The Reason John Lennon And Yoko Ono Sent Acorns To World Leaders

The desire for world peace has motivated many major artists throughout the 20th century and beyond, their message transmitted to the world through a range of disparate symbols. Pablo Picasso famously turned to the image of the dove, which he used as the basis of his design for the World Peace Congress in 1949 (per History Press) and which he then proliferated in a number of lithographs. In 1958, the British designer Gerald Holtom created the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the now-iconic "ban the bomb" emblem.

And in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War and with the seemingly endless Cold War rumbling in the background, Beatles legend John Lennon and his partner, the conceptual artist Yoko Ono, settled upon what they believed might serve as a symbol in the effort to bring peace to the world: the acorn seed. According to National Museums Liverpool, John and Yoko began campaigning in the hope of "sowing the seeds of peace," and saw their own relationship as a union of cultures that was symbolic of the potential coming together of East and West (via YouTube).

Their first "acorn event" took the form of the planting of two seeds, facing East and West, in the grounds of England's Coventry Cathedral. However, they quickly ran into trouble, with the Canon of the Cathedral taking exception to the event and the couple's relationship while they were both officially still married to other people. The exhibition was moved at the canon's behest, while the seeds were later stolen from the ground, frustrating Lennon immensely.

John and Yoko's seeds of peace

However, the following year, John Lennon and Yoko Ono decided to continue their idea of using acorn seeds as symbols of peace. They began a letter-writing campaign, in which they sent pairs of acorns to numerous world leaders and public figures, accompanied by the following message: "Enclosed in this package we are sending you two living sculptures — which are acorns — in the hope that you will plant them in your garden and grow two oak trees for world peace. Yours with love, John and Yoko Ono Lennon" (via Mental Floss).

Despite the previous year's setbacks, Lennon considered the acorn seed-bombing campaign a success and explained how it opened a dialogue in an interview with Rolling Stone: "We got a reaction to sending acorns — different heads of state actually planted their acorns, lots of them wrote to us answering about the acorns. We sent acorns to practically everybody in the world ... I believe Golda Meir said 'I don't know who they are but if it's for peace, we're for it,' or something like that. Scandinavia, somebody or other planted it. I think Haile Selassie planted his, I'm not sure. Some Queen somewhere. There were quite a few people that understood the idea." (via Imagine Peace)

40 years later, Yoko Ono recreated the event, sending seeds to leaders including Barack and Michelle Obama. A selection of the responses she and John received are available to view on the Imagine Peace website.