FROM THE LAB · FIELD NOTE · AUGUST 2026
One Green Acorn
An experiment in noticing, gathering, and embodied attention.
These cool, late summer mornings are such a treat—a nice harbinger of fall. It’s fun to trudge through the wet grass in my rubber boots and see what I can see.
Several years ago, I started gathering things in the forest.
In 2023, it was tulip poplar seeds—the little winged pieces I kept finding on my walks. I brought them home in a white takeout container, not because I had any particular plan for them, but because I had noticed them. And once I started noticing them, I kept noticing them.
Eventually, some of those gathered pieces became part of a shrine I created at the edge of the woods to honor my late mother. Later, while sorting and photographing what remained, something else appeared: a flat lay I hadn't planned. The gathering had become an arrangement.
This summer, I found myself doing it again.
It started with one green acorn.
I noticed it on a walk, picked it up, photographed it in my hand—and then started seeing little green acorns everywhere. Different sizes. Different shapes. Different stages of development.
So I gathered those, too.
This time, I found a takeout container with a divider and began sorting my little collection. Not according to any botanical system. I was simply looking more closely: this one is rounder, these two are fused together, this cap is different, this one has already begun to change. These dull, brown ones appear to be last year's—I'll put them in the other section.
The old impulse was still there—notice, gather, arrange—but something had shifted.
I was becoming more intentional about it.
Instead of simply collecting what caught my attention, I was differentiating, discerning.
Choosing what to bring home and what to leave behind. Moving things around.
Holding them together in my palm.
Observing them up close.
And then I picked up an empty acorn cap and put my thumb inside it.
It fit perfectly.
There was something unexpectedly satisfying about the sensation—the rough little rim surrounding my thumb, the slight pressure against my skin, the peculiar snugness of this tiny natural object fitting a part of my body almost perfectly.
For a few moments, that was where my attention went.
I thought to myself: this is a perfect example of embodied attention. Attention isn't only something happening in my head. It can settle into the body through touch, texture, pressure, sound, movement—the immediate information arriving through the senses.
And when I notice what is happening in my body in response—the sensation itself, a change in my breathing, a feeling of settling or groundedness—that's somatic awareness. Nothing dramatic has to happen. Sometimes it's simply a shift from thinking about everything to feeling what is happening right here.
A thumb inside an acorn cap.