Rest.

Image: Isabella Waru

I've been making things from scratch.

Pulling splinters from my palms and  digging out my roots, I've been drying seeds and preserving bird claws and extracting the city paced poison from my veins
Being at home has reminded me of the pace of things

Of the value of quiet, focus, patience, love and a steady hand.
Rest breaks are clear after whittling too long with fingers too sore

Burying freshly retrieved bones and forgetting about them
until the lasting flesh is eaten away
The knowledge of when it is time to head inside and rest
beckons on the back of a lowering sun and the mosquitoes that prey on bare skin.

I am reminded of the rewards that come with labours of love
given the time and attention to truly be
born from deep desires and long nights
the spirit worlds take time to renegotiate energies
and to distribute their gifts.

How quick we are to call 'fail', on a seed that has just been sewn
and how we shield ourselves from our own manifestations
thinking that somehow we are leaving more to go around

I see now that my greatness will be no one else’s downfall
if we rise on this tide together.

I would rather fall into my magic once.
To the uncertain rhythms of each moment
than write 63 first chapters of books I don't feel.

We are of the Moana
And our tides will rise and fall with the pull of the moon
It is time we stop expecting ourselves to touch distant shores
when we are receding from the sand banks

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