The Library of Rules and Beliefs

Part One:  The weight of rules and beliefs.

A long-postponed task, I decided to do a cleaning of my musty library of documents tracking a lifetime of rules and beliefs. Immediately upon entering, I felt the discomfort of being weighed down.  Imagining going through each one, brought me rushing out again and slamming the door shut.

But determined, I returned to complete the task.  Thumbing through pages and pages of categories of rules for this and rules for that impinged on my sanity, grasping the weight of it all.  Old beliefs worn at the edges, yellowed by time, smelled musty and unappealing.  Many beliefs seemed to be justifications for sometimes irrational or regrettable behaviors, some were confused answers to simple questions, or simplified answers to confusing questions, and there were stiff unyielding rules that brought immediate feelings of resistance.  Some were once treasured beliefs or rules, now empty of meaning, having been forgotten and left behind. There were also some pearls of wisdom mixed in, which I pulled out and slipped aside for reflection.

Part Two:  Cleansing

The dust was drifting into my consciousness and a forgetfulness began seeping under and through each page I touched, a numbing sensation. My breathing was stifled. I was forgetting which rule and which belief applied to which situations, a cataloging process which no longer made sense to me.  Keeping track of them all and their purposes, felt unbearably heavy.  Desperate, I began pushing the volumes of a lifetime of rules and beliefs out the door, trusting that if there were any I really needed to keep I would take them into advisement with my Higher Self.

As the pile grew higher, so did the flames of the bonfire I had lit in the open air.  Only the crackling of the fire sounded in the stillness. Something glorious was happening. My hair was blowing freely in the wind.  My arms opened wide as the ashes were scattering freely in the wind. I said, “I free you.  Go with the wind. Scatter to become compost or to become rich soil for another traveler who may walk this way.”   

I sweep out remaining dust from the library and wash it clean. I don’t imagine filling the library again with new beliefs and rules for my life.  I rather like the emptiness, the spacious feeling now in the room.  I open the windows for fresh air and place an easy chair by a window with a view. And on the small side table, a vase of fresh flowers. I sit and settle easily into the new space, feeling completely satisfied and happy.

Sophia

©1-24-22

“A still mind is Presence.  Presence is the witness perceiving all things from the GodSelf.”