And other uses for the dark skies, thick clouds, and dormant soil
When we sleep we rest, restore, regenerate, and integrate our bodies' work for the day. We need that deep rest to give our body, mind, and heart the opportunity to piece together the millions
of images, feelings, words, movements, tastes, sounds, and outputs of the day. There is a tremendous amount of precise subterranean effort that happens when we sleep.
Many of us know what it feels like to omit sleep. To feel broken and distinctly NOT restored or integrated. To feel like the strands that hold us together are no stronger than dollar-store scotch tape.
So is true with Winter. We can allow our subterranean precision to reign.
Or we can be overrun by disintegration.
As I think back on things, and especially these last three years, disintegration has been at the tips of my fingers and lips. What I have needed was sleep. Literal sleep; so I went off call. And figurative sleep. My heart needed to mend and the scars to smooth over, a little thicker and softer simultaneously. I needed to remember who I used to be and what shape I had shifted into.
The thing about sleep and deep rest that is amusing to me, now that I have permitted myself some of both, is that it is never enough. There is this idea (that I admit I somewhat lived into) that once you sleep and regenerate, you can rejoin the life you were living.
That is funny to me now because it excludes growth. When we sleep and engage in deep rest, we grow. (Just think about babies and kids). Which means we are never the same as when we went to sleep. And weshouldn't be. That would be weird.
How could we possibly keep living the life we once were? How could we possibly not have outgrown it?
I am not certain what this next year holds. Nor do I want to be. But what I have learned in my time of rest is that I am healed over and have grown. I have been wounded, but I am not hurt. I am still driven, shrewd, and strong and also yielding, trusting and forgiving.
I could wish you a joyous holidays season, but really what I wish for all of you is: sleep. Literal and figurative sleep.
Take care of your wintery and warm hearts, Sunita
PS- I am obsessed with Khalid right now and just love this song "Winter"
PPS- In case you are wondering what my musings are about...it's mostly me doing my work. And planting seeds for a storytelling book project :)
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