It amazes me in our culture the constant need to be growing and doing.
I’ve been aware of it in myself for at least 6 years now- this imperative to grow, to not stop to allow death and rebirth. Since I started noticing my own pattern and how it ties into the cultural need to be always growing, I’ve tried to take conscious steps to allow something else in its place.
Namely rest, rejuvenation, Dreamtime and die back.
For if things never die back, how does new growth happen?
In North America, a wintry landscape has taken over all that we see. It was zero degrees today and I didn’t feel like going out at all. In fact, I haven’t felt like going out for about a week now and haven’t except for a few walks, a trip to town and some sledding with neighbors yesterday. In fact, we’re snowed in! Luckily we went to town and stocked up on fuel and some food stuffs on Friday!
As I felt my stir craziness levels rising today, I sat by the fire with my emotions, meditated a little and got clear.
And you know what I realized?
I think part of my stir craziness is because I am not really doing anything. It points back to this American (although I’m guessing not only American) imperative to achieve, to continue striving and always be doing something.
I think some cultures are more relaxed and more ingratiated to “just being” than Americans are. Productivity signals our worth in very real ways and from childhood on many of us are rewarded for what we do. Inherent worth isn’t really a facet of many of our programming.
For myself, I take a look at nature to learn a healthier way. I see the entire landscape died back, scant of growth, literally frozen and as we say “resting.”
The trees do not continually grow. The deciduous among them have leaves that drop each fall signaling a time of dormancy. The birds and other animals too have slowed down, many are in degrees of hibernation. Why is it so hard for me to allow a state of dormancy in my own life?
Why the constant feeling to need to produce or be doing something?
An acquaintance of mine recently wrote something that really clicked for me. She said the seasons are like times of day. Spring the morning, Summer midday, Fall evening and, yes, Winter the night. Winter then is the time we dream, rest, recuperate.
It is the time we go within, listen to inner messages and imperatives, get in touch with deeper purpose and meaning of our journeys. It is time to die back, to sleep more, to allow laziness and to eat a lot and sit by the fire like I imagine so many little creatures are doing in their own ways hibernating in their dens.
For most creatures, it is a time of less activity, a tunneling underground which for humans can be a metaphor for digging deep for inner treasures that we can then birth into the world come spring. If we are worrying about being productive all the time, how can we plan? How can we take a look at the last year and think what went well and what can be improved upon? How can we allow our imaginations to roam to envision even more wonderful things yet unthought? How can we pause and be gentle with ourselves, enjoying this most wonderful time of rest and rejuvenation?
It is truly a time to dream and I believe we do ourselves a disservice if we keep running around as if it were a perpetual summer. Here on the homestead as everything literally has slowed down and there isn’t much that realistically needs doing, we have the blessing and opportunity to take this Dreamtime, this slow time to heart and engage more meditative, reflective aspects that often don’t have space in the vibrant urgency of summer.
May we take it and allow ourselves these deep restful breaths...
What are some ways you find to rest and rejuvenate? Please list below!