Visualizing Abundance

In a discussion about manifesting abundance yesterday, my friend asked me if I had ever gone shopping and enjoyed thinking about having something without actually worrying about being able to buy it.

An image came back to me from over thirty years ago. I was in Atlanta in 1972 as part of an Outward Bound course, which was part of my student teaching experience. After spending three weeks in Linville Gorge near Morganton, NC, learning wilderness camping, rock climbing and rappelling, we were paired off and taken to Peachtree & 10th in Atlanta for a few days of survival in the urban wilderness, from Thursday to Saturday. I had no money, no id, only a phone number in case of arrest.

This was full-tilt hippiedom; people were openly selling drugs on the sidewalks. By Friday night, after several minor adventures, I caught up with several others in our group, and we headed for the Underground where there were a few shops and restaurants, but mostly undeveloped, dark, wet tunnels around the MARTA station—sounds like a soul journey, yes?

Lady's Slipper Orchid

In one of the shops, I saw a blown-glass sculpture of a lady’s slipper orchid, about a foot tall, more than twice the size of the real plant. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen—and only $800. The petals radiated out from the rounded slipper, and the stem and leaves were like rays of energy rising from the base. It may have been lighted from the base; it glowed in its corner against a gray wall. It used only shape and line, no texture, no colors, no attempt to make it look “real” but only to abstract the line, the essence of the form in a material state.

I fell in love. I felt immeasurably poor, because I could hardly imagine $800, and could not ever imagine having enough money to buy such a beautiful and useless thing.

A few years later, I took a sculpture class, and as my project, I tried to make my own flower from cast acrylic resin—I wanted to do an iris, but I wanted to make the same kind of beautiful image that I had seen in Atlanta.

I failed miserably—I did not have the skill and knowledge of the media to make the model, much less the mold and the casting. My teacher gave me a B because of the difficulty of the project, even though my efforts did not work. That was a new concept for me that one could fail in a successful way.

Only a few years ago, I went with a hiking group to see a place where there were many lady’s slippers in manicured woods behind a large tract house. They were delicate and beautiful, but not so much so as the image I have of that sculpture. They did not glow in their shady park.

Yesterday I told my friend that I did have such a memory, and she asked it if I owned it. Yes, I own that sculpture, that sensuous lady’s slipper. It glows in my mind as if it were in a specially lighted nook in my living room. And that is how I learn to manifest abundance. Now I can feel rich to know that image without having to worry about ever breaking it or getting tired of it.

The image is not of the orchid that I saw, which was all clear glass, but it’s pretty close. Now you can see and own it too.