Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

"Old loves, old insults, old wrongs, old hates,
old prides, old contempts, old horrors, old taboos, old totems.... [Clan I shed these
worn-skins of remembrance?]
  ___ John Cowper Powys, "Obstinate Cymric"


  At this season, we are often driven into a bout of spring cleaning, throwing out the unwanted and bringing new order to our household. But what of the deeper hurts, the old anguish, the festering wrongs, and the immovable obstinacies of our very being?

   Select one such malingering obstruction to be removed from your mental attic by asking and answering the following questions:

* What past wrong or hurt embitters you the most?
* What past relationship still lingers painfully?
* What childhood horror shadows you?
* What irrational prejudice still clouds your horizons?
* To what or whom are you still shackled by hate?
* What long-dead voice of authority still has you leaping?
* What old story against yourself still rankles?

    Now take a walk in nature, meditating upon the issue at hand. Let your eye fall upon things that seem to speak to you about your own case: these might fallen leaves, pieces of rubbish blowing about, feathers, berries, bark, mushrooms, flowers and so on. Without damaging the landscape and its inhabitants, collect some of these things and assemble them into an emblem of your issue. These collected items can be tied together with string or woven together with grasses. Create something really beautiful. When it is complete, make a small fire outside. Relinquish your issue to the cleansing flames and burn the emblem you have made, visualizing its influence passing away from you. Stay and watch the emblem turn to ash and be borne away.

"Make an emblem and burn it, as suggested above."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]