Place Corps Friday Digest: Rest

Scenes from Mapping Purpose with the 2019 cohort

This past week brought with it the first full moon of April and the first full moon of Spring. One name for this moon is the Pink Moon, named after the herb moss pink or creeping phlox blooming in the eastern united states. In this holy week of rest, what blossoms have you noticed? Springtime medicine is awakening with marshmallow, yellow dock, and nettle raising their heads above the earth and roots below. Our little community has also drafted a powerful tonic for isolation by sharing current inspirations and questions to stay connected; check them out here!

Following a shortened break, we return to classes with Regen Ag and Communications. This Friday we are looking forward to Alessia and Sophia hosting the next Round Table discussion! With our program accelerated, this week also marks a month to graduation with work-study and practicums completing April 24th. 

Our word for the week is REST. In the season of wakefulness and birth, we have been thinking of when something has been put to rest. How the word is relating to our collective Covid-19 response: how on the one hand it means to cease work or movement, but the full definition is that we do that in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength. The second definition is to be placed or supported so as to stay in a specified position and we are thinking of our residents here on campus being supported in their continued embodied learning. The third definition is in relationship to music, a rest is a silence in the composition. It seems that the challenge right now is how to be both awake and resting. What if our REST was our deep listening to what is waking up. What if our REST is our resistance to the noise and distraction that is telling us to be afraid and to increase our dependency on digital life. What if REST was the best expression of being awake?
 

🌻 Note From An Educator 🌻

Excerpt from Reflections by Rachel and Steffen Schneider 

"It is quite possibly a risky move to reflect so soon on a crisis that’s still raging all around us, every day and everywhere; disrupting untold lives, ending lives prematurely and causing unspeakable pain and grief. This is even more so the case, if one finds oneself in a very privileged and relatively safe situation in the midst of all the surrounding chaos. I nevertheless feel compelled to string a few reflections and questions together; a humble attempt at personal sense-making during a time that is so emotionally taxing for all of us. ...

Illnesses, health crises, can be transformational, awakening moments in an individual karma. With the pandemic of COVID-19 our collective karma is being affected; so many humans all at once going through this experience together. While this is not the first pandemic humanity has faced, it might be the first time that the effects are felt by so many at the same time (currently the majority of humanity finds itself in some kind of “stay at home order”) and being seen by so many, thanks to the connectedness of our modern world. The symptoms of this particular illness are lung and breath related. Our lungs are the organ connecting us closely to our earthly life; drawing our first breath and exhaling our last breath are marking the beginning and end of our life. Each day we breathe in and we breathe out, often hardly paying attention to this essential rhythm. Also, our mucous membranes are critical connectors, “sorters” and barriers between the world and us. Through all this we experience on one hand our deep connection with the world and each other and on the other hand our own boundaries.

Can I feel a deepened gratitude for the miracle of breathing that sustains me, defines me and connects me with the world all around? And how about the Earth, which during springtime is so beautifully and joyfully breathing out new life? Can I open my heart with gratitude and also hold and support in compassion everyone that is suffering at the moment?" 

“ Imagination, the traitor of the mind, has taken my solitude and slain it."
― Robinson Jeffers