What is deep rest?

January 11, 2023

By Kate Irving

I recently had a dying client tell me she needed deep rest.

I don’t think I had heard this term before. It made me think about “deep magic from before the dawn of time”, a phrase I recall from the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. It also brought into my mind’s eye the idea of hibernation that some animals sink into in winter. And the deep work that goes on underground in winter – the composting, the resting of insects, their larvae and eggs, and whatever it is that all the roots and fungi and bacteria and other tiny organisms do in the cold months.

A few days later, I mulched a new area of our garden with dead leaves – and reflected on how a year before, it had been scrubby grass and we had sheet mulched it with cardboard and various organic materials. And by the next spring it was mostly fully composted and alive with worms and mycelium. I reflected and wondered on all the work done over that winter season by all those tiny ones, while we perceived the garden as being dormant…as not doing anything.

This client was indeed in the winter of her life. Her death was coming soon. She had spent much time and energy putting things in order and tending to the needs of her people. She knew she was well loved and that now was the time to turn away from them. Literally, to turn her energetic attention and intention towards death. Loosening the threads that bound her to this human incarnation and the practical and emotional relationships it embodied. Not wanting to eat much. She felt she was physically and mentally disconnecting at a fast rate and was determined to be conscious and aware of her process as she proceeded towards death. She was clear it was no longer her job to support the emotional needs of her people – they had each other and their job was to let her go. And to support her need for deep rest. She called it “a great place to be in”.

She did not express fear. In fact, she wondered what she was waiting for. Maybe for the invisible work of deep rest to be done…

So what is deep rest? Google has lots of interesting things to offer about deep meditation, about silence and stillness and about breathing exercises and yoga poses that can help someone get there. About the idea that the brain has slowed down and shifted its wave pattern to rest itself, perhaps as the hectic and often meaningless pace of modern life just becomes too much. A response to exhaustion.

I like the notion that deep rest is something off the scale of normal conscious awareness. That it takes us literally deeper into our soul selves. It makes sense that if we are conscious of our dying process, and unafraid of what comes next, then deep rest is a sort of portal to our soul selves and to the collective consciousness with which we are connected. As so much of what has seemed so important in our lives literally slips away, what are we even? And what are we called to do?

If you are companioning someone on the dying process, whether they are aware and speaking of their experience, or not, whether they are conscious or deeply sedated, I invite you to consider this idea of deep rest. Maybe what looks like nothing to you, as they are still and quiet, is actually the deep rest my client spoke of. That state where the transformation is wrought. Where a life is internally reviewed and preparations made for the next stage of the journey. Perhaps allow yourself to sit quietly. To leave the silences. To notice their process. To take your cue from them even if they are not verbal. Don’t rush or jolly them along to eat or speak or engage if they seem to be in this place. Trust in what is going on underground. In the wintering. Allow them their deep rest. And allow yourself to exhale as you witness. All is well.

Many blessings and much gratitude.