“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Calm - Installation by Regine Ramseier

I have always had an affinity for cleanliness. I can remember cleaning up my room and folding all my clothes by the time I was five years old. I loved order, and still do. Every morning when I wake up, I make my bed. Every night before I go to sleep, I tidy up my room. These are practices allow me to start and end my day with a clean environment, inside and out.

In the meditation that I practice, there is an emphasis on internal cleaning. At the end of the work day, you are supposed to imagine all the impressions of the day being removed from your heart.

“All of our experiences—actions and reactions, thoughts and emotions—leave impressions. These impressions, called samskaras, accumulate over time, influencing our view of reality and consequently our behaviour. As habit patterns emerge and solidify, we continue to react in the present as we have in the past, setting the blueprint for future action. In this way we become, in a real sense, slaves to our past experience.” (Found here.)

————————————————————————————————————-

And while we are on the topic of cleaning, when I was in Cleveland this past week, I helped my mom do some of her spring cleaning – or more specifically, cleaning out her closets. The end result was SO gratifying. Here are the pictures to prove it:

Check out these related links:

Here is a checklist for spring cleaning from Martha Stewart.