As we slowly move into a New Year, I am deep in thought about the ways this culture views labor. 2024 brought with it for me a deep commitment to compassion, space and boundaries. I am only able to have a life-giving rest practice because I have boundaries that center my divinity. I don’t attach my worth to my accomplishments, to-do list or career. I truly never have and I’m so grateful for this feat. Even when I was unemployed, I knew deep down I was enough and my life was worth so much. I always knew I was “that girl.” It’s as if capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy had not hooked its beast like tentacles into my being. I had escaped.
Every year since 2018, I take a sabbath during the month of November. https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/observations-from-my-month-long-sabbath/ This year, I will instead take an extended Sabbatical that will run from April 1st – August 1st. I am experimenting with this longer time to gain information on what it would feel like to maroon and go completely underground in the near future. To me, the underground looks like: no work emails, no bookings that would take me all over the world to lecture and install rest experiences (in 2023 I had 30 bookings, flew close to 100,000 airline miles, boarded 26 round trip flights. I lectured in Amsterdam and participated in a theater festival in Melbourne, Australia, was in residency as a scholar-artist at NYU for the Fall 2023 semester) and no social media.
I will have to be flexible, subversive and committed to rest for this sabbatical that will be here in a few months. It will not be perfect and there are a few engagements that I remained open to because they felt special and sparked a deep curiosity and light in me. I will be learning and listening as I go and moving at the pace of my heart. I will be writing for pleasure, reading lots of fiction, taking ballet classes and spending intentional time with family. I will be listening and resting. I pray my daydreams and the DreamSpace cracks open for me. I will rest!
(Photo credit: Charlie Watts)
The Nap Ministry 