Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines,
Ding ding dong, ding ding dong.

“Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” – Maya Angelou

Rest is essential to our survival. Not just getting our 8 hours a day, which most of us do not actually get. Rest for the self is necessary; without it, we cannot get away from the constant noise that can overwhelm our thoughts, sideline our needs, and diminish our self-worth. Rest is what allows us to see who we are. It gets the mind to wander across the fields of creativity. We can see our abundance when we’re let free of the outside world’s need to tell us about all the things we do not have. Rest is the space where we can see, if we choose to look.

Not letting a prisoner of war rest is against the Geneva Conventions (article 53 IHL). Sleep deprivation, used as a means of psychological torture, is considered criminal (article 3). The world pushes us to go beyond what is healthy for us. There’s always something else that needs to be done. The boss asks us to stay late, just today; although they asked 3 times last week as well. The latest political catastrophe is careening by, its wheels throwing sparks as it takes the turn too fast, but we keep watching although there’s nothing we can do to stop it. You get the idea. It happens to all of us. Many wouldn’t let us rest if they could get away with it. We have to choose our peace. We have to set the boundaries. We have to take care of ourselves.

When you get tired. Rest. It’s okay to take care of yourself. You’ll be a better you after you rest.

The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow