I love fall. I think I love everything about it. I love that the weather is cool enough to think about really doing outside activities again -- like playing at the park without a careful calculation of the timing, riding bikes, walking farther than across a parking lot to the car. I love the foods of fall, the colors, the hours spent at the pumpkin patch, the morning and evening chill. The acorn caps. Sounds funny, I know! I'm drawn to them. I feel compelled to pick them up and collect them. They're tiny hats to homemade dolls, fairy bowls, caps to felt "acorns."
As Linus and I enjoyed a morning walk to the library I couldn't help but see this one, lying in the middle of the path, open-side up, all by itself, as an empty bowl -- a beggar's bowl. Whatever is placed in the beggar's bowl is a monk's nourishment for the day. Sue Bender wrote in one of my favorite books, Everyday Sacred, "Like the monk going out with his empty bowl, I set out to see what each day offered."
yes, fall *is* fabulous, isn't it? you are certainly not alone in loving the acorn caps (my kids love them, too), though i am partial to the full acorns. i love the differences in texture and the idea that something large can potentially grow out of something so very, very small.
ReplyDeletei love the idea of seeing it as a bowl. it is so open and hopeful and ready for the possibility of something wonderful to fill it up.
I know what you mean. Even my husband is drawn to picking up acorns and their caps on our daily walks--there's just something about them. :)
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