Cabin Porch

Welcome to Robin's Nest Cabin, your home away from home for the night. From your cushioned seat on the front porch, you can feel the cool air of the approaching night wash over you. You lean back and close your eyes, welcoming the gentle embrace of the surrounding woods. There's nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to report to. You sit quietly and savor the vibrant stillness of the world around you. Let's deepen this state of relaxation with a wind down exercise. Tonight's wind down is a visualization. So when you're ready, let's begin. So no matter what's been going on today, whether it's been a busy day or a calm one, this is an opportunity to put everything down, to let go of any inner chatter and find a place of rest in both the body and the mind. So first, get yourself comfortable in bed, just taking a moment to pause and be still. And when you're ready, taking a big deep breath, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. And as you breathe out, allowing the body to sink down into your bed, feeling the weight of the body, allowing thoughts to come and go. Now imagining a steady flow of warm sunlight flowing down through the body, dissolving any tension, any discomfort, as it begins to fill the body starting with the toes. Moving up through the feet and the legs, being filled with sunlight. The qualities of warmth, space, and ease as it continues to travel up through the body. Up past the waist, through the back and the stomach. It's as though it washes away any discomfort. Continues up through the chest and the upper back into the shoulders and down the arms, all the way down to the hands and fingers. A sense of relief in the body and stillness in the mind as it continues to travel up through the neck and the throat, into the head and face, all the way to the very top of the body, until there is nothing other than that sense of stillness remaining. And now just gently bringing the attention back to the body. From your rocking chair on the cabin's front porch you can just make out a bird's nest. Loose straw and twigs have been woven ever so carefully into the shape of a shallow basket, which has been tucked back in the eaves where it's in no danger of falling or being knocked down. In the gentle breeze it rocks back and forth, forward and backward, much like the chair you're in, or like a child's crib. Of course, it will hardly surprise a seasoned traveler like yourself to hear the robin's nest takes its name from this very family of robins who year after year, generation after generation, return to make their home in the rafters high above. In this very spot, their hatchlings grow and thrive, safe and sound, far from harm and protected...