Episode 14: The Medicine of Rest, Rhythm, and Kinship with the More-than-Human World: A Conversation with Shelagh Lenon
In this episode, I sit down with Shelagh Lennon — web designer, yoga nidra facilitator, and author of Moon Pause: A Field Guide to Rest, Rhythm, and Returning to Yourself in Midlife and Beyond. Shelagh calls herself a "fairy godmother for the 21st century" and a "priestess of the rest garden," but she didn't always have that language. For twenty years she worked in post-secondary education, building a whole soulful life (studying aromatherapy, priestess training, nature-based practices) underneath a career defined by grind culture dressed up as "excellence."
Two cancer diagnoses changed everything. The first led her, almost against her will, into six months of total rest. The second brought her to an oncologist's office, where he called her story "one in ten million," and a line from Mary Oliver arrived in her body: what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? She wrote her resignation letter a month later.
We talk about the difference between being a producer and an overproducer, rest and pleasure as a birthright rather than a reward, and how Moon Pause became an act of integration — pulling together every thread of who she is into something whole.
What You'll Learn:
The difference between a producer and an overproducer — and why the goal isn't perfection, but recognizing sooner when we've turned away from ourselves
Why rest and pleasure are a birthright, not something earned through hard work
How to build a simple daily rhythm (Shelagh's two-sentence morning practice) that anchors you without demanding more time
What genuine surrender looks like, without slipping into spiritual bypassing
How kinship with the moon — and the more-than-human world more broadly — invites a radical, embodied practice
Why Shele's web design work and her rest work aren't separate: how to build an online presence that doesn't ask you to leave any part of yourself at the door
Seed to Carry:
"The game we are playing is not to get it right every time. The game we're playing is recognize sooner when we're turning away from ourselves. And then course correct."
Purchase her book, Moon Pause.
💌 Want to Go Deeper with Brooke?
Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.
