Today was a repeat of yesterday, meaning I spent eight hours–from four to midnight–cleaning house for my friends who recently moved out-of-state. It’s a slow, repetitive process. One room at a time, I clean the windows, scrub the walls (and cabinets), wash the baseboards, sweep the floor, then mop the floor. But I’m making progress; the house has four levels, and I’ve got two of them knocked out. I even started on the third level before I left tonight. And whereas my inner completionist (I just made that word up) wanted to keep going, I forced myself to stop cleaning and go home (stopping on my way at the above-pictured dumpster to throw some stuff away). After all, I don’t have a deadline, and it wouldn’t hurt for me to get some sleep.

It wouldn’t hurt at all.

When not running the vacuum, I spent most of my time this evening listening to lectures by my man Joseph Campbell. In one of his talks, he told the story of Odysseus, Homer’s famous hero from The Odyssey. One section of the tale particularly stood out to me. Perhaps you remember it. Odysseus and his men are stuck on an island and need to get home. So Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, bags up the four winds in an ox-skin bag and tells Odysseus to use them to sail his ship. But Aeolus cautions–don’t open the bag all at once. Well, Odysseus does as he’s told, but while he’s sleeping, his men (who are under the impression that it contains gold) tear open the bag like a bunch of toddlers ripping into a piñata.

Surprise, suckas!

Of course, all hell breaks loose, and Odysseus and the boys end up not having any wind left to sail their ship. Later, they go back to Aeolus and ask for another bag, but he says, “Screw you. You had your chance.” So our hero is left with no other choice–he must find another way home.

Campbell says the lesson here is that you can’t use up all your spiritual energy at once–you’ve got to pace yourself. This is why the soul’s journey is so often depicted AS a journey and not–I don’t know–as a teleportation. Personal and spiritual growth are INTENDED to happen slowly, in pieces and increments. My therapist echoes this sentiment. “If all-of-a-sudden you became conscious of your unconscious or your shadow, you’d have a nervous breakdown,” she’s fond of saying.

Personally, this is a good lesson for me to keep in mind. I get in such a hurry about almost everything, whether that’s cleaning a house, reading a book (gotta get to the last page NOW!), healing a problem, or reaching my highest potential. Go-go-go. Let’s get this over with. But I’m learning (slowly) that this strategy doesn’t make sense, and is–in fact–impossible. Cleaning a house and reading a book take time, just like cleaning up your past or letting go of your fears take time. It’s just the way of it. And surely this is the gift OF TIME, that we can pace ourselves as we sail across the ocean of life, that we can GENTLY and STEADILY make our way home.