On resting your bones: Sometimes you need a little Marianne Williamson

I remember when I was young hearing Otis Redding sing, “Sitting here resting my bones . . . ,” and thinking, Who needs to rest their bones?  

Now of course I know. 

And when I first had the thought one day that I was just sitting there resting my bones, I panicked. I thought it was all over if my bones were tired! But then I realized something else, like a guilty secret: I was enjoying just sitting there. I wasn’t attending a Buddhist retreat trying to enjoy just sitting; I really was enjoying it! I was enjoying the kinetic experience of a rocking chair in a way I had never thought possible. 

(“Oh, these things are actually helpful! Who knew?”) 

I didn’t feel the need to get up, to go somewhere else, or to do anything at all. With less adrenaline came less distraction. I felt no need to justify my existence by achieving or performing a thing. And that’s when I realized, This is very different, but it isn’t bad. 

. . . . .  

What this generation could do from our rocking chairs could literally rock the world. If in fact the highest, most creative work is the work of consciousness, then in slowing down we’re not doing less; we’re doing more.

From The Age of Miracles, Marianne Williamson.