With the exception of the occasional movement of a couch, the adjustment of a desk or the positioning of some other items within ones surroundings due to some innate desire for a feeling of order, everyone has that eventual desire for some change in their life. Everyone reaches those points where they feel that the details of life have become hum-drum, ho-hum or what have you. Plainly put, everything, from the material possessions that surround everyone down to the very fabric of the tapestry that colors ones inner makeup, they all reach that repetitive life’s plateau when they appear rather the same, not in progression any longer and rather as gathering dust instead of lighting off the fires of originality that serves to make each day a little bit more exciting.

I personally used to have the habit of; well alright I still do, of changing a room a bit at the turning point of every season to provide me with some sense of renewal in my surroundings. One of the advantages of living in a distinctively four season climate is that we get to relish the best and the not-so-best in everything that comes our way weather wise. We relish in the beauty and the chills of the snowy splendors of wintertime. We continually get amazed and renewed by the advent of another spring time with the new life of each bud on every tree and every flowering shoot that raises itself towards a much higher sitting sun. We languish in the lethargy of the heat of the summertime and my absolute favorite; we pull out the sweaters and the scarves for the coming new chilly nights, reduced daylight hours and the vast beauty of yet another autumn. These changes alone signal that life and the world itself moves along in some cyclic orderly fashion. So what of ones inner fashionable self if I can use that term?

It shouldn’t stand as any surprise then when I say that most people have their own individual or familial ritual to welcoming in a new season, a new holiday season and a new way of looking at their life, even if in the smallest of ways. Everyone can recall their own manner in this. What has always amazed me though is the reaction I tend to get from many people I meet and talk to when I suggest an advent for ones inner seasonal renewal. Faces tend to turn blank; the eyes roll upward or turn all Jackie Gleason or that certain quizzical expression in the eyebrows turn on like a lamp in a reading room. At the mere mention of ones own inner seasonal spiritual renewal, the mock reaction is usually down the lines of “I attended Christmas Eve services”, or “we had our holiday dinner together” and that tends to be the order of most of it for any mention of a seasonal spiritual ritual.

The cleaning that I think on when the seasons of life roll around deal with ones past and ones present state of being and how it affects our reactions, our actions and our inner voice that directs those ways of being like emotional feeling, interpersonal relationships and most of all, our relationship with ourselves. Why the word ritual at all? A ritual can take on many different events and meanings but in this case the one I refer to is the practice or pattern of ones behaviors in some regularly performed set manner. This doesn’t have to carry any particular religious meaning necessarily. I do refer to a sense of renewal, a sense of cleaning up recent and past issues not necessarily to the extent of a cleansing self-absolution of any kind, but rather in a manner of bringing ones own outer and inner past to a state comfortable conclusion where the road ahead can begin to look like a clean path instead of one being trodden by a caravan of personal baggage so vast and so weighty that each step is akin to a path of tears. It’s not necessary!

However one chooses their own manner of meeting the passing of ones own personal season of being is what’s most important. The action of tailoring ones inner attentiveness is what’s most important to the process of dusting and re-arranging, and discarding the trash that has built up in a time.

Some ways that people might begin to attend to their own inner seasonal cleansing are to:

• Meet the end or the beginning of each week or season in a meditation to review the events and the quality of your life. Light some incense. Meet each positive and negative thought as it was and as it now is to you and give yourself the opportunity to see these for what they truly were instead of allowing them to either grow into a monster unknown, or a glorious moment that came to pass without real acknowledgement. These are the moments that make up who we all are!
• Plan a time of quality with yourself to just be whom you are, in relaxation, in fun, in doing something you relish! A candlelit bath, perhaps a special dinner with your special someone, or perhaps a drive to your favorite special spot! Be creative!
• Write a seasonal journal. It doesn’t have to be any extremely detailed novel mind you. The form need only be determined by the function it takes on for you and you alone. It can be a set of pictures, drawings, and a collection of poems or a more inclusive journal which can allow you a review of your feelings and your reactions to events as they came to pass in their time. A quiet time set aside for some personal review can give you the quiet space and the atmosphere for a deeper level of personal introspection to gauge yourself and these events from. The vast effects of such a practice and ritual in ones life can be wonderful.
• Meet with a special and trusted someone in your life at some seasonal calendar date for a quiet or a fun lunch, dinner or what have you. Use this time to communicate how you’ve been, what you’ve been up to and where you’re going in your near future. What are your goals, what are your new and not so new excitements in your life? Such questions serve well for journal entries as well.
• Make seasonal changes to your personal spaces, your bedroom, your living room, your workspace. The form and the manner of ones outer surrounding spaces can so define the state of ones inner space if only in that it occasionally requires attention and sometimes through the cleaning of the details one ones inner space, event by event and detail by detail, they can be laid to rest, placed onto another of the vast shelves of the experiences of ones life, or they can be discarded as not of so much consequence really.
• Some people meet seasonal changes with sporting events, hunting and fishing times that allow for one to spend quality time not only with loved ones and very good and close friends, but also with oneself. Perhaps chosen times of a season for good walks or hikes. Perhaps a ski trip, or an RV trip or camping trip, or a motorcycle trip. Again, be creative! Any time of personal reflection can be a quality one if the intent and the willingness are truly there. The best definer of this rests with you.

When one thinks of a spring cleaning of their house, it usually involves the raising of the carpets, the moving of all the furniture and a complete top to bottom go-over when the season’s witness of dust and of life can be picked up and cast away allowing for a renewed sense of a clean start to the next season of ones life. In a spiritual context, the same sort of cleansing is eventually in order for everyone though often times it’s not attended too, leaving in ones path the proverbial baggage that becomes ones constant companion and in the worst of cases the determiner of many of life’s reactions. Energy workers vast and wide choose ceremonious dates and seasons to cleanse themselves and their surroundings just as many choose various dates and times for a special get together. Various religious rites observe dates and times to recall important lessons in spiritual thought ever mindful of everyone’s hopeful spiritual ascendance. In so many varying ways and for even more varying reasons, each spiritual soul in one way or another eventually seeks to reach out for something greater than them to provide some meaning to what otherwise can easily appear as the happenchance of existence. This greater sense of self-meaning and the expressions of the yearning of the soulfully spiritual self are what usually drives one to the point of greater and deeper levels of introspection. Some of the greatest tools one can place into the fray of this work are the most simple of tools everyone has within themselves. This is the ability to honestly and earnestly look inward and to bring meaning to what appears to be outward in ones experiences of life.

This is theme that permeates most of the spiritual struggles that people find themselves in, especially when times of greater stress are present through these days of life. Taking more time between events, and activities can give one more time to search through the details of ones reactions and actions while traveling the course of ones days. It’s probably why some endure, and yes sometimes in a strange way enjoy a state of constant confusion and endless scheduling to their lives. It all allows virtually no time to think and little time to regret any lack of inner expression. It never need be so and such a state of being can provide some vision into why those cultures that do take life in a more introspective fashion, tend to also exhibit greater inner vision effecting an outer result.

Of course, a cleaning is a cleaning and after a while, with enough elbow grease, even inner thoughtful elbow grease, everything can be brought into greater levels of ones understanding. Give it a chance.

As Always,

WD

© 2009 WD Allan, spiritualitymoment.com

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