Hello, Road-Weary Travelers!
Today’s post is from the archives. I’m fighting some physical and mental illness symptoms right now and I needed this reminder that rest is an essential part of the creative life.
a lonely blossom cast upon the pond's surface travels through the rain
Rest
What do you do when you need to rest, but you can’t rest?
This is a trick question. You must rest. If you don’t rest, your mind and body will quit on you at the time of their choosing. You already know this. This is a reminder to myself. Life’s been a lot lately.
While circumstances make it almost impossible for me to get away for much more than an hour or two right now, I have found a few tricks that have helped me at least remember what equilibrium looks like.
One is dropping a flower in the river and watching it float away. I work to only focus on the flower or to imagine that I am floating away on the flower, just drifting with the current. (Yes, this is essentially my adaptation of the Poohsticks game from the A.A. Milne classic, The House at Pooh Corner.)
It may sound strange, but this is one of the most spiritually rewarding and emotionally healing practices I’ve ever tried. It convinces me more than ever that there is something to the way Mary Oliver, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and too many Buddhist teachers to list, have placed the seat of the divine in the amorphous Nature.
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
We all need this reminder. Yours is infinitely more beautiful, I reset with music as loud as I can bear it, driving. It has saved me. Strength 💙
Btw I got distracted yesterday before I could tell you I loved your piece - and so did my grandson. (Both kids love what you do.)