Apples
by Leslie Sann
Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me.
“You know what this tastes like When you first bite into it?” she asks.
“No, what?”
“Blue sky.”
Your zoomed.”
“You ever eat blue sky?”
“No,” I admit.
“Try it sometime,” she says. “It’s apple-flavored.”
Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe
I stand outside on my property looking up at my ancient apple tree. This tree is at least 39 years old, maybe 40. It was planted, I’m sure, when the house was built in 1978. I think I have what they call a bumper crop this year.
I look up at the tree. It is so rich and bountiful. The apples deep and red. The branches full. Some pulled towards earth by the weight of the fruit. There are more apples than I could ever pick. I have told my neighbors to take what they want. I send clients home with fruit.
I take the abundance of tree’s offering into my bones. I declare myself a wealthy woman.
My mind begins to argue, saying wealth only has to do with money.
I recognize the falseness of this thought and realize how I have missed abundance in my life as I was looking in the wrong places.
True wealth has to do with the ability to be generous in giving from the fruits of what I harvest from within, into my world. The blessings of my abundance not only in apples, but in learning, growth, upliftment, skills I have learned, things I can do, kindness I can share.
When I was younger, much younger, I was continually terrified by what I saw as the world. The truth is I was terrifying myself with my own thinking. I would make things up and imagine my thoughts were reality and would then scare myself into inaction. I called myself painfully shy. But the truth is my shyness was merely a manifestation of my thinking that I wasn’t safe in the world. That something out there was going to eat me.
Over the course of my lifetime I’ve learned to calm myself down, to quiet my mind, to pay attention, to give my attention into something other than my thinking.
What I’ve learned to invest in is the goodness of my heart, the gift of my giving, the joys and the blessings in my life.
In doing so I’ve discovered that this world is a beautiful place to live, rich with opportunities for learning, disturbances that I can turn into joys, adversities I turn into blessings, people that offer me opportunities to grow.
So much wealth!This is all a preamble to letting you know that I have re-opened the doors to my Living by Design Online learning course Calm Down Lift UP. Not only have I been feasting, but so have the deer, the groundhogs, the yellow jackets and who knows what else. Inspired my the trees abundant giving I have decided to keep the program available to you if you choose to participate.
It’s an online program you can complete at your own pace, and includes downloadable audios and a workbook. You can take partake of the abundance of apples. You can stand on my shoulders and learn much more quickly than I did, for I had to teach myself to calm down and lift up.
You will learn to soothe yourself into your peaceful presence so you can lift up into your greatest self, shifting from reactivity to creativity. When we are living in our greatness, which is really our goodness, we are living a good life. We are living in our wealth, our prosperity, our abundance and from this place of fullness we can give from the overflow into our world.
If you are someone who cares about yourself, about the people in your life, about our world please go here: Calm Down Lift UP
Blessings,
