Chores
Image by Tu-2
The sun is out, the air is cool at 50 degrees fahrenheit. Today is Saturday.
Just coming off a week of being away from homebase creates lots of work - we have all experienced it. The mail, the wash, the food, the re-set. And thank goodness for meditation practice - breath, movement, mind working together to make every task another opportunity to see the mundane as very unique and multi-faceted.
The sound of zipping open mail, one piece after the next.
The opening of deliveries that contain... whatever it is that was so important to have delivered this week.
The checking of laundry to be sorted and washed to get things back into a kind of daily rhythm. What rhythm makes sense in this season?
The real work begins in re-connecting with the relations at homebase. The folks who need care, the sibs who need relief, the people who are finding that it is time to reconnect because events keep coming. News of births, of deaths, celebrations of life - on both ends of it. Then, it hits: even the chores hold the same message.
That message is that all of life is a cycle, with only the energy shifting from one place to the next and infusing the activity that is take up in any given moment. No wonder why we are taught to slow down and notice the conditions that call us into service. We are, at every step, creating and co-creating that which wants care in any given moment.
Even our chores are reminders that we live in a much larger rhythm of life. It is the universal energy that draws us out, then draws us in. Like breathing itself. Inhale, touch in, then exhale. Inhale deeply. Zero. Exhale fully. A reset, every time.
When we face the fact that life is not about getting to a place that is about space; and we realize that life is about getting to a place that catches a rhythm – then chores become a wonderful port of entry. In them, there is the fact of achieving so many things all at once: The clearing of clutter and schmutz, the feeding of plant sisters and brothers, the organizing of things that could easily be left in a huge messy pile for days or weeks, and the making of space for the mind to be unburdened as the "mundane" becomes the space for clarity to enter.
Don't miss the chance for attending to chores. They are their own kind of multi-faceted encounter with life - and often, there is even a chance to exercise the body in ways that allow stretching, bending, strength training. Who would ever have guessed that the humble "chore" could bring so much of life into focus?