Cleaning not for cleaning sake

Cleaning our physical space was important too, mopping the house with a bucket filled with herbs and oils as a regular ritual or to welcome the new year. As a child, I had no choice but to participate in all the cleaning, polishing and scrubbing. This week, when asked by my sons why we were doing this, I managed to patiently respond that cleaning was the practical act of making things cleaner, but was also a symbolic gesture of cleansing one’s space and dissipating negative energies. And that within the context of Christmas, cleaning was also a way of making one’s home ready to welcome the prophet and his teachings, and by extension, to usher in a new year.

I thought afterwards of the importance of cleaning for our many cultures and religions. For instance, at Divali, Hindus thoroughly clean their homes to make way for the arrival of Mother Lakshmi. In December, people of African heritage prepare their homes to commemorate Kwanzaa.

Kwanzaa was developed by an African- American professor in the 1960s as a means of injecting positive images of Africa and blackness into the civil unrest caused by the rampant racism of that time; it is still observed around the world today. “Chinese clean their homes in anticipation of the new year (which occurs shortly after the Western new year). The Chinese sweep their floors and clean their homes to get rid of bad luck and misfortune that may have accumulated during the previous year…” It makes sense. Interventions with hoarders, people who compulsively collect items that they do not need, reveal that the desire to hoard comes from personal trauma. They project their pain onto the items, and eventually, the hoard becomes so unmanageable, that many of the victims end up living in houses so filled with stuff that they can barely move about, infested by rats, overrun by pets or covered in dust. Their mental torment means that they are unable to stop collecting, and the size of the hoard often prevents them from getting to the floor, ceiling or kitchen counter to clean even if they wanted to. Not surprisingly, often the hoarder becomes physically sick. Equally fascinating are the negative spiritual effects of the squalor, causing isolation of the victim, arguments with relatives, and serious health complications.

Once the hoard is gone, the victim feels renewed and able to piece back relationships and other aspects of their personal lives.

The broom, that simple symbol of cleansing, takes on new significance with the impending new year. In Indian and African folk traditions of dance, the cocoyea broom is an important feature, used to clean the performance space, and as a symbolic ridding of negative energy.

A new year is a powerful representation of second chances and renewed optimism. Yet, the commercialism of our time has recrafted the cleaning process to mean replacing what we already own with bigger, more expensive versions - upgrading as it is now called. In 2017, what will we throw out and what will we keep? As I discovered, it depends on how much pain we are willing to endure to fully reap the rewards of a thorough clean out.

D a r a Healy is a perform a n c e a r t i s t a n d founder of the N G O , the Indigenous Creative Arts