Summer Lessons in Stillness

Summer - Week 29 - On Learning to Be Still & the Wisdom of Rest

In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures — and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.

There is a moment when the body finally wins its quiet argument with the mind. When the shoulders drop, when the breath deepens without conscious effort. When the dog beside you demonstrates what you've been missing: that rest is not the absence of movement, but the presence of peace. Here, in the thick heat of a Colorado summer, where the air itself seems to slow and settle like honey crystallizing in a jar, I am remembering what it means to truly rest.

The greyhound knows things I keep forgetting. He stretches long against the cool kitchen floor, his racing heart finally still, his body curved like a question mark that has found its answer. He doesn't apologize for his stillness. He simply is - present in the pause, fluent in the language of letting go. Watching him, I remember that rest is not earned through exhaustion but offered freely to those willing to receive it.

But when do we know it's time? Is it only when our bodies stage their gentle rebellion. The tight muscles that won't release, eyes that ache with the weight of too many screens, too many miles, meetings, too many moments of saying yes when the soul whispered no? Or is there a subtler knowing, a quieter bell that rings before the collapse, before the body must intervene on behalf of a mind that refuses to acknowledge its own limits?

I think of the garden outside my window, how it rests not just in winter's quiet dormancy but in smaller surrenders throughout the day. The sunflowers turn their heavy heads to follow the light, then bow them low when evening comes, not in defeat but with wisdom. The cottonwoods let their leaves hang heavy and still when the wind pauses, conserving energy for the next gust. Even in summer's apparent abundance, nature practices the art of pause, of knowing when to bloom and when to simply be.

A few weeks ago I read a quote that “… plants can soothe the mind better than a long sleep”, perhaps this is because their very presence rewrites our understanding of what it means to be at rest. To sit among them is to absorb their stillness, not the emptiness of sleep but the fullness of simply existing, breathing, being present to light and air and the slow work of living.

The angel-hair fern on my kitchen counter doesn't sleep, yet it rests in its growing, in the patient work of turning sunlight into life. The spider plant cascades its babies toward the floor in a gesture of both reach and release, teaching us that rest and growth need not be opposites, but can dance together in the same moment.

Yet while these green teachers offer their lessons in stillness, the weary human mind proves a more reluctant student. It continues its restless churning even as the body begs for quiet. It catalogs the undone, rehearses conversations that may never come, builds elaborate architecture from the raw materials of worry. In our modern times, the mind no longer knows how to lie down in the grass and feel the earth's pause. The ancient connection to ourselves and the rhythms that could teach us how to be still remain just out of reach.

This is where in summer's thick embrace, we surrender to the heat's wisdom. Where movement becomes deliberate, precious. The air pressing against you like a gentle hand saying slow down. Suggesting that perhaps the urgent thing can wait, that maybe the world won't end if you spend an afternoon learning the particular quality of light that filters through closed blinds, or the way the ash tree shadows shift across the room like slow prayers.

There's a difference between the rest that comes from collapse and the rest that comes from choice. A conscious decision to step out of the stream of doing and into the pool of being. It's the recognition that sometimes the most radical act is to simply stop. To let go of the “I musts,” the “I shoulds,” and all the things we are supposed to do.

I wonder if this is what the greyhound understands that I'm still learning: that rest is not the reward for completion but the ground from which everything else grows. He doesn't rest because he's finished running; he rests because rest itself is a form of preparation, a way of gathering energy not just for the next sprint but for the deeper work of living fully.

In my familiar surroundings - the art on the walls that holds my soul in frames, the morning coffee cup that fits perfectly in my hand, the pillow that holds the shape of my dreams, these are my conspirators in the practice of rest. They whisper that I belong here, that home is not just a place but a state of being that travels with me wherever I'm brave enough to stop.

So here in the midst of a Colorado summer, rest takes on a different texture. It's the hardwood floor that stays cool in the morning, the sound of the house creaking as it expands and contracts with the heat. The way afternoon storms build slowly on the horizon, gathering their energy before the blessed release of rain. Even the landscape rests here, the foothills rolling gentle and still, holding their ancient patience like a meditation practice millions of years in the making.

Perhaps true rest begins when we stop needing to justify the pause, when we recognize that these quiet moments are not a break in the rhythm but part of the rhythm itself. Even the grass outside my window knows this, and grows in the pauses between storms. Here beside me, the greyhound sprawled on the floor embodies this same wisdom, that being still is not lazy but wise, not idle but deeply, profoundly present to the gift of this moment.

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—> What moments of natural wonder caught your attention this week? Please share your stories and photos in the comments below. Let's experience nature's gifts together.

As always, thank you so much for reading and supporting me.

Love,

Jane