Exuviae - Ellen Rowland I invited abundance into my life as the guru on the app had suggested, then sat back and waited. But in my anticipation, I failed to notice its arrival as a cluster of white crocus wearing a crown of singing bees. I didn't see the budding olive trees full of golden promise swaying in the August breeze. Regal hoopoes skittered in the bushes, bee eaters wind-chimed the sky. Swallows nested in roof rafters, their young songs unheard while I wondered when the riches would come my way. Then one bland morning, hanging laundry in the sun, I noticed a cicada's gossamer exoskeleton still gripping the stalk of a dying weed, the insect itself now high in a tree clanging its tiny cymbals together, having joined the chorus of lusty heat. When I die, may I leave my own shell behind so easily, attached to nothing, at peace with everything as I slip out to sing with the others.
What I Want is Joy - Meister Eckhart What I want is joy. What You teach me
is that suffering is the way, letting go
is the truth, and no- thingness is the life.
Which is after all what I need.
Overheard – Ross Gay It’s a beautiful day the small man said from behind me and I could tell he had a slight limp from the rasp of his boot against the sidewalk and I was slow to look at him because I’ve learned to close my ears against the voices of passersby, which is easier than closing them to my own mind, and although he said it I did not hear it until he said it a second or third time but he did, he said It’s a beautiful day and something in the way he pointed to the sun unfolding between two oaks overhanging a basketball court on 10th Street made me, too catch hold of that light, opening my hands to the dream of the soon blooming and never did he say forget the crick in your neck nor your bloody dreams; he did not say forget the multiple shades of your mother’s heartbreak, nor the father in your city kneeling over his bloody child, nor the five species of bird this second become memory, no, he said only, It’s a beautiful day, this tiny man limping past me with upturned palms shaking his head in disbelief.
After Reading Ross Gay’s “Overheard” – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer May there always be inside me a little old man with scuffed up shoes, a hobble in his step, and hands upturned in wonder. May he shuffle along behind me wherever I am and whisper in awe, again and again, “Isn’t it beautiful?” And may he always be telling the truth-- may he never be a parrot for beauty, but a real witness-- able to see what I in my sad stupor cannot. May he find glitter in frost, the curl in the steam that rises from rot, the deep rose in the sunset on the day the boy was shot. And let me not ignore him especially when I want to. Let me hear him and be moved to open my hands in amazement, too. And when my own thoughts are too loud, when I can’t hear his quiet, urgent sincerity, let him bump into me as passes me by, let him lead me with his wonder, both of us limping toward the light.
Mind Wanting More – Holly J. Hughes Only a beige slat of sun above the horizon, like a shade pulled not quite down. Otherwise, clouds. Sea rippled here and there. Birds reluctant to fly. The mind wants a shaft of sun to stir the grey porridge of clouds, an osprey to stitch sea to sky with its barred wings, some dramatic music: a symphony, perhaps a Chinese gong. But the mind always wants more than it has - one more bright day of sun, one more clear night in bed with the moon: one more hour to get the words right; one more chance for the heart in hiding to emerge from its thicket in dried grasses – as if this quiet day with its tentative light weren’t enough, as if joy weren’t strewn all around.
Don’t Hesitate – Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Abundance (in memory of Mary Oliver) – Amy Schmidt It’s impossible to be lonely when you’re zesting an orange. Scrape the soft rind once and the whole room fills with fruit. Look around: you have more than enough. Always have. You didn’t notice until now.
Like The Water – Wendell Berry Like the water of a deep stream, love is always too much. We did not make it. Though we drink till we burst, we cannot have it all, or want it all. In its abundance it survives our thirst. In the evening we come down to the shore to drink our fill, and sleep, while it flows through the regions of the dark. It does not hold us, except we keep returning to its rich waters thirsty. We enter, willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.
Abundance – Louise Glück A cool wind blows on summer evenings, stirring the wheat. The wheat bends, the leaves of the peach trees rustle in the night ahead. In the dark, a boy’s crossing the field: for the first time, he’s touched a girl so he walks home a man, with a man’s hungers. Slowly the fruit ripens-- baskets and baskets from a single tree so some rots every year and for a few weeks there’s too much: before and after, nothing. Between the rows of wheat you can see the mice, flashing and scurrying across the earth, though the wheat towers above them, churning as the summer wind blows. The moon is full. A strange sound comes from the field—maybe the wind. But for the mice it’s a night like any summer night. Fruit and grain: a time of abundance. Nobody dies, nobody goes hungry. No sound except the roar of the wheat.
Abundance Poem - from participants in “Already Been Done,” an Ancestral Listening Workshop from Black Feminist Film School We have more than enough power We have more than enough energy We have more than enough light
We have more than enough wisdom We have more than enough memory We have more than enough protection
We have more than enough power to manifest what we want and repel what seeks to harm us We have more than enough love We have MORE than enough love to go around
We have more than enough connection We have more than enough connection to love We have more than enough mothering touch
We have more than enough time, we just have to make space We have more than enough time We have more than enough space
We have more than enough joy We have more than enough stories and courage to heal our worlds We have more than enough fire
We have more than enough peace We have more than enough activation We have more than enough meaning
We have more than enough sweetness We have more than enough laughter We have more than enough beauty
We have more than enough kitchen tables We have more than enough reasons to love ourselves as we are We have more than enough clarity
We have more than enough gentleness We have more than enough compassion for ourselves We have more than enough intimacy
We have more than enough reverberation We have more than enough music We have more than enough audacity
We have more than enough breath We have more than enough examples We have more than enough bridge
We have more than enough capacity We have more than enough illumination We have more than enough poetry, everywhere
We have more than enough community We have more than enough pathway We have more than enough guidance
We have more than enough guidance We have more We have more than enough
All That Baggage, I - Meister Eckhart Where the creaturely ends in me is where God has the room to begin, on the far side of my desires, and demands, beyond my expectations and worries and needs.
All That Baggage, II - Meister Eckhart When I let go of all that, like letting a heavy sack drop from my drooping shoulders, God has room to be God within me, and I wonder what I thought I needed with all that baggage in the first place.
An Appreciation Poem for Living an Abundant Life – Jennifer Healey The most healing journey Is the journey into life; Knowing I’m not Running out of time, But really running in, Outside of time and Into the reality of life That’s timeless, changeless. Abundance is not out there, But right here, In here.
What appears to be a problem Is really a portal. A miracle can happen here, But it only comes through me, And my willingness To see things differently. Appreciating what I have Is one way to turn A rock into gold, My suffering into a meaningful Aspect of a mystery unfolding. Appreciating what has yet To come my way Transforms how life Continues to flow. The problems I perceive, Flooded with light, Become something new. There’s something much more To life Than what I can hold. I need surrender Only to this moment For an abundance of light To come through.
My rock, My challenge, My tragedy and grief– They’re necessary to reach The true treasures of being alive; The rock is an indicator of Another possibility Working its way Into my life. Extending my own forgiveness, The world softens with me. The outline of grief Loses its sharpness When I stop striving, Stop pushing, Stop grasping and gasping; Knowing deeply my truth To be rich, and free.
I hope not for more things In another time and place, But look and listen more deeply To this place. No destination but this one Requires my attendance. Through appreciation and presence, Peace becomes my treasure; Joy becomes my nature. There is here, and now, And this is the place for abundance: How deeply I Am Here and Now Is how it’s measured.
I’ve spent some time Crawling through the dark, But now I know what it means To stand in the light. I’ve grown through the dirt, And how grateful I am for it, Because all the treasures Are buried there. Seeing life as a blessing, Once hiding in plain sight, It all becomes a beautiful painting After a dark night. There is wealth even here. And I don’t know what this all means, But there’s hope inside. There is a breath breathing me, And I am alive. The times I feared would ruin me Are the moments that pushed me Right back into my self. To me, now, It’s clear: Abundance takes no sides. With appreciation, Each step I take Takes me further into A great mystery. With appreciation, Each suffering I uproot, Each experience I unearth, Leads me to the infinite gift Of my own rebirth.
All my darkness Becomes light
When I shine the light Of presence upon what is. When I see what is, Without seeking myself in it, Gratefulness breaks the dam That once held me back. When I forgive what has been And allow this moment To live through me, I can see clearly there is no lack. The deeper I am, The deeper I Am.