Still Cleaning

Well, the week has worn on and I am still cleaning. Now I have progressed to the point where the floors of the house are ready for cleaning. Unfortunately for me, I am not a fan of mopping, it just seems to push dirt around on my nice wood floors. That means that at least twice a year I am left with two big buckets of boiling hot water (one for washing, with Pine Sol and one for rinsing), a couple of towels (for sitting the buckets on and drying the floor to prevent streaking), rubber gloves, and a long couple days of crawling around. Yep, that's right, I crawl on my hands and knees and wash the floor with sponges and towels. Exhausting, but really effective. By the time I am done I am sore from head to toe, but the floors of my house are clean enough to eat off of.

So, here I am, end of day one of floor cleaning and I am halfway done. As I went this time I tried to be really mindful of all the things that have gone on in my home since I was last able to do this. There has been my thyroid operation, physical recovery, mental slogging, mom's broken hip, so much drama and upheaval. As I cleaned I visualized sweeping all of that stuff up with the dust and dirt. It felt good to wipe it up with the steaming hot sponge, scented with Pine Sol, and squeeze it into the bucket. Better still to watch the dirt and bad memories splash into the yard.

I swear my bare feet are tingling when I walk in areas I am done cleaning!

Now, let me spend a moment on what Pine Sol means to me. Pine Sol is what my grandmother used to clean the floors in her house. I can remember running into her house after school and smells the resin-y sweet smell hanging in the air. It usually signaled that her brother, my beloved Uncle Roman was visiting and they had gone grocery shopping that day as well. That meant that behind the overwhelming smell of Pine Sol there would be the background of oven fried chicken, what was always served when Uncle Roman and Aunt Emily came to visit. Pine Sol represents safety, love, security, warmth, family, home, and hearth to me. Having my house reek of it feels like my grandmother is surrounding me with her love still.

As I continue my task I am trying to picture the happiness of those days with my grandmother. I am asking that happiness like that live in my home today. I hope that someday, my child will clean his floors (hopefully these floors) and have wonderful and comforting memories like mine.

Don't get me wrong, I will be glad when the floor cleaning is done and I can relax a little. Don't know what has possessed me for the last several weeks, but it feel really good to reclaim my home and rediscover the light inside it. May it always have the lingering scent of Pine Sol......

Cleaning Cobwebs

For the last several weeks, I have had this crazy cleaning energy. It has been a great change after 18 months of the miasma surrounding my thyroid "episode" and aftermath. The house never looked awful, but a ton of pent up bad mojo has accumulated in the corners and needed cleaning. I have been addressing this and I honestly can say that I feel the house getting lighter and brighter by the day.

There is a new energy in my life, and I am riding it for all it is. I am enjoying seeing a deeper purpose in those things that bring me joy and fulfillment. I am loving seeing my home as my cathedral, altars strewn about with abandon.

As the Winter continues on its splintering journey toward Spring I am reclaiming all the corners of my home. It is nice to see the progress, to feel the shift in energy, to ride the uplifting wave of it.

I am using my mental broom to clean the cobwebs from the corners left too long in the eddies of life. Can't wait until Spring, when the windows will be thrown open and the last staleness will be swept away.

Out there

Did you ever notice how some people can really put it "out there?" You know, the ones who proclaim their religious bent, personal values, or rules for living from the mountain top so to speak? Sometimes I can truly admire these folks, especially when the proclamation is from a position of tolerance for alternate views. Kind of like "hey, this is how I feel, what moves me and I want to share, even though it may not be your thing."

Recently, I have had something of a reawakening of a personal spirituality that I thought long gone. Many years ago, I was very intrigued and drawn to Wiccan practices, but as I grew older, I felt I grew away from them. In the depression and strife of the last 18 months, my interior dialogue about beliefs and soul was silent. Then, quite suddenly, in the course of a month it was revealed to me that I had been walking a path I thought long abandoned.

Since Thanksgiving of 2011, I have been exposed to the ideals of kitchen/hedge witchery. Here, I find that so many of the things I had been doing which gave me joy and inner peace are actually things others are practicing. Who knew that I had been spell casting, circle casting, and practicing? Who knew that my feet never left the path, my mind just got distracted from it. I suppose the Universe knew, the Goddess knew.

So, here I am. All hepped up with nobody to talk to. I am singularly alone in this journey. There are those I can reach out to online, by phone, by e-mail, however, my daily walk is a solitary one. Thus, my envy of those who can post it on Facebook, wear it on their sleeve, put it on a bumper sticker.

Maybe I just need more time to explore this new/old stuff. Guess it as good a place to begin as any.

Fresh Process

I am trying very hard this year to rewire my brain and adjust my thinking. Been too long listening to the crazy voice in my head that rants and raves and breaks me down. I felt like I was doing a pretty good job and then today I said the wrong thing (unintentional and taken the wrong way) at the wrong time. I apologized and I am pretty sure we left things in a decent place, but I felt like damage had been done that was hard to undo. Of course that nasty voice in my head took advantage and I rehashed it in my head the rest of the day.

Tonight, for the first time, I sat and filled a page with all the things I want to let go of, all the things I wanted to affirm, and all the things I wanted to change. Sometimes it was sentences, sometimes scrawled words in random order. When I was done, I placed my hands on the page and thought of all I had written, the emotion on the page, and the pain in my heart. Then, I took the page, ripped it deliberately into very small pieces and threw it in the fireplace. Curiously, the last recognizable word to burn away was FEAR.

It was amazingly uplifting to do this. I felt empowered and more in control of this stuff than I have in a very long time. I think I'll be doing this more often. Let FEAR be banished to the fire. I don't need it any more.

Odd Girl Out

Here is a long-simmering question I have. When you are the odd gender out in your family, does it make you identify more or less with your gender of birth? To be clear.....

I am the only girl in my little family. There are days when I realize I have toured a steam train repair yard, ridden on a train, dug for fossils, and generally dug in the dirt with my "boys." On these days I may be heard to wail "I see no pink!" I feel so un-feminine and yet so ultra-feminine at the same time.

My question..... If you are the gender of minority (the only "boy" surrounded by "girls" or the only "girl" surrounded by boys) do you feel the same conflict?

Discovering my Inner Kitchen Witch

My home is my cathedral, my kitchen and hearth are my altar. Here I am centered, here I am whole. Here I nurture life, creativity, peace, and energy. Here I am fed and I feed.

My insides are alive with this new discovery of a greater practice that aligns with my solitary journey. Let my footsteps be true.