Tiny Miracles and True Abundance: What I Failed to See

Welcome to the fourth release of my newsletter where we’re exploring building connected and thriving lives overflowing with abundance. It’s a newsletter about vulnerability, risk taking, connection, re-enchanting our lives and the world. We’re exploring finding deep roots and abundant futures. Inspired by over 4,000 miles hiked on the Appalachian Trail and Continental Divide Trail.

It’s always 100% human written, by me. From the heart.

~Amy

By: Amy Johnson

Summer is arriving in all its beauty here in Michigan, life is bursting forth in so many ways. It’s had me thinking about all the tiny little wonders in life.

It’s so easy to forget them in between the everyday responsibilities, worrying about things past and things to come. I’d be willing to bet I’m not alone in this. In the process of earning, doing, proving, we rush past the miracle of what already is.

Our lives. The natural world that sustains us. Sunshine on an early summer day. Our friends and family.

We live in a culture that emphasizes achievement and earning what we have.

But could it be that the most incredible things any of us have– were never earned, but given to us through no effort of our own.

What a miracle.

But are we seeing them? Appreciating them? Living them fully?

Or are we so focused on earning the next thing that we aren’t experiencing the joy of what we already have?

I know I wasn’t fully appreciating them.

Long distance hiking has been one of my main portals into greater gratitude, greater life, greater connection. For that I’m so grateful. But on some level, those experiences have also been an escape from what is right in front of me. Perhaps if I truly had the eyes to see what is right in front of me, I would not have needed to spend months walking from Georgie to Maine, to find what I found, to see what I see now.

This past week I felt this truth viscerally. I spent an afternoon with a few new friends, removing invasive plants from a small area of forest near Ann Arbor, MI. I joined for the day, thinking it was my way of being generous, my way of giving something back to the world. I always enjoy spending time outside, but truthfully I wasn’t expecting an afternoon of pulling weeds to be particularly fulfilling.

As we walked in lines across the forest, scanning for the invasive garlic mustard, we talked. They stopped occassionally, pointing out plants to me. A native fern, blueberries, beautiful plants with tiny white flowers, patches of “skunk cabbage” covering the ground reminded me of some ancient time. May Apples everywhere, low to the ground, little green spheres dangling from tender leaves. They can be eatten in the fall, they explained. “They’re delicious.” Suddenly, we came across bright orange mushrooms growing in horizontal shelves off a decaying log. Chicken of the Woods. A delicious and edible mushroom.

A tiny frog hopped onto the leaf in front of me. Before I could show her to the other two, off she went into the undergrowth. Light dancing off the leaves as a small black and yellow striped snake slithered through the undergrowth.

I hadn’t slept well the night before. By the time the afternoon wore on, my head was throbbing with a bad headache. I spent the rest of the day trying to sleep it off.

But my heart was full, and I was full. Everything didn’t need to be perfect. Something in me had relaxed. I had found community. Somewhere among the trees, talking to these new friends, I found again that thing which I’ve sought so much, in so many different ways.

True connection.

True community.

Deep connection to place.

And in those few hours of time, we had created more space. By removing the invasive plants, we created more space in the forest, in the land– for life– diverse, bountiful life to thrive. Perhaps we created more space for ourselves as well.

So many times, we feel like it’s a zero-sum game. A competition. A pie we’re dividing where if you get more, I get less. Where if nature gets more, people get less. A world where at home, where we live, is simply a place to escape from to experience something more beautiful.

And we sometimes think that if there’s pain, discomfort, or imperfections, it means the thing is bad, or the beauty isn’t there.

That was how I was living my life.

But sometimes the beauty and the pain is interwoven. And sometimes it’s right at home.

It wasn’t that Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Michigan was missing the beauty, the enchantment, the wonder. It wasn’t my life that was missing the wonder. It was me that didn’t have the eyes to see what was right in front of me.

But I’m beginning to see it.

And wow, is it incredible.

It was never a zero sum game. I never needed to be so anxious. I gave to the forest that day, but perhaps I was given something even more valuable in return.

Peace. Gratitude. Abundance. Community.

Too often we let fear run our lives. And yet we fail to see all the incredible forces all around us, conspiring to allow our lives.

And in our failure to see the miracles all around us, we fail to truly live, to truly allow joy to pass through us. And we squander the beauty, the miracles. We waste the gift.

It’s a true tragedy. And one that we too often don’t even recognize is happening.

Let’s turn around the tragedy today. Let’s see the miracles, feel the gratitude, and allow the joy to flow in us and through us, and out to the rest of the world.

Let’s allow the beautiful possibilities to reveal themselves.

So I’ll leave you with a few questions:

What miracles aren’t you fully seeing?

Where is fear masking the abundance that you have?

Where can you relax into deeper community, gratitude, and joy?

What new possibilities might reveal themselves when you do?

Your thoughts and feedback are so helpful for me. If this lands or doesn’t land, I’d love to hear about it. And if you know someone who might benefit from this perspective, send it to them.

Until next time,

Amy