Daywatch: The right to rest

Good morning, Chicago.

With a wave of her bangled brown fingertips to the melody of flutes and chimes, artist, theologian and academic Tricia Hersey enchanted a crowd into a dreamlike state of rest at Semicolon Books on North Michigan Avenue.

“The systems can’t have you,” Hersey said into the microphone, reading mantras while leading the crowd in a group daydreaming exercise on a recent Tuesday night.

The South Side native tackles many of society’s ills — racism, patriarchy, aggressive capitalism and ableism — through an undervalued yet impactful action: rest.

Hersey, the founder of a movement called the Nap Ministry, dubs herself the Nap Bishop and spreads her message to over half a million followers on her Instagram account, @thenapministry.

Her first book, “Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto,” became a New York Times bestseller in 2022, but Hersey has been talking about rest online and through her art for nearly a decade.

Read the full story from the Tribune’s Lauryn Azu.

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