SPRINGTIME
- THE TIME OF CLEANSING AND RENEWAL
by Vincent J Barra
Today
I renew every fiber of my body, mind and spirit into a more
positive and passionate being.
I remember
as a child every year with the approaching spring season,
my mother would sit down, pad and pen in hand, and with
a smile on her face and a gleam in her eyes, diligently
start making chore lists for each member of the family.
These lists were the blueprints to complete cleaning tasks
for the renewal of our home and surroundings.
We would each be assigned
chores that would fit our talents and capabilities, she
seemed to always have a knack for picking the right job
for the right person, and so we would begin to spruce up
our abode. I must say, although I would complain about having
to spend a good portion of my spring break cleaning, painting,
discarding broken out-dated junk, that would magically fill
to capacity every nook and cranny of the garage, closets
and the basement. When I finished I did have a sense of
renewal with newness and wholeness.
As I ventured living on my
own I carried on my mother’s traditional ritual of
springtime environmental overhauling, cleansing and renewal.
I begrudgingly would make my list of chores and begin the
tedious drudgery of cleaning and dusting every inch of my
apartment, hauling out the old broken possessions and replacing
them with new ones. It is still amazing to me how in just
a short twelve month period of time one could accumulate
so much rubbish not to mention the growth of so many dust
bunnies. But when I was finished and all was spice and span,
scrubbed cleaned and smelling fresh I would sit in the center
of each room and soak in that wonderful invigorating feeling
of renewal.
Come to think of it how many
of us take the time to spring-clean, spruce -up and dust
out the cobwebs that have gathered in our body, mind and
spirit. Removing the accumulated trash of contradictory
emotions, ill gotten thoughts and habitual negative reactions
to life and its situations.
Make this year’s springtime
a time for your own personal renewal and begin to master
how to grow with new insights and renewed goals for a better
future. Make time each day to write your list of goals,
so you’ll know where you are on your path. Take time
each and every day to review your emotions and discard feelings
of envy, greed, hatred and especially the feeling of self-loathing.
Some ways that will help
you to find your own sense of renewal are:
