It’s Self-Care Month (designated by the World Health Organization in 2019). 

Thanks WHO! Did you know the concept of self-care in the United States originated as a medical term in the 1950s for long term care patients? Later the ‘self care’ concept was adopted by activist groups during the civil rights movement as a way to manage the wear and tear on one’s body when on the front lines. BUT, if we take a moment and decenter western history around the concept, we can see that indigenous forepeople have been attuned to the needs for time for holistically caring for the body (and the planet, for that matter) as a collective responsibility for a community long before the concept was named and, now talked about by influencers. ( I mean, I remember my grandma talking about “resting her eyes”... can anyone else think of terms or phrases from elders that talked about ideas of rest?) Anyway…