A Nest of Silence

Part of my unlearning as I step into my 50s involves divesting from the illusory grandiosity of the urgency culture and to do it without dwelling in self-conscious guilt and shame. My body, at the brink of menopause, is an accomplice to break through clutters of conditioning, hitting the brakes naturally against the pressure of all expectations. But my mind is still resisting this natural process of letting go, furiously some days, and it takes an actual effort to remember that small is beautiful, less is more.

I am in the midst of a deeply introspective period of my life - a withdrawal from work and “business as usual” - in which I am examining everything. I do this by decluttering, taking things apart, distancing myself from old ways of doing and relating, to gain new perspective. As in all transitions that we modern humans try to navigate without the container of a community and elders, it’s daunting. Every morning I wake up, feeling my aching body parts, grateful for a new day and hungry for a purpose … for some action that will prove my existence useful and endorse my life as a meaningful contribution to this world. Even the old and wise healer who worked on my body the other day wittily said, “You need a carrot to pull you out of your cave”. No kidding.

Even though I know about the absolute necessity of fallowness within the natural order, it is such a hard mental exercise not to prematurely rush to bloom and bear fruit. This is what most of us have been taught - mercilessly I think - to bear fruit after fruit after fruit without taking any time to recover, recompose, recenter, reimagine, recreate … Fecundity follows fallow.