A few weeks ago, I found a Nanking cherry bush, growing in almost plain sight about 50 yards behind my house. When I found this shrub, it was loaded with bright red cherries at the peak of ripeness. They were juicy, tart, and delicious. I picked a bowlful and did some baking that weekend. It was a true experience of abundant fruitfulness.
What an amazing surprise to find a cherry bush in that area. The bush was six-foot high and ten-foot in diameter, so it had been there for several years. We have lived in this house for 19 years and I’ve never noticed the pink blossoms in the spring or the brilliant fruit in mid-June. And yet, this showy bush is not hidden deep in the trees. I never saw it because I never looked.
Active Inner Vision
Walking with Active Inner Vision is a practice I recently learned in my shamanism class. It is spiritual communication that allows sight at a deeper level, like tuning into a set of senses that most humans never use.
The day I discovered the cherries I was doing shamanic homework. The elm trees in this dense area of trees are beetle-infested and sickly. I wondered what would grow up in the area when the trees died. As I looked at the shrubs below the canopy, I spotted the ripe fruit that weighed down the branches of the bush.
I photographed it, identified it, studied it, and decided to pick one cherry. When I cut it open there was a pit. After texting my husband to let him know I was going to eat something I found out back, I popped it in my mouth and tasted sweet, tart cherry juice.
Abundant Treasures
This discovery brought me great joy and excitement. I found a treasure in my backyard, something valuable and useful. I’ve revisited this area several more times finding ripe mulberries, plums, and gooseberries. There may be pies in my future! I’ve also found juniper berries, honeysuckle berries and cattails. All of these are beneficial plants, growing wild, abundantly, and mostly unnoticed.
It’s this way with our own true nature as well. We live our lives under the canopy of our personality, the cloaks that protect us from the rest of the world. Our personality is our false self, but it is often the only self we display. Few people drop the cloak to find their own true self. Most never experience abundance because they don’t seek their own fruitfulness, their true treasure.
If we never discover our true Self, our abundant fruitfulness, we do not experience the gifts God has embedded in our divine nature. Our purpose in this life is not to pay the bills, be a good person, and just get through it. We are here to live into our divine gifts, to create abundance. This only happens when we make choices that align with our divine nature. Many won’t find their divine nature on their own because they will run into their personality again and again. Most people require a little help to shine a light on that hidden fruitfulness.
A Soul Realignment Reading provides abundant information about your unique divine nature. Your fruitfulness is nourishment for your soul and it’s within your reach. (Inter)Spiritual Direction and Shamanism provide additional paths to your abundant fruitfulness.