Spring Cleaning

Spring is here! It is as if I could close my eyes and hear the exuberant and prolific growth all around me. We have put seeds into little pots in the greenhouse and the bright green nettles are ready to be harvested. Spring cleaning is happening, not just in the house, but outside too. There is so much to be cleared to make space for new growth.

Three massive burn piles have helped us to dispose of all of the trimmings from the apple and fir tree pruning. By the way, a burn pile is country speak for a daytime bonfire with bright crackling flames shooting up 8 feet into the sky.

A group of majestic redwood trees tower right behind the barn and in the middle of the apple orchard. The cool shade of those trees on a hot August afternoon would be a beautiful place to meditate. So I began to clear away the smaller trees, bushes and grass to make space. It turns out that a rather large patch of poison oak is growing up into the redwoods. I went in with elbow high rubber gloves and my pants tucked into my socks to cut and pull it all out.

The funny thing is that after all of the clearing, you wouldn't know what had been there before. It is hard to see what isn't there when all that is left is space and new growth.

What do you need to clear in order to make space for expansion? Yoga and meditation practice can be thought of as spring cleaning. We clear away what we don't need. Sometimes it is hard like with the poison oak, but in the end we create more space for ourselves to flourish and bloom. It might be that no one will be able to tell what you have done with your practice but the results will be felt in a sense of ease and resilience.