“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”

~ Khalil Gibran

Funny, it didn’t occur to me yesterday while I was scurrying around cleaning that today was the new moon in Aquarius (based on Vedic Astrology). Not only was I cleaning house, but on many levels I was purging and cleansing my spirit.

I was clearing space for new intentions. I love these little and yet significant moments.

The process of cleaning can be meditative. Lately, I’ve been feeling stagnate and to get going is truly the main issue.

Yesterday I set my mental clock: I will vacuum for 30 minutes, which invariably went to one hour. The entire house was being transformed dust bunny by dust bunny.

Weather was on my side too and I opened windows. There was a slight breeze, sun shining and a delightful 58 degrees. The scent that wafted through the house reminded me of the scent sheets have drying on the clothesline so many decades ago.

It didn’t immediately occur to me, I was also cleaning out the cobwebs in my mind and body too.

The vacuum sound drowned out the perpetual worries. I was more in the present moment than usual. My focus was just on vacuuming in all of its simplistic functional and non-pretentious ways.

Effortlessly one thing led to another and a sink got swished clean, the shower scrubbed, small throw rugs were gingerly shook in the afternoon sun. The cat watched, dazed and moved from sunspot to sunspot. He no longer perceived the vacuum cord as a snake.

How often do I perceive certain things as a snake and they aren’t?

How often do I get overwhelmed by the day-to-day pressures and turn them into a serpent? I do and I can feel paralyzed, until I step back and see it was an earthworm wiggling freely from the sodden winter ground.

The surge of energy yesterday, just as Mercury went direct, the new moon was coming, additional planets were and are going retrograde (Mars and Saturn)—all kindly blessed my actions.

We are in this incredible cosmic dance together—growing, learning and expanding. I am sincerely grateful for these small moments of realization and to be part of a much large universal message.

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Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: elephant journal archives