Cleaning

I've spent much of the day cleaning the house and I still have a bunch of cleaning to do. I really like cleaning.

What does this have to do with social change, spirituality, personal growth, permaculture, or peak oil?

A friend just read me a passage from Jack Kornfield's book, After The Ecstacy, The Laundry. While I appreciated what she read me, I also appreciated the title of the book. I remember a Doonesbury comic from many years back (probably the seventies) where one of the characters in the collective was asked to do the dishes and she muttered something about "After the revolution..." The other character replied, "After the revolution, the dishes will still need to be done." (Or something like that; it's been a long time.)

Come peak experiences or peak oil, when it's over, even when the Transformation or The Great Turning happens, we will still need to do the dishes and the laundry, and we will still need to clean.

And there is something very satisfying about cleaning. Unlike the messiness of personal or social change, you can see progress as you clean. You make the world a little better and you can see it as you do it. Too often, while working with changing people or society, it feels like nothing will ever change. Maybe then it's time to do a little cleaning, where you can see what you have accomplished.


Quote of the Day: "I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." - Helen Keller