Sometimes I think that abundance may be as much about what we let go of as what we store up. Perhaps you have seen shows about “hoarding.” I find it extremely painful to watch those shows, and so I usually don’t. The pain is not so much about the huge filth that folks end up living in (though, that’s not pleasant). I am just deeply affected by the pain in their lives. Some deep wound has left them clinging to so much stuff. Some of the stuff ends up being really valuable, and much of it is just really garbage. It doesn’t matter. None of it is capable of healing the wound.
The Iranian poet known as Hafiz writes:
“There are only so many people you can carry in your small boat before their weight sinks you. A hundred you can carry whom you love. But barely one you wish to harm.”*
As we walk this life today, what are we carrying? What are we holding? What are we bearing in our lives? Are we filling our storehouses, our little boats of life, with loves, or with sad substitutes for a healing that we really, really need? When we stop to answer those questions, I think we know the answers fairly immediately, but if they don’t come immediately, try this. In a quiet place, write those questions in bold above on a piece of paper, leaving space for an answer. Then, with your other hand, the hand you don’t write with, write your answers. This little trick has a way of allowing our whole mind and heart to respond.
Are there things that you need to let go of today? Letting go could actually be the way to abundance.
Bob Patrick
*A Year With Hafiz, tr. Daniel Lainsky, Aug. 2
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Well said, Bob. Wise and healing words in a welcome vessel of pain remembered, imagery inviting healing, and a practice that can carry us on that boat of love.
Appreciatively,
Roy