The Sacred in the Ordinary

I received a request from a reader (Thank you, Betty!) to re-publish the article from the MorningStar Spring 2012 Newsletter that was seed for my blog.  In the spirit of rest from labor this day, I will gladly oblige.  Rest well!

On Dayspring Path:

The Sacred in the Ordinary

On the last day of winter 2012, an unseasonably warm and windy day, I hung my laundry on the line.  I don’t think I’ve ever been able to begin that ritual this early in Michigan.  For me it is a deeply satisfying and wonderfully sensual experience.  It connects me psychically to generations of women doing the honorable work of caring for self and family and the earth. It connects me to my own history/herstory. 

I find hanging clothes outdoors is a full body experience.  I revel in the feel of the sun and wind on my skin.  Each piece of clothing, damp from washing, has a particular fabric feel.  I smell the warm pine needles under my feet and the moist, clean scent of the newly washed clothes.  I hear the birds, the wind snapping the clothes, the insect near my ear, the silence of meditative work.  So much pleasure in the colors and shapes flapping in the breeze; the orderliness of it all: like-with-like, yet rainbows of color.  The sight of sheets sailing high with the help of a homemade clothes pole brings me delight.  I feel fully alive! I drift into timeless time, and then I travel…

I am 5 again…

Grandpa Jim, a retired milkman, is stringing the clothesline on “wash day” from the brick two-story house, across the postage stamp sized backyard, to the side of the white-washed garage that runs along the alley in Chicago.  Back and forth he walks, pulling tight the lines in preparation.  He sets out the self-made clothes poles, and he hooks the cloth clothespin bag on the line.  Now he even strings a small piece of line really low, so I can be Gram’s good helper.

In the basement, Gramma Gertie moves the wet laundry from the tub through the attached hand wringer.  My job is to be sure each piece drops into the wicker basket and not onto the floor; important work for a 5 year old…

Sliding forward in time…now, 26…

As a young mother in the late 70’s, I make sure my yard has a clothes line.  Sunny spring morning, the baby in the playpen, and a line full of white, cloth diapers: Heaven!  A little too young to be part of the hippie movement, but old enough to have taken an active part in the first Earth Day as a high school senior, and being a young woman trained in the sciences, I am aware of the mounting evidence that our choices are impacting the earth. Disposable diapers are all the rage!  Fierce love for my children’s health and well-being and for the environment they will grow up in, the scientific evidence of the time, and everyday common sense, leads me to breastfeed my children, make their baby food from scratch, recycle everything possible, and wash their cloth diapers letting the sun sterilize them and the wind make them soft.  I do not see myself as an environmental warrior; I am just doing what makes sense to me and what I love to do.

I am home again, in the now…

Bending low, I pick up the next clean treasure from my basket and snap it from its crumpled form to a line-worth state. Bending again, I gather two clothespins from the bucket and, stretching high and tall, even to tip-toes where the ground dips away from the line, I clip the piece smooth and taut.  The first batch of clothes is already dry, and I begin to remove and fold them and place them in my basket.  Seeing the clothes clean and neatly folded, I feel a strong sense of satisfaction in the work completed and in general.  Life is good!

That evening, crawling into bed, the whole experience rushes back into my being as I breathe in all the outdoors trapped in my pillowcase.  I know that hanging clothes outside to dry is a definite benefit for the environment and for my body.  And, maybe more so, a true delight for my soul!