Summer: A time to relax into ease
Midsummer is such a wonderful time of plenty here in Minnesota, with the sun’s warmth and light giving us awesome sustenance and beauty with luxuriant foliage and delicious, healthy fruits and vegetables. We also are receiving essential vitamins from the sun’s rays that warm and tan and relax us.
Our lives are meant to have a natural cycle: Work—rest—conceive. It’s circular, with the conception of ideas stimulating us to move forward again into the next work portion of the cycle. We are meant to express and experience these in equal measure: 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. (I know, the Bible says God rested on the seventh day, and it and other holy books often advise doing things in 40-day periods. Both 7 and 40 are numbers indicating wholeness and perfection; their metaphysical meanings are “completeness” and “as long as it takes.” These passages are saying that God rested when creation was complete and that what was undertaken was continued until the desired result was achieved.)
The number three represents a wholeness that is comprised of three equal parts. Creative wholeness consists of equal elements of work, rest, and conception or inspiration (inspire: breathing spirit into).
Summertime is a natural time for us to honor the “rest” part of this cycle. It is much more important than our production-oriented culture appreciates, for without relaxation, we aren’t in a mode of openness to conceive new ideas or easier, better ways to accomplish that which we wish to produce. We’ve all heard striking examples of scientists and others who experienced a “eureka!” moment regarding a problem when they took a nap or went for a relaxing walk. We are meant to receive solutions and guidance easily and often, in our everyday lives. We can’t do that if we aren’t giving ourselves appropriate relaxation time; we won’t be “in the zone”!
Another really important reason to get the right amount of rest is that this relaxed and rested zone—this arena in which creativity comes alive—is where our real selves come out to play. Want to get in touch with your Real, Inner Self? Relax, get in touch with what It wants to do, then play at that. This will be true happiness. So get in the groove. As Simon and Garfunkel sang,
“Slow down, you move too fast.
You gotta make the (summer) last…”