abundance checks

the word written in today's box on my calendar is abundance. it's to remind me that today is the date this month to write my abundance check. what is that, you say? it's a spiritual practice of sorts, along the lines of my new one for 2008, positive intent. i've been doing the abundance check ritual for nearly 2 years now. two years of amazing highs and lows, yet also a time without a bounced check and without a time i couldn't buy groceries.

here is how it works. on the new moon every month, you write a check to yourself. really meditate for a few moments on abundance. you are engaging the universe. the actual practice is simple enough. where the amount of the check would be, you write "paid in full". on the line you would usually sign the check, write "the law of abundance". don't date the check. tuck it away somewhere and let it rest lightly in the back of your mind.

almost forget about it.

accept that abundance is your birthright. mentally, get out of your own way. that's it. the whole practice. a reality check, once a month. the reality is that abundance is, well, abundant, not rare.

i assume if you are reading this blog, you are living in relative comfort in the developed world. we have the luxury of choosing abundance. we are wealthy enough to have credit card debt, mortgages and rent, medical bills. we are not starving, we have roofs over our heads, we have resources to make our lives better. we can dream beyond where we are right now.

during my recent hibernation from the social world, i've had much time to read and reflect. for many years i've been thinking about how i could help eliminate poverty. i want to change the world, start using my creative power for social good. i know it's ambitious and big. you have to think big to change anything. bit by bit, i am getting closer to a plan for this next phase of my life. the abundance check practice has laid some of the groundwork for where i am going in the next decade. my positive intention plan has shown me the real power in thinking big. and how you can turbo-charge change by saying it out loud, committing it to paper and publishing it to the world.

it had to start with eliminating the poverty of my own mind.

it had to start with consciously casting off the long-held beliefs around money: there will never be enough! i will have to live under a bridge! what will become of me when i get sick? i'll never have the life i want. these were some of the core belief that i have worked so hard on changing. eight years ago i even had tattoos put on my hands to remind me to think abundance as my first reaction to anything life threw my way. years and years of therapy, writing, workshops, talking, thinking, meditating to solve this one big thing.

to dislodge the log stuck in the river of my life.

i thought i was doing pretty well with it until november, when breast cancer knocked on my door. if you've been reading this blog, you know how much i have worried and suffered around money. i couldn't even actually worry about the cancer for months, i was too consumed with how i would survive financially.

i have been humbled too much to make any sweeping statements about how cancer has taught me the final lesson in abundance. yet the lesson has been and continues to be, a most powerful one.

i'm writing this post because as march has rolled around, my jewelry sales have dropped off. i had some moments of the old panic feeling. i have not been able to make new work, my brain too foggy, my hands to tired for detailed tasks. then today, i see abundance written on my calendar and i remember.

oh, yes. abundance.

i am thrilled to report that i made my goal for febuary. i did indeed sell enough jewelry to cover my basic bills, plus a bit more to reinvest in materials. generous donations covered my chinese medicine herbs for 9 weeks. as my radiation treatment has stretched from the original plan of 6 weeks to now 8 weeks, i am so thankful for those herbs.

the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes. as woo-woo as abundance checks and positive intention practices may be, they are working in my life. you there reading this are part of the abundance this universe is flowing my way. your support is showing me, one day at a time, that what will happen when i get sick? is simply this: i will be held.

the date tables for the new moon can be found here. scroll down the page for the dates for 2008. i usually write them all on my calendar and date book at the beginning of the year.