Most change happens so slowly that it is hard to notice. Until, one day, you realize that you are somewhere different from where you were. Someplace new that you arrived at so slowly that it hardly seems new at all. Rather it just feels like you, but not the you you knew yourself to be. For better, and for worse. Over the past many months, my mind and my body have been unravelling from one another in ways that have been so foreign that they have been hard to perceive. While my mind has been very busy for the better part of the last couple of years, my body has been quietly calling out for something else.
A couple of weekends ago, I had a mostly typical for me weekend. I taught both days, attended a meeting for local activists, took Maple to an art event that she was wanting to attend and parented mostly on my own while Chris was on the road as bike season ramps up. My mom took the kids on Sunday so that they wouldn't have to be at loose ends while I taught a workshop that day. Her help afforded me a little bit of down time in between events in which I was hoping to catch up on herb study. However, once I had a moment, I noticed that the live wire feeling that I had been feeling in my body for several days had developed into some hand tremors. My body has finally over-riden my agenda. The call has to be heard. Now.
So I have been trying to adjust. To modify. To adapt to this new place I find myself in. It appears to be a place in which I need more sleep. A shorter list. More alone time. Less car. I have been considering for a long time the ways in which my practice is in service to my nervous system. And I have been unlocking a lot of joy and a lot of peace there. And it is still not enough. Right now, and maybe always, I want to be considering the ways in which my life needs to be in service to my nervous system. I need this bundle of loose nerves to come weave itself back into my body in ways that make me feel whole and not frayed.
Less. Less. Less. I am endeavoring to back off. And restructure. So that the places in my life that have my time and have my attention are nourishing. For the most part.... More than they have been.
This last Sunday was the first Sunday that I had off in a month. The only thing I had to do was drive my kids and a neighbor to swim practice and then sit and knit and watch them. It was beautiful all day and I sat outside and read about nervous system herbs California Poppy, Rose and Vervain. I spent the whole day being a mom and being meg. It was just right.