Rest, Release, Reclaim
Denise Handlarski
About Denise Handlarski
About Rest, Release, Reclaim
Rest, Release, Reclaim
What if we were to rest?
Be our best by being less
If we could give up
Exhaustion
Breakneck pace
Unsustainable
As we chase the unattainable
A sense of more
Of never enough
The heavy feeling that our struggle
Is not a sign to stop but
To toughen up
Tighten up the reins
Living in pain
We push and give
Until we break
Until we can’t take
Another hit
This seems preferable
More possible
Somehow
Than to simply
Sit
Silent and still
We know we’d fill
Spill over
Give over
To all we have lost and are losing
The cost of our collective choosing
We are living in calamity
Sacrificing our very humanity
The world turns, and burns,
We too are burnt out
A flame with the energy of urgency
Will, finally, become
Extinguished
What if we relinquished the pursuit
And simply, for a while, enjoyed its fruits?
What if we were to release?
To let go
Of obligation
Our motivations that no longer serve
To swerve away from that which we’re chasing
Placing instead a value
On letting it go
Release grudges
Judgments
Choosing to embrace
Finding a place of knowing
That what we have given
We have done so freely
And all is forgiven
As we meet, find each other, halfway
We can say
We have done our best
And the rest
We give over to healing
To feeling
Better
To being better
Siblings, sisters, brothers,
Lovers, friends, parents and children,
Imagine making amends
Finally
Embracing abundance
In the dance
Between hearts and minds
What if we’d find joy
In the luminous
Voluminous
Lessons of less?
What if we were to reclaim?
Ancient wisdom
Ancestral truth
Make use
Of what we have
Repurpose
Redistribute
Redefine and refine
Blur the bounds — what’s yours and mine
We could attempt
A sharing
A new and daring
Approach to abundance
Instead of scarcity
Instead of retreating from
Thereby creating
What scares us
Hoarding and gorging
Forging paths of harm
We could reflect
On the connected wellbeing
The earth, each other, ourselves
We need less
We need to acquiesce
Move from acquisitive, unequal
To inquisitive, peaceful
We could reclaim, repurpose
Find again our purpose
How the world serves us and we serve the world
To remember
All we have, do, and are
It is enough
Let’s change the story of abundant stuff
To the story of abundant giving, forgiving, and living
From striving to thriving
From going to knowing
Even as we sit still
The world keeps revolving
And in its revolutions
Our evolution
Towards balance
Countervalence
What if we were to find a cadence
That makes us well?
What if we were to rest?
What if we were to release?
What if we were to reclaim?