Prayer in the Pause

Field Notes from the mythical other side.

The last few weeks have felt off. Perhaps it’s been longer than that.

Maybe this is what renewal actually feels like. I want it to feel light and breezy, but it’s felt slow and fumbly. I’ve been equal parts ravenous and full.

I know I’m not alone. Everyone seems to have an explanation: solar flares, collective this/that, alien headlines, just some theory we can grip as to why so many of us feel untethered.

There’s a feeling akin to crossing an invisible threshold. Like something we’ve quietly tended for years is finally preparing to bloom.

Or like what we’ve always dreamed but haven’t had the courage to nourish is about to be born—encouraged, nourished.

A part of me feels like, ugh, why did I wait so long? And another part feels like I haven’t even gotten started yet.

I keep coming back to marvel at this crossing of an invisible threshold—one that I knew was impending for the past year or so. One that I wanted for so many years before that.

The Mythical Other Side

And yet, here I am, on the mythical other side. And I still don’t know what’s next. Imminence resides but also ease. Is this what the unknown feels like before you dive a little deeper?

I don’t have a map or even a destination to map to.

The part of me trying to map is the same part who is still a little scared. I keep telling her to get over it. But she needs to be heard.

It’s cruel, really, to ask a part of ourselves to soldier on and feign fine before we’ve even asked why she’s afraid.

Lately, that’s been my practice.
Not fixing.
Not forcing.
Listening.

This new moon arrives in Punarvasu, the nakshatra often called the return of the light. I love this image because it reminds us that darkness is part of the light and lighter moments always return.

We have never been abandoned by the womb within which we were born and in which we are ever held.

For light to exist at all, the dark is required.

We were all born of mother, the warm, dark cocoon of the womb.

Perhaps renewal asks that we trust the darkness a little more. Lean into the unknown, from the place we don’t yet have all the answers.

Renewal isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s seeing who we’ve been with softer eyes—the loving eyes of grace, the eyes of a mother for her child.

This new moon is a beautiful time to rest in the looking back rather than rush to the next thing looking forward. Walk through the graveyards of our past without being spooked.

Shed tears over the stone. Honor who you have been. Thank the you version of you who survived, thrived, who created beautiful homes, learned how to knit and can and squat power clean—imperfectly learning in real time.

Honor the versions of ourselves who’ve carried us this far.

Integration requires bearing witness. Nothing fully leaves us until it has been seen and accepted—not shunned.

We spend so much energy trying to let go.

Let go of the story.
Let go of the grief.
Let go of the fear.

What we’re being asked to do is something much simpler.

Stay.

Stay long enough that what feels heavy becomes compost for fresh, living soil.

Stay long enough that the parts we’ve rejected begin to soften.

Stay long enough that the past transforms from something we carry into something that carries and nourishes us.

Stay long enough to romanticize our own lives.

We talk of slowing down. Slow living. Morning rituals. Less hustle.

But do we ever truly stop?

The kind of stopping that includes the mind.
Bone marrow deep.
Mitochondria light sparkle deep.
Pineal nectar sweet.

The kind of rest that reminds every cell that we don’t need to earn our belonging.

The kind of rest that rekindles trust: Pausing is exactly what we need to get going again.

The practice for me right now is astonishingly ordinary.

I get to let myself be exactly where I am without preparing or pretending for the next thing.

Try it. Inhabit this moment until it expands out, including what you smell, taste, see, feel, hear:

The ticking of the clock, fingers typing, birds twitter and caw, stomach growling, breath of the fan and our new kitten, reconciliation incense and watermelon lmnt.

The dreaming cat’s ears twitch, pointy like the giant agave outside against a backdrop of cypress, pine, oak, sharp grasses, oleander, azalea, leaf litter and acorns on old lava rock too many acorn-sprouted baby oaks, and dismal unwatered lavender.

Ours a maximalist front yard, even though I sometimes long to wrangle it into order.

The agave was planted long ago, before our time, by our previous neighbor (or a bird?) with a big personality. He built the first house on this street.

Everyone called him Coach, because he taught football at the high school and taught many of the neighbor kids how to swim. He’d go to Mexico often and would bring back agave plants. They are very hard to remove.

Prayer in the Pause

Prayer lives in the pause, not only on the meditation cushion, but in the dailyness of things.

Washing dishes. Laundry. Answering an email with presence.

Listening to the softening or clench of the body and trusting your inner guidance system without needing to explain or cushion your knowing in a puff of convincing words.

Work and spreadsheets as prayer. Repotting plants as prayer.

Saying yes to brushing my daughter’s teeth when she asks as prayer.

Attention as prayer. Breath as prayer.

Nothing extraordinary has to happen for our lives to become sacred.

Let this new moon bloom a noticing of the sacredness that is already here.

If you’re standing in a season that feels unfamiliar—where something old is ending but something new hasn’t fully arrived yet—resist the urge to rush. Resist, even, the urge to let go.

Stay. Listen. Honor what carried you here. Rest in the darkness; from here you attune to the light within and without.

What, in you, is asking not to be fixed, but finally to be witnessed? What is asking you to stay a little longer?

Love,
Heather