Rhythm
Our daily life follows a simple rhythm: breakfast – work – lunch – work – dinner – rest. The meals are, in a way, the framework around which the day is organised. The meals provide the structure that holds the day together. Between breakfast and lunch comes the morning work. This is primarily physical work. The morning also follows a regular rhythm throughout the week:
• Monday: vegetable garden, polytunnel and herb garden
• Tuesday: permaculture orchard and other trees
• Wednesday: reserve day
• Thursday: permaculture orchard and other trees
• Friday: mowing
• Saturday and Sunday: weekend — shopping, taking it easy, having nothing that needs to be done
Wednesday is deliberately kept as a reserve day. In practice, it is almost always filled. We may plan eighty percent, but that quickly turns into a hundred percent of work, simply because we can never foresee everything in advance. There is always something that still needs doing, something that takes longer than expected or something unexpected that comes up.
Between lunch and dinner comes the afternoon work, but this has a very different character. This is the time for mental and intellectual work. The afternoon follows a more or less fixed pattern: meditation – walking – study, followed by dinner.
This regular rhythm provides a sense of structure without becoming a rigid routine. Life does not have to be reorganised constantly. The meals, the work, the walk, meditation and sleep together form a simple structure within which the days can unfold naturally.
Rest
Rest does not come simply from doing nothing. It is supported by the surroundings: the silence, nature, meditation and the space that exists within the day. Life is, in a sense, anchored to that familiar framework of the daily rhythm.
Attention is part of this too. Attention to what we are doing, to the environment in which we live and to what arises within ourselves. Not everything needs to be solved, understood or controlled immediately. Sometimes it is enough simply to be attentive and remain present.
Meditation helps with this, but attention does not have to be limited to the time spent meditating. It can also be present while working in the garden, during a walk, at the table or in a conversation. It is less about achieving something than about being truly present with what is happening.
The idea of cycles also plays an important role. Everything comes around again, but never in exactly the same way. The garden, the trees, the work, the seasons, the days and ultimately we ourselves are constantly moving through such cycles. What returns is never quite the same as it was the time before.
This awareness also takes some of the pressure out of life. If something does not work out today, it does not necessarily have to be made up for immediately. Perhaps it will work tomorrow. Or next week. Or in the next season. Not everything has to happen now.
Stress
We try to avoid stress, busyness and the feeling that something constantly “has to be done” as much as possible. That does not mean there is never pressure or that unexpected problems never arise. It mainly means that we try not to make them a permanent state of being.
There is a difference between having a lot to do and being under pressure. The first is part of life; the second is something we try to keep to a minimum.
Perhaps our most important form of stress relief is therefore very simple: enough silence, enough sleep and enough empty space.
Empty space is not wasted time. It creates room for what has not yet been planned, for the unexpected, for recovery, for attention and for doing nothing. Precisely because not every minute has to be filled, the rhythm can continue to breathe.
In this way, a life emerges in which rhythm brings rest, rest creates space, and space prevents life from constantly turning into stress and “having to”.