A Trip to Bountiful

You don't have to tell me: I know the title belongs to a wonderful movie made from the play by Horton Foote. But the phrase is on my mind as I reflect on our recent annual pilgrimage to the Common Ground Fair. It strikes me as quite ironic that while the nation is in one of its worst financial crises, I am once again feeling like the recipient of the world's abundance. Nowhere is the bounty of the harvest more evident than at this fair.

This year we got to share the experience with our closest friends, D and J. It was their maiden voyage. I think they had a good time, based on the fact that D got to order those Quoddy Mocs he's been wanting for years, and J sought to recapture bygone days by attempting to keep a hula hoop in motion. She was actually pretty good!

J and I made a stop at the Trillium Soap booth, and made off with a bagful each of assorted aromatic bars. The soap, combined with the fresh bunches of sweet annie, filled the car with great scents for the ride home. I also found some baskets made in Vietnam that made a perfect home for the wool roving I recently purchased. Somehow the soap bars and the wool called to each other, so last night I felted 7 bars.


As if the fair wasn't enough bounty, J and D treated us to dinner at Maine's finest restaurant, Primo. My scallop entree was filled with a variety of the best local wild mushrooms, including hen-of-the-woods, and chanterelles. (And you know how I am about mushrooms!)

I don't mean to bore you here with the tedious details of my personal adventure. My point in all this is that a bountiful feeling is within reach of all of us, but sometimes we don't know where to look.

To be able to appreciate the abundance around you, you need to:

• live in a sufficiently simple way to see it when it comes.
• be in the moment so your channels are clear to witness the fortune you possess.
• share what you have to increase the flow of abundance in the life of others as well as yourself.

I'm no financial/economic wiz (Aren't you glad I'm not running for office?), but I do understand that the current economic crisis is the result of greed. When greed motivates us, we are unable to see the natural flow of abundance that can result from the three practices above.

The current presidential election is very important. This blog is not a platform for politics, but rather a voice for sanity. For the sake of sanity, I ask you to consider the following.

• Which candidate is asking you to live more generously, with more care and concern for those around you?
  
• Which candidate is calling upon you to be a better person, versus circling the wagons and selfishly keeping others from sharing the abundance that is ours?

copyright 2008 starfishdoc

Abundance

I’m sitting at a picnic table at the edge of the sea. It’s a beautiful sunny day, sweetened by the songs of finches and the scent of lilacs and beach roses. The gulls are splashing in the pools that form at low tide. From where I sit I can see the markers for more than forty lobster traps.

A dozen common eiders swim toward shore in a row so straight they put the Rockettes to shame. This is Pemaquid Point, one of perhaps a hundred peninsulas that decorate the Maine coastline like fringe on a flapper’s dress. I am surrounded by abundance.

I owe this glorious experience to the generosity of a prosperous friend who is renting this cottage and has given it to me for the week. Chris is the embodiment of my favorite word - abundance. The more money he makes, the more he gives away to other people. The more money he makes, the more he does for others.

Now, you may think, well sure, he has money so he can afford to be generous. But that’s where you’d be mistaken. Chris is not generous because he has money; he’s generous because that’s who he is. It is his nature. Embedded in his character is the spirit of abundance, the expression of which is generosity. People like Chris always have a sense that there's plenty to go around. They are human cornucopias.

Sadly, we all know wealthy people who’d never give a nickel to a beggar. But hoarding has never led to happiness. My friend Chris is always smiling, and his joyous disposition is contagious.

Abundance is an attitude. It’s not about money or even material goods necessarily. It’s about sharing, giving away, whatever it is you have to offer. It comes from knowing that we all have gifts that someone else needs, and there’s no better way to feel connected to other people and to the planet itself than to share your gifts.

Thanks Chris for being who you are.

Copyright 2008 starfishdoc

A Tisket, A Tasket...

For the past few weeks I have been making fabric baskets. I hope to sell them and donate some of the proceeds to charity. (I've been experimenting with technique, color, size and shape, so I'd love your feedback, dear reader.)

My samples are beginning to collect everywhere, and I'm running out of places to put them. At this point they have taken over the supper table. It's been fascinating to see the reactions they evoke in visitors.

When women first seem them, there is an almost uniform tone of reverence in their voices. But then, I never met a woman who didn't love a basket, or containers in general for that matter. If you're like me, you have purchased a basket, a bowl or a bag, feeling like you had to have it, without knowing what you would put inside.

I suspect it's quite primal. We women are containers ourselves, aren't we? Doesn't every bowl or basket resonate with the womb inside us? Isn't a basket something that magical things spring from? Don't they represent the very spirit of giving life and holding abundance?

Now the men on the other hand: a completely different story. Every man who has seen the baskets has picked one up and put it on his head! Aside from the comic moment, I think there's something primal in the male response, too. Men are much more interested in what a thing can do, what it's good for.

These gender based responses are the manifestation of the tension between two forces within each of us, whether male or female. Within each of us are two opposing, competing sides, both of which need to be developed and nurtured, and both of which need to be reconciled with one another. We need to find balance between the expression of the two. They are called "agency" and "communion."

Agency is that side of us bold enough to venture out and do things on our own. It is that independent side. That innovative side. It is the assertive, sometimes aggressive side. It is the side that men come by more naturally than women do.

Then there is communion: that side of us that is relational, that cares for others, that serves, that gives, that holds. It is that interdependent, sometimes dependent side. Women come by communion more naturally than men.

But both genders need the development of both sides in order to be truly complete, mature, well-rounded. And it's not hard to see that the extreme over-emphasis of one side over the other can lead to problems. A woman who fails to develop her agency side will end up either being dependent on others to get her needs met or over-extending herself to others while neglecting her own needs. A man who is overly independent, will have no skills for being in a relationship, no ability to nurture his children.

Whenever you are feeling upset or uncomfortable, when something is the matter but you can't say what it is, try checking to see if there is balance between these two sides. You will usually find that you are over utilizing one side to the neglect of the other.

Sometimes you just need to check to see if you need a basket or a hat.

Copyright starfishdoc 2008

Waiting for Black Trumpets

About 20 of us sat under a tent that beautiful September morning. The scene was the Common Ground Fair, Maine's most popular annual event celebrating organic farming. We were there to learn about foraging for mushrooms.

The teacher passed around samples of the ten most desirable edible mushrooms native to this area. There was one he could not show us because it had eluded him for ten years. It was the black trumpet. Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for hunting wild mushrooms was so contagious that I began my career as a forager the very next day.

The woods were loaded with mushrooms of every size and shape. Being new at this, I took my time and followed all the directions for accurate identification. I couldn't have imagined that on my very first day foraging, I would stumble on a sizable patch of black trumpets.

Every year since, I return to the same spot, hoping the black trumpets will appear. Last year, they arrived in mid-June. This year, I have been out looking for them at least once a week since Memorial Day. I had just about give up hope. But yesterday, there they were, covering a patch of ground about ten feet square. The earth once more yielding her abundance.

Whether the crop is wild or planted, there is something besides abundance to learn from a harvest. And that is patience. Nature evolves in its own time, not on our schedule. And what applies to mushrooms or potatoes, also applies to people. We tend to want the people in our lives to change in the direction and at the speed we dictate. But the harder we try to make that happen, the less it is likely to occur.

All things in nature, people especially, grow at their own pace and in their own direction. The black trumpets, looking like ribbons of dark chocolate, arrived splendidly, not according to my expectations but by their own clock.

Copyright 2007 starfishdoc