Beautiful Corner – Making Way for a Spiritual Life

Icon Corner - Image used with kind permission of Phool4xc at Flickr

Having an altar in a house is an ancient practice stretching back into prehistoric times. In Romania and other East European countries, especially in small country villages, one would often find a beautiful painted plate, a treasured gilded icon and pictures or photos of family members  or religious figures on the wall decorated above with a beautifully embroidered cloth pinned just so to frame the collection of precious objects. Nearby there may be a small container tacked to the wall to hold a candle or a tiny bowl of holy water. Or underneath the pictures, a small wooden shelf holding a religious stauette and some flowers (maybe even faded plastic roses!). Continue reading »

Is Clutter Clearing Always a Positive Experience?

When planning to do some clutter clearing I always get a tingly feeling of anticipation. The anticipation of feeling focussed, lighter, clearer, better, freer afterwards. Those are the rewards I look forward to. But is clutter clearing always so positive? Are there any downsides to it?

Watching the awful news about the cyclone in Burma got me thinking. These people have had clutter clearing enforced on them in a double whammy. Firstly millions of people have lost nearly all, if not all of their worldly possessions along with their livestock, family members and livelihoods. This is “clutter clearing” of the most extreme kind. The kind of earth-shattering blow that asks the recipient to practise non-attachment on the highest level while they scrabble to survive. A severe and sudden lesson to be sure. How many of us could accept this with grace especially in Western society where the ownership and acquisition of physical possessions is very much encouraged? Following on from this there is another kind of “clutter” – the debris from cyclone damage is immense and the clearing up operation can take years of hard work – how can one go about clearing and rebuilding when loved ones have just died?

Which brings me onto my next point. When clearing clutter all kinds of painful memories and emotional attachments are suddenly activated. This can be extremely uncomfortable. I have watched de-junk your life programs on TV where the person whose house was being de-junked spent most of their time either in floods of tears or feeling angry with the de-cluttering coach for forcing them to make decisions they would rather not make. It can be scary and disorientating to get rid of clutter. We are so used to mapping out our environments using our stuff as landmarks that when it’s gone we can feel empty, unnerved and vulnerable. Of course these are all signs that the process is working but let’s not pretend that it’s always a wonderfully uplifting experience. Sorting through your own shit can be downright painful. One has to face up to all the things you have been hiding from. And what is left at the end of it? That is the really scary part. What is the truth? What are the vital elements we want to keep in our lives? Can they stand up to scrutiny or are we happier living in our own cosy delusions of clutter and what we feel it does for us? Knowing who and what we truly are and then arranging our environment around that Knowing is powerful medicine but you might need a spoon of sugar to make it go down!

How to make clutter clearing a bit easier: Continue reading »