Tales from Gorwallt Fach
Tales of Abundance - Lesson1.
The German word for ‘Abundance’ is Überflussigkeit, which can be directly translated as ‘overflowingness’ a generous, yet gentle, sense of just more than enough.
Here at Gorwallt Fach, we have our own water supply, the source of which has been lost in time but which emanates from the hillside alongside the stream about a mile up the hill from the farmhouse.
Over the five years I have been here, the water supply – through its varying degrees of Überflussigkeit - has taught me many valuable lessons about abundance.
Lesson 1: Gratitude and Discipline (i.e. “don’t take abundance for granted”).
The first time the water ran out, it was the smell of burning I noticed first. Then, when I opened the dishwasher, it was the melted a chopping board. This was early autumn, in daylight, so the journey up the hill was less hazardous and a joy rather than a slog.
The next time I let it run dry, I was in the shower – hair full of conditioner, man of my dreams about to ‘pop-in’ and mid-winter, mid-snowstorm.
The third occasion involved removing the back end of a frog from the pipe that leads from the ‘well-spring’; but you don’t really want to know about that!
On these occasions, I’d taken for granted, for too long, that the water would always be there flowing freely.
It seemed as if the place was ganging up on me. No longer a ‘charming Tease’ but an annoying inconvenience. But this is my home and, if I’m meant to be here, I need to learn to make it my friend.
I’ve learned over time, that “Life-Lessons” tend to come in three’s and knew that it was time to bite the bullet and learn mine. Much as I resent the idea of being ‘disciplined’, I know I need to pay attention to the ‘overflowingness’ of the water supply on a daily basis. Bess and I add the last few hundred yards to the holding tank to our daily walks, unleash some of its overflow into the stream, and give gratitude to the beautiful valley that shares her gifts with us. The daily discipline has become a joy.
Learn your lessons quickly, and move on
- Eileen Caddy
It continues to surprise me how “when you change the way you look at something, the thing you look at changes” as Wayne Dyer so wisely wrote in his book, “the Power of Intention”.
As with any inanimate object, these lessons come in the form of analogies and metaphors. My ‘well spring’ is, after all, simply a source of water. What I take from it is a reflection of what I already knew but in my ‘sophisticated’ former life, I forgot to remember. The difference between assumption and choice is awareness. By noticing, I learn from my Self.
May all your lessons be quickly-learned.
With love
Dee