Summer 2011 – ‘Abundance’

The other day, my daughter asked me what my favourite word was and the first thing that popped into my head was ‘ABUNDANCE’. Not only do I like the way this word looks, I like the way it feels on my tongue. I also like how it has the potential to encompass the ever -expanding scope of our inner and outer worlds.

In this season, abundance can be found everywhere in the physical world. It will soon become manifest as I stroll through our garden in mid-summer, with the fruits of our labour ripening all at once. This provides a great metaphor for how we respond to abundance when it shows up in our lives. Do you deny yourself enjoyment and hoard it away, or breathe it in, absorb it, and spread it around?

When I looked up the word ‘abundance’ in the dictionary, I saw that it has a couple of meanings: an extremely plentiful or over-sufficient quantity or supply; or, overflowing fullness: abundance of the heart.

I think most often of abundance in the latter sense, but the former sense of excess is worth considering, too—or rather, what feels to us like excess because we have gotten something we may not believe we deserve. How often has ‘your cup runneth over’? How did it feel? Some of us panic when given our heart’s desire, becoming immobilized with fear that someone or thing might come along at any moment and take it all away. It’s as if there’s some giant pie in the sky and you’re only allowed a sliver, and if you get more than your share, you’ll be penalized by some supreme cosmic judge.

I refuse to believe that’s how it works. Abundance, especially when applied to matters of the heart, is a self-generating phenomenon of infinite supply that will always balance and match what you put out and what you allow yourself to take in. It may not always be returned from the direction it was sent, but that’s not the point of putting it out in the first place. I believe abundance is the harvest of unconditional love that starts at home, with you.

When we allow fear and scarcity to overshadow our heart light, we deny our inner garden. By pushing away these illusory perceptions like clouds that mask the sun, we let in the light and shine on, illuminating everything we encounter. Once we realize that we have all we need within, there’s no fear in sharing it and no worry of accepting more as it flows into our lives. It’s a simple shift in our perception of expansion and the release of this force.

To drive the point home, let’s examine the simple mechanics of something we do at least sixteen times a minute, every hour and every day of our lives: breathing. We do it naturally and without effort, most of the time unconsciously. And when we bring consciousness into the mix, look out! More expansion spiralling out, with no beginning or end. At no point in this process do we try to hold our breath for fear that it might be our last. In fact, if we applied that logic, it very well might be. We pull it in, we push it out, a perfect symbiotic dance. Our present-centred awareness depends on this relationship and it never occurs to us to halt this process as our basic survival and what it means to be a sentient being relies on it.

One warm evening this summer on a clear night, look up at the stars spreading out into our galaxy and beyond. Take in the eternal expression of our abundant universe, reflecting back to all of us our core essence, endlessly renewed, reborn, and plentiful.

Alexandra Nedergaard
June 22, 2011