I had time to reflect on life and photography for an hour on a beautiful morning in Des Moines. As I sat for a moment between photos and soaked in the morning, acorns bounced off of limbs as they fell through the trees and rustled the leaves where they landed. I began to consider how many there were, yet how few trees grew. I pondered whether there is a plan for each acorn, and if so, when that plan began... with the placement of the original acorn that turned into this tree? Or was it planned as the tree grew, and limbs formed, were they positioned to ricochet each acorn to a strategic location under the tree? Or is it all just random chance of landing on fertile ground or a concrete path?
I began to look for young oak trees in the woods, assuming that some of the hundreds of acorns must have produced a young tree, but couldn't find one. Just when I began questioning the purpose of all these seeds that seemed to produce nothing, I found a group of acorns that had begun to spout, sending a life-giving root toward the soil where they landed. Knowing they could not all survive together, and that there was no evidence that last year's crop had taken root, I took one for each of my children to see if we could change the odds. What an interesting plan for those acorns.
