Tending the fire
And other mundane tasks...
I have always found doing the laundry a strangely spiritual act. Particularly hanging items to dry. I feel the thread of connection through my ancestral line. I am my mother, my grandmother, great grandmother and beyond in that single act. Shaking, laying flat, hanging on the line.
This morning as I was reading “Women Who Run with the Wolves” it began to make sense to me. The deeper layer of the psyche that is activated through these seemingly menial tasks of caregiving.
Doing the laundry is actually tending to the persona. These items that protect us from the elements, but also act as reflections of our internal world; the version of us who we wish to present to the world at any given moment.
Clothes have always been important to me. They are not frivolous or lacking meaning in my eyes. Style is essential. It can serve as armour, medicine or creative expression. I've seen its power harnessed through the generations of my family and now in my children, whether conscious or unconscious, it is present and it is vital. The specific aspect of self that are you choosing to express that day.
Washing the laundry is an act of cleansing the personae, according to Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Your clothes and therefore style form and shift throughout life according to need and experience. They reflect the inner state; sometimes floaty and ethereal, other times soft and nurturing or structured and powerful. Whatever traits need to be expressed, cultivated or indulged in that moment. The process of caring for your garments allows you to examine and witness these qualities of self.
“We learn how to sort, mend, and renew the instinctive psyche through a purificatio, the washing of the fibres of being”
I've also always enjoyed dusting my home, another task deeply tied to the psyche. Your physical environment reflects your internal landscape. I remember in the fashion offices I used to work in, the desks of the buyers and designers were often strewn with swatches and samples of fabrics and papers, whereas the merchandisers’ desks were orderly clear and uncluttered.
Tidy desk, tidy mind.
No shade on the buyers and designers. Their creative chaos and wild abandon nourished their genius and fed the fire of inspiration. I, as a merchandiser, needed the clarity and open space to allow contemplation and a refreshed mind.
How’s your environment faring? Are you in organised chaos or clear decks?
Cooking is one task that I have yet to connect to on the level of the psyche. To nourish myself and those I care for in such a fundamental way. Obviously I do cook for my family, but I do not find enjoyment or satisfaction in it in the same way as I do my other tasks. Returning to Pinkola Estes’ words regarding the Yaga; an aspect of the wild feminine within us, who guides us to be true to our soul & tend to your home:
“To cook for the Yaga, one lays a fire ——— a woman must be willing to burn hot, burn with passion, burn with words, with ideas, with desire for whatever it is she truly loves. It is actually this passion which causes the cooking… To cook for the Yaga, one must arrange that one's creative life has a consistent fire under it.”
So to enjoy the mundane tasks I struggle with, perhaps I must firstly tend to the fire beneath my creative life. Nourishing my creativity and wild self will add fuel and passion, thereby encouraging me not to “turn away from the pot, from the oven”.
It is all too easy to let the flame go out if left unattended for too long.
The remedy is quite simple. Pursuing new creative acts and expressions that fuel the fire. This just needs to be kept at front of mind. Fertilising the imagination, fuelling the self to move through the mundane with lightness.
Dreaming of new experiences and imagining the next stage of life nourish your wild soul. Having the future vision is akin to gathering the ingredients together for the dish you wish to prepare. So the task is to stoke the fire of your soul. Leading to a well nourished and fulfilled self.
This is the work, always.
Which seemingly mundane tasks of your life do you connect most easily with? Which ones need some attention and deeper consideration? If you feel resistance, what might that be telling you?
Tending to your home really is a reflection of your inner landscape and vice versa. As within, so without.
How tidy is your psychic vista?
Does your inner Wildling need nourishment?
And what feeds your fire within?