Care of the Soul

CLOTHESLINE

You don’t really value something

until you’re deprived of it.

Covenants in SunRiver St. George

where the sun shines about 360 days a year,

ban clothes lines anywhere on your property,

including your private patio.

Have they not considered the energy crunch?

Don’t they know dryers wear clothes out?

Waste not; want not.

It rankles my frugal, green, conservative soul.

Here in Fruit Heights,

we had two lines stretched across our patio,

Until the East Winds snapped them.

Hanging clothes, sometime barefoot,

was a pleasant part of my day.

Excerpts from

CARE OF THE SOUL

A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life 

By Thomas Moore

            The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is “loss of soul.”  When soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning.

Care of the soul requires ongoing attention to every aspect of life. Essentially it is a cultivation of ordinary things in such a way that soul is nurtured and fostered.  The home is a place of daily work.  Tools of housework are very simple yet they are fundamental:  vacuum cleaner, broom, dustmop, soaps, sponges, dishpan, hammer, screwdriver.  Housework is a path of contemplation and if we denigrate the work that is to be done around the house every day, from cooking to doing laundry, we lose our attachment to our immediate world.  There is a close relationship between daily work around the house and responsibility to our natural environment.  We all know that at some level daily work affects character and the overall quality of life, but we usually overlook the way soulfulness can adhere to ordinary housework and the gifts it can bring to the soul.  If we let other people do our ordinary work for us, or if we do it ourselves without care, we might be losing something irreplaceable and eventually experience that missing element as a painful sense of loneliness or homelessness.  It is important to the soul to do our daily chores attentively and with an eye to detail.
The ordinary arts we practice everyday at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest. I also cherish the opportunity to hang clothes on a line outdoors.  The fresh smell, the wet fabrics, the blowing wind, and the drying sun go together to make an experience of nature and culture that is unique and particularly pleasurable for its simplicity.

 Clothes hanging on a line, tossed by the wind, touch upon vitality, the unseen forces of nature, and the deep pleasures of ordinary life.

 ******

DeLoy sent his favorite Clothesline poem:

THE CLOTHESLINE
            by Marilyn Walker
A clothesline was a news forecast
To neighbors passing by.
There were no secrets you could keep
When clothes were hung to dry.

It also was a friendly link
For neighbors always knew
If company had stopped on by
To spend a night or two.

For then you’d see the fancy sheets
And towels on the line;
You’d see the comp’ny tablecloths
With intricate design.

The line announced a baby’s birth
For folks who lived inside
As brand new infant clothes were hung
So carefully with pride.

The ages of the children could
So readily be known.
By watching how the sizes changed,
You’d know how much they’d grown.

It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
Haphazardly were strung.

It said, “Gone on vacation now”
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, “We’re back!” when full lines sagged
With not an inch to spare.

New folks in town were scorned upon
If wash was dingy gray,
As neighbors raised their brows, and looked
Disgustedly away.

But clotheslines now are of the past,
As dryers make work less.
Now what goes on inside a home
Is anybody’s guess.

I really miss that way of life.
It was a friendly sign
When neighbors knew each other best
By what hung on the line!

Clothes hanging on the line in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico