The holiday season is one for reflection and taking care of oneself. We live a hectic life being challenged by demands on our time, tragedies in the news and just living. Whyte’s piece provides steps for us to take to regain the balance we need to continue to move forward in a mindful way.

“In the first stage of rest is the sense of stopping, of giving up on what we have been doing or how we have been being. In the second stage is the sense of slowly coming home, the physical journey into the body’s un-coerced and un-bullied self, as if trying to remember the way or even the destination itself. In the third state is a sense of healing and self-forgiveness and of arrival. In the fourth stage, deep in the primal exchange of the breath is the give and the take, the blessing and the being blessed and the ability to delight in both.

The fifth stage of rest is a sense of absolute readiness and presence, a delight in and an anticipation of the world and all its forms; the sense of being the meeting itself between inner and outer, and of receiving and responding occurring in one spontaneous movement.

A deep experience of rest is the template of perfection in the human imagination, a perspective from which we are able to perceive the outer specific forms of our work and our relationships whilst being nourished by the shared foundational gift of the breath itself. From this perspective we can be rested while putting together an elaborate meal for an arriving crowd, whilst climbing the highest mountain or sitting at home surrounded by the chaos of a loving family…”

~ David Whyte

Picture taken on the Mississippi while we were camping just outside of Memphis, TN. Peaceful