1 min read

Detritus

Every grove has some detritus. Rotting trees create fertile ground where new life emerges.  Leaves fall.  Animals live, breed and die on the forest floor.  Detritus accumulates then, sometimes, in a flash is consumed by rushing flames leaving clear open space for detritus to accumulate again.

It's harder to look to the detritus in our lives. Yet in order to grow, we each must stop for a moment and look at the detritus in our life.  Sometimes, we can put it off until the detritus blocks our path or chokes out the sun and we begin to wither.

I found myself confronted by my own detritus when I took a sabbatical from my psychotherapy practice.  In the silence, I realized that my life had become filled with relationships that did not work.  In some, I took too much responsibility for everything.  In other relationships, I under functioned.  I hid from the obvious fact that these relationships weren't working. And of course, there's more.  Detritus in my financial life.  Detritus in my personal inventory.  Detritus in my physical condition.  Detritus in my mental state.  Detritus filled every corner of my life.  Whether I want to admit it or not, the detritus of my life has all but blocked the sunlight and oxygen creating a composting mess.

Every single thing in my life requires some fine tuning.  Most relationships have blossomed in the light while some have withered and died.  I have had to cut off broken and dead limbs from my life and the Open Grove.  Slowly but surely, the detritus is clearing.  Granted some days, like today, I feel knee deep in disintegrating, smelly garbage trying to shovel my way out.

As we focus on awakening in the Open Grove this year, it's important to acknowledge our own detritus.  Whether it's unsaid apologies, boundariless relationships, financial debt and destruction, foolish conquests, or even just our own exhausted inability to keep our head above water, detritus happens.  It's time to clear out our lives so that we can awaken to the sunshine, rain and growth.

Just a Friday thought... Wanna borrow my shovel?

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