Small Beautiful Things
Inspiring Winter Rest
Despite what our culture communicates, the natural world shows us that winter is for rest. There are examples of this all around you. Trees shed their leaves to reduce functionality when it gets cold and dark. This intelligent practice shuts down growth in order for the tree to survive until Spring.
These four authors will inspire you to rest this season.
For some, there may be a kind of engineer’s satisfaction in the streamlining and networking of our entire lived experience. And yet a certain nervous feeling, of being overstimulated and unable to sustain a train of thought, lingers. Though it can be hard to grasp before it disappears behind the screen of distraction, this feeling is in fact urgent.
Rest is so much more than laying down. For the wounded, it is refuge to heal. For the grieving, it is sanctuary to remember. For the warrior, it is an altar to sharpen her sword against.
Doing those deeply unfashionable things - slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting - is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you'll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you'll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don't, then that skin will harden around you. It's one of the most important choices you'll ever make.
There is synergy, interconnectedness, and deep communal healing within our rest movement. I believe rest, sleep, naps, daydreaming, and slowing down can help us all wake up to see the truth of ourselves. Rest is a healing portal to our deepest selves. Rest is care. Rest is radical.
