I remember when I first heard these words from a beloved yoga teacher of mine, during the final rest pose Savasana....and the tears flowed. It was such a foreign concept to me at the time, "I'm enough?"...really enough? Our learning this week is on Asteya or non-stealing, there is more that we can steal than physical objects. I practice Asteya by trying to not steal from the present by living in the past or the future but instead in the presence...in the NOW. I love the reminder, "nothing to do, nowhere to be, no-one to be". I try to not steal from others by being present when I'm with them and really listening to their truth. I am trying to not steal from future generations by consuming less and making decisions as if they matter seven generations from now. As I learn to recognize poverty consciousness, I know that I have enough, I do enough and I am enough.
Enough
by David Whyte
Enough. These few words are enough. If not these words, this breath. If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to life we have refused again and again until now.
Until now.
In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars
of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,
the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders
of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is
nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned
in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side
is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world
you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it
against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.