When it don't come easy
Libra 3 // rest is best.
The days are getting shorter and shorter. There’s a freeze warning tonight, our pumpkins are looking a little worse for wear, and I’ve had kids home sick for more than a week. It’s hard to keep my feet under me when my schedule is perpetually disrupted, but I wanted to post before Halloween so here we go. Happy Halloween! Samhain blessings! and many spooky returns of the year to you and yours!
The fog from the last few weeks has not yet lifted. I mark time by cups of coffee, sits on my meditation cushion, piles of laundry, and episodes of Great British Baking Show. I still find it hard to let my mind stretch to parts of the world that are suffering so greatly, all while administering cough syrup and scraping together dinner and helping with homework. As
said recently, “In the pie chart of my life, I suspect that a good slice would be taken up by ‘being daunted.’”How’s your pie chart these days?
Libra season is ending with the 4 of Swords and our friend doesn’t look daunted, he looks… dead?? After the heart break of last week, maybe he just couldn’t take anymore. Sometimes our grief feels like it may just literally kill us.
If I’m honest, the first thing this card makes me think of is Dracula. I tried reading the classic Dracula a few years back during spooky season and I couldn’t finish it. I generally get most of my reading in after my kids have gone to bed and holy hell - Dracula is scary! I read an article1 about monsters in the age of AR-15s and felt a twang of resonance. “What is a monster now? What has it always been? What could it be? Why has Dracula stayed in our minds after all of the horrors of the twentieth century, much less the twenty-first?” After the last few weeks of our living nightmare, what monster could compare?
But I will save those thoughts for another Halloween. Because last week I stumbled upon a conversation2 that illuminated exactly what I need in this moment, and I’ll give you a hint: it’s not more monsters. I need rest.
I’ve had Rest is Resistance on my TBR list for months and it has been the perfect audiobook for me this week. When the over-culture is doing its damndest to get us to dehumanize each other, the message of this book is crucial. “Rest makes us more human.” Resting, napping, finding our dream space is exactly what we need to 1) survive the pain of this historic moment and 2) to dream up a way to thrive in the midst of so much loss.
And rest is so much more than naps (though, hello, those are nice too). As someone who has never “liked” naps, I have taken more in the past two weeks than maybe my entire life. Hersey defines rest as anything that “pushes back and disrupts a system that views human bodies as tools for labor and production.” Rest can be shutting your eyes for a few minutes in car line, or taking a few slow breaths while you wash dishes, holding3 your child (and inner child), or reminding yourself that life is not an emergency.
I have a child with medical anxiety, so you can imagine what the energy is like in our house full of sore throats and antibiotics and sleepless nights. Today I had her at the pediatricians and a kid threw up right in front of us in the waiting room. After we escaped to the exam room we had to do deep breathing and grounding4 to regulate her enough to finish the appointment. For the rest of the day she kept complaining of tummy pains, which lead to conversations about stress and rest. When we are stressed and our systems are on high alert to run away from or fight a threat - our digestion goes offline. When we can regulate and get to a place of rest, we can digest again - literally and metaphorically.
Think about the state of our world5, and the state of the people writing, speaking, and arguing about it online. If we live in a perpetual state of stress and high-alert, of information intake and opinion output, there is no space to actually digest what is happening. Without rest, there is no room for humanizing people - only reducing them to “sides.” Without rest, there is no room for thoughtful conversation - only shouting louder in a mistaken effort to feel safe. Without rest, there is only more more more - more violence, more misunderstanding, more suffering.
I intend to slow way down. I often do this time of year, but I’m looking at a dramatic shift. I want to wake up every morning wondering, when will I rest today? and I want to err on the side of less. Less stimulation, less commitments, less us-and-them. The four of swords doesn’t just rest after a job well done, the four is only part way on the journey6. The four rests in preparation for the work ahead. This card represents a time of regeneration and gathering yourself and your resources for what comes next (2024, I’m looking at you…).
Tonight I take my kids out trick-or-treating, most likely in the cold and sleet, and I’m going to hate it, but I’m also going to help pass out lit about my partner’s upcoming election and the amendment in our state for protecting women’s rights. And you know what I’m going to do tomorrow? Take a stupendous nap. I hope you do too.
Last week I told you my personal marching orders: Grieve. Heal. Treasure my precious humanity. And one way I’ve been doing so is to notice small joys. Here are just a few:
There are a few writers here who routinely share audio files, and I love it so much. So here is my contribution - a breezy morning last week when it was nearly 75 degrees, the sun was shining, and the birds were so happy. The audio is not awesome, but these were robins and sparrows singing their hearts out. I’ve also spotted tufted titmouse, nuthatch, and cardinals this week. Bird joy!
This song by Patti Griffin has been a balm to my weary heart. I don’t need none of your bad news today.
Liz Gilbert & Tricia Hersey talk about her beautiful book, Rest is Resistance. Please please listen to their fantastic conversation HERE.
A great list of grounding techniques.
The effect of Continuous Traumatic Stress are generational and profound. I can’t recommend this article enough - it speaks to the psychological effects of violence and also lists tangible, meaningful ways to be a part of a solution.
“This is not just about politicians or people in the region. All of us are involved – in our conversations, on our social media platforms, in how we show up as citizens. We all help open up – or close down – the political space for things to change.” Rest is an opening.
In tarot, each suit (swords, wands, coins, cups) takes us on a journey 1-10.
Thank you for visiting my own substack today. I feel like you are an already friend -- like we have much in common. I so look forward to reading here. Here's to rest and the alleviation of exhaustion.
I’m sorry for your season of struggle with family illness and exhaustion, Lindsey, not to mention exhaustion with murderous world events. I hope you get a respite soon. I always get so much from your thoughtful, esthetically pleasing writing. This time you gave me a gift I waited for all my working life: THIS BOOK: Rest Is Resistance!! Finally a book about “rest as anything that ‘pushes back and disrupts a system that views human bodies as tools for labor and production.’” American life has many virtues, but it is nothing if not exhausting because our capitalist culture values humans mainly as tools of constant production rather than as the inherently beautiful valuable beings we are. Many of us require (as in survival!) frequent time away from relentless productive drive to realize our humanness and our attunement to life and being. Without it, we wither and suffer. I am overjoyed to hear about this book, described as an “instant New York Times bestseller,” which ought to tell us something about how desperate many Americans are for rest from the production death march. Thank you for sharing this book with us. May you soon find soul-refreshing rest.