The Importance of Ritual Cleansing

If I stay honest and do not back-date my blogs, you might notice that I haven't written on here for several months--over half-a-year, actually.  I do know that at least two people were reading this blog, and one of these two readers even approached me about why I stopped.  There were a lot of little reasons, most of which added to the main reason: I was becoming too stressed.  However, I do not see the point in sharing all my personal and professional "dirt" with the general public; I've successfully tamped down the stress by eliminating certain contributing factors. Where have I been?  I have been at "home" within myself, "cleaning house" because I was long over-due for a ritual personal and professional cleansing.

I'm not a religious person.  In fact, I'm a secular humanist/environmentalist; however, most institutionalized religions practice something that can be quite powerful--so powerful, that even industrial and education institutions have adapted it.   In other words, I (once again) realized the importance of maintaining ritual, a way of maintaining the illusion of control over one's life. Rituals help make happen whatever it is that you want to happen.  From daily rituals of self-cleansing, eating, exercising to weekly rituals of doing bills and the budget, cleaning the house, and cleaning up the dog poop in the yard--such patterns of life-living not only provide a structure upon which to build, but also a structure from which to generate chaos.

Yes, with ritual construction, I believe there must also be ritual destruction.  I'm thinking, now, about my attic and the fact that it has been deprived of its annual clearing out of junk that was stashed up there because I or someone else in the house just couldn't quite let go of it at the time: shoes, printers, old toys--even CANDY!  To the garbage it all must go.

And speaking of clearing attics, there is also the spiritual attic to consider.  As someone who does not believe in gods or spirits, I have to make clear that when I write of the "spiritual attic," I am writing of an mental/emotional metaphorical attic. (Maybe some of us have a basement, and maybe some of have both, and maybe others have even more than these "spaces," and maybe some of us are really shallow and have neither.)  Whatever we have--and I think I have an emotional/mental attic, basement and garage--many of us keep filling these "spaces" with emotional and mental treasures, as well as garbage.


And that, folks, in a nutshell, is what I have been doing since late April: clearing out emotional and mental garbage (from unfinished work to unfinished personal business) from my mental/emotional attic, basement, and (oh yes) the shed. 

Having performed this major deconstructive task, which hadn't been done in YEARS, I feel ready for the new year (only by coincidence), ready to pick up the ritual practices of construction again.


See you next Sunday!