Spring cleaning.......

Spring Equinox and the active meditation of spring cleaning…by Bev Murray

22nd SEPTEMBER Southern Hemisphere: Equinoxes occur when the sun passes across the equator, making night and day equal across the globe. Spring equinox has traditionally been known as Eostre, for the Teutonic Goddess Oestre, (whose name connects with the roots of our modern word oestrogen-the hormone stimulating ovulation.) This has given rise to the Christian Easter, also a celebration of birth and new life. Hence the symbolic eggs. They show the emergence of life from darkness, of ideas from inner levels. (You can see the connection in the northern hemisphere celebration of Easter quite naturally, but the old seasonal importance of this celebration is lost on the southern Hemisphere).Spring is blossoming flowers; fruit on the trees, the birth of young animals. Our lives mirror this when we give full attention to growing things…to moving forward with projects.!Spring equinox is a time to focus upon giving energy to the new, to moving forward towards hopes become manifest, TO EXPLORING THE JOY AND ABUNDANCE IN OUR LIVES!! And the best way to begin this process is to spring clean….cleaning the house can be a wonderful meditation for cleaning our inner lives and starting the warmer months off with a clear head!!

No one knows for sure where spring cleaning originated, but it's obvious that from the early days of civilization, several ethnic groups and faith traditions adopted springtime rituals that are likely to have spread and evolved over time into what we consider spring cleaning today.

During the dark ages, spring cleaning was the one time of year when everything was washed and clean, even the people. The weather had warmed up, and the reeds covering the stone floors where no longer needed. They would be removed from the house, as well as the manure that had accumulated over the winter, as sheep and horses were often kept in the home during the coldest of months. The dust and ashes were swept from the walls and rafters. Beds were washed and remade, while the straw mattresses where emptied, aired and re-stuffed.

Today, the thought of taking a day or weekend to turn our houses upside down seems hardly neccessary and often difficult time-wise. Besides, our modern climate-controlled homes don’t get oily, sooty, or smoky, our mattresses are not made of straw, and our washing machines and vacuum cleaners help keep the dirt at bay in every season. Still, there are trade-offs: our houses are airtight, comparatively speaking, but they also can’t breathe. They’re often full of chemicals and gases from the components of floor wax to the microfibers of carpets that our ancestors never knew about. And then on a deeper level our inner lives can be full of noxious elements. We can all benefit from a good inner spring clean at times!

When you sweep the floor, imagine you are sweeping all the unnecessary elements of your life into a pile and getting rid of them once and for all! When you wash the dishes, wash away all your negative thoughts too! When you weed the garden imagine you are weeding out all the elements, be they folk or your own ideas or habits that hinder your progress and growth, when you polish your timber, then visualize your own self shining brightly, glowing healthily…and so on. This is an excellent and purposeful meditation that can actually affect a lot of positive change in your life and approach!