Readings to support you in rest
A roundup of previous posts here, plus other resources from around the web
This week, we’re recovering from the latest in an endless parade of low-grade winter colds. We took last weekend to come up for air and to visit our friends in Brooklyn on a sleepy Sunday morning, and we are looking forward to traveling to warmer climes over Winter Break. I have heard from many folks in this budding community that they, too, are combating more sickness this year than ever before, and just need a minute.
You are tired, and I am tired. I set a goal for myself to publish this writing on a regular schedule, and it is important to me to keep my writing promises to myself this year. (My fellow writers know the pain that comes from breaking these promises to oneself.) At the same time, this year has taught me nothing if not about the importance of respecting my own life/death/rebirth cycles.
As creators and caregivers, we can gin up so much enthusiasm for the tasks of planting the seeds, watching something grow up and leaf out, and witnessing it coming into full bloom. Too often, though, we forget the part of the growth cycle where we have to simply step back, let the seeds blow in the wind where they may, and allow our roots to absorb fully the gathered sweetness of the season. To rest.
When we forget this, we take a process meant to sustain us and our loved ones, and we make it unsustainable. Our bodies and garden beds burn out. The only way to resolve this issue, I’ve found, is to then let our creative fields lie fallow for a longer period of time.
I am coming out of one such fallow time, and so I want be especially careful with myself and with you. I want this project to feel sustainable to write, and sustainable to read.
So, this week, instead of a new post, I am including a roundup of the posts so far – a bouquet of what I’ve grown, for you and anyone else who may be interested in this growing collection of essays on grief, science, storytelling and spirituality.
I’m also taking this moment to savor and share the sweetness I’ve received, outside of the Substack comments on each post (which are so, so appreciated). I’m including some of this sweetness below. This may seem egotistical, but hear me out: I have heard from several people who have watched me launch this thing and have wondered whether they could or should do the same. Especially if their art is about a stigmatized or disenfranchised form of suffering. They wonder if it would be safe, if anyone would care, if people would be kind. I want to show that the answer, at least for me so far, is a resounding yes. Behind the scenes and beyond the comments section you can see here, people have been kinder than you can imagine.
To me, it would be dishonest to keep showing you my blooms here, without also showing you just how nourished I am by my roots. I couldn’t do this alone and I’m glad I don’t have to.
So please, friends – get your rest this week. Then make your art. Give your offering. Trust in the kindness of strangers, and trust your own root system to show up for you, too. I promise to comment on and like the heck out of it when you do.
As a final offering of thanks, I’ll pop some resources on rest into the NOTES this week, in case you’d like further support for your own cycles of renewal and rebirth during this February break.
POST ROUNDUP
#1: Started again, imperfectly
In this post, I introduced this humble project, and talked a bit about how my life and writing have changed since my latest initiation.
#2: Learned to grieve from trees
In this post, I talked about the larger ideas I’ve been exploring about grief – about how trees can recover from trauma if they have support from their communities. Spending time among them in this fallow season has taught me much about how to heal.
#3: Mourning and re-making the village
Here, I wrote about the state of that community support in 2023 – what we long for, what’s missing, and how to rebuild the village, as so many of us are hungering to do. Acknowledging what’s gone and endeavoring to be part of the rebuilding has been a recent initiation for me.
#4: Telling my son stories in order to live
In this post, I found myself connecting a story I’ve been telling my son about the history of the Earth with my own history, and that of my ancestors. Because we need stories from the past, as well as community in the present, to heal from what hurts.
Our culture hasn’t always been great about caring for those in grief. But in this post, I talk about ways in which this might be changing for our generation – as digital connections begin to mirror and to extend the analog root systems that sustained our ancestors.
(Ed: @the.feelings.teacher has since made an amazing reel on this, featuring Ace of Base, that all Millennials should go watch right now.)
SWEETNESS
“I’ve enjoyed immensely reading some of your newsletters and look forward to reading them all. I’m grateful more of your writing is out in the world.”
“I often live in the world of gratitude, and echo so many of those sentiments I read in [“Mourning and re-making “the village”], such as ‘But I have this great husband, house, etc…shouldn’t it be enough?’ Being grateful and not complaining and surviving often masks the underlying problem that is so pervasive that we have become numb to it and think it is normal…[but] something IS missing. I always feel like it’s just me. It made me feel so less alone to read, thank you. I’ve already shared this four times.”
“I loved reading about the different celebrations at the heart of winter – the former mythology student that I am was vibrating reading it. And of course the deeper stories you tell are powerful.”
“I loved reading about The Story of the Earth. What a beautiful blend of folklore, science, personal history, and wisdom.”
“What you wrote touched my soul and brightened my day like nothing else could. While it was about such a painful experience, it was also a truly beautiful tribute to Mother Trees. Wow. It really got me thinking.”
“You are such a skilled writer! Thank you for bringing so much to light for so many!”
Thank you again, friends for your kind words. They mean everything to me, and help me think about what kinds of medicine stories I can continue to bring to you in reciprocity, via future posts.
If there’s something you know you’d like to see more of, please let me know in the comments below! I’d also love it if you’d share this roundup of posts with a friend who may not be reading this series yet, but may need to hear that they too are not alone.
NOTES:
Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry is doing powerful work at the intersection of rest and social justice. Her interview on We Can Do Hard Things will inspire you to stand up for your right to lay down.
Rest advocate Octavia Raheem models running a successful business as a Black woman in a balanced way. Her newsletter provides well-written, regular reminders to rethink the messages we’ve received about rest, within an intersectional framework similar to Hersey’s. Highly recommend.
Nicola Jane Hobbs (@nicolajanehobbs) has great workshops and social media content that aim to help high-achievers with anxiety to identify goals for rest. She also offers scripts for helpful self-talk, for those moments when we’re not feeling worthy of it.
“Put your own oxygen mask on first” ranks right up there with “sleep when the baby sleeps” for me in terms of advice that seems sound but is maddeningly hard to put into practice. This episode of 10% Happier, featuring both a polyvagal theory expert and a Buddhist teacher in conversation (swoon), offers proof that best gift you can give others really is your own regulated nervous system. Because just like pink eye in seemingly every daycare this season, your sense of calm can be highly contagious.
The Chamber of Mothers, a new policy advocacy group for parents, is beginning to gather steam. They advocate for paid leave and affordable child care, among other things, because our national rest deficit is a systemic issue, not just one for individual people to solve with #selfcare. They’re putting an initial series of local chapter meetings on the schedule for cities across the U.S. Check them out here.
I feel this all deeply. I too have begun taking fallow periods instead of pushing through, which is not easy as a recovering perfectionist, and both I and my writing are better for it. I wish you a very restful day!
What a great idea to do a roundup post! I look forward to diving in to a couple of your pieces I’ve missed. And you nailed it here: “[the] best gift you can give others really is your own regulated nervous system.” That is the hardest and most important work of our lives.
I love that Substack is such a warm and supportive community. I feel much safer sharing my truth here than I would on social media. You were kind enough to give me one of my first comments on my Substack, and it is so validating to know there are others out there who make meaning from our words. I’m very grateful for this community and the people like you I am meeting here!