Deep Creek Trail, WA, ©2021 Nicole Bratt
Dear friends,
It is springtime, fully. How goes tending the garden of your body-mind-soul?
We're all well aware that we've shared a messy year, full of ups and downs, sometimes off the rails. We weren't collectively prepared for this global crisis, and yet we've made it this far. The discomfort, fatigue, and confusion of being in the midst of a pandemic continues. Hope surges, and then so do cases. Caregiver burnout and mental health challenges are being experienced at record levels among our essential workers. We may be languishing, planning trips, fighting the anxieties of "re-entry", thriving, or perhaps any/all of the above depending on the hour. And all the while Life and Time march on: love and loss are still all around us.
Are you giving yourself permission to regularly be quiet? To rest? To renew?
When we slow down and get still, we gift ourselves an opportunity look inward at what's been left untended, at those things we may not have had time or energy to face, examine, or process while we were just getting through the days/weeks/year. Once we arrive in that internal landscape, we can choose to witness what's present without distraction.
Sometimes this is difficult work: simple, but not always easy. Chronic fatigue, pain, trauma, grief, avoidance, self-loathing, loneliness, heartache, anger, fear, anxiety – the undigested compost of life – it's all there. We don't get to be human without it.
It may be that we want to be anywhere but with that raw, honest, present moment reality. I would propose that getting quiet to listen inwardly might be one of the most brave things we do in our lives. We don't always like what we see. We don't always want to see what we've buried there. Or, we know exactly what is in there, and know we aren't ready to be with it fully. Sometimes we don't want to listen when that damn internal wisdom speaks; we had other plans!
But there is also broad potential for healing and growth there in the fertile soil of stillness.
There is no lying to ourselves once we have the courage to dig down into the embodied wisdom level. Knowledge cannot be un-known once unearthed. However, this is why the tending we do here has such potential for profound transformation. As I've heard Seane Corn say, "The revolution begins within." In keeping with my gardening metaphor, I would say that it's where we both harvest wisdom and plant seeds for a new season. And, it is sacred work.
My wish for each and every one of you is to find spaces and places for ease, rest, and soul tending. After all, our self tending is ultimately community tending.
With love,
Nicole