There's a Story In Everything - Clutter Affects Our Lives

   This is my debut post at Romance Blogs ‘4’ Us and I’m delighted to be here.

   Cluttered spaces and cluttered minds have much in common. Clutter is a weapon of self-sabotage with which we unconsciously block our energy flow and disrupt our harmony.

   Have you ever searched through stacks of paper for an invoice you put on the dining room table two days earlier? As you waste time looking for it you might try to cut a deal with the saint in charge of lost items, as you promise to get your act together. As you may suspect, I’m all too familiar with this cycle.

   I recently discussed clutter by email with our own dear Rose Anderson. She offered up an idea I found very appealing: happily shovel the mess into the basement, brick over the door and walk away!

   Imagine the visual these words created in this author’s mind. Archaeologists in the year 2233 celebrating with champagne at the entrance of a sealed subterranean chamber as they discuss the impact of this cache of artifacts lying just beyond them, and how it will enlighten our descendants about the ancient world. Rose is chuckling from another dimension as she watches them ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ over each trinket they uncover with reverence and catalog with precision.

   At times I imagine the gods of Olympus laugh at us when they observe us painstakingly gluing shards back together. Dionysus probably threw that vase against a wall because his wine was not quite chilled enough.

   Speaking of clutter, ancient China had Feng Shui and India had Vastu Shastra. These similar scientific systems are ancient arts of placement and energetic harmony that encourage us to create our surroundings with purpose and intent. The concept is that humans and their dwellings are interconnected, so we benefit or suffer from our surroundings.

   My spring cleaning clock is gone haywire, kicking in for the first time ever in autumn. My inner guidance system senses a shift in our living patterns, a move in 2014. Time will tell.

  A certain ruthlessness accompanies the spring cleaning bug, enabling me to toss things without a second glance. The rest of the year, purging is half-hearted. I’ll go through every page in a two year old magazine, then tear out a few pages I may need someday. I’ve got boxes of such papers, and never need any of them. It’s time to purge and cleanse my home of all the papers I’ll never need, books I outgrew decades ago, and clothes I’ll never fit into again.

   If I had a basement, I’d take a leaf out of Rose’s book and shovel all my old skinny clothes, boxes of magazine recipes I’ve never cooked, and diets that never worked in there and brick it shut. Future archaeologists might decide I was a food fanatic or a kitchen goddess…

   How about you? If you had to shovel some of your clutter into a basement and seal it away for future generations to discover, what three things would you make sure to include?

   You can always see what new projects I’m working on at my website. Thanks for reading!