I recently read a tweet by a person pondering how to start getting ready for National Novel Writing Month (the challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days that happens in November). I pondered the word ready, and I thought about all of the typical ways I might get ready myself — by conjuring story ideas, taking notes, making outlines, reading novels, and probing craft books.
Reading your post I was reminded that I rested just minutes before opening the laptop. I walked down to the bottom of my garden and picked a perfect pear from our "edible fence." Then I sat down on the steps leading to the newly installed "lawn" of drought tolerant kurapia and watched the bees busily gathering nectar from the kurapia's little white flowers. The sun was on my back, the pear juice on my tongue, and the buzzing of the bees in my ears. My muscles relaxed and also my mind.
Good morning...here is a rest recipe based on still point meditation that is very short, but considered cumulative. Find 5 second to one minute 'still points' in your day, and spend that short time letting go...even as you read this you can release unconscious muscle tension in your shoulders, back, thighs. The still point practice is teaching me to hear my body, as one. Grant, it is well known that we need "sleep" on a daily basis, and much is said about this. But in addition to sleep, I wholeheartedly agree about the restorative power of rest...drift...un-do...thanks for reminding us!
Vital subject, and you covered it well and thoroughly, as always. Most compelling to me, is that God, a being not subject to the weaknesses of the flesh, took a day off after six. What? Just wierd, but provocative. And like most things in life, whether food, play or religion, it's such an individual thing, rest is. I have the gift of sleep and nap and relaxation, but my wife runs around like an ant until seven at night. But it's how both of us want to live. And maybe that's the key: find what works for you.
... let there be rest
Great post. Thanks!
Reading your post I was reminded that I rested just minutes before opening the laptop. I walked down to the bottom of my garden and picked a perfect pear from our "edible fence." Then I sat down on the steps leading to the newly installed "lawn" of drought tolerant kurapia and watched the bees busily gathering nectar from the kurapia's little white flowers. The sun was on my back, the pear juice on my tongue, and the buzzing of the bees in my ears. My muscles relaxed and also my mind.
Good morning...here is a rest recipe based on still point meditation that is very short, but considered cumulative. Find 5 second to one minute 'still points' in your day, and spend that short time letting go...even as you read this you can release unconscious muscle tension in your shoulders, back, thighs. The still point practice is teaching me to hear my body, as one. Grant, it is well known that we need "sleep" on a daily basis, and much is said about this. But in addition to sleep, I wholeheartedly agree about the restorative power of rest...drift...un-do...thanks for reminding us!
Vital subject, and you covered it well and thoroughly, as always. Most compelling to me, is that God, a being not subject to the weaknesses of the flesh, took a day off after six. What? Just wierd, but provocative. And like most things in life, whether food, play or religion, it's such an individual thing, rest is. I have the gift of sleep and nap and relaxation, but my wife runs around like an ant until seven at night. But it's how both of us want to live. And maybe that's the key: find what works for you.