Last week
was challenging getting ready for an appraiser to appraise the house, as we are
attempting to refinance… It was like
trying to do a major Spring cleaning that would normally take me a few weeks in
only a few days, and I only made a dent. At first there was excitement and
enthusiasm to be clearing through the dust and debris that had accumulated, but
after 3 days I was physically exhausted, emotionally drained, overwhelmed, and
spiritually dry. I felt like I was
living life according to a foreign rhythm, an artificial rhythm, imposed by the
external demands of the house – not according to a deeper inner Rhythm. Not getting enough meditative Silence, the
mind took over.
Over 17
years the house has become an albatross, a task master, weighing me/us down. It no longer suits our needs, or
lifestyle. And yet life has not afforded
us the opportunity to move on. In
getting caught up in this “doing, doing doing” mode, I felt like I was on
automatic, waking up everyday with the to-do list running in my head, and under
pressure to get it done. My life energy
became cluttered, and I lost a felt sense of the inner Spirit of Life that
pulsates underneath all the “doing”, leaving me feeling hollow and empty.
The mind,
however, loved the external focus of all this doing, and became a “doing
machine.” The body just followed along
with what the mind determined needed to be done; a body-mind mechanism that was
on automatic, except the body was getting worn out following the mind, instead
of its natural rhythms. And so at the
end of 5 days I had to let go of the “doing” and be in the Quiet – to drop into
that Silent space of the Source within and *feel* the Presence of the Divine
again. And yet, the mind still continued
to tell me what I should be doing – running its “to do” lists incessantly – the
real task master…
Let’s
just say that through this mundane experience I have found out how I *don’t*
want to live, not letting the house (or the mind) dictate the flow of my life,
because, as I discovered, if one is *only* focused on the mundane, one can get
lost. I am not a deva by any means. It’s
just that my priorities are different. I
delight in the Inner Life. I thrive
there. I *need* the Silence out of time
to *hear* and *feel* the Inner Rhythms of the Divine music in life.
Without
the sense of awareness of this Divine Presence life is empty, lived on
automatic, going from one end of the day to the other. No wonder we get lost in the latest
technologies – dependent on our devices, rather than our inner Life. We stay attached to our electronic leashes
that seemingly “connect” us to the world because we are afraid that life
without them holds no “meaning”, no “substance”, no “connection.” We, as a culture, have lost a sense of Divine
Presence, and so we numb our minds with technofog, with our ipads, ipods,
iphones, internet, facebook, twitter, and yes, even blogging, J trying to make an illusive
“connection” – avoiding the *real* connection to Life – losing touch with the
*Essence* of Life ItSelf, cutting ourselves off from the Source. What does this
have to do with house cleaning you may ask.
It’s a deeper issue. It’s about
whatever numbs us to The Mystery of the pulse of Life – for me it is getting
bogged down in the practical tasks of living that do not feed my Spirit…
I have
felt the burden of this house for many years, feeling the need to move on and
lighten the load. And so the house is
becoming an agent of change, as I live this experience and ask myself - what is
absolutely necessary here? In other
words, why am I doing this ? – My resistance only reflects the need to defy the
assumptions of my role and routine - beyond the apparent surface reason of the
moment – ie: the appraisal. What is
important? What is my priority? What do I *really* want? For me, it is doing that which enlivens my
sense of awareness of the Inner Rhythm of the Divine, and letting that be what
determines my life’s movement and give my life meaning and purpose.
The real
“task” then became to let go of the daily tasking, to stop the “doing” until
internal harmony was restored. There is
a Taoist saying: “In the not-doing, everything gets done.” When I stopped the tasking, the tasks got
done, freely and intuitively as *part* of the daily flow. And were no longer
seen as a *chore.* And yet I know I
still need to find a way of living that supports the internal Divine Rhythm
*without* the accumulated trappings of life that clutter my life. Ultimately
knowing there is nothing but “The Mystery” of Life being lived Here in the
every-day-ness of life…
“A house can become a little
self-enclosed world.
Sheltered there, we learn to forget the
wild,
magnificent universe in which we live.
When we domesticate our minds and
hearts,
we reduce our lives.
We disinherit ourselves as children of
the universe.
Almost without knowing it, we slip
inside ready-made roles and routines
which then set the frames of our
possibilities and permissions.
Our longing becomes streamlined.
We acquire sets of convictions in
relation to politics, religion and work…
We parrot these back and forth to each
other, as if they were absolute insights.
Yet for the most part these frames of
belief function as self-contructed barriers,
fragile clichés pulled around our lives
to keep out the mystery.
The game of society helps us to
forget the unknown…
The control and ordering of society is
amazing: we comply so totally
with its unwritten rules.
We show up. We behave ourselves.
Meanwhile, almost unknown to ourselves,
we are standing on wild earth at a
crossroads in time
where anything can come towards us.
Yet we behave as if we carry the world
and were the executives of a great plan.
Everywhere around us mystery never
sleeps.
The same deep nature is within us.
Each person is an incredibly
sophisticated, subtle, and open-ended work of art.
We live at the heart of our own
intimacy, yet we are strangers to its endless nature.”
John O’Donohue
From: Eternal Echoes