On a recent hot Saturday morning in Colorado Springs, about 60 people gathered in a conference room at the Hillside Community Center. The room was cool and softly lit and colorful yoga mats covered the floor. Everyone picked up a notecard and took it to the mat of their choosing.
The cards were for self-affirmations, things like, "I am enough, I am a bad bitch, I am successful."
At least that's how Ashley Cornelius put it as she welcomed people to her latest event, called "Rest as Resistance." The goal? To come together, forget to-do lists, and be still.
Cornelius is a community organizer and the Pikes Peak Region poet laureate. She was inspired by the self-appointed ‘Nap Bishop’ Tricia Hersey and her rest-advocacy organization The Nap Ministry. So, Cornelius applied for – and received – a grant from Redline Contemporary Art Center to bring a two-hour nap to Colorado Springs.
“This entire thing is based on her (Hersey's) work and my interpretation of how we can use the arts and sound healing and herbalism to create rest,” Cornelius said.
Cornelius and her co-organizers chose the Hillside Community Center as their location in part because it sits in a historically Black neighborhood. Cornelius said they aimed to have more than half of the attendees come from marginalized communities.
“A lot of Black and brown folks die earlier due to violence, due to oppression, due to disease and stress,” Cornelius said. “If anything can we give back a little bit of time to folks to recognize we are deserving of that rest?”
CDC data shows nearly a third of Americans don’t get enough sleep, and that the problem is even more pervasive among Black adults.
Cornelius said rest doesn’t have to be a passive act. Instead, it can be a “subversive way” to disrupt a system that demands constant productivity.
“This work says ‘what if we didn’t? What if we rested? What if there was a different way outside of capitalism in order to care for each other?’”
Sam Paulin, a therapist and sound artist, helped participants relax with an hour-long sound bath.
She lulled participants with chimes as they laid on their backs, stretched their arms and legs, or sat upright. Paulin then walked around the room with instruments that imitated waves or dripping water. The sounds were loud when she was nearby and they faded as she walked away.
Eventually, Paulin roused the resters.
“I invite you all to start bringing some movement back into your body, wiggling your fingers and toes, just moving at your own pace,” she said gently.
Attendees sat up, rubbed their eyes, and stretched out as Cornelius asked them to journal about their experience in the notebooks she provided.
“All these emotions were coming up as I was feeling tension rise up and then release," said Sam’s partner Jameel Paulin.
Some participants remarked on the novel experience of resting with dozens of others. Cornelius wanted people to nap as a group, something they likely hadn’t done since kindergarten.
“Experiencing self-care together was really mind-blowing for me,” said Lindsay Facknitz.
Even as she carefully stepped around nappers, playing a rainstick or an ocean drum, Sam Paulin said she found rest in the energy of the room.
“It was really nice to just feel the connection of everyone taking what they needed for themselves, which is what this event was all about.”
As the event wrapped up, Cornelius placed thank you notes in front of each napper. Each contained a $20 bill.
For Cornelius, it’s a way to encourage rest—something that’s necessary, but not often incentivized, especially with cash.
“We’re asking people to rest, to do something that’s really hard. And we normally don’t incentivize rest and relaxing with money, we only get money if we’re like working really hard or doing overtime,” she said.
Cornelius said she hopes to apply for another grant and give collective relaxation to more Coloradans.
Until then, she reminds people to sit back, take a deep breath, and rest for the sake of rest.
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