What’s a Colander Got to Do with It?

I’ve got colanders on the brain.  Colanders?  Really?  You might be tempted to ask, how exactly does that happen?  And a good question it is.

In this week’s Wellness Art-ivity Rae invites us to become curious about how our minds work.  And the image of a colander immediately popped up.  Only in my mind it’s kind of a 2-way colander – thoughts and inspirations and stimuli trickle in and ideas and connections and various other stuff, some more crazy than others, flows out.  Sometimes my mind feels really full and I need the basket of the colander to hold it all, and sometimes I feel like I’m processing things a lot quicker and I’m more focused on the exchange than the holding.  But I like the container/flow/holding/releasing images.  And besides colanders are cool.  Even the word makes me smile.  And makes me think of pasta, which I love.  And I can never think of colander without thinking that I know the Polish word for it, durshlak, and how that’s the ONLY Polish word I know, and how helpful would that be as one’s entire vocabulary if I ever needed to communicate in Polish?  And I start imagining scenarios where colanders would be appropriate conversational topics.  See you’ve just had a glimpse at how my mind works.  It’s kind of messy in there sometimes.  I occasionally have to call in the deep cleaning crew and follow up with a feng shui session.  😉

Colanders were on my mind for another reason as well.  Yes – connections! – one of my favorite ways to use my mind.

I’m participating in a year-long program based on the work Connie Kaplan presents in her book The Invisible Garment.  The premise of this work is that there are a number of spiritual principles we’re working with here on Earth at this time, and that each one of us is personally working with up to 12 of these principles.  They reflect who we are – they are the threads that are woven into the very “garment” of our being; threads of energy that weave our unique pattern.

During this program, each month we’re charged with looking at one of our twelve principle “strands” – really examining it in depth and seeing how it shows up in our life, where we’re aligning with it, where we’re not, how we can grow into it, how it expresses throughout our beingness.   One of my principles, the one I looked at last month, is Innocence.  And I came away with such a deeper understanding than I began with.  Amazing and fun!

I think the tendency is to equate Innocence with naivete and be rather dismissive and disrespectful of it in all but the very young.  But I don’t think that’s what innocence is about at all.  I think of it more as potential, possibility, openness and readiness without an agenda.  It is curiosity; it is beyond trust as it does not even consider that trust is necessary.  And as I was thinking about it, the archetype of tarot’s Fool really came to mind.   There are so many wonderful images of the Fool card in various decks, but in The Kitchen Tarot, it’s the colander.  The cards in this deck are based on the art quilts done by Susan Shie and if you don’t know her work, do check it out.  It’s amazing!

I’ve included the colander card along with another Fool in the gathering of images that remind me of Innocence.

(Note: post addendum 8/26/13: I’ve removed the image I had here originally which was a collage that included images from the tarot decks mentioned above.  The longer I’ve been blogging the more I’ve become aware that I always want to err on the side of respect about not using images I don’t license or permission for.)

As I look at my life these are the things I know:  In Innocence I am a pure clear channel for Spirit; I express myself most purely from the heart; and I am vibrant in my enthusiasm for life.

What about you?  I’d love to hear your thoughts about Innocence, or how you experience your mind as working, or even what you think about colanders.