During a recent Poetry Orchard writing workshop, my gorgeous friend, Blossom – one of the three lovely facilitators – shared this video as one of the discussion pieces, which I thought was very fitting for the theme of ‘rest is rebellion.’ I was so taken by it and I’ve sent it to so many people that I thought I should share it here as well. I love the animation style and the score is beautiful; it’s such a lovely, meaningful piece…

It’s funny how emotionally invested you can become in a fictional piece of rock in such a short space of time, isn’t it?

I think this short film says so much about how hard it is to find rest – real, active rest – when the world around you is in constant motion; even when you try to stand still, there are always external factors trying to force you into motion. And that’s why it’s so easy to not rest properly, to not rest in a way that actually recharges you. I’m finding more and more that I have to build rest time into my days – whether or not I actually take that time is still up in the air but I am working on it. Our bodies, our brains, our nervous systems… rest is so vital and I think that that’s (somewhat weirdly) really easy to forget. But we live in a really busy and emotionally taxing world and if we don’t choose to rest, our bodies will choose for us and that can be really hard to recover from.

What do you think? Did you like the short film? Have you sat with your body recently and checked in with how tired you feel? Thought about how you might build in more time for rest? What’s keeping you from resting? How could you change that and how might you benefit?