Follow
the Yellow Brick Road
“I
have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you
better not get cluttered up with too many material things.”
Mary
Oliver
Do
you ever wake up and find chaos all around you? My noticing of it
tends to coincide with tax season, when I begin to sort through my
stacks of paper in preparation. I look around and everywhere my eyes
land there is “stuff.” It's a recipe for feeling overwhelmed. I
believe it comes from always being too drawn into the world, too busy
to notice, until the avalanche threatens to bury me.
The
world is such a glittering thing, isn't it? It's a gypsy bauble, a
bright enticement to veer off the path and into the woods. And then,
we're lost. There is so much to see, to touch and taste, so much to
draw one into unconsciousness. Before we know it we've given in to
our insatiable craving for this and that. We've collected way more
“worldly goods” than we can ever use—half the time, we even
forget we have them. Or at least, I do. They end up in these infernal
stacks, in overflowing drawers, and plastic bins in the back of
closets.
So
every year about this time, I surface from my waking dream, and begin
to clear out. As I clear out my house, my head clears, and as my head
clears, I realize what's important and what is not. It's a
re-orientation to what matters. And what matters is not the sensory
world with all its allures, but the world of spirit. Attachment to
material things is like lying down the field of poppies that put
Dorothy to sleep in Oz. One needs to wake up, and get back on the
yellow brick road to home.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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