Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)
Traditionally, January is the month of resolutions. However, the lofty promises we make ourselves often become dashed by the foreboding darkness of the winter gloom that cascades around us. There is something about the stillness of January and February, the time before we can greet the first buds of spring, that helps with a certain stillness. This stillness can teach us a valuable lesson, that maybe doing nothing is to do something. Perhaps there is an opportunity for heightened sensitivity towards not just our immediate environment, but also the wider world . To really make a meaningful resolution, we need to be considerate of that resolution, not just to our individual self, but the people, together with the flora, fungi and fauna that are an integral part of our co-existence on the planet.
This may feel, on the face of it, a mighty task, because with the overwhelming catalogues of information and distractions we have at our fingertips, it can be hard to imagine a time for such thoughtful discernment. The magnitude required to think in a sustainable way seems hard within the daily list of responsibilities and chores we work our way through.
However, as those light filled days arrive, there is a new motivation in us all to spring forward. The light seems almost to be a surprise. It is expressed by passersby on a walk as they mention the blue that can be seen in the sky, as unfamiliar as an alien spaceship. In their voices, the type of joy that is comparable to a child first discovering Christmas. We all begin to smile more, and then as the light touches through our homes, we see the effects of our winter hibernation. For me, I can see dust that has been previously ignored, as if these particles are dancing to the sun’s beams. A kind of resurrected need for action can maybe be applied to our to-do lists. Thus, spring cleaning.
In simple terms, this could be a time to clean our chimneys. Some of us are confident to do this ourselves, but, in the spirit of collaboration, my personal preference is to seek out an expert. I particularly welcome these visits, not only because it is a practical and necessary task that improves our environment, but also as a welcome distraction to those of us who, like me, work remotely. These annual visits allow time for a meaningful exchange with a visitor who I would otherwise seldom interact with. There is something incredibly interesting about listening to those that we don’t share common day to day experiences with. We are all told that reading fiction improves our ability to empathise, but listening to the stories of others is like empathy in action.
This small, practical task is one example of so many that stretches to serve our own home, but also to improve the planet we share. My children love to mock me with the sing-song catch phrase “sharing is caring”, but actually, deep within that hackneyed platitude is a deep truth that in itself creates light and simple daily resolutions. Puerto Rican artist Soffia Gallisa Muriente describes the value of these more unpredictable encounters, as she speaks of their transformative quality of how we find community in unexpected, rather than controlled ways.
Maybe part of the language of our own resolutions are trapped in the words themselves. Many indigenous languages have rooted within them a connection to the senses and the stories of the landscape itself. In his book The Spell of the Sensuous, author David Abram says that this connection to our senses may be captured by the telling of oral stories which connects us back to the natural world. He says, “in hearing or telling the story we vicariously live it, and the travails of the characters embed themselves into our own flesh.”
So, as I consider a spring clean of the dust, it is with new consideration that I address those resolutions of January and reach out to share them in a way that also helps nurture the world around me. Starting with, maybe, a storytelling morning breakfast or one after a shared dinner, most ideally by the flickering flames of a wood burning stove.