Hoarders are often our extreme reminder of the dangers of clutter, but our lives are often not lived in extremes. My closets, closed to visitors and friends are often cluttered with too many clothes, supplies or unused and forgotten objects. I have forgotten the values or memories I have unwittingly attached to many of those objects, but I am reluctant to let the objects go.

Why then do we accumulate things, and then hold onto them, as if they are important to us? And if we release them what remains?  Will their release create empty spaces — in our living space or in our hearts and minds? Each item is embedded with memories, some faint and some vivid. Somewhat like the “Velveteen Rabbit,” our even faded love of possessing these items makes them and us real. Perhaps without them we think we have no life signature, no definition, no uniqueness. That’s why they are “our things.”  But in what way do these possessions reveal who we really are?

What remains when we let go of what does not support us emotional, physically and spiritually? Do we plan to refill the space with new trinkets or clothing? Do we see the removal of clutter as a loss or a gain? What remains of us when all else is gone, all that we believe defines us?.

What Remains?

When the laughter stops

What is it that remains?

Some memory of the bolt of rapture

Some glimpse of happiness now faded?

What remains when the glow of the trinket

Dulls us into habitual patterns of boredom?

What stirs us during cold nights, shivering arms,

Clinging to gossamer dreams?

What remains when the song ends, the music

Now a faded echo?

The even breath of spiritual energy remains,

Energy that fills the soul with peace,

And rests in quiet awareness,

Of infinite abundance.

But I had to experience the transient moments,

The folly of wanting.

The dissatisfaction with receiving

Some insufficient thing.

I had to. I wanted to. I thought I needed to…

I had to remember what, with clouded thoughts, I had forgotten.

The bold, relentless Now clears the false ideas I cling to,

And I appreciate the pregnant silence that remains,

Full of the love and joy I could not see beneath the clutter.

And who I am being is now liberated from thinking

That  I could ever love what I am not.