Autumn Lessons

Autumn Lessons—The Need For Rest

We have lots of traditions about Autumn: a new school year, visiting fall foliage, pumpkins, honoring our ancestors and hometowns, football games, celebrating a good harvest, marking the beginning of the holiday season, and many more.

All these are wonderful things, and beloved traditions, but there is another aspect of Autumn, that of REST. At the end of the harvest, the fields are left fallow for the winter, to rest and restore nutrients for next year’s crops.

We humans need our rest just as much as the fields do, yet in our culture of consumerism and busy-ness, where is that rest to be found? Most articles that help to offer with stress and fatigue are still offering you more things to do. It may well help, things like exercise, journaling, yoga, and time outdoors are very healing, but they’re still actions. What about actual, quiet, peaceful, rest and rejuvenation?

We all need it.

Take some time to do nothing.

I know it’s hard, I know you’re busy, but try it.

Turn off the phone, the tv, the computer, the tablet. Heck, try turning off the lights too. Sit still. Breathe. Listen. Be.

You might nod off. That’s okay. You’re tired. Most of us are, more tired than we like to admit. Let yourself doze, dream. You deserve a little time, time to just be you.

And all those other articles out there with helpful tips on stress and sleep and eating well? Try those too, there’s some great stuff out there.

But first let’s give Autumn its due, Winter as it approaches. The earth rests, the soil rests, the nights get longer and darker and colder, encouraging sleep and dreams.

You deserve rest too.