numinous window washing

Where I live—in California—rain is a very good thing. Flat, fertile land sucks up the water, making the orange trees and avocados perk up and the summer fruit grow fat and lush.

But storms and drizzle also dirty the windows. Spattered mud and raindrops linger well past the weather passes and the clouds are gone. For the past few months (or longer), I’ve watched the world through Jackson Pollack designs on old, wavy glass. Over time I don’t notice the dinginess. I just let my world be a little dusty and hazy, because it’s still beautiful out there in the big world. It’s easy to look past the grime. 

Still, somewhere in my subconscious, it nags. I know there’s something to clean out. Something to fix. Something to get done. At some level, dirty windows cause anxiety.

Yesterday, my husband cleaned our windows. (Yes, he’s the best.) Today I woke up and noticed how sparkling new the world seemed outside—acres of green trees down the valley to the light brown Topa Topa mountains covered over by an arching bright, blue sky. I stared and stared at the very clear view and thought about the symbolism of it all.

How often am I not seeing the beauty of the world because of something drab I put up (or allow to stay up) to block it? It’s not that the world is drab—I’m the one keeping the windows dirty so I can’t see it.

How often do my moods or someone else’s news or false beliefs cloud how lovely it really is? That block the loveliness of it all?

There’s a term out there, numinous, meaning being in the presence of the divine.

Being in the presence of the divine can scare us humans.

Can scare me.

Sometimes it feels safer to cover up our light and not let it get out there. To not let anyone else see.

But of course it’s not safer. Of course once you clean the windows and look out you wonder why you didn’t do it earlier, because true beauty is what matters anyway.