Rest OR Play?
This year, we are following the theme of “Rest & Play.” The last three months have been focused on rest:
What are acts of rest?
How do we build rest into our lives?
What are the stories we tell ourselves when we rest? (I am lazy, unmotivated, etc)
This month we focus on how to know whether it’s time to rest or play? In March’s online gathering for this series I posed the question, “How do you know when you need rest?” The answers were awesome… “I get grouchy.” “I feel stuck.” “I want people around me to just be quiet.” I know in my previous life, I wouldn’t know I needed rest until I was completely burned out, mad at the world and exhausted beyond belief. Is this new world I have created around me, I rest all the time and it’s very disconcerting to many around me. I think they might be jealous (or maybe they just need me to reply to an email or text and I am REALLY slow)!
Martha Beck has a quote that I love, “Rest until you feel like playing. Play until you feel like resting. Live your entire life this way.” I think about this quote a lot. Especially these last few weeks. As spring began her beckoning call, I have been outside creating garden beds, re landscaping my front and side yards, mulching all beds and painting our foundation. But now as spring is officially here, all I want to do is rest. But the sun is shining and she is beckoning me to be outside. Even my fitness app is reminding me to move every hour. As I take a moment to sit still my phone dings, “Nap detected. Is this correct?” All I want to do is sit on the deck with the sun on my face and maybe even sit on the couch and get lost in a good movie midday. What happens if I heed the call of rest when nature says it’s time to play? Guess what? Absolutely nothing happens except I listen to the inner call of my own body, heart, mind, spirit. I have to remind myself when I am ready to move again those plants can get into the garden beds, those last bags of mulch and wildflower seeds can be spread. I can listen in and know.
My favorite bible verse is actually so simple, “Be still and know.” Each season, yes there is a rhythm and energy that welcomes us. Fall time to turn in. Winter time to enjoy the quiet solitude. Spring time to awaken. Summer time to move and shake. Only to return to the letting go of fall and begin again. Yes, we are mammals and we follow these rhythms to a point. But sometimes our inner knowing invites something else in. Like my dear friend who said she doesn’t want to rest in January. After the Christmas haul and the kids back in school, she likes to clean and organize with abandon. A time the earth asks us to be dormant and still and she is sweeping her hearth. Or those of us in summer who love a midday nap with the shades drawn to retreat from the world. These things aren’t wrong. They are absolutely perfect! When we are following the call of our own hearts (not the brains of the advertising or marketing firms) but our very own still, small voices they won’t lead us in the wrong direction. Listening into your own inner knowing may be the thing that saves you… that saves us. When we are rested, we can hear the call of a new way free from the old, binary ways of thinking. When we rise up to play from a place of rest, there is a quiet fullness in place of the maniacal outbursts. When we heed the call of our own inner knowing, we always land on the mark of presence, fulfillment and inner well-being.
We know what rest is… or at least we have discovered a restful activity is anything done with intention and presence. Now what is play? This is the question to ponder in the next few months. What is play and how do we invite her in? For now, in this in between month, be still and know. Listen to the pull, rest or play, and follow your inner knowing.
