Clean and Serene: Keep Your House Beautiful
Make cleaning house a spiritual cleansing act.
November/December 2008
By Carol Venolia
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Carol Venolia
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“If I can control the mess around me, I can find serenity within.” —Paula Jhung, Cleaning and the Meaning of Life
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Aside from its admittedly desirable results, housecleaning always felt like wasted time for me—a necessary evil, drudgery, chore.
So there I was one day, feeling scattered and behind on everything. I’d postponed housecleaning long enough that the dust bunnies were holding conventions in the hallway corners, and I had guests coming the next day. Grumbling, I hauled out the vacuum cleaner and planned to spend the next couple of hours doing one of my least- favorite activities.
I plugged in the vacuum, attached the long wand and began making those familiar long, sweeping motions across the floor. And then it happened. A deep and wonderful peace came over my whole being. Suddenly I was fully present, experiencing my actions as an act of uplifting myself and my home. Cleaning had shifted from mere grunt work to an act of caring for myself, my home and everyone who enters it.
The power of conscious cleaning
I reflected on something my friend Ann Marie Holmes, author of Earth Spirit Living: Bringing Heaven and Nature Into Your Home (Atria Books, 2007), once told me.
When she had a cleaning business many years ago, Holmes noticed that rooms became different in metaphysical ways after they were cleaned. She and her staff found that bringing order and balance into the environment actually brought a new level of order and balance into their own lives, as well as the lives of their clients. Holmes has a collection of letters from customers who believe her positive-intention cleaning brought refuge and healing to their homes. One man even claimed it had saved his marriage.
Later, Holmes became the “Focalizer of Cleaning” at Findhorn Foundation, a spiritual community in Scotland dedicated to co-creation with nature. Again, she taught her cleaning team to maintain a positive attitude, seeing the building as a living part of nature. Within a year, cleaning went from being the community’s least favorite work assignment to sporting a waiting list.