Spring Equinox and Spring Cleaning: A Spiritual Practice for Renewal and Mindful Living

Spring Cleaning: It’s a Long Time Ritual so… Maybe Get Into That?

Cliches are a thing for a reason. Paris is dreamy and romantic. Food in Italy is delicious. Americans are loud lol. Spring cleaning is a thing, too. However, like something taken for granted, it has lost its deeper meaning. Hence this article.

Often times in our current European capitalist patriarchy worldview we’ve lost the meaning and significance of our day-to-day activities and lives. But, we are meant to do things mindfully and nothing is without purpose.  Yes, even cleaning. Ask a Virgo, for them it is spiritual (even sexy) lol. We want to get on that level and in spring we can. 

Virgo rules our daily life in astrology, the 6^th house including daily work and health, bringing structure and order to them. With the full moon in Virgo always around this time, it’s the perfect internal push to clean and bring order to our lives, starting from the outside in.

Because cleaning our spaces is also an inside job.

The objective of cleaning is not just to clean, but to feel happiness living within that environment. – Marie Kondo

Spring Cleaning Various Cultural Traditions

Now, sure, clearly we’ve gone through a winter and so cleaning out our spaces and things is cleaning out stale mold and things that have accumulated. It’s also making room for the new. At its basic level it’s airing our homes and items for the year to come, organizing ourselves for everything about to bloom. And Spring Cleaning is actually a thriving activity seen in many cultures still today. 

In Persian New Year, the practice translates to shaking the house. The Catholic church cleans the alter the day before good Friday.  This is similar to the time before Passover, when every inch of a space is cleaned, every shelf, room and corner. New clothes are then bought and used for the Passover seder, symbolizing a new start. This practice I can speak to as I have done it for years and find it revelatory in many ways. (Not the least of which can be my resistance to doing it yearly lol.)

It also is part of Celtic traditions, with Imbolic or Imbolg, and St. Brigid’s day, marking the beginning of spring with traditions including cleaning. 

In my house every Sunday, everybody was cleaning the house. There was always music, and everybody was dancing, sometimes naked, around the house. Not hippie, but very free. – Penelope Cruz

It’s notable and not surprising that with time, this practice of spring cleaning has become just a chore, mundane. We’ve disconnected from so many rituals and ties to the spiritual in everything from eating and relationships to our work. Something we don’t consider more than maybe as a basic necessity is the cleaning of our home. This, however is missing the value and opportunity in this annual cleaning ritual.  Mundane is from the Latin word mundus meaning world. Literally it’s become something lacking any higher meaning, as its definition is “of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one.” 

This was not how it was for many cultures ruled by a connection to the spiritual and that’s why bringing back this awareness matters. Like taking stock of how much water and energy we use, how we contribute to climate changes and the health and wealth of our neighbor, so too is cleaning our spaces and taking stock of our spaces important to the whole. 

It’s time we bring it back to its origins, connecting us with health and responsibility for everything around us. It’s time to elevate our lives and practices to something more than what they are in our current world…because they are. 

Spring Cleaning as Spiritual Practice

Cleaning is a spiritual practice, just ask any Virgo. Cleanliness is next to godliness and all that.

Cleanliness is not next to godliness, it is godliness – Mahatma Gandhi

The idea of spring cleaning, according to the Kabbalists, is that when cleaning the house that acts as a mirror for our interior world. 

The idea is as we clean the dirt in our homes, corners we never go to, drawers we rarely open as well as those we use all the time, we do the corresponding works inside ourselves. The exterior mirroring the interior and all. So, when one physical act is done, the other interior is as well. 

And there is something meditative about cleaning your house or office when you do it for a bigger purpose. Sure, cleaning your neck of the woods makes the world cleaner, more orderly, and tidy. But getting rid of waste, whether clothes or kitchen supplies or towels you no longer need, is an exchange of energy that allows others to have as well. And in that space you’ve made. you allow something else in. It’s an act of reverence, both for your space and the items in it, appreciating what you have and valuing them by paying them attention. Discernment. With so much of our world built to be disposable, we know nothing really is. Everything has value, but that’s something we provide. Its participating with our spaces. It’s paying attention to what is around us and to what we have and being responsible for it. How often do we forget to do that? (If you question this, check your junk drawer (s) lol.)

The Discoveries Abound! Treasures of all kind are to be found…

I’ll tell you I’m not a big fan of the act of cleaning but I sure do love it when it’s done.

In cleaning I’ve realized valuables I’d forgotten about (aka shopping your house), jewelry that fell to the side in a case got a new life. I’ve also found gifts from friends and contacted them, welcoming a catch up and reunion that was long overdue because life. 

Cleaning is about more than the physical. It is about responsibility, ownership, care.

Progress Not Perfection

Cleaning is not a punishment; it’s an act of self-respect. Kim John Payne

Sure, that drawer that is full of stuff may still be unruly at the end, not everything will be Marie Kondo like and that’s fine. At least going through it all you know how may nails, tape dispensers and safety pins you have. You wont buy more oven mittens when you realize just how many you have lol. You are taking stock and being responsible for what you have.

It’s time we elevate everything we do to a more meaningful level than the mundane or banal… because we can. Spring cleaning is a way to connect with ourselves and what we are doing on this planet in a more meaningful way. Taking responsibility for our corner of the world can only bring more good, right? 

The outer world mirrors the interior.

After the winter comes renewal, but how do we mark these renewal times in our life? How do we make space for the old, clearing out, to prepare for what’s ahead? Balance? Why cleaning of course!

Curious about your 6^th house of astrology – work and health – and more? You can book an astrology reading with me here.