have everything

…everything i
need I have everything
I need I have ev…

“The heart knows what the mind has yet to understand.”

Those words best capture what I heard in my head when I looked at the coaster this morning. It’s the closest I could come to putting words to what came through when I admired the little work of art upon which my coffee cup rested. The coaster has a bright blue, shiny background with aboriginal artwork on it and the word, “Australia” in the lower left corner.

I guiltily took it when it was offered. My heart was drawn to them every time I visited my friend Nancy. I would see them on her kitchen counter, still in the package in which they were purchased. I would open the package, to examine and admire them all, fanning them out like playing cards and running my fingers across each of their multicolored reflective surfaces. My friend’s oldest daughter had brought them back from her travels to Australia. The bright colors and shine attracted the crow in me.

When she offered it to me, I hesitated. My mind did that thing it’s programmed to do. A litany of question-answer-accusation in one, so that it didn’t even need to ask the question, but only tell, tell, tell.

What do you need with a coaster?
You have plenty of coasters.
It’s just one more thing.
You don’t NEED one more thing.
What are you going to DO with that?
You’re MOVING. You’re trying to get RID of things! Not acquire!

Okay…My heart knew that last one was ridiculous. A coaster would easily slip into something larger that was going – it was practically like picking up nothing at all.

My mind said no. My heart reached out, guiltily. Into my sewing bag the pretty blue coaster went after it was offered to me yet again. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but not only did my heart want it, but Nancy seemed to want me to have it.

So here it is, at my house, or rather the home of my sister and her husband, where I sit in the corner of the room, with my cup of coffee, every morning. Where I need a coaster. Every day.

“See???” My heart exclaims brightly to my mind. “We DID need that! Isn’t it marvelous? Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it the perfect bit of shine, polish and bright that we need every day? Isn’t it amazing that even though YOU didn’t think we needed it, I wanted it, and it turns out we DID need it? I, for one, am SO GRATEFUL we took the coaster.”

What other things has my heart reached out for and my mind pooh-poohed? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Constellations of bright things that could shine more light and love into my world? I may never know. But maybe every time I hear my heart whisper, “I want that.” I will get better about muting my mind’s objections. Maybe that is the way to live.

And I slip this mantra to my mind, like the bright coaster, because my heart wishes to give it something small, something shiny, something the mind maybe thinks it doesn’t need, but it makes the heart happy, “I have everything I need” my heart whispers. And the mind reaches out and palms the shiny mantra turning it over and over.