Answering the call for deep rest

Deep Rest has called to me over the last year. I have completed a 13 year cycle on the Mayan calendar and at the beginning of a new 13 year cycle. These 2 years of beginning and ending has drawn me deeper into myself. There have been radical shifts and enlightening moments. Each day has been quite profound.

In the West we can question and or deny these times of deep rest that call us. They are an opportunity for inner expansion and for more of ones self arriving with less conditioning that one was walking with before.

Many people in the West travel overseas to the East in these times because there really is not any frame for honouring these life cycles that we move through here. Many of our systems are set to the clock of production and have us slaves to a disharmonic economy that drives our time and capacity to rest.

A wise woman, Vasumi of Timewaves spoke to me about these cycles that call us to deep rest and she shared that many people come to her confused around these times often complain of feeling or thinking they are depressed. She reminds them it is not Depressed it is the need for Deep Rest. I just love that!

Deep Rest can look different for each of us. But what it has in common is the resetting, giving space for feeling, digesting and growing into new skin.

We can be called to Deep Rest not just in 13 year cycles but after loss, convalescence, transformation, achievement, travel, arriving into peri-menopause, postpartum, miscarry, teenage years, conception and 1st trimester of pregnancy, healing, growth and learning, the red moon cycle and other life transitions and experiences.

When we do not listen to the call of Deep Rest we deny our soul.

There is a reason why in the 40 day blessing (the first 40 days after birth) the mother and baby stay at home during this time. Their skin is thinner, their nervous system needs time to regulate and their bodies and spirit need space to digest the birthing experience and come home to the body. It is also a time where the spirit window has been open since conception and will begin to narrow or veil over again.

In the West tiredness and the lack of energy, motivation, direction and passion is judged as wrong. We think we should not feel this way and must do something to change it. These feelings are uncomfortable to sit with in a world that expects constant production, striving, driving toward something in the outer world.

Most of us have not been schooled from birth to give time for the timeless state of deep rest.

Deep Rest is not just something a baby and mother need after birthing. We all go through birthing. Some births of self are huge, others small. Labours can take years, days or hours.

When we arrive through the birth canal of self initiation we can feel our skin thinner, our sensitivity greater, our vulnerability more present. We can also feel foreign to ourselves for a time, getting used to a new way of being in the world. What made sense before may no longer make sense now.

In some cultures when a loved one passes a person may cut their hair, wear a certain colour or be given a Kriya to work with. I believe this is to set the space for the adjustment that happens when we go through death and rebirth. The community has an understanding, they can see where you are at and temple space is held for those going through deep transformation. Our nervous system needs that protection, we need a chrysalis, we need to be shaded by the world at certain times in our life. To contract inward after a time of expanding out.

When I think of Deep Rest I think of Space. And in these times the question is how can I create space to rest in my depths and lean into my existence?

I hear the head pipe in... but I have to work, I have to earn money, I have five children, I have a mortgage, I have no time …..

Everyones circumstance will be different. The first step is holding the intention or opening to the idea of making space for deeper rest. Just this gentle focus opens a door for support to come in that helps you start to create the space.

For me in cycles of deep rest client levels are lower. I make more space between seeing people. I make changes to my morning routines and sacred practice. I give myself more time in nature, visiting medicine spots more regularly. I give more time to simple pleasures, moments.

This month I find myself loving the feeling of sun on my skin, grass under my feet, the colour green and blue I want to take in through my eyes and wear. Lately I keep my chalk pastels and A3 paper out on the table to draw at a spontaneous moment. The magic of blending colours really nourishes me. Walks in the bush. Pottering in the garden, the birds and the sound of the water fountain sooth and restore. What slows me down I give more to.

Of course more sleep may call us in this time. Earlier evenings or waking later in the mornings, 10 min catnaps or 1 - 15 minute meditations are wonderful ways to deliver more rest to ourselves. Reducing our hours at work. When nursing I changed from 10 days to a 9 day fortnight. That one day made a tremendous difference.

When deep rest calls us to come and sit in her valley it is a chance to integrate the lived experiences, the realisations and give space for shedding old skin and settling into new skin.

At these times we are both the babe coming into a new world and the mother who births the babe. These two aspects of self need to bond, to get to know each other and be nurtured. This is the Mother time and it sets the foundation for the future to be lived.