Nurturing Nature
To work and think constantly without ceasing is against our nature.
Take birth, for example.
Though the movies would have you believe that it all happens in a scream and a blink, labor can take hours or days or, in my case, weeks if you count the early part. All of these things are normal.
When labor is active, it builds over time. The pain of each contraction outmatched only by the relief that comes when the contraction ends and the body rests; often longer than it contracted.
If you’re like me, the rest periods went from two minutes long to thirty seconds in about three hours. Quick as it was, there was always,
ALWAYS rest.
Even a babe in the womb knows to build strength and energy for nine months before embarking on a difficult journey. Before thought, the baby knows that a big push requires even bigger rest.
Rest begets life. We know this much before knowing.
Decades from birth my mis-education takes (strong)hold:
I don’t rest. Not for an hour. Not even for a minute. Even my dreams play and replay scenarios from the day before and worries over an imagined, apocalyptic future.
When I first started meditating, thirty seconds of stillness felt like a lifetime; five minutes, an eternity. My mind was always thinking. Some someone always needed my service, my energy, my work.
Work.
Working—producing for everyone except myself.
I have lost the lessons I carried with me here from on high. This may be one of the casualties of slavery: my ancestors could not rest and, now, I don’t know how. The slavers made every attempt to separate us from the lessons we brought with us. Their children still do. Lessons like: we are human beings who deserve every dignity of humanity; we are fearfully and wonderfully made; we deserve to live long and well; and yes, we deserve balance. We deserve rest.
We must rest.
As I process the depths of what has been stolen from me and my mothers and my fathers and my siblings and my husbands (just kidding. there’s only one husband…for now), I learn that rest is necessary for my rebirth.
And I want to be reborn if for no other reason than curiosity: what if I was never mis-educated into believing I’m less than anyone else? What would I be like if I internalized my genius instead of my insecurities?
I imagine a superhero replete with bulging pectorals and RR across the chest for Rested Rachel. She is cloaked in red, black, and green, and Black. Whenever she walks in the room Bob Marley rings out “Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery!” Everyone in a 400 foot radius stops what they are doing, releases everything they are holding, and begins to process safely. They cry and laugh and eat and nap. Babies again. Reunited with the most high.