Clean Monday

Today is known as Clean Monday in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. The clean originally referred to the purification of the soul for Lent. Today it's customary to clean the house thoroughly, and, in Greece, people go on picnics, eat shellfish, and fly kites!

Agenda Today:

1. Spring Cleaning

2. Make skordalia or laguna
3. Start the Sabzeh
4. Prayer of Cleansing

1. Spring Cleaning:

Cleaning house is a custom for Clean Monday. In the Ukraine, Russia, and Greece everyone especially cleans the kitchen and the pots with which they have cooked festival foods, because today (in the Orthodox Church) is the start of the Lenten fast.

In March each year I take the first steps of spring cleaning - those big jobs that get put off through the winter months.

The big jobs I'd like to tackle this week are to clean behind and around the refrigerator, and wipe the coils, and touch up the paint on the kitchen windows.

2. Make Lagana (Greek flat bread) or Skordalia (Greek garlic-potato dip):

I usually make Lagana, a simple Greek flat bread, traditionally made on Clean Monday. Its traditional to tear and not slice your loaf of lagana today to avoid bad luck.

Or I make this spicy Greek potato dip called skordalia, also served at Lent.

3. Plant the sabzeh:

Our sabzeh: We keep them in a bag until the seeds sprout.

The sabzeh is a bowl of sprouted grains, prepared for Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which begins every year on the Spring Equinox. The sabzeh is a symbol of new life.

Since it takes two weeks to get good looking sprouts, we usually start them about now.

Supplies: A shallow bowl (we tried paper bowls last year and I can't say it was a success), damp soil, grain seeds (lentils and wheat are traditional; we planted a mixture of wheat, field peas, and ryegrain).

Fill the bowl with damp soil, cover the surface well with seeds, and spray daily with water.

4. Prayer of Cleansing:

I Cleanse My Soul- Author Unknown 

I cleanse my soul in the dews of spring,

Light of mind's refreshing dew

Love of heart's renewing dew,

Life being's restoring dew,

Cleanse and recreate my soul this night.

May the souls of all beings be

Peacefully preserved

From fall of night
Till day's dear light.