers at times, but most of our upbringing, education and society do not seem to care very much for this original wildness. Instead, human beings are grown to conform to a specific (industrial, technological) system, like genetically engineered trees to produce paper more easily, or square tomatoes to meet transport requirements.

Being Yourself Through and Through

If we apply the tree metaphor to human beings, we could ask the following questions:  

• What does it mean to be yourself through and through? Are you the same self when you are working, taking tea with your parents, creating art, or having solo time? Or are there areas of life that you feel more yourself in than others? This is different to the ‘roles’ you play in specific situations; I’m asking whether your original essence, your ‘youness’, is coming through to color your unique expression of that specific role. 

• What external long-term conditions or sudden traumatic events effect the way you are, your beliefs about yourself, the world, and your place in it? How nourishing was the soil you grew up in? Were there external circumstances that stunted your growth? Did you have freedom to expand your ‘branches’ in all directions, or could only extend your limbs in the direction your family wanted?

• How does long term stress at home or at work affect you? Stress is an insidious but often unacknowledged factor that most of us deal with on a regular basis, and which severely hampers all levels of our health and wellbeing. Trees get stressed too, when they have too much or too little water, are exposed to pollution, or suffer damage to the roots. Yes, the tree will remain alive for a time, but if stress factors continue to add up, it will eventually threaten its survival.

In my view, the power of fulling being yourself, and the right to create situations where you are safe and welcome and cherished exactly as you are, are hugely undervalued. 

Dancing in the Muddy Temple

This re-awakening of the core of our being in vibrant connection with the living earth all around us, is at the heart of my new book Dancing in the Muddy Temple: a Moving Spirituality of Land and Body. It is my invocation to return to the Wild Soul within and without, with a deliberate contrast in the title – we generally don’t think of temples or holy places as muddy, messy, blurred, obscure and potentially full of holes and gaps…

“Whereas a transcendent spirituality in a clean and polished space requires or expects us to leave the mud, a body- and nature-based spirituality recognizes that the sublime is right here, in our moving, changing flesh and the land around us. That, to me, is what spirituality is about and which might, in addition, whisper some alternative approaches to systemic collective issues that we are facing at this time.” (Kieft, 2022)

I hope that you too find ways to express your spirituality, that are nourishing, uplifting, meaningful, and life-affirming.

The small print...

• This post first appeared in the Feminism and Religion Blog.