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Wildfire, Resting Ground, Trees & Trauma
Is it just me, or is the phrase ‘world on fire’ in every media and casual conversation these days? Didn’t this phrase have a positive connotation not so long ago? What does it stir in YOU? The world going to hell in a handbasket? Tesla infernos? Fiery townhall debates? Bombings in far away villages?
It sparks apocalyptic imagery of chaos and social revolution for me. And wildfires. From screens held in our hands, we can watch fire erase landscapes and habitats. In real time, we can witness a centuries-old home with all its cherished contents reduce within an hour to a pile of ash.
Chaos disrupts what was anchored and carries away beauty, comfort, and home. Such devastation reflects a part of my own shifting inner landscape; scarred with trauma and a few fires still burning. Like scorched earth, healing is slow. It takes time for nutrients to return to resting ground.
Late winter snow is falling. Frosted trees sparkle as silvery silhouettes in grey skies. As I behold them, I’m undone with beauty. They’re so vulnerable to these fluctuating temperatures! They’re so intelligent to rest with dormancy to conserve energy!
It isn’t fire that threatens them now as much as strong winds. Delicate wintry boughs are broken then scattered across our snowy acres. I notice nests high in winter trees. I imagine the squirrels snuggling safe inside, and my heart swells with wonder. I consider how trees provide homes to so much creation in every season.
But how long will it take a hollowed-out landscape to heal after a fire? In my own life, disease burns bright. Wellness bids me to move in more restful rhythms, and like learning anything new, there’s a lot of falling. There’s learning and relearning to rest within skin where old and new wounds mend. I suppose it’s the education of a lifetime.
I’m aware of my privilege to gaze at trees. To practice rest, healing, and intentional work. Oppressive systems trap too many weary souls in a state of grind and tension. Is the world on fire? I see combustion and overworked ground. I see souls longing to rest. I see nervous systems dangerously dysregulated.
Even when rest agrees, we may push it away. We fight it. It’s humbling to notice how I struggle to settle down for it and how capitalism conditions me to no longer desire it.
Just imagine.
The fiery natural human desire for rest…extinguished.
When did sleep become an obstacle? What messages absorbed in childhood still fuel me? GOTTA CRUSH AN ALL-NIGHTER TO PASS THAT EXAM! DON’T BE A LAZY ASS BITCH, BITCH. REST WHEN YOU’RE DEAD. But make sure to get beauty rest, girlfriend. AT ALL COSTS, LOOK EFFORTLESS AND RESTED.
Right where I am, systems of power and commerce threaten wellness, dignity, liberation, and existence. Is ours a divine right to rest? I may have missed the memo on all those Sabbath days.
It’s humbling to slow the pace and production. I suppose the ego has much to lose. Just listen to her angst: What if well-rested sobriety unleashes fiery desire for even more liberation and change? How can restfulness pay for groceries or compete with productivity?
My ego needs to read Tricia Hersey and consider how rest richly yields more decency. Can we even imagine a well-rested culture of abundant decency, emptied of impoverishment? Radical visions of trees, fire, and resting ground flood my consciousness. What will be said of me when I am laid to rest? Bless her heart, she worked friggin hard, didn’t she?
What I desire is to never stop expanding; to feel integrated, to learn to walk in the dark of the mysteries within Mystery.
It’s taking time to soften to the beauty of slower routines and restful stances. Is this enough? Am I beyond boring? Should change be this excruciating? I’m getting brave about extreme self-compassion. I reach for new tools to get centered. I am up and trying. Then I rest. Somehow, I remain rooted in hope.
I feel the firm resting ground beneath my bare feet…charging me with quantum energies, holy secrets, and a hidden wholeness.
Right where I am, harsh winds move the trees I love and the hair I’m losing. They howl across the prairie, and I’m learning to not shut down. Let me open instead. Let me be swept up and carried further as delicate debris in this Love story burning as my life. Let me bend. Let me break. Let me become a home for beauty to nest.
Peace to you right where you are.
-michele
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Michele- today’s post is such balm for the soul… thank you for the pristine beauty you share so eloquently.
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You honor me. Thank you for reading. xox
Your post today mirrors so many of the things I am also feeling in this current world, in my state of being. Rest is often the only escape from the chaos and suffering and my own battles. I pray to be a blessing to those around me every day but some days, I feel so helpless and hope feels beyond my fingertips. There is strength in our vulnerability.
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You have uplifted me by joining me and hearing me right where I am. YES. Thank you so much. xox
You a re beautiful inside and out. Thank you for your vulnerability and courage.
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Thank you for making my morning and blessing me with kindness. xox
As a person who loves sleep and downtime I constantly fight to allow myself to feel entitled to it. Could it be I’m always measuring myself against my husband’s need to be constantly productive? An overriding guilt weighs on me even tho he never judges me. Over the years when he would be gone I would admit myself to the “hospital” watching endless t.v., serving myself tray meals in bed and reading and sleeping as needed. I’m a firm believer in “sleep that knitteth up the raveled sleeve of care” and love my “hospital” days for their healing powers. Now he just needs to plan some golf trips…
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YES! You are nailing it. I don’t feel entitled or worthy of it. I do the hospital thing too, and you describe it beautifully. I feel it is a healthy and healing way to practice self-compassion. It’s what I’m learning with the somatic work I’m doing. After being in my head and heart for so many years, attention to the body is so needed. I don’t have FOMO and my husband was always a big sleeper until now in retirement. I have always told him i admire his resting capacity. I’m one of these introverts who sends him out the door with ‘have fun!’ or ‘go save the world, but breathe!’ or ‘enjoy it fully.’ But to myself, my thoughts are to work harder, be better, and don’t make mistakes. Your reflections help me understand that maybe my productivity affects him in hidden ways.