The “acorn theory,” proposed by psychoanalyst James Hillman, says that we are each accompanied by a mystical being which—through a series of whispers, nudges, accidents, silent exhortations, and mysterious excitements—directs us towards our purpose. As with any story, and with myths in particular, I’m interested in how this one works, how it acts upon the world. And one thing I notice is that, while the acorn theory has no answer to the age old question of the purpose of life, it positions each of us as obligated to seek out and move toward that purpose, as being called to do so. To ignore that calling is to invite distress, unease, even illness; while to pursue it is no guarantee of comfort. But the obligation remains.

Contemplating our calling as an acorn also proposes a different way of thinking about what it means to “grow” in our skills and power:

To be an adult is to be grown-up. Yet this is merely one way of speaking of maturity, and a heroic one at that. For even tomato plants and the tallest trees send down roots as they rise toward the light.

Hillman, The Soul’s Code, page 41

That is, we grow not only up—not only skyward—but down, into the roots, back to that from which we came and to which we will, one day, return. We become, in time, more rooted and resilient, more capable of surviving the storm, less easily shaken away from ourselves by idle wind or rain. When I think about growing down instead of up, I think about becoming centered, about knowing what work is ours to do (and, critically, what work is not), about a slow, steady power rather than a rash and inconstant one. After all, as anyone who’s ever lived among city trees can tell you, neither brick nor concrete nor iron can stop a root as it seeks out water. We should be as steady in our search for that which nurtures our own lives.

One of the imperatives in contemporary, professional work culture is to “grow.” There is often a sense of height or largeness with that imperative, as if growth must be measured in your distance up the ladder, your territory across the way. In The Soul’s Code, James Hillman implores us to think rather of growing down, of growth not of branch but root, of becoming more grounded, sturdier, less able to be pushed around by the whims of others. Here that notion of growth shifts our relationship to work:

As we said above concerning Hercules and as we saw above with Freud, work is usually imagined in terms of the ego and his muscles. Because Cartesian earth is still outward in visible reality, personality can only be made by a strong ego coping with tough problems in a world of hard facts. But the dream-work and the work on dreams returns work to the invisible earth, from literal reality to imaginative reality. Through dream-work we shift perspective from the heroic basis of consciousness to the poetic basis of consciousness, recognizing that every reality of whatever sort is first of all a fantasy image of the psyche. Dream-work is the locus of this interiorization of earth, effort, and ground; it is the first step in giving density, solidity, weight, gravity, seriousness, sensuousness, permanence, and depth to fantasy. We work on dreams not to strengthen the ego but to make psychic reality, to make life matter through death, to make soul by coagulating and intensifying the imagination.

It may be clearer now why I call this work soul-making rather than analysis, psychotherapy, or the process of individuation. My emphasis is upon shaping, handling, and doing something with the psychic stuff. It is a psychology of craft rather than a psychology of growth.

Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld, page 137

The question I hear is, what does it mean to see our work as craft rather than as growth? What are we shaping, handling, or doing something with? The metaphor of growth is one of hunger, consumption, acquisition—to acquire more pips on your collar, more titles after your name, more people under your domain. But craft asks instead, what are you doing? What reality comes into being with your shaping and working? What is in your hands and in your heart?