Dearest SuperForesters! I would like to share with you a beautiful article by Erin Ross, a dear friend of fine, that she wrote for the Café Gratitude website. She has taught me much about this world, and she will teach all of us much more in the days, months, and years to come. Welcome her heartedly, SuperForest. I also recommend checking out all the link she gives to you at the bottom, especially Challenge Day! I know present to you the words of Erin Ross.
On September 25th (the day before my 48th birthday), I really wanted to chill out and give myself a “day for me” since I was leading a workshop on my birhtday. Instead, I decided to participate in the Coastal Cleanup Campaign– where citizens gather together and pick up trash and debris on the beaches of this beautiful state. It’s something I’ve always wanted to participate in and something I’d never done until this year. Since, however, I live only a ten minute drive from the beach, I felt like I had no excuse not to participate. I’m so glad I did.
It was a humbling and empowering experience to walk with a plastic bag in one hand, a surgical glove on the other, along with about thirty other folks of all walks of life, criss-crossing the sand from the shore to the grassy dunes, looking for everything from cigarette butts to infinitesimally small pieces of Styrofoam to plastic water bottles on a half-mile long stretch of coastline. Humbling because picking up trash isn’t exactly the most glamorous job in the world; empowering because cleaning up our beaches restores the gloriousness of our planet.
As I wandered along, eyes down, fixated on the small bits of flotsam that might reveal something unnatural, I listened to the sound of the waves playing their rhythmic notes against the sand and thought to myself, “Even though I’m not sitting or laying down at leisure, even though I’m not taking ‘time off,’ I feel at peace and joyful in this task.” It was a pleasure to be contributing to the earth in such a tangible way. I could see the fruits of my labor… a clean beach.
Several folks who were sitting on the sand, reading books or preparing to go surfing, thanked me for cleaning the beach. I responded by thanking them for noticing my efforts and invited them to make sure that when they left for the day, they checked around their area to make sure it was free of trash. One man, a surfer, even regaled me with his story of how he picks up trash every time he goes surfing. He said he brings a bag with him and picks up garbage on his walk from and to his car. I commended him for his commitment to the planet.
That conversation got me thinking about how, if we all did something small even – not necessarily hard or difficult or even “sacrificial,” the world would be a much cleaner place and we’d probably utilize a lot less resources seeing where all that trash ends up.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Garbage Vortex – that huge, Texas-sized whirlpool of trash far out in the Pacific Ocean which, like a black hole, sucks in all manner of debris from multiple continents. It’s been there so long now that the pieces of plastic are breaking down into incredibly small bits that resemble krill or other miniscule bits of food and fish are ingesting them at alarming rates causing all sorts of problems for the fish and the other creatures (including us) who eat them. The thing about this particular “black hole” is that nothing disappears, it’s just become a really big problem.
This got me to thinking about cleaning things up in general… homes, relationships, unconcsious habits – what Matthew and Terces Engelhart, the founders of Cafe Gratitude, call “The Big Five” – of thinking, believing, speaking, acting and expressing attitudes, our planet. In other words, there’s a lot of potential for cleaning up!
The Garbage Vortex is a really great metaphor for what happens when we don’t clean things up in our lives. Think about it, if we don’t clean up our homes, the clutter doesn’t go anywhere – it just becomes more difficult to navigate the space. When we don’t clean up our thoughts, speech, limiting beliefs, actions and attitudes, we are really choosing to live with personal clutter which can cause us to believe that we aren’t enough, and to speak and act with ourselves and others in ways that don’t serve us or them. When we don’t clean up our relationships, things can easily spin out of control, creating unnecessary drama, upset and suffering in our lives and the lives of those around us. The Garbage Vortex is a physical reminder and symbol for everything we haven’t managed or dealt with internally and as a species.
So, what if we cleaned up the things in our personal lives with the same level of commitment as all those folks on the beach that day? And what if we did it on a regular basis, not just once a year? Can you imagine how much more spacious our homes, relationships, and minds would be? Can you imagine how much more energy and creativity would be available to us? Can you imagine what the world would look like if we all worked together to keep things clean in every part of our lives?
Having said that, my invitation to you today is this:
1. Take a deep breath… sure, right now….
2. Notice where you might have something to clean up in your life- in your home (for example papers, bills, dirty dishes, or clothes you no longer need), in yourself (maybe a self-critical thought, something you say to or about yourself that’s diminishing, acting or attituding in way that doesn’t serve you, or a limiting belief that holds you back), or in your relationships (an unspoken acknowledgment, a long overdue apology, or a powerful request).
3. Pick one thing (I recommend one for now, since this is about Practice) that you are going to clean up this week. If you clean it up before the week is up, you can take on another thing you need to clean up.
4. Clean it up. (That could look like giving away those clothes, creating an affirmation to replace that self-critical thought, or appreciating someone you care about.)
5. Notice how great it feels to have cleaned that thing up, regardless of what it is. Notice how much more energy you have or how much more spacious you feel inside. Then, once you’ve celebrated yourself, you get to do it all over again and continue doing it whenever it’s needed.
This is how we start… one step at a time.
Thanks for Being The Change!!!
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