Spring came early to California which seems to be the trend of late, with a loving reminder to take out the trash.
This applies to all manner of rubbish in our lives. It’s spring cleaning. A time to clear any and all basura that could cause incontrollable and devastating wildfires in our vicinity.
The fire will come. This we know. The dead excess will burn and turn to ash, providing the ground we stand on with nutrients for the next cycle of life.
In the meantime, the soil is still somewhat damp and the immediate threat of wildfires less imminent. Let’s use this time wisely. We can leave the trash where it is, taking up space in our home, our yard, our heart, our life, where it will crowd and clutter and distract and cause chaos and overwhelm until it catches fire and takes down everything in its path. Your home, your neighbors’ homes, your life even. Or you can clear out the fire’s fuel now.
Open your eyes. See what’s coming. Feel the lightness of letting go. Clear space for fresh sprouting things to grow. There are seeds of life under all that decaying refuse that might like to be given a chance.
Another way to think about it is this: Today I let go of part of my face. There were all these growths that had been spreading and that I’d been humorously calling my barnacles for a long while. I have the wonderful superpower/coping mechanism of finding humor in almost anything. Until the day when it dawned on me that these growths could be cancerous or pre-cancerous and I spend 85% of the year in the sun. It took several phone calls and 4 appointments to get to today, the day I had my barnacles removed. Nobody, not a stranger or friend or family member or any of the many doctors I’ve seen over the years, has ever said to me, "You might want to get those growths on your face looked at.” And I’m not mad at them in the slightest. That’s the thing about what we need to clear from our lives. Even the things that are right in front of us, staring back at us in the mirror. It’s up to us and only us to recognize what it is that needs to get gone, and to take action. It was quite painful, took a lot of my time, and a lot of my money, because I wanted the growths gone before they turned into cancer. I opened my eyes. I trusted my instincts. I did what was necessary to clear what I could have lived with, but for how long, and at what cost?
Let the light in. Take out the trash. Make that appointment. Water your garden. Pray for rain.
Give thanks for the sun.
Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022