Mundane Metaphor

When we begin to live our lives in that way, cleaning up after ourselves, what is left is further vision and further openness, which leads to cleaning up the rest of the world.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Photo: Courtesy of Tiny Buddha and Lori Deschene

I’ll confess, I can make a metaphor out of anything. Perhaps it’s the songwriter or the poet in me…or it’s just that I’m corny and that’s how I often see the world, in metaphor.

This morning as I looked out my kitchen window for the 3, 332^nd time, I noticed the spider webs in the corners and the stains from the raindrops that had collaborated with the soot from the top of the window, now streaking down like a Jackson Pollack painting.

I grappled with the notion that the act of cleaning the window could be a distraction from other things I need to do.

Is this a ploy created by my mind to trip me up?

And then I realized that if I never stop to clean the windows, they will always be dirty and will always interrupt my view I see when I look out.

So…I grabbed my glass cleaner and paper towels and started my early morning mission.

While waving my arms up and down and across the windows, I was thinking and debating on whether or not I should skip this week’s blog post because I have a zillion thoughts in my head and wouldn’t know where to start.

And, no thanks to the critic in my head which poo-pooed every idea that came into it.

Then, it became clear. (Caution: This post will in fact be filled with many metaphors…corny or not.)

A little gesture like cleaning my windows, making it clearer to see, felt so great and as I looked out of the now unobstructed windows..well, you can guess… yes, I related it to life, my life and how I’d like to live it.

Seems so unimportant but I don’t think it is.

It’s so easy to let the dirt and webs pile on, without ever stopping to take the time to give it a wipe…and it doesn’t even take that long.

Now I can get back to the rest of my day… walking, meditating…and another of life, with a clearer view.

I can see more of the beautiful greenery and everything else outside my house (and in my mind), with fewer obstacles.