Colorado SPRINGS — Ashley Cornelius rolled out a bright orange yoga mat in a sunny Hillside Community Center conference room. She then reached down and dragged him across the floor, counting out loud each length of the rug. “One, two, three…” she counted to six and then stood up straight.
“I think we can accommodate more people. Maybe…80?”
Cornelius received a $7,500 Arts in Society grant, a collaborative fund for art projects focused on social issues, administered by RedLine Contemporary Art Center. She’s spending her funds on yoga mats (maybe…80 of them?), blankets, and custom tea blends to facilitate a big, relaxing community nap on July 13. She will also use some of her money to pay herself and her co-facilitators a stipend.
The event will open with each of the facilitators discussing their practices with the break. Participants will be guided through a brief writing exercise, and Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Cornelius will summarize that exercise in a poem. Then it’s time to close your eyes.
“Many people do not have access to rest. It is either commodified or stigmatized,” she stated. “Taking a nap is resistance, it is revolution. “It’s a different way of accessing mental health, something I think people don’t realize or admit.”
Cornelius’ July event is called “Rest as Resistance,” a nod to the work of Tricia Hersey, the self-proclaimed Nap Bishop of her own social-justice-movement-blog, The Nap Ministry.
Hersey has spent the better part of a decade exposing the power of rest, not as a means to get more done, but as a way to disrupt a system bent on productivity at all costs. Especially when that cost falls disproportionately on the bodies (physical labor) and minds (emotional labor) of marginalized people.
The costs of care.
An ongoing study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is analyzing Americans’ sleep patterns as part of its broader research on preventive measures for chronic health problems. The most recent results found that 46.4% of black or African American adults get enough sleep (defined as seven hours or less per night), making them the second most sleep-deprived demographic after Native Hawaiians. or Pacific Islanders, almost half of whom don’t get enough sleep. I don’t sleep enough.
In Colorado, those disparities are evident throughout the health care system. Despite the state’s efforts to address health care inequality through the Colorado Option, a report released in March concluded that “the health care system remains plagued by problems stemming from structural racism and more needs to be done to reduce inequalities”.
One of those problems is the high cost of mental health care.
Access to psychotherapy, for example, has always been “kind of a rich people’s culture,” Vincent Atchity, president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado, told The Colorado Sun in February.
Cornelius hopes that 60% of the participants in his siesta event will identify as part of a marginalized community, but it is open to everyone. He said he deliberately chose Hillside, a historically black neighborhood in Colorado Springs, because he wanted to make sure the site was “a place where people already trusted the space, where people of this demographic already exist.”
“While the world burns, we’ll eat really good sandwiches.”
Before committing to life as a full-time artist – “the best decision I ever made,” Cornelius said – she worked as a therapist for healthcare professionals in hospitals, a workplace that does not support long periods of stillness.
But rest is not just about taking a nap. “I told them: sometimes you can go to the bathroom and sit on the toilet for longer than necessary. If you really don’t have time during the day, you can sit in the cubicle for an extra minute. That’s also a break. Take three breaths. That is also rest,” Cornelius said. “There are many ways we can tell our bodies to rest, while recognizing that there are systems in place that require us to work and be productive in order to live our lives.”
During his community nap event, Cornelius will guide participants through an exercise examining their relationship with rest. Does it involve services, such as getting a manicure or a massage? Do you require specific spaces, such as a yoga studio or a mountain retreat?
“We hope to help people see that they can put on a YouTube video or some music and stretch out and relax. It doesn’t have to be something that requires a lot of effort or a lot of money,” said Samantha Paulin, a therapist at Colorado College and co-facilitator of the nap event. It can mean listening to a good song before entering a meeting, she added. It may mean sitting on the toilet a little longer.
There is a paradox at the center of “Rest as Resistance”: Cornelius is investing money, time and effort in creating an event that seeks to alter the cycles of work and productivity. She is working hard to stop working.
That’s part of what seems revolutionary, Cornelius said. Acknowledge the system he is working in while actively pushing it, even in the most comforting and silent way.
“While the world burns, we’ll eat really good sandwiches and laugh with our friends. Our joy does not invalidate what is happening in the world and in our systems, but two things can be true at the same time,” she stated. “Our brains hate that, but it’s true.”
“We cannot do without our rest in all of this. Which is a really hard thing to say,” he added. “But in many ways it has always been that way, very specifically for marginalized people. Horrible things have happened to black people, but I still exist and I have fun and I have joy. “I think a lot of people are starting to understand what it feels like to have two things at once, to feel like I need to rest and also call my senators.”
“Rest as Resistance” will take place from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on July 13. The event is sold out as of this writing, but Cornelius wants to bring this event to other communities across Colorado. If he’s interested in talking to her about hosting a nap event, fill out this contact form on her website.
Story Type: News
Based on facts, either directly observed and verified by the journalist, or reported and verified by knowledgeable sources.
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