Space Really is the Final Frontier

August 6, 2023

A spacious sunrise with sunflowers, July 29, 2023

This week I’m thinking about the ongoing saga to allow empty space and what seems to be a very human tendency to fill the space as soon as it’s empty.

In 2001 I moved back to Kansas City after living on the west coast for many years. Moving from a 1200 sq. ft. condo to a 3000 sq. ft house (with an additional finished basement), there was plenty of empty space. There was far more empty space than space that looked furnished. I didn’t intend to fill most of it. I was sure I wouldn’t. Twelve years later when I moved, it was truly amazing how much I had acquired to fill that space. The house was still spacious, but the furniture I had acquired was large, there were more than 50 (large) house plants, the kitchen was full of gadgets and plates and pots and pans (even though I don’t really cook), there were dozens of framed drawings, and somehow every room in the house (including the finished basement) had been furnished in some way.

Sometimes the empty spaces on a walk are full of invisible threads…ask me how I know… (spiny-backed orb weaver)

I was pretty certain I wanted (and needed) to live smaller, so most of what I had needed to go. I moved into an 800-square-foot rental. I had no money for anything new, I had to try and make what I had fit. My small space looked pretty crowded with the large furniture. Thanks to the configurable shelves I bought at The Container Store in the 1990s and a few “Ikea hacks”, I made it work. I wanted to live smaller, but I also wanted empty space - so I needed to let more go.

(Side note for those of you that live in cities, it is challenging to find small living spaces in Kansas City!)

Purple martins fill up all the empty space too.

In 2018 I moved into a 1000-square-foot townhouse, determined to keep it spacious. I let more stuff go. I slowly replaced the too-large furniture with smaller pieces. I found a wonderful craftsman who made small pieces from locally salvaged wood that fit my space perfectly. I still had the configurable shelves but I was careful not to pack them full, leaving space even on the shelves. I have small closets and supposedly I have a rule that when something new comes in, something else has to go.

I do love the spaciousness of the sunrise over the lake. (July 30, 2023)

Except it hasn’t. I had been looking for a corner shelf unit for my living room for years and today the perfect one popped up on the buy-nothing group. I jumped at it. The woman kindly said she’d bring it right over. And then I looked at the unit it would be replacing. The too-large but handy, configurable Container Store shelving unit was PACKED with books and rocks and candles and art supplies. No problem, I’ll move some of that stuff to the shelves in the back bedroom, they have room - except they were full too.

This eastern amberwing dragonfly seemed to find plenty of space.

At one time all of these shelves had (lots of) empty space and now there was none. Now there are piles on my living room floor and once again I have to figure out how to create space. I looked at my kitchen and realized things have appeared there too. It’s a small kitchen with few cabinets, but somehow things have made their way to the top of the cabinets, the space I can’t even reach without a step stool. The upper shelves are full of empty tea tins and other pieces I don’t use. (I’m 5’2”, I can’t reach the upper shelves without a step stool either.)

Yes baby cardinal, that’s the look I had when I realized the effort it took to unconsciously accumulate things on top of my kitchen shelves.

There are three categories to what I accumulate. Most of the accumulated things are imminently practical. The rice steamer I haven’t used in three years. The baking pans small enough for my counter-depth oven that sit idle because I almost never cook. The fan I still have in case the air conditioning goes out. The box of cables, most of which I can’t identify but you never know when you will need them. I’ve given things away in the buy-nothing group but clearly there is still plenty I could re-home.

The rest consists mainly of books, arts & craft supplies, and rocks. It seems I have once again been accumulating books and art supplies even though I haven’t been reading or creating. The books and art supplies sit out because I’m sure I’m going to use them if I just don’t forget I have them. Except I’m not. The rocks are another story as they all moved here with me. There were more boxes of rocks in my move that you can imagine. Seriously. I don’t know how to let go of the rocks.

Perhaps I can’t help but collect beautiful things? At least the photos only take up online storage…though it keeps growing too! (white-lined sphinx moth, also called a hummingbird moth)

I think the physical space is also a representation of how I fill the more ethereal spaces - time, my mind, and lulls in the conversation. When I declutter my house and create empty space, I feel more relaxed. When I allow myself empty space - meditation, qigong, and time to create - I also feel more relaxed. I have that time. I have formed a schedule where it exists yet I am an expert at “keeping busy” and avoidance.

So good at flitting from flower to flower. Maybe I’m just pollinating?

In May I wrote about “leaving space for God to walk through the room”. In June I wrote about the fertility of that empty space. It’s interesting to observe my fears about actually leaving that space and letting that fertility grow and create something new. It’s fear that keeps me hanging on to practical items I’m not using - a fear of lack, a fear of not having what I need when I need it. It’s a fear of what might appear if I let spirit have its way that keeps me from creating. I have no idea what fear the rocks represent, but perhaps I just like that they seem solid in a world where nothing really seems solid.

I take more photos of the “solid”, the objects, but empty space can be so beautiful here as well.

The universe is 99% empty space and 1% physical form. The universe loves empty space. Nature loves empty space - just ask the blue heron who has had the cove to himself and wasn’t really thrilled with the arrival of several great egrets this week! Yet here we humans are filling all the space we can find. Here I am once again filling the empty space.

The wings of the snowberry clearwing moth (a different hummingbird moth) remind me that nothing is actually solid. Everything we think of solid is just moving so fast we can’t perceive the the space.

I wonder if I’ve been looking at the problem wrong, with the idea that the space should be empty and stay empty. I say nature loves empty space, but with all the rain we’ve had recently I’ve watched the fields become filled with weeds and wildflowers. The lakes and streams fill and then empty. The fields fill and then empty again in winter. Perhaps there is simply a flow between filling and emptying? A constant harmonizing, not unlike the constant adjustments we make to stay “in balance”?

Given a chance, nature will sometimes fill the empty space.

Perhaps the issue is not one of keeping the space empty but rather getting better at letting go on a continual basis? I have a tendency to grasp on and want the beautiful things to stay. I will walk back to the place I saw something yesterday knowing full well it won’t be there today, but sometimes I can’t help myself. There are over 4000 photos I’ve never posted anywhere in my “to be posted” folder, somewhat in need of mass deletion - but what if something happens and I can’t take any more?

I have all these fears - but look at what can appear in the empty space.

What would it look like to embrace the flow of filling and emptying rather than trying to achieve one or the other? I practice filling without trying but to practice emptying - and know I will have to keep doing it over and over - what would that be like?

Perhaps this explains my fascination with feathers. Every feather represents a letting go of something the bird once needed.

Perhaps space - not the space “out there”, but rather the space in close - really is the final frontier because it is always shifting and changing, filling and emptying, appearing and disappearing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!