
Ancestral Models of Rest
We know there’s a difference between rotting and composting when we microhermit. But here’s what I keep wondering: if rotting with our phones, alone and overstimulated, isn’t quite it, how did our ancestors do this? How did Black, Brown, Indigenous, diasporic people microhermit?
It’s easy to find examples of Romans lounging in courtyards or Victorians languishing in bed with the curtains drawn. But what about us? What about our people?
The short answer: they microhermitted, but rarely in isolation.
Their Microhermitting Was Held Communally
In many cultures, microhermitting wasn’t an individual act. It was held communally, ritualised, and often honoured.
Take postpartum seclusion. While it’s now better known through East Asian cultural content on social media, it’s existed globally for centuries. In Igbo culture, the Omugwo tradition brings a mother or mother-in-law into the home to care for the birthing parent for weeks after childbirth. Yoruba communities similarly ensure the new mother is fed, massaged, bathed, and surrounded but not left alone.
Microhermitting was expected, and the community was there to make it possible.
At the other end of life, we had mourning periods. This was time carved out not just for grief, but for withdrawal. Among the Ngulu of Tanzania, families step away from work and public life after a death, cared for by extended kin. In Australia, “Sorry Business” is still observed in many Aboriginal communities as a period of collective mourning, ritual, and retreat.
These weren’t passive grief rituals. They were structured disappearances, allowing people to soften, cry, be still, and be together.
They Had Seasonal Rhythms of Microhermitting
Some cultures built withdrawal into the year. Among the Noongar people of southwestern Australia, six seasons guided activity and rest. In cooler months, life slowed and people moved inland.
In parts of West Africa, the dry season similarly brought quieter rhythms and became a time for storytelling, ceremony and preparation.
If anything, what we’re doing now - rotting with our phones, alone and overstimulated - might be a distorted version of what our bodies still long for: microhermitting that is collective, witnessed and nourishing.
Microhermitting Wasn’t a Solo Act
Microhermitting wasn’t a solo act in a messy bed with three screens glowing. It wasn’t aesthetic, and it wasn’t shameful. It was a natural pause in the rhythm of life, and others held it with you.
Even in solitude, you were rarely alone. Villages moved in cycles: dry seasons slowed the pace for everyone, mothers rested with others after birth, grief was shared and held, not hidden.
That’s why microhermitting doesn’t have to mean cutting yourself off completely. It can mean stepping back for a while, but knowing you’ll return.
What We’ve Lost and What We Can Reclaim
We can't fully recreate those village structures as most of us don’t have extended family ready to care for us during transitions and most of aren’t as in tuned with the seasonal rhythms.
But we can find ways to make our rest less isolated. We can tell someone we trust when in composting mode. You can turn down the noise without severing the connection.
The pattern of slowing down after intensity is still encoded in our bodies.
Your microhermitting looks different from your ancestors’, but it can still honour what they knew: that rest is sacred, that withdrawal can be wisdom, and that sometimes the most revolutionary act is refusing to go at an unsustainable pace.
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Next in the series: How to actually do it - the practical art of microhermitting.
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