"STAYBATTICALING"

I've decided to practice what I preach and take the last two weeks off in December for a STAYbbatical (a word I recently coined over a phone conversation...at least I think I coined it). I'll be sending out emails and Facebook messages soon, heralding the fact that I am no longer available in 2009...I'm reading...I'm writing...I'm working on a quilt...I'm contemplating the kinds of events I want to take place at Prairie Pond Woods in 2010. I'm resting.

Last weekend I took a group of women out into the prairie on a cold, windy morning. We looked out over the sea of tan grass stalks and talked about dormancy...that slow, closed period of rest and resetting. I read a poem by Barbara Crooker about the way trees "take the worst winter has to offer, then set out shy, green leaves come April. Come May."

And its true...all will be reborn...but first it must rest. We don't truly understand that concept in our culture today. Often, after a hectic week or weekend, my husband and I have to give each other permission to do what our spirits are already telling us to do...rest the muscles, recover the right perspective, reset the brain. It is easy to think we need to "keep going and going and going." Its even easier to have that mindset so engrained in your life that it seems normal.

As always, there will be interruptions. Things will come up. I'll not know what to do with myself if I'm not tasking. It'll take me a while to get the hang of it. So it is an exercise and an ideal to strive for. But I'm going to give it my best shot!