The lesser ritual ov sweeping clean a hall, embedded within is thee door to thee sacred…
We all must perform this most mundane of actions. The sweep, sweep, sweeping over a wooden or tiled floor. It’s grunt work on grit levels, with high attention to detail and the demand for fine motor skills. Where lies the greater purpose of this sweeping out of the old? Hidden within and withot the action of the profane is a profound accesibility to the awesome. Owning a homestead (and a broom), has taught me the fine art of attention, ‘attoncez’, ‘attenciones’. Like the lyra bird in Aldous Huxleys island, it is the attention to attention. This common chore has become a ritual in itself for me and carries within it, the symbolic purifying of the mind. A sensational industry of the upper torso and forearms, married within the frame of meaningful self work. The sweeping itself becomes the Dao, and the Zen, but only if you are receptive to it, sensitive enough, feel it through, become the sweeper, the sweeping and the sweeped. Here’s how…
Thee mind clutters with myrk and chaos, like a film ov dust on the face ov a crystal left in thee desert. Bogged down with responsibility, and the dramatization ov thee soul, one becomes burden and unfree. There are dark corners ov the subconscious needing to be looked at and cleansed of their clutter. Sooty webs ov black, tangles ov torn hair from animals and humans, dead skin and flakes ov wood, the scum from the bottom ov the boots, and the ashes spilled from the hearth. It all amasses in pyramidal piles stashed away into the edges of the hall, the creases around the bed, the legs ov the chairs, and in the tassles ov rugs. You turn the light on it, and pick up the broom, thee same broom, yet always different, brushing against the bent corn stalk where it is stoutest, and will not brittle the edges. Commencing. In the far reaches of thee hall, in the roundhouse, or thee spare rooms, shirr, shirr, shirr…
Mind starts to experience the agitation ov the bristles, collecting smaller piles of dirt, into larger mounds, away from the hard to reach places of the consciousness and into the glow ov an amber light, gentle and accepting, the spine straight. No effort done in haste or gross expenditure, thee body becomes a super conductor of energy. Right Action, as the Buddhists would say. A lightment of soul takes over, shirr, shirr, shirr…
All rooms are opened, even too the Hallways of Always, an in-habitation ov occupation, wherein the ordinary crosses the liminal space into the extraordinary, but only if one feels it through, engages the simple, the easy, the needful work ov life. More detritus accumulates like flotsam and jetsam on the shores ov thee mind. Inside, the air starts to get a little clearer and the ambience brighter. Thee floor itself a more pleasant footfall for bare toes. Thee corn keeps a steady shurshuring across thee grains ov wood, over the cracks in the boards, under the tables and shelves, around the hall posts, directed in spiral fashioning into micro dunes ov dust and self. Spatial awareness of thee cosmic junk floating around in your subliminal thoughts are given a stout push out from thee temple of deep seated purity within.
Thee ego starts to dismantle from its bonds of identity, and the repetition ov movement whisks one into thee state of Dao, as the visualization ov so much dirt is swept off the cliff ov thee mind, leaving only empty space, from which comes the next inhale, and another sweep, another exhale, another sweep. The stress ov importance starts to dwindle and just is, only one action repeated until it is all finished. The broom becomes a special tool for transcending the chore of sweeping. The magical maiden seers ov old Scandinavia swept the ritual grounds ov litter and debris, for the enactment ov a liminal time within a space, where the traveler ov consciousness could enter. From which he/she exists in the evolving moment, and exits into the place from which they came, a more refined being, back from some subtle unknown to thee gross fields ov the identity.
On the other side ov thee wormhole is the cleaned floor, and a steady mind, cleansed of filth and noise. The smoke clears and the dust settles which is broomed into containers for their reduction. The fireplace opens, and the crud is burnt away in a flash, adding heat and light to the heart(h), or to thee forest, where organic matter is absolved by the earth. New eyes see from where the mind rests, vacuous, open, and neat. All surfaces in high definition, and the crystal ov consciousness gleaming with its new polish. Thee corn broom is set back in place, ready and waiting for its next use. One lives a little easier, barefoot with open lungs, the center ov gravity lingering in the core for some time.
Enmeshed within the simple, is the starkness of another way ov being, ready and willing…
:aferalspirit: 