August 13, 2023
I spent last night with my very dear friend and colleague, our Board President Shanah Ahmadi, as we wrapped up a week of the Fundamentals course in Oklahoma. We spent five delightful days with a beautiful group of women (more on this later, perhaps!), and now we must both direct our immediate sights towards the coming school year. With this acknowledgement, we reflected on the passing of time in the summer.
Summer can have an interesting quality of being both relaxing and somewhat exhausting at the same time. The rhythms of work as care providers, teachers, or parents are let go for two to three months, and there is a different flow of activity. An in-breath and out-breath that tends to be more sporadic, rather than consistent and soothing. It is something we look forward to each year, to loosen our grip on form and relax into larger spaces of fun and freedom. Yet we feel content to be welcomed back into the dependable and comforting pace of another school year’s rhythms as summer comes to a close.
With these final two to three weeks remaining, the momentum of preparation will naturally increase and with it the sense of busyness and need to be productive. I feel compelled to remind myself- and to welcome each of you- to try holding onto a piece of summer’s relaxation, to bring the rejuvenating spirit of its freer form into the consistent rhythms of work ahead.
Four years ago, Mary O’Connell gifted us with a Living Arts Weekly titled, Meditation for Busy People, that contains several ideas for how to deliciously imbue ourselves with a restful mind in the midst of activity. I now wish to re-gift this to all of us preparing for yet another school year.
May the end of your summer holidays be peaceful and revitalizing. May your coming school year be rich and inspiring, challenging and gratifying.
