rest as resistance.

+ honoring the wisdom of Imbolc.

There have always been empires, oppressors, violence, wars, and genocides. History tragically repeats itself. What feels different now is that we are forced to be present for the real-time unfolding of these horrors, delivered straight to our phones.

I don’t want to turn a blind eye, and I’m not suggesting you should either. But what is this doing to our nervous systems?

I can only speak from my own experience. It’s a deep ache of grief. It’s feeling gaslit by the forces at play. Feeling helpless. Emotionally manipulated. Confused. Despairing. It shows up as body pain and inflammation. There’s an illogical, frantic attempt to make sense of something that should never be happening!

What I keep coming back to is this - we are being asked something profound and incredibly difficult. We are being asked to tend to our nervous systems in real time.

This is the moment to show up for your practices as a habitual act of prayer. And now, it’s bigger than just you. It’s for the greater good. It’s how we resist. It’s how we fight oppressors.

A regulated nervous system allows us to think clearly. To show up. To care for ourselves and our communities. To strategize, organize, love, and stay rooted in compassion and curiosity. When we meet the moment this way, power over begins to lose its grip.

If we all took proper time to rest, this capitalist world would collapse. That’s how powerful rest is, and how fragile these systems truly are. When we slow down, when we become more present, we feel more. And feelings are some of the strongest motivators we have.

No wonder urgency is so normalized. No wonder we’re kept busy, overwhelmed, sick, distracted, locked in chaos, fear, and at opposition with one another.

I truly believe the analogy that one match has the ability to light a thousand flames. You are that match. By actively choosing regulation, rest, and slowness as acts of resistance (& by cultivating love) you become a frequency, a conduit. Others feel it. It spreads. Before you know it, you’ve affected a far greater web of people than you could ever see.

Oppressors want us to feel helpless, disconnected, and disorganized. They want us to forget our humanness, and the simplest tools we have - taking a deep breath, going outside to feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, checking in on a neighbor, remembering that we belong to one another and to the Earth.

Because being in this together is a fucking threat to their “power over.”

This work happens in real time. It looks like allowing yourself feel the rage, the grief, the anger. Shake it, write it out, scream it out, squat it out, run it out, protest it out, hex it out, whatever way - just encourage the feeling to MOVE.

Be extra tender with yourself. Notice the micro moments of joy throughout the day to transmute the macro moments of grief. Step away from the scroll to go outside, watch the sunset, and feel held by the immense beauty and care the Earth is always offering, unselfishly without agenda.

It can also be as simple of a practice as placing a hand on your heart, and taking a deep breath.

& today is Imbolc (+ a full moon!), the quiet threshold between winter and spring. We’re reminded that nothing new arrives fully formed. Light returns slowly. Seeds stir beneath the soil, long before we see any proof of life. This season asks for hope. Devotion. Attention.

Rest is not disengagement. Regulation is not complacency. Slowing down is not surrender. It is preparation. It is resistance. It is how we keep the flame alive.

So light a candle to the goddess Brigid, sparking the flames of creativity, healing, and collective resilience that no empire ever extinguish. Hail Brigid!

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Leaving you in the care of Mary Oliver.