Tending to the Things Around Us
How caring for our home and daily rhythms brings soulful ease to our everyday
Tending the things around us and becoming sensitive to the importance of home, daily schedule, and maybe even the clothes we wear, are ways of caring for the soul.
—Thomas Moore
The other day I saw an ad for a folding machine. No joke. It’s a big, clunky thing into which you insert your shirts, towels, and whatever else you’ve got, and voilà! Out they come, all nicely folded. It made me think of TV ads from the 1950s, rolling out all kinds of gadgets promising to save us time.
While it’s a fun, innovative, and compelling idea, I can’t see how a device like this simplifies your life. I’m not sure it saves you any time, frankly. You still have to feed the thing a certain way.
And then you have to find a big space to store it . . .
And maintain it . . .
And miss out on the nourishing effects of folding clothes the old-fashioned way, and putting them away with love.
Why would you want to miss out on that?
Why would we want to miss out on the beauty that reveals itself when we move things around with awareness? Or the balance that is restored when we slow down and honor our things—like our bed, our broom, our clothes? Or the ease and quiet that comes from tending to our piles and digital loads one baby step at a time?
If these simple tasks give us ways to care for our soul, why would we want to miss out on that?
Hopefully by now you are beginning to see that our practices in simplifying are not about having a perfectly made bed or neatly folded clothes, beautiful drawers or sparkly floors. It’s not about sorting and tidying, beautifying and quieting.
It’s about what caring for our spaces does to soften and nourish and transform us.
It’s about the heart and presence we bring to a task, no matter what it might be, and the spaciousness that naturally arises from that.
That’s what this is about.1
Ahhh 🏡
Lighter You — Clearing Series
What you’ve just read is excerpted from Chapter 19 “Care for the Soul” of A Year for You — the book that guides the way to living a clear and spacious life.
It’s not too late to join us in this ongoing journey to a lighter you.
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Taking stock
