The Cure for Restlessness

From Raising Ecstasy.

So, I’m kind of in the thick of it at the moment with two assignments due next week, but I just wanted to pop in and say hi 🙂 Actually, I didn’t know that I wanted to do that until I was kicked out of bed even earlier than normal, with a feeling that before I get stuck into my assignment, I should come here first. Even though it’s cold, nay freezing, in my dear little cottage office, here I am 🙂

There’s nothing going on, and everything going on, in that odd way that life has, of appearing calm on the surface and bubbling away underneath. We are all back home after the kids and I were away for a couple of weeks house sitting for my parents. I wrote last week about how I was wrestling with restlessness, and how that tussle has been a lifelong tension between stability and freedom. At heart, with four planets in Taurus and two in Cancer, stability and the home are like core values to me. My house, my place, my roots have quite extraordinary meaning and power in my life. As a mother, I want to give the gift of stability and rootedness to my children, as that was something I really appreciated when I was a child. I loved that I was able to attend one primary school and one highschool, and be with my friends to the end of childhood. That continuity and stability provided structure and certainty when adolescence was the opposite.

But what of this restlessness then? From where does it come from, and what should I do with it? My mother sent me this message from Singapore when she read last week’s post:

I understand that restless you spoke of in your blog, it’s good, it keeps you stretching your life, your consciousness and Being so as you don’t get lost here, this dimension absorbs you into it and then you are lost or drowning, then you become a doing human, part of the mechanism, so whilst ever that restlessness is up-thrusting, you’re ON!

So, this restlessness that washes over me, and maybe you too, is what keeps us from sinking too deeply into our human lives. With all that Taurus and Cancer in my chart, that’s a real danger! It’s like Rumi says:

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

In that way, this restlessness is an uninvited guest that kicks me out of my own home and back into awareness and consciousness.

After two weeks away, in a different space, a different  routine and different daily options, I spent yesterday unpacking, cleaning, washing and attending to all of those things that had been unattended to while I was gone. The plants needed watering, the surfaces were dusty and everything needed a bit of loving. There was a joy to these activities, as I felt my home come alive under my fingertips. When it was all done (or done enough – it’s never all done) I looked around and thought, I am so glad to be home.