“Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.”

~Nadia Boulanger, French Conductor

Does your head feel cluttered and stuffy sometimes, like you can’t think clearly about what to do next in your life? Are your days packed full of a multitude of things to do with no down-time in between? Do you feel like you often make a step of progress in the discovery of your self only to then take two steps back?

Perhaps it is not the people in your life, your work or even You that is causing these scenarios. Perhaps it is your stuff……..

Now I am not going to say that you must embrace a full-blown vow of poverty and move to a secluded mountain-top cabin with no electricity or running water in order to become a more spiritual, less “stuff” oriented person. Just because I would truly love to shed it all and live this kind of lifestyle does not mean that any of you out there would like it for yourselves.

But I know that if I am one hundred percent honest with myself I am effected both mentally and physically and therefore undoubtedly spiritually as well, by the state of my Stuff.

If we bring it down to the basest level imaginable we arrive at the truth that we are all energy, that energies intermingle, coexist and effect the state in which each other continues to be. And all energy is light. No, I can’t belt out some puffed up scientific theory to explain this, I just know it to be true and that is enough for me.

The way that we feel on any given day or at any given moment in that day is a direct result of the energies that are exerting themselves upon us at the time. This can be the weather, the mood of others in our life, the alignment of the planets that have an effect on our planet, the direction from which the sun is entering our house, so many factors.

If all that exists, both in thought and in material is made up of energy and all energy is light then every item in our home gives off an energy that effects our energy. When it is all in a jumble or even is organized but there is more of it in our home then there is of us in our home, we begin to feel overwhelmed, confused, unhealthy, frustrated, as if there is no rhyme or reason to life and not enough time in the day.

If a wall that is made up of windows has towering shelves of movies and board games and an entertainment center and several pots of half-dead plants and legions of dusty knick-knacks on it then what is effecting your well-being more, the sunlight coming in the window or the stagnant, oppressive energy of your stuff? I bet you can guess that it is the stuff. So do you have your stuff or does your stuff have you?

We, the human “owner” are responsible for each item that we own. We, in taking possession of it become its keeper, we must know where it is, learn how to use it, make sure it does not get damaged, keep it away from those who could be hurt by it, keep it clean, insure it, put it in storage, pass it down, price it for a garage sale, re-gift it…so many responsibilities, replicated times the number of single items that you own. No wonder we all feel so busy, so overburdened, so frustrated. And yet every time you turn on the television, drive down the highway, go to a PTA meeting, there is a not-so-silent army of voices and media trying to convince you that the answer to it all is more, not less, stuff.

So I ask you again do you have your stuff, or does your stuff have you?

We who have acknowledged ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience instead of human beings have a spiritual experience often speak of freedom as the reason for our seeking on this spiritual path. We are free in our meditations and our dreams, we seek to embody this ultimate freedom in a mind, body, spirit connection and to walk our talk. We do not want others to put up external and arbitrary barriers to our personal spiritual development and yet we choose to put them up for ourselves.

For these reasons I say that in order to feel lighter in our hearts and minds, in order to attract more joy and good health to our physical and spiritual selves, we need to each make a valiant attempt to un-Stuff our lives. The less we are beholden to our stuff, the more we are beholden to our self. Then we are free to spend the time we would have spent being depressed, confused and distracted in more constructive ways such as caring for our bodies and souls, communing with nature and strengthening our human connections. You know and I know that if you don’t de-gunk your engine you can’t just go out and buy a new car, not when that car is your own spirit.

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