Gaia and Spring Cleaning

Long day – and I’m wide awake. The wee hours of the morning once again wrap me in a most welcomed stillness. The house is quiet, some sleeping soundly, others not yet home from their evening of time spent with friends.

I sink effortlessly into my own thoughts, staccato sound of my fingers across the keys drifting into the background, each letter an invitation to go deeper into those thoughts and allow them to lead. I wonder where this particular journey will take me tonight.

My best thoughts happen when I make no effort to think them. It is much more that they find me and think me.

I relax...take a breath...and in a flash, thought comes alive and awakens me to its presence. It leads - I follow. In the truly great moments, I am blind to its destination and am really just along for the ride.

Sometimes in whispers, thought looses itself gently and easily, like leaves off a tree in the curling whisp of a crisp fall breeze. Other times, there are vibrations in my body that agitate and cause me to move, foot swinging with impatience as I try to keep up and find the torrent that sources each stream and tributary. Too many...too fast...exhausted by the side-trips, I am unable to keep up and thought has escaped me, regardless of how quickly I move.

I’m aware that I’ve not written for a few days. My thoughts have been abundant yet my desire to express them has not. Like an anorexic, the food is there and I seem unwilling to eat. Perhaps I’ll nibble at the edges and see what appetite emerges.

Each thought has a life of its own. It has a beginning and an end. It is a thread that draws to itself other threads of different colors and textures and lengths and strengths, all combining to create new endings for old stories. It has its own rightful place in my model of the world and yet sometimes, does not seem to slide easily into someone else’s model of the world. I wonder: are these different models or, quite possibly, different worlds?

The thought of spring cleaning comes to mind. Getting the windows washed, inside and out, to remove the veil of winter that distorts my view of the world.

Donning old clothes and rubber gloves to really dig in and get at what has built up in corners and along edges and ledges since the first blasts of winter’s cold made sure that what could be sealed, would be. Anticipation of the cycle that once again brings warmer temperatures, bright sun and the desire to be outside. I think I’ll start with the BBQ…..

Maybe this is the year that I’ll finally let go of the ‘stuff’ that seems to take root in the basement… the stuff that follows me from the old house to the new… from one size to the next… and through it all carries the often unfulfilled promise of ‘I’d better hang on to this. I’m sure that it will come in handy some day.” The days have long come and gone, and ‘handy’ still has not happened! Maybe it’s time to let it go. And if it won’t go away on its own, to help it on its way to a garage sale, the Salvation Army or the dump. Whatever its destiny, it no longer includes sitting lifelessly in my basement.

I wonder if that’s not just what Gaia’s up to, as well. The environment that houses our humanity has become overrun with things that no longer support life. Like an astute homeowner who recognizes the task at hand, Gaia knows that it is time to let things go… to move them along if/when they will not move themselves… and to do what must be done to make the environment hospitable, once again.

In the great scheme of things, when Gaia spring cleans, we may well find ourselves by the curb. It’s a big job (spring cleaning the planet) but someone’s got to do it.

I do my best to find suitable homes for what once were treasures and, for whatever reason, over time have become albatrosses. They may well be treasures for someone else….but who??? And just how much of my life am I willing to devote to finding him/her/them? Sometimes, it just has to go – even if it's a shame and it still has life/value in it! - because I can no longer breathe. I am unwilling to suffocate on the dust of my own past. Maybe Gaia feels the same about her house.

These three years will be pivotal. I sometimes wonder when I look at my world in 2010 through eyes no longer veiled by the habits of my history… with perception no longer distorted by my own disbelief… what my view will be. In a holographic universe, the future will unfold as I determine it to be. In this moment, the one thing I know for sure is that spring cleaning awaits! That’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just time.