Hello lovelies
THANK YOU for being part of this community and letting me into your inbox.
How has your May been so far?
I’ve been pondering quite a bit about rest, time alone to just be and contemplation, things we don’t often allow ourselves the time to do, to just slow down and be with our inner world and our bodies without distractions.
Undistracted rest, time alone or contemplation are ways in which we create space to bring head, heart, body and soul together. Our days can fragment us, we can shut down the heart, put away our physical sensations, quieten our soul and intensify our action brain all so we can get by and through the tasks or the day. But fragmentation can be a heavy price to pay, and it can be vital to find ways to join the aspects of self back together.
We live in a modern culture, that due to a capitalist mindset, celebrates the spring energy more than any other energy. Young, upward, growing, busy, achieving. And while this energy is beautiful and inspiring, it is exhausting to be this way day in day out, month after month, year after year. Measuring our worth by our busyness or productivity.
We only have to look out into nature, and see how this is not the way of things, there is only one certain thing in nature, and that is change. Cycles, spirals, ins and outs waning and waxing, inner and outer is natures MO.
I have often heard people speak of spring, as a saviour of winter, that despite winter and the descent of autumn, spring came. Yet in truth, spring comes because of the descent of autumn and the dark rest of winter, NOT despite it.
Spring teaches us that winter is a necessary process of growth, recovery and restoration.
And we, as beings of nature, are meant to live according to natural rhythms. The sun and the moon, the seasons and the cycles.
Watching how the seasons move, has been amazing teacher for my own journey of recovery.
Samhain, known now as Halloween, was an ancient and incredibly beautiful celebration that encompasses death, ancestors and new beginnings. It was also seen as the new year. This, in these modern times may seem strange, especially if we have been led to believe that new beginnings are light filled, with yellow flowers, white flowers and upward growth. Why would it be a new year when we are about to descend into the dark blackness of winter?
This is because back then, people understood, that all beginnings, all forming, shaping and becomings, begin with unravelling, darkness, rest and renewal.
All things begin in the darkness, in time of deep rest and contemplation, the seed in the dark rich soil, the baby in the womb.
We, as a culture, have largely forgotten the power of rest, we have forgotten the bone deep need to come back to our bodies, to contemplate and feel and remember who we are away from the noise and distractions.
How can we know ourselves, our bodies, our longings, our dreams, our needs, our seeds if we are not taking the time to feel them, to seek them, to rest in them and taste them.
So many people hold shame about resting, or taking time to themselves for contemplation, they feel it is selfish. Yet I have come to realise, that it is more selfish not to. I know I am a better parent, lover, friend, creator, writer when I take these moments for myself, when I remember who I am and let my body stop, so I can come back to who I am.
I am much less likely to be able to access love, joy, pleasure, tenderness and presence if I am too tired, exhausted or haven’t had space.
Rest and contemplation creates space to commune with ourselves and our deeper wisdom. You don’t need permission to rest, to listen, to feel and think. Your body wants to show you the way, your body is your teacher, let it be your guide.
“ Your body holds messages of liberation that it can only offer you while you are in a rested state ” - Tricia Hersey
Yet it can be so hard, if we have learnt to please for our worth, if being safe meant being busy. Or, if we deem ourselves, through stories we have taken on, unworthy of restfulness. Or, if we have experienced a highly stressful or traumatic life, and our entire system is in fight or flight, signalling to us, that to rest equals danger. Or if we have never been given space or time to process our grief, our feelings and the things that have happened to us, we may find it scary to carve out space to be alone with ourselves.
Yet it is a soul deep, bone deep, mind deep need to rest, to come home, to remember.
Rest is medicine.
So wherever you are, however you are, I hope you can find ways to rest, to take time alone, to crumble, to fall apart, to melt and to form, strengthen and root. To know you are worthy of that space.
It is a way of being that largely goes against our modern culture, we have treated the natural world and its creatures as products and machines, used things up until they are dry husks - the land, the forests, animals, water and human lives.
We are precious wild beings, we are ensouled creatures and we should treat ourselves as such.
It may go against all the messaging and stories you have gathered from your upbringing, education or societal consensus. But still, see if you can find ways of saying no more, ways of creating boundaries. Grow a rest practise, sit still more, find time alone in nature, sleep under s tree, gaze at a river, lie down and look up at the leaves of a forest, find a park bench, an ocean, a bed, a safe place. Find ways to make your body the home you long to come back to.
Interesting things
RAIN - Tara Brach -A Practice of Radical Compassion
RAIN is a wonderful way in which to be able to come back to self in a safe, compassionate and kind way, it is an exploration of all that we hold and how to hold it in care.
From the founder and creator of The Nap Ministry, Rest Is Resistance is a battle cry, a guidebook, a map for a movement, and a field guide for the weary and hopeful. This book is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey’s lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art.
The Nap Ministry was founded in 2016 by Tricia Hersey and is an organization that examines the liberating power of naps. Our “REST IS RESISTANCE” framework and practice engages with the power of performance art, site-specific installations, and community organizing to install sacred and safe spaces for the community to rest together.
Contemplation is an ancestral skill
This is a lovely article by Asia Suler who is a writer, teacher, medicine maker and seeker who lives in the blue folds of the southern Appalachian mountains. Woolgathering and Wildcrafting is her grass-stained journal from the hillsides of the living world.
Plant beauty!
Elderflowers are opening on the trees!
They taste beautiful and can be used to make cream to soothe skin and help it glow, they can be made into hot teas to ease fever, help colds and are anti viral and anti inflammatory. They are also wonderful for hayfever especially when combined with nettle. You can have elderflower in tincture for this or add it to Nettle infusions.
You can of course infuse honey with elderflower, make syrup, turn into fritters or make wine or mead.
A simple and beautiful way I love, it to simply make a tea with them, especially with lemon balm. Both help calm and uplift the spirit.
THANK YOU for reading and being here, I really do appreciate this little community.
If you enjoyed this and know of others who may also enjoy, feel free to share via social media, email or messaging.
For paid subscribers - Tomorrow I will be sending journaling prompts, inspired by hawthorn and so they explore boundaries. I will also be sending the new date for our next online gathering and a clearer mapped out page of future dates for such things, inspired and punctuated by the moon.
Much love and wild May beauty to you all!
Brigit x
Beautiful. I’ve had that book on my TBR for a while. May need to bump it up the list.
I smiled as you thanked us for allowing you to share our box. I laughed as I pictured creating a "home" out of a large box when I was young. You are welcome to my "home".