Some signs from the universe are wrong
For years I've kept things because I already had them. A blank canvas overwhelms me, and constraints help me design, so starting from what's already in the house has always been my preferred approach. It's also the more sustainable choice and it costs nothing, a win-win that made it easy to call it a principle.
Then I started furnishing my new office. On moving day I found nearly new shelves and a small filing cabinet waiting on the sidewalk, and free furniture on moving day is obviously a sign from the universe. So I hauled all of it two blocks in the heat.
It took a few days of living with it before I admitted I'd misread the sign. I'm good at pulling odds and ends into an eclectic look, good enough to learn to love almost anything. In this room I wanted to begin with love and skip the learning. So I carried everything back to the same spot on the sidewalk, to become someone else's treasure.
This week's Torah portion, Haazinu (Deuteronomy 32:1-52), is the song Moses teaches the Israelites at the end of his life. After forty years of commandments, he reaches for poetry and asks that his words fall like rain and settle like dew on tender grass (Deut. 32:2). Rabbi Jonathan Sacks teaches that Moses knew his words could reach the people's minds and still miss their hearts, and that it's feelings that move us to act. Rain is a good image for the kind of teaching he wanted, the kind that soaks in.
My office needed that kind of attention. I want this space to hold the work I'm growing into, and I couldn't get there by doing what I've always done, however sensible it is. I had to quiet the responsible voice long enough to hear what I actually wanted, and then trust it. New things can only branch out once we take away some of what's already there.
Feng shui concept: What pruning teaches a room
In feng shui, the five elements move into one another in cycles, much like the seasons. Metal belongs to autumn. It's the element of discernment, the part of us that can tell what's precious from what's merely present, and it does its work with a clean cut.
Anyone who gardens knows what Metal does for Wood. You cut back a branch that's still alive but going nowhere, and the tree sends that energy into new growth.
The harder part comes after the cut. In the creative cycle, Metal gives birth to Water, the element of winter and stillness, where things lose their shape for a while. A newly emptied corner can feel like that, unfinished and a little exposed, and most of us rush to fill it. In feng shui, open space lets chi move and gives whatever comes next somewhere to settle. Water is also what feeds Wood, so the pause is where new growth gathers strength before anyone can see it.
This week's experiment: what no longer belongs
Walk through your home slowly and look for one thing you're keeping mainly because you already have it. It might be the armchair that came with you from your last apartment, art you hung because the wall looked bare, a lamp that works perfectly and that you've never once liked, or the rug someone else chose. Before you decide anything, stand next to it for a minute and notice how it feels to be near it. The reasons for keeping it will show up right away. The feeling usually takes a little longer.
Some of us lean the other way and hold on to things out of sentiment or a quiet fear of needing them someday: the gift you'd feel guilty giving away, a dress saved for an occasion that never comes, every drawing your kids ever made, or the cables for devices you no longer own. If that's you, the exercise works in reverse. The feeling will show up first, and it's the reasons that need a minute.
Then take it out and find it a good next home, whether that's a friend, a neighborhood group, a charity, or your own version of the sidewalk. Leave the spot empty for a few weeks, even if it looks unfinished. Pay attention to whether the urge to fill it comes from love or from habit. If you share your home, let each person choose their own thing, and let the kids choose for themselves. After some time living with the empty space, you'll know better what, if anything, belongs there.
Most of us lean harder on either reason or feeling. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes that without rules a tradition loses its structure, and without feeling it goes dry. Homes are no different. The things worth keeping are the ones your reasons and your feelings would both choose.
