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Yesterday afternoon new friends gathered in our new home an old tradition--our annual Fall Chili Party to celebrate the Autumn Equinox. For our family Fall has always been a season of abundance: a time to celebrate the last of the pole beans and the first hard squash. Time to make hearty soups and apple crisp. Time to read big novels and wear big sweaters. Time to say thank you for "The grain of the earth, the fruit of the vine, the blood of your vein, the pulse of your heart."
To help me celebrate this transitional time, I asked several of my favorite bloggers of Spirit to post on the theme: Autumn & Abundance. The results were lovely. Rather than rave on, I'll let their words speak for themselves and encourage you to spend some time tending to your Autumn soul via these inspiring voices.
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Like practical to-do type of advice? Jaimie at Starshyne Productions gives us a hand-dandy laundry list of ways to practice gratitude during this season of abundance:
"In this season of abundance, may you celebrate all you are thankful for, take the time to love yourself up with thanks for what you've contributed and created and may you be willing to receive all the abundance the Universe is aching to share with you."
If you only have a minute or two, Staci Boden at Practical Spirituality has the perfect visual mediation for this harvesting season.
If you (like me) are struggling with your personal abundance is a world where many experience lack, Kara at Mother Henna scratches where it itches:
"I think at times, I feel shame about embracing my large life because there are so many people "without". You know that line from the film "Shall We Dance" where the guy tells his wife he was ashamed to want more, ashamed to not be happy enough with the good they had, ashamed to answer the call of his heart when they already had a "good" life. I understand that. I have so much already. Who am I to say I'm playing small or that our life is small. We are so blessed. Who am I to want more or to want for anything when we are already so much better off than most.
Ultimately, I think it has to shift in my being. I am grateful. I do know I'm blessed. And maybe it is a misnomer to say I want "more." Maybe the real abundance comes from, not necessarily more, but authentic. Not more in quantity, but more in authenticity. More engaged. More sacred. More cherished. More artful. And all done without shame, without trying to hide it, without trying to appear more 'normal.' "
Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts helps us sort out the tug of this edged-dwelling season where we let go of one season of bounty to make ready our open arms for the next harvest:
"For me, the heart of autumn’s gifts are its twin energies of relinquishing and harvesting. It is a season of paradox that invites us to consider what we are called to release and surrender, and at the same time it invites us to gather in the harvest, to name and celebrate the fruits of the seeds we planted months ago. In holding these two in tension we are reminded that in our letting go we also find abundance."
Christy Lambertson at Dry Bones Dance talks about making the shift in your soul from a place of scarcity ('there's not enough pie to go around') to one of abundance ('pie for everyone!'):
"I think it will take a long, long time to figure this out, but I’m realizing that there IS no other side of health or healing that I will someday reach and magically be okay. If I am not enough, right here, right now – I never will be. Until I believe that at my core there is abundance, not lack – nothing will ever be enough, and I will always be paying never-ending rent to the universe in exchange for getting to take up my little bit of space on this planet. Perhaps this is why when I look at the world, I am frequently blind to the abundance around me – because I can’t see the abundance that IS me."
University of Cambridge Chaplain Maggi Dawn reminds us that an appreciation of feasting sometimes requires a bit of a fast (great for those of us who are experiencing some lack
