For about the past five nights, since my first Covid-19 vaccine, I’ve had insomnia. It’s been very frustrating. I’ve taken sleeping pills, I’ve played relaxing sounds for sleep… just nature sounds. My hearing isn’t good enough to listen to spoken words while falling asleep. Nothing worked. Then one night, I started making up a meditation, and it kind of worked! I’d sleep for a while, and then wake again to continue it. As with other things, I kind of started it as a joke, but it turned into something that for me, was not a joke at all. My intent, rather than to publish it here, was to record it, with some nature sounds, and be able to listen to it at bedtime, and share it with certain family members and close friends. I still might do that, but in case it doesn’t happen, or doesn’t happen for a while, I offer it here, in its original form.
You are standing at the top of a gentle hill overlooking a forest. Beyond the trees, you can see a lake, or maybe it’s an ocean. You can’t see the shore on the other side, just water stretching to the horizon far in the distance. Low clouds hang in the sky, rimmed in golden late afternoon light. The hill that drops away in front of you is carpeted in short thick grass. It feels spongy against your bare feet. It’s an open expanse of deep green, ringed in by trees, and flooded with warm light.
You just stand there, taking in the scene. You feel the coolness of the grass against your feet, the warmth of the sun against your skin, and you feel very relaxed. You see the currents on the surface of the water and the shapes of the clouds moving so slow they seem to be standing still. You see the trees growing, slower still.
Take a deep breath and hold it. You are in no hurry. Like the surface of the water, or the trees, take your time. Enjoy the view. Enjoy the sensations in your body.
When you are ready, slowly exhale, releasing whatever tension might remain from the day that has ended. It’s time to let go. It’s time to feel that dissolve.
With each step you take down the hill, you will enter a more relaxed state. A more hypnagogic state. You may feel a heaviness come over your body, or you may feel a floating sensation. It doesn’t matter. Let go of your body. We’ll count down with each step starting with ten.
As the last thoughts of the day leave your mind, relax your forehead and temples, your scalp and the back of your head. Let any tension melt away. You don’t erase your thoughts, you just quiet them. You don’t cease being yourself, you turn off the noise so you can recognize yourself and rest in your own company. With no one telling you what you should be doing, what you are doing wrong or what is next on the schedule, you can just be. With no expectation. No goal. No agenda. There is no right or wrong way of doing this.
However you want to take the next step… whether you want to feel the soft spongy grass beneath your bare feet, float above it, or mentally transport yourself, relax further to nine.
Feel the tension drain from your face. Relax your neck and shoulders, your jaw and your throat.
Your entire body has been working hard all day to gather information for your brain, and then to respond again to the signals the brain has sent back in response. Until now, there has hardly been a moments rest.
Let go. There is nothing to do now. There is no danger to watch for. There is nothing you need to do right now.
Relax your upper back and chest, your stomach and your lower back. Give your conscious body systems permission to take a break.
What is the view like from number eight? The sky is full of color and the sun is not so hot. Blue shadows are creeping along the perimeter of the grassy hill. The colors are saturated and you can see deep into the thicket. A whole world has been hiding in the shadows, obscured by the glare of the bright sun, just as a world has been lurking in your mind, obliterated by the activity and demands of the day.
If you go into the woods… walk or float or project yourself there, you’ll find yourself in the cool shadows, surrounded by tree trunks. You can look back and still see the grassy hillside glowing green with the forest silhouetted against it.
On the forest floor, there is a large clay pot with a lid.
Is anything bothering you? Distracting you? Worrying you? Scaring you? You can put it in the pot. Just lift the lid and place the thing inside. Put the lid back on, and you can come back and get it later. You will know where it is. It will be safe. You will remember where you left it by the number seven on the lid.
See how the forest floor slopes down the hill? You hear the sound of running water. Not too loud, just a soft bubbling sound, so you go a little further into the woods and a little further downhill.
There is dappled sunlight filtering through the branches and your eyes have adjusted to the lower light beneath the canopy.
This movement through the woods takes no effort at all. You can travel without moving a muscle, so take this opportunity to release all stress or tightness from your hips, pelvis and thighs. Feel them soften with just a thought that moves down to your knees. Imagine a warm ball of energy… a light glowing in each of your knees, and then radiating to your ankles and feet, and then back up through your entire body, a healing stream of energy, like the stream that runs through the woods, and the stream of thought and memory that runs through you. It not only runs through you, it is you. It is the invisible part of you that makes you you.
The water in the stream is clear and dances over a stone clearly marked with the number six. Step into a deeper state of relaxation.
Like this bubbling brook, your own stream of consciousness is fed by others upstream from you. You did not come from yourself, but from branches that spread out above you in unimaginable numbers. You are those who came before you, and it is their life force that runs through you.
You may sometimes forget your place in this world. You may not always remember where you belong in the universe.
Until you turn off the distraction.
Until you put your worries in a safe place.
Until you relax your body.
And remember the only thing you are.
The only thing you can not set aside.
You reach number five, and step into a greater place of calmness.
The stream carries everything in its depths. We label these things. We pick and choose what we will accept and what we will deny, but the stream does not judge, and the facts are the facts. The things we remember and the things we have forgotten still lurk in the stream that is us. The real us. The things we’ve chosen to leave behind have been recorded in our files, my love. Do not fear. It has always been this way. It makes you you. Only your illusions are washed away. The truth is still the truth. You don’t need to look at it all at once. You don’t need to look at it all. It will come to you when you are ready. It is intact. You are intact. Everything is intact. Relax. Relax more deeply and step to number four.
Now you can invite someone to come with you. Someone who needs healing, as we all need healing. Someone who needs acceptance, as we all need acceptance. Someone who needs forgiveness, as we all need forgiveness. Whether you share bonds of love or bitter strife, notice how the stream flows through us all.
It flows down the hill toward the sea, and you follow it, just as the stream of your very consciousness flows along the timeline you follow to the ocean where we all become one. We swim through a sea of each other.
Three. Ever more relaxed.
There is a bright light inside you. It is not hard to understand why. You are made of stardust. You are an energy being. Look closely and you will see that your body is nothing more than electric particles clinging together for a while.
You are in the universe, and the universe is in your body.
You take this shape for a while in order to get a glimpse, and to feel, and to know, but it doesn’t change who you are.
Two. You are standing on the beach. The hill rises behind you, the stream cuts through the sand and flows into the endless expanse of water. The surface is calm. There’s the gentle sound of the water flowing over the sand, finally in the last stretch of its journey. It has been dashed over rock, plummeted down cliff faces, meandered through shallows and circled whirlpools. It has been blocked and broken free time and time again to reach this moment. It splashes over pebbles, giddy in anticipation, and then enters smoothly and naturally into its destination.
You’ve never stood on this beach before. Never looked on this sea. Yet it fills you with such a longing that you can’t put into words. The dark blue sky blushes a subtle purple glow and a gray cloud grazes the horizon. The surface is calm yet it contains mystery, and colors you can not see.
Naturally, silently, slip into
one
