Devotion, discipline, ritual

Happy Sunday, Soothers. Every once in a while I scan through the clip file of my ever-growing list of Sunday Soother ideas, marveling at what the f*ck I was thinking when I jotted down some of these now incomprehensible and obscure and unintelligible notes. Surely there was some semblance of meaning, of spark, of grand idea behind some of these phrases? But I let the scribble linger too long and the magic left the idea, as it often does if you don't take action or expand on it as soon as you're able. And that's okay; such is life. Not every little idea that passes through my ADHD brain is meant to be extrapolated and expounded on for greater meaning, though often I do have a bit of melancholy when I think of all the ideas I've neglected that had to go find homes somewhere else.

One of those notes was at the top of my list today and I decided to think on it for a while, trying to reach back to what I was musing on when I originally jotted it down.

Transaction vs ritual. Devotion vs  shiny object syndrome. discipline vs hard work

...read the note.

As I walked around doing my chores and reflecting on the scrap of an idea, it seemed to me likely I was pondering writing something larger about imbuing more meaning into the regular day-to-day tasks of a life. Duh. This is the Sunday Soother, after all. That's practically our M.O. around here. Nevertheless, I followed the thread...

Transaction vs. ritual: What if every transaction in our life could be made into a ritual? I've written before about voting in elections as ritual, for example, rather than a quick and hurried in and out without much attention. What if when we exchanged money for food at a store or market, we paused and looked the cashier or farmer in the eye and really meant our thanks, and felt in our bodies the joy of nourishment we were giving ourselves, and gratitude we had the money to do so? What if each exchange, instead of just a transaction to be hurried through, could be transformed into a ritual, if only in our heads and hearts and experience of it?

Devotion vs. shiny object syndrome: What if we just devoted ourselves and our attention to just one thing, just one moment, just one person, just one project, instead of succumbing to shiny object syndrome and chasing the next dopamine hit, the next, "surely this will be better and more"? And what if we thought of this attention as devotion, as a practice of offering our attention as a gift?

Discipline vs. hard work: I recoil at the idea of "hard work" and hustle, as I've been trying so hard to decondition myself from capitalism and the 40 hour+ work week and patriarchal work concepts, and tying my worth to my work. But when I think of creating out of discipline, something in me softens. Choosing to sit down and write the Sunday Soother and record my podcast is a discipline each week. Of course, when I really need breaks, I give myself those breaks (most of the time). But my discipline can be a gift, my willingness to sit down and create and discover what lies within me waiting to be formed, even on the days when I would rather be binge-eating Bugles and scrolling Instagram. And trust: there are plenty of those days.

It's no surprise to anybody reading the Sunday Soother that as humans, we're so often searching for something larger and glamorous in the big "over there" events of a life, while ignoring and denigrating the ritual, the devotion, the discipline to be found in the smaller moments of the every day mundane. After all, that's the very basis of mindfulness, something most of us know would and does meaningfully improve our lives when we can step into it.

But how?

This is something I struggle with constantly. Every once in a while out of the corner of my eye, or in a scent on the wind, I catch the outlines of a life really fueled by this presence, by this devotion, by ritual, by discipline. It's not fully arrived yet in my day-to-day life, but I do believe it's getting closer. (Perhaps infinitesimally so, but nevertheless.)

I'll tell you what's worked the most for me in sinking into this mindfulness, this ritual, this sacredness of the mundane life:

Thinking of everything I am doing as a sacred offering.

Drudgery chores and boring routines can be transformed into offerings when you apply a few ingredients to them: Presence. Mindfulness, yes. Your five senses. Actually breathing and noticing breath. Slowness. Ritual, as in you do them most days or most weeks around the same time. Nature. Animism, the belief that all things living and inanimate, carry a distinct soul and essence. And perhaps all of the above, sprinkled with just a bit of magic.

Like such:

Cleaning my kitchen is an offering to the house that keeps me safe, to the appliances that help me cook and nourish myself and my loved ones. And what true miracle is a dishwasher. Thank god these exist.

I say thank you as I pull a Tarot card each morning, even when I have no idea why I pulled that particular card or its meaning doesn't resonate for me, and I watch out for its unfolding over the day.

I talk to my plants as if small children, pulling water from the nearby creek to nourish them, remarking on their size or beautiful blooms or how wonderfully they are growing.

I say thank you to my home and here, here is some small beauty as I waft frankincense smoke through the house once a week or so in an effort to dispel any lingering negative energy.

I invite in new opportunities on the flow of chi into my home as I sweep my front doorstep and shake out the rugs from their inevitable dust that seems to collect no matter what I do to keep it at bay.

I carefully trim cuttings from overgrowing plants and propagate them in beautiful little glass jars that had no purpose until recently.

I refill the birdfeeders multiple times a week, even as the bluejays sweep down in gangs of 10 or 20 to pick out all the sunflower seeds. (Have you ever seen like two dozen bluejays swarming your yard? They are pure relentlessness.)

We were gifted two small crepe myrtle trees from visiting friends recently, and I make sure to water the tiny seedlings and encourage them to grow.

In the winter on cold nights, we refill the pellet stove and sweep the hearth, knowing we'll have to do this hundreds of times before the season is over.

In the spring and summer I buy bouquets of local flowers and place them strategically in areas around my house as offerings of beauty.

I wash my sheets with vinegar and dry them with a few drops of lavendar essential oil, and sprinkle my mattress with baking soda then vacuum it up to clear the energy and to make my bed into an altar.

I light incense just because we and the house deserve to smell nice.

And perhaps as magical as I made the above sound, trust me: I frequently get bored as crap doing it all. Resentful. The plants have to be watered AGAIN??? My front doorway needs to be swept AGAIN?! Good lord, if we somehow don't invent a robot who can refill the bird feeders by 2024.... go the little thoughts in my head.

And yet in those moments of resentment or overwhelm I remember the scrap of my idea: Ritual. Devotion. Discipline. Offering. Sacredness.

I offer what I have, to this land, to this house, to the plants and animals around it. And they return it to me twelvefold in delight.

Chop wood, carry water is the Zen saying. In fact, it's expanded a bit: “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”

I'm doing my best to chop the wood, carry the water, and remember that routines make up a life, and with a bit of magic, a bit of devotion, a bit of ritual and intent to offer what generosity I have up that day to all that surrounds me, I keep on moving through, gratefully laden with the opportunities to make up the little moments of my life.

After all, every planet in this solar system follows the same routines year after year, eon after eon. Spinning on their axis around the sun on the same timelines and position, and what they have to offer or that they exist is no less extraordinary because it takes place with routine.

And so it is with us, too.