No-Mow May

Radical Rest and Finding Equilibrium

May is always a quiet month for paid work - and a scary one, as the order book looks pretty empty at this time of year. But it’s a busy one in education, with exams and business planning, so over the years it’s become a Radical Rest time for me: not hitting the sofa but finding some spaciousness to walk, plan and think. Lots of noise swirling round my head right now - composting thoughts mixed in with the sharp thorns of stuff I haven’t done and the dull rumble of financial precarity. All the 25 ADHD channels are blaring and at the same time my brain feels tired. So I’ll be spending all day at the best workspace, to crack on (interspersed by walks round the block). Always grateful for Highfield Coffee Social in my life and the sense of belonging and safety I feel here.

Early morning at Highfield Coffee Social in Doncaster.

I was recently reading Dr. Suzanne Culshaw‘s LinkedIn post about stepping more deeply back into work after a long period of unpaid caring. As a carer myself for an ageing and beloved parent, I’ve really noticed this year how scrambling that balancing act is. Caring follows its own rhythm, whether or not that matches any personal rhythm my life may have. So ideas are fumbled during an exciting moment in Pointless, thoughts are just out of reach in Tesco and when the laptop finally opens...sometimes it’s all just a blank.

And yet...I don’t believe a great thought or idea is ever lost.

Each year, May gives me the chance to catch a break, work a little less and let those thoughts and ideas flourish. Like leaving the grass to grow, taking an (enforced) break from paid work helps settle my personal eco-system. I have to be careful - it’s easy to fill up that time with unpaid work, especially as a novice entrepreneur, then with the shock of a zero May payday comes the realisation that I’m no further forward. And of course I’m mindful that, for others, May is breathtakingly busy - I remember those times too. Ultimately, whatever the balance, we’re all trading our labour for the wherewithal to live.

A Spring Meadow

Radical Rest is as much a daily practice as kindness, or joy. In fact, like those powerful drivers, it’s a value - a foundation stone of life. “WE WILL REST!” shouts the Nap Ministry website,

Just as the North Star guided the enslaved on their journeys to freedom, visionary artist and founder of The Nap Ministry Tricia Hersey leads us to imagine a new world: one in which we subvert the narrative of productivity at all costs and embrace rest as a healing spiritual practice.

I rest my body by sleeping and by the many hours sitting quietly, knitting and watching TV and trying to diplomatically provide all my mum wants and needs, to feel content and independent at 96. This is radical rest, not outsourcing her care to capitalism, finding space within my single income life for this work that is mine to do.

I rest my thoughts and feelings by walking, yoga and gardening. Nurturing (and sometimes challenging) my body, fuelling it healthily, so that when I’m on the move, physically and mentally, my creativity is liberated. This is radical rest, replenishing the drive to create new work that I will get paid for, instead of allowing ‘the man’ to set the agenda.

Thanks to Radical Rest and ‘No-Mow May’, I’m making stronger connections between Green Changemakers and wellbeing this month. The link has always been there - environmental justice is fundamentally entangled with social justice, and social justice with every aspect of health. But as I continue to work with Green Changemakers at Heart of Yorkshire Education Group, that thinking is deepening into actionable, sustainable work.

So, for the rest of May, I’m putting the mower away. I can’t do much about the rumbling anxiety but I can let the sharp thorns of my to-do list compost down to see what wildflowers emerge in their place.

Sitting here at Highfield Coffee Social, I realise that belonging and safety are the soil in which this radical rest grows. This month is my invitation to you to join me in the meadow. I’ll be blogging most days, exploring how we build a green future that doesn’t require us to burn out in the process, and documenting the journey from the noise of the 25 ADHD channels to the spaciousness of a regenerative mindset.

If our changemaking isn’t regenerative for the changemaker, it isn’t truly green. I’m not sure exactly what will bloom, but I’m excited to find out. Stick around to see what grows in the long grass as the month unfolds.

A Summer Meadow