Day 8 of 30 Days, 30 Posts - Laundry

Over the summer our drying machine broke down. We haven't replaced it, which isn't too bothersome. But hanging clothes indoor during winter isn't nearly as pleasurable or effective as it is during the warmer months. There's something serene and primal about hanging clothes out on the line to dry. I love being able to engage in manual, outdoor labor that's not at all strenuous. There's also a slight thrill about making sure to collect them before a storm hits and you can feel the air charging up with electricity.

Mind Over Material

To air your dirty laundry is to speak publicly about matters which should be kept private or concealed. When we have an issue with someone, we air it out or talk it out with them in order to resolve the conflict. Air, in this context, is interchangeable with speaking and communication. Air symbolizes the mind, intellect, mediation, and messages.

Dirty laundry refers to problems or secrets that are ordinarily kept under wraps. It could also refer to impure thoughts or shady dealings. And what do clothes do? They conceal or cover up. Laundry is etymologically related to launder. To launder is to alter information, lie, and/or conceal the origins of financial transfers. Laundry and launder descend from Latin's lavare, which means "to wash". Lavatory and lavish also come from this root word. A lavatory is where one cleans themselves up. Lavishness refers to luxury, abundance, and wealth.

Money Matters

Clothes are material. And the material represents matter, the physical realm, or the element of earth. If all that we perceive is the physical realm, then we're deceiving ourselves and buying into falsehood. Our minds have become dirty or clouded by the investment in our own fabrications. Air refers to the mind and to pneuma, the creative life-breath. A dirty mind and body needs to be washed, purified, and aired out.

Pentacles also represent the element of earth. Coins (money) is another term employed in place of pentacles. A pentacle is a five-pointed star enclosed in a circle. The circle represents the encompassing soul or spirit whereas the five points refer to the four elements of the material realm, with spirit being the fifth. Five is also the number of mediation and desire or force. Earth is the body or food. Air is the mind. Water is the imagination, emotions, or desire. And Fire is light, intuition, or the Will. Man (mind) is the bridge between heaven and earth.

Mana are Land or Earth cards used in Magic The Gathering as the fundamental, renewable resource that allows one to take any form of action (Assiah). Manna is the spiritual nourishment (the gift, the ransom sacrifice) which descends and must be sublimated (or returned to sender) to redeem the earth (redemption money). Following any harvest is a "windfall of abundance".

Earth and water can also represent the below, with fire (heaven or the Super-conscious) being the above, and air being the intermediary. This below doesn't just refer to the physical realm, but to the subconscious or the unconscious. The earth is like an iceberg floating in the waters of the unconscious. From these waters, substance/corporeality emerges, congeals, and/or crystallizes.

This concludes today's article for the 30 Days, 30 Posts challenge. Tomorrow's topic of discussion is Inverse. Each idea popped into my head during a brainstorm I had before I began the challenge. Over a hundred ideas were written on a small slip of paper. Those slips were placed in a glass bowl for me to draw out of at the conclusion of each day's post. I mention this because I had just read and responded to an article called This is Why I Live My Life Inversely. Yesterday's article was on The Villain.