Loving What We Love

Part of my Not Buying It experience has been processing the emotions that come along with my urge to shop, consume, purchase, acquire. What I've discovered is that most of what I buy, other than the necessities of course, serves to meet some deeply personal need for fulfillment and wholeness.

As I've played the witness to this over the past six months, I've run the spectrum of being amazed and disgusted with myself. I've been sad, disappointed, disheartened, frustrated, lonely, amused, overjoyed, and proud. Baby steps are indeed what's needed in examining such an ingrained part of ourselves. No radical change happens without being thoroughly processed.

What I've arrived at lately, as my life has become more full and happy, is that a sense of lightheartedness and intrigue now consumes my hours and days. Therefore, the need to shop and buy as a way to pass the time, fill the boredom, and assuage my sadness and fears has greatly diminished. In fact, it is currently non-existent.

The summer solstice seems to have brought about a shift of great magnitude within me. My energy level has increased. I wake up early to watch the sunrise. I marvel at the moon and stars as I come home at night. I follow the flight paths of the butterflies as they dart through my garden. I sing at the top of my lungs in my car. Smiling, I hum my way lightly through my days.

I believe I am learning to love what I love. Truly love it. Completely love it. Taking the time and attention needed to allow myself to love and be loved. It has been an unbelievable transformation, the Source of which I am eternally grateful and awesomely humbled.

So, what could be a better way to celebrate this milestone than photos from my very first harvest of radishes (!) and a poem by Mary Oliver - two things that I love very much :-)

ENJOY~





Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.