This One's Personal
To my friends - those I’ve met, and those I have yet to meet.
I know it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted here. There’s been a lot going on in this one’s life, in terms of inner changes and challenges, as well as complete change in my living situation.
Starting with the externalities - easier to write about! A month ago, my upstairs neighbor who owns the house that I rent this basement apartment from, told me that, with great regret [we have formed a deep friendship over these past almost 7 years], that she needs to have the apartment for a family member, and asked me to leave by the end of June. Thankfully, I had over two months for the apartment search, as housing is very tight in this area. But a couple of weeks ago, I managed to find a one-room efficiency apartment right in town where my friends live and my singing fellows gather on the town common every day at 2 PM. A total change from my little sanctuary here in the wooded hills!
So, the location couldn’t be better, I can walk to sing and other places in town and leave the car behind. But the space is half the size of [and 2 rooms less than] my current space. So the need to winnow out my possessions - something I had known I needed to do, but couldn’t get serious about it - became urgent. A perfect example of the old maxim, “Watch out for what you ask for, you just might get it!”
And this meant that, for the past two weeks, I have been grappling with what to keep, what to sell [if possible], what to give away and what to throw out or recycle. This has turned out to be a deeply emotional experience and challenge. I try to use various guidelines that I have read or heard about: If you haven’t used it in a year, you probably don’t need it; Is it something I need, or care deeply about, or am I just attached to it? But the ones I’ve come up with that help the most are: Can I make do without this? Does it belong to my past self, which I am moving beyond, or does it belong to my deeper sense of who I am? And finally, Will there be enough room to fit this in without tripping over it?!
For instance, old letters I’ve hung on to for years - decades even. Yes, these here are from a girl from High School that I kind of liked, but the friendship never went anywhere - Kiss them and say goodbye. These here, though, were from my first love, and even though we lost touch a few years after High School, she still occupies a place in my heart. These I keep. Like that.
Old rewards, letters of thanks and appreciation, diplomas in fact [that I’ve never had use for and can’t ever foresee needing them in future], yes even those can go goodbye.
And then there are books, old medical records and financial statements from years ago, and on and on - bye bye. But while it sounds easy, put like this, each one is a wrenching decision, because I did want to keep each of these at one time. But once I let them go, I feel so much lighter! [Not to mention the boxes that I would have needed to pack them in - lighter as well.] And this is all such strenuous inner work, I’m exhausted after a few hours, and need to take a break - or a nap - or a hot bath!
But all this work is balanced out by new energies coming in, either through supportive and loving friends and community, or just finding deeper connection with That within, the one true Self that holds us all. Which also helps me to hold even more deeply the faith that all of this - all of Creation including the chaos and cruelty we see in the world today, including the necessity to move to a new space - all is being held in the Divine Mind as moving us irresistibly towards that greater Good which great seers and yogis have assured us is, even now, being prepared behind the scenes.
Blessed Be, May it be So, Jai Ma!
What a wonderful cleansing and renewing process! Wishing you great health and many blessings in your new home. Can't wait to see it! Maybe next year!
When Jan and I helped her mother pack up her NY City condo, we had 3 boxes:
1. Have to have
we were incredibly strict with this. ONLY put anything in there you are absolutely sure you can't live without
2. Not sure
3. Throw it out
(I know, you can't fit stuff in 3 boxes alone - it could be three 'areas' - the main thing is it's 3 categories)
I sat with June (Jan's mother) and strongly encouraged her, every time she wanted to put something in box 1, to put it in box 2 or 3.
The thing is, we weren't actually going to throw out things in box 3 - yet. We'd put everything in 3 boxes, and THEN look carefully and box 3. Just the ACT of putting it in box 3 - even if she was initially unsure - made her more likely to throw it out.
Another trick was to NOT LOOK at box 3, after all the boxes were filled up. Then put as much stuff from box 1 into box 2.
Then WAIT at least a day or two before LOOKING at box 3. Somehow, the attachment lessens during those days and June was more willing to throw stuff out.
It's all mind tricks but boy it made it SO much easier! I've used that approach in the 4 times we've moved since then:>)) (to a 400 sq ft wood shed in a 200 acre forest; to a 700 sq ft apartment in Greenville, then to a 1200 sq ft condo in greenville, and finally a 1200 sq ft condo in Asheville; each time we through out may many many boxes of stuff. Since moving here in 2010, we'e gotten rid of at least 15 carloads of stuff.
And I suspect, though we don't plan to move for about 5 years, each year we're going to get rid of a lot more.
It actually gets to be a sadhana challenge to see what we can let go of!!!