“Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things – this is the best season of your life.” –Wu Men (Hui-k’ai) 12th century.
Why is it that every spring, when we crawl out of our winter caves, we go into a wild frenzy of clearing the chaos that has snuck its way back into our homes and lives? It’s like somewhere around October we lost our way, forgot all our good intentions from the previous spring, and find ourselves scrambling again at square one.
Clearing our spaces is a journey that starts right where we are. It makes no difference if the spaces are the external ones in which we live and work, or the internal ones that we fill up with a chattering, worrying mind.
All you need to get the energy moving in your home and life is to clear something. A toothpick, a paper clip, a hairball…anything. Every day. With compassionate awareness.
Like a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world creating massive weather changes in another, so too can baby steps lead to a sea change in your life – a clearing movement of global proportions.
If you could use a little more direction and practice in cultivating the “Four S’s” – slowing down, simplifying, sensing, and self-care – that will grow sustainable habits that feel good, keep reading. From on site to online, there is something here to inspire a lifetime of springs… and falls, and summers, and winters.*
You are simply the best. Thank you.
Thank you for your lovely comment, Shoko. Happy clearing!
Just watched video on A Year To Clear… it will be that long certainly, but I really loved the whole video… will watch it again, as the attachm;ent, painful memories and overwhelm “have my name on it!” I am determined to change. My big house of 2700sq ft (big for me and my husband in an empty nest minus two grown sons) is almost what seems begging me to get rid of the clutter and enjoy its great architectural beauty as it was created 35 years ago. I hear it and recall when we first built it how the house itself was like furniture that required very little additional furniture besides the necessities to be absolutely fulfilling as our home. Now I am glad I have a storage room for the zillion-like memorabilia I have for those 30+ years with our sons and my husband. I truly am started to feel that we can move things slowly and get somewhere. Thank you, Stephanie Bennett Vogt.
Aloha from our little farm in Maui, Hawaii…Gael