Acorn
- Symbolism: Fruits of labor, nurturing, growth, parenting, patience.
- Divine Associations: Saturn (lord of time),* Demeter
- Astrological Association: Saturn, Ceres asteroid (Goddess of the Harvest)
“There are several goddesses that may be regarded as ’earth goddesses,’ particularly Gaia…But Demeter is an offspring of Gaia—a granddaughter actually.
Gaia is the quintessential ‘Earth Mother’; she is the earth itself. Ceres/Demeter, two generations removed, represents the fruits of Mother Earth—the flowers, the fields, and the food. Ceres/Demeter is primarily concerned with the growing of things and how things are nourished to provide that growth.”i
Just as Demeter teaches us the principle of growth as a labor of love, nurturing, and parenting, an equally important concept in understanding the acorn is time. The acorn has traditionally been a symbol of patience and the fruition that comes from long, hard work, summed up in the phrase, “Rome was not built in a day.” Acorn is the opposite of the quicksilver energy of dogwood, where in a flash you can have a change of consciousness or an epiphany. Acorn represents the prolonged attention needed to foster to maturation very large goals, step by step. As the English proverb states, “the great oaks from little acorns grow.”
Poor Saturn, it seems many people have a strained relationship with his principle, which teaches us the value of real time, working with delays, and overcoming hardships and limitations in life. I love Saturn (I have a double Saturn ring on my right hand), as he also teaches us maturity, boundaries, limitations, practicality, and, as a by-product, creative problem solving!
Guttman & Johnson remind us, “Saturn likes productivity and abhors stagnation or procrastination.”ii Acorn energy is the energy to tap into to keep growth going in even the most inhospitable conditions, and along the way to learn many lessons that allow one to mature, until your project, idea, self, etcetera, grows and stretches into the mighty oak, as age alone does not create maturity.
This is also an excellent remedy for the individual who parents in bursts. This might manifest, for example, as the parent who says nothing for a long period about shoes left in the entry hall. Then it suddenly gets to them, and there is a flurry of yelling, punishment, and so on, instead of steady parenting that explains to the child the principles behind the why.
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* Saturn’s European alchemical tradition is nigredo, or blackening – what was considered the difficult phase of alchemy that could include difficulties or sorrow. This is considered the first step or beginning of the work.
i Guttman, Johnson, P. 163
ii Guttman, Johnson, p. 234
Guttman, Ariel & Johnson, Kenneth. Mythic Astrology Applied: Personal Healing Through the Planets. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2004