Clearing

On the outside, it looks like I'm consumed with clearing junk that's been stored for years in my basement, and painting my living room and dining room. On the outside it looks like all I want to do is freshen, purge, repair, replace, and recycle. And even I was lured into thinking that what it looks like, is what it is.

But we'd both be wrong.

There's something about turning 50. There's something about facing forward in the next decade to come (Lord willing). There's something about getting ready for what's next, that is happening. It's like when you're eight months pregnant and you start nesting like crazy: cleaning, sorting, washing everything, folding neatly, and getting yourself as prepared as one can be, before the big event.

Whether or not there's an actual "big event" coming or not, is anybody's guess, but what we do know, is that like all the ages and stages that have come before, something is dying so that something may be reborn. To "die" there must be a clearing away, a letting go, a leaving behind and a putting away, so that there may be a picking up and moving forward in a clearer, cleaner, and less "cluttered" manner.

I do some of my best meditating when I'm in this mode, some of the most helpful insights and connections come to me when I'm moving my body, my stuff, and the energy of the stuff. I'm trying to Eckhart Tolle my way through, that is to say, touch with gentle awareness, the accumulations, the stories behind what is there and why it's there, the inherited baggage, the stuff I have because nobody else wanted it, but nor did they want it to disappear entirely. When I look around and see all the stuff my mother has given me because she no longer had the space or desire for it, but yet, wanted it to stay in the family, I am both honored and burdened. As I go through each photo, each packet of clippings, each box of memories, I see a younger version of myself that has dutifully lugged it all from house to house to house, without ever really wanting it, but never having the skills to make it go away.

I don't want to pass all that on to the next generation, it's not Woohoo's place or problem. It never really was mine, either, but I allowed it to be, and now, at 50, I'm ready to relinquish all the stuff, and all the stuff that is attached to the stuff.

There is a definite shift in the feng shui of the house already, even though right now if you were to take a look, you would see a disaster - furniture all shoved to the the center of the rooms, tools, step stools, paint cans, art, lamps, all the crap everywhere but where it should be.

Sometimes we have to strip our own inner walls, move all our crap to the center of our being and allow the energy to move where it has been stagnant, open up the places that are stuck, and let go of what we no longer need, what is not serving us, what we have just been dutifully carrying for far too long.