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De-linting the Soul
By Jane Tawel
June 30, 2026
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My life is like a woolen sweater.
And for better or for worse,
It picks up the lint of cares and woes, and leaves me — at best — fuzzy;
and on my worst days,
underneath the sticky bits and pieces,
You wouldn’t recognize —
for all the obscurations —
the lovely fabric
that I once called my Self.
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I wear my heart upon my sleeve
and grieve for wasted hours.
I have spent a life-time (so it seems), continually zapped and attracted to
the static electricity
that draws the small self
to the dross of info-mercials
and the shallow pools of beliefs.
How constricting to Experience
are the tight constraints of creeds
and the ego’s flimsy needs
of knowing the Unknown!
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We are so apt
to attract the small things of this world,
and wear them like jello-ey armor.
Snake-charmers offer us
the splith of polyestered promises
and we exchange our Robes of Righteousness
for scraps of fame and fortune.
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The heart longs for a Soul washed cool and clean;
and to wear upon the breastplate of Desire,
some Super-Powered magical coat-
a cloak to drape over
this worn and lint-y sweatered, sweltering self;
a cape of invisibility against the clawing chatter;
a coat of many colors to be set-apart;
a cape with wings to fly above and
to soar beyond the latest news or views;
to uncover a covered face that looks only down
upon sinking sandy shoals of un-real real-estates.
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I seek the fabric-proof of Wonder
to daily use upon my sweatered self —
the warm embrace of sun on skin
and breeze in hair
and watching dust motes fly
from my small self to scamper in the air.
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I seek the Washer
of sweaters, fish, and feet
to wash away the chattel and the floss
of doctrines, policies, and cults
and the small iotas of informational-dross;
of lint, and dust, and things that tear
and all that makes me unaware
of how the Soul longs to be freed,
unclothed and standing unashamed.
As Eve once waltzed
before a Glorious World,
I yearn to cast away this linty life;
clothed only in the glory of
Created Good,
casting off my tattered rags,
uncovered and unclothed,
dancing unencumbered
into our Deep Divinity
and an Eternity of Life
lived Whole and lint-proofed
unraveled and unashamed
the un-Sweatered-Soul
now naked as a baby
that is purely Loved.
© Jane Tawel, 2026
Jane Tawel 