Loving ourselves and life from where we are ...
Day 24
I’m counting down to contentment — to the starting date of my new sacred journey course,“Creating a Life of Contentment," which begins Sept. 15. For one entire year we will travel together as intimate companions: to relax, let go and rest into Love; to discover the bliss of our own life. You can learn all about it here.
Fiddling
My mother calls it “fiddling.” Others might call it “putzing.” Arranging, rearranging, tidying. I call it housecleaning.
Is there a woman who loves to clean her house? I don’t mind as long as I can do it my way—with contentedness.
Rather than pressuring myself, pushing through to have my house look just so (I did enough of that over the years!), I prefer to straighten it slowly, with intention. Using intention helps one feel contented, pleased.
I take one room at a time and survey it. What needs freshening, sprucing up, so that it will emit some “new energy”?
Cleaning, in this way, becomes an act of making my space sacred again.
This weekend, my target was the dining room. The dust bunnies were having a convention under the table. A scan of the room left me feeling stale so I dusted mindfully and vacuumed around the baseboards. I took a picture down from the wall and replaced it with one I had never hung there before.
As it turns out, the three pieces on the wall—re-grouped just so—now send a heartfelt message and make our eating space (very tiny!) feel blessed and sacred.
Perhaps we will eat more mindfully, gratefully, with the help of these subtle reminders.
In pleasing my senses and heart, I created new energy in my home.
Ah, contentment.
And my house is tidier too!
Today, survey a space in your home and see if you can find some fun and contentment in fiddling. En-JOY!
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
"The path is beautiful and pleasant,
and joyful, and familiar."
~Meister Eckhart
6 comments:
This is such fun! These days I am enjoying all the fresh dahlias from our garden. I place them in a vase (or two - they are thankfully abundant) with a small statue of Kuan Yin and the Buddha sitting alongside. Every time I look at them I'm grateful for their beauty and the way they make my house feel.
Sounds like a beautiful practice, Sheryl. Dahlias are one of my faves too! I like how you placed objects of beauty together. Doesn't it make you feel so happy and calm?
Jan, I, too, have a blog post on housework...and how I found this place of contented grace as well, quite by accident. I have now learned that something I always disliked can take on a hint of the sacred when I can approach it with the right mind.
http://www.natureofwords.com/2011/07/how-to-find-joy-in-drudgery/
Deborah, thanks for sharing this. I really loved your blog post and will hope others read it. There is a great book titled, "Being Home," by Gunilla Norris. You might like it. It takes every common housework task you can think of and makes it a sacred act of divine connection. :-)
I am already enjoying this journey to contentment with you. I have more questions than answers at this stage of mid-life transition and I feel so grateful to have you and this community of women as support as I try to ease into contentment and move away from always doing too much, striving, achieving, looking for the next challenge, etc. I read Deborah's blog post, too, and loved it. Thank you, Jan, for offering this year long process. It is exactly what I need and I'm looking forward to the "learning" I know is in store.
Jeanne, you are very welcome. I am glad we will be journeying together. It's actually good you have lots of questions! That says your heart and soul are longing for more - for relief. :-) We are deeply habituated and enculturated to be busy and strive, push, even normal and expected to stress ourselves out. What a booby prize, eh? I am confident with your ardent desire and the companions you will find here you will navigate your way into contentment. May it be so!
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