Welcome to June’s Sweet Darkness

Last month we took a pause. May is that suspension space between the dark and the busy slide of the light that takes us straight into the end of October.

Now, my friends, it is June, and our word at The Art of Rest for this month is fluid.

Not only is June usually the delination for playing in the water, unencumbered, but it also tends to be the time of year where our day-to-day lives and hobbies shift significantly for half of the year.

This guided meditation is meant to be started with a sitting practice, and then taken out with you on a morning walk. Plan accordingly. Let yourself be fluid.

~In Fluid, Sweet Darkness
Dagny Rose

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Welcome to May’s Sweet Darkness

Last month we took our time in the Sweet Darkness to give special, and intentional space to equanimity.

This May, our word at The Art of Rest is pause.

Often times, our lives are moving so fast that we don’t always take the time to fully register exactly where we are. When the urgency of spring presses the promises of blossoms at our doorstep—sometimes we need a little extra nudge to remind us to pause, inventory, and incorporate before moving into the next moment.

This month’s guided practice is a little different than normal, but I hope it gives you a few well-needed pauses.

~In Sweet, Nearly Still Darkness
Dagny Rose

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Welcome to April’s Sweet Darkness

Last month we took our time in the Sweet Darkness to give special, and intentional space to acceptance.

This April, our word at The Art of Rest is uppekah or equanimity.

Uppekah, or equanimity are the deep roots we cultivate in winter freeze, in a spring rain. On a soft day of sunshine. In a wild, wind storm.

Roots are not unfeeling or unmoving. They are slow, sturdy, and calculated so that the tree may find it’s upper branches reaching for the most nourishing light to feed itself. The roots are a counterbalance.

When we spend time finding and cultivating our equanimity, we grow robust, resilient trunks. As the uptick of spring buzzes with energy, I hope this month’s meditation grounds you into balance.

~In Sweet, Sturdy Darkness
Dagny Rose

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Welcome to March’s Sweet Darkness

Last month we took our time in the Sweet Darkness to give special, and intentional space to our quality of attention.

This March, our word at The Art of Rest is acceptance.

There is so much going on in the world right now, and I know many of us are saturated.

With so many moving parts, and many people suffering in various capacities, sometimes it can take a substantial amount of energy to hold steady when we don’t have a clear understanding of what to “do” next.

This is where acceptance is a great and powerful tool.

It helps us slow down enough to wait for wise instructions.

We’ll be navigating acceptance through a classic loving-kindness, or metta, practice.

Today we work with the phrases:

• May I be happy

• May I be healthy

• May I be at ease

• May I be free of all suffering
  

And we send that out as wide as we can.

While sometimes this style of meditation feels like a soothing balm, there are other times where this particular form of meditation reveals to us, exactly the places we’re struggling to accept something exactly as it is. Within ourselves. Within others. Within the world at large.

So a gentle reminder as we move through these phrases this month—
Be so kind to yourself with whatever comes up. Accept and love those parts, too.
They deserve it, and so do you.

~In Sweet Darkness, and with loving-kindness
Dagny Rose

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Welcome to February’s Sweet Darkness

Last month we started our new paid subscriber portal over here in Sweet Darkness and hopefully if you’re here, this extra little content treat served you well in January.

This February, our word at The Art of Rest is attention.

While I planned out each word for the month sometime back in November of last year, I could not help but feel like this is the most perfect word for where we are right now; in the season of the year, in generation of technology, in the turning of our media and politics, in our current state of climate shifts.

Lately, for me, it’s all been coming back to a question around “where is my attention going?” and “what is my attention doing when it gets there?”

This month’s Sweet Darkness bonus material is an exploration of attention.
Gently, kindly, curiously, we’ll explore where our attention is going this month.

We’ll hold it without judgement and see what wants to happen next.

Thank you for being here with me.
Couldn’t be doing this work without you.

~In Sweet Darkness
Dagny Rose

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Welcome to Sweet Darkness—

It has taken me a long time to ponder what would be worthy of a paid subscription that didn’t also go against my values around paywalling important educational material. I’ve bounced around the idea of art prints, exclusive video blogs, a sneak peek into my own personal sleep world, extra material and workbook downloads.

Each of those options felt a bit out of sync for me until I woke myself up from a deep slumber one night and dramatically scribbled on the notebook next to my bed. When I woke up, I could barely read what I wrote since I had let my chicken-claws scratch it in the dead of night.

“Ohhhh” I said as I made out the notes from whoever inhabits my body after-hours, “Sweet Darkness, of course!”

It feels like the perfect, right-sized compromise.

To listen to the meditation click the embedded audio below.

I hope you enjoy.

~In Sweet Darkness
Dagny Rose

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