I want to talk about rest. I kinda’ think it’s the missing magic ingredient to most of our problems. Whenever I’m feeling heavy in my body, or super tired, or irritable, or stressed, or confused, or like I don’t want to do something, or that I’m pushing too hard, almost always rest is the remedy.
Ostara Art print by Mother of the Moon
Today is the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring. It’s safe to say we wouldn’t be here without the season of winter, a time to rest and renew. So, before we go planting new seeds this spring, I want to take a moment to honor the fallow, now fertile ground required for new life.
I love rest. I love sleeping. But rest is so much more than sleeping. And doing nothing (though totally necessary).
Rest is anything that relaxes, rejuvenates, and resets your reserves on overflow (see more below).
Rest is countercultural. It’s why many of us have stories about being lazy or earning our rest. These are untrue and must be dismantled.
Rest is actually productive and saves us time. When we listen to our body’s nudging to stop and take a break, we can return to our tasks with more clarity, ease and efficiency. (Even more than that, rest helps us question what we perceive as productive altogether.)
Rest is medicine that repairs and restores. Our inner world is working its magic to heal us: dissolving, processing, integrating everything we’ve consumed from an overstimulated world. Octavia Raheem, author of Pause, Rest, Be, teaches us too, that "transformation requires rest." The more that is shifting in us, and across the globe, the more healing respite we need. When we rest, the soul realigns.
Rest is reunion with your spiritualicious Self. When you put down the thing that feels heavy, hard or tiresome, your sacred wisdom, your invisible superpowers, can shine forth, and lead the way.
Rest is a returning to ourselves ….
I co-lead a women’s monthly Moon Circle and an attendee once said about the group, “I feel like it’s a place where I can rest.” She elaborated: It’s a place where she could lay down any ideas about who she should be, or what she should do; lay down the everyday worries and endless to do list, lay down being poised and polished and personable, lay down the overwhelming pain of our hurting world. It was a place where she could lay it all down and be held.
Rest is an invitation to lay it all down. For a season, or for a moment.
Think about it. Allowing ourselves rest requires that we lay something down: a project, the laundry, the remote control; the masks we wear; a relationship or job that’s run its course, a limiting belief, our worry for the future. What do you need to lay down so you can rest? For a season, or for a moment.
Laying down something so you can rest requires trust. Trust that the world will not fall apart if you stop. Trust that the real you is worthy, safe and loveable. Trust that stepping away is not a waste of time but the time you need to refocus or recommit or reimagine. Trust that you will start again. Trust that you are not doing this work alone, that you belong to a community; and that there is something sacred within you and beyond you eager to co-create with you. What trust is required of you so you can rest? For a season, or for a moment.
When we trust enough to lay something down so we can rest, there is something new waiting for us on the other side. Like the fallow now fertile ground, what newness is possible for you on the other side of rest?
May you find a moment today to place your hand on the ground and a hand on your heart, and thank each of them for their winter rest and springtime possibility.
SPIRITUALICIOUS REFLECTION PROMPTS
While rest is many things, today I invite you to focus on rest as anything that relaxes, rejuvenates, and resets your reserves on overflow. It is the start of spring after all!
Here are examples: Rest to your mind could be a walk at a nearby park. Rest to your heart could be an afternoon of binging your favorite feel-good show. Rest to your body could be a visit to a somatic therapist. Rest from all the heartbreaking news could be reading a romance novel or this week’s astrology forecast. Rest from your daily routine could be a road trip (yes please!).
What activities in your life relax and rejuvenate you? Write down as many as possible.
On a scale 1 to 10 (10 being highest), how do you rank yourself on your frequency of doing these activities? If for example, you're a 6, what do you need to move you to an 8?
Imagine yourself doing one of these activities, how does it help you connect with your sacred, spiritualicious Self?
What steps can you take to build these activities into your daily, weekly and/or monthly schedule?