Last week, my husband and I were fortunate to spend time in the Adirondacks with friends. I took some hikes, relaxed on the daybed of this porch, and read and watched ducks swim around the lake. It was just the rest and recovery from COVID-19 that I needed.
In that spirit, I wanted to share with you a passage on rest from David Whyte's book: Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning in Everyday Words:
"To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner static bull’s eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange..."
Find Whyte's chapter on 'Rest' here.
I sometimes read this passage to students during rest pose, or savasana. Savasana is usually practiced at the end of class, where students lie on their back (or sit back in a chair) and the body is still - integrating the practice and relieving lingering physical and mental stress. Here’s some science on how savasana works.
Savasana is one of my favorite aspects of yoga, but it can be one of the hardest parts of the practice too.
Sitting still isn't easy for everyone, especially after two and half years of the pandemic. Yet, it is more important than ever, given the continual bombardment of external stressors we are dealing with.
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