Carnival Sunset

The carnival is over. Two days of dancing of drinking and laughing. Of marchers in costume decked out in sequence and feathers. Of good food and good music. This port town is tired and it's time for it to rest. Not everyone knows it, but now as a special time. A special as the carnival itself, because it's only once a year that all the people are tired all at the same time. The moment is ripe to take a tour and drink in the drowsy atmosphere. So let's take a little walk and see what there is to see. Before we begin our tour. It's nice to start with a wind down exercise. Tonight's wind down is a visualization. So when you're ready, let's begin. Just take a moment to get comfortable, letting go, of the day. Enjoying that feeling of having stopped, of having nothing left to do. We're going to focus the attention of the mind on the different parts of the body. Watching as the muscles in the body, switch off for the night, leaving the body, feeling rested and leaving the mind more at ease. So starting down at the toes and just a sense of the muscles switching off. The feet, the arches, all those muscles switching off. Same in the lower half of the legs. So any tension being let go of as the muscles switch off, shut down. And the upper half of the legs, any tension melting away being let go of. Into the area of the hips, the pelvis. Again, any muscles shutting down for the night, completely at rest. Everything from the waist down is heavy at ease, the muscles and the lower back and the stomach, now switching off. Middle of the back around the diaphragm, the upper back and the chest. So any muscles not needed shutting down, switching off for the night. The shoulders switching off. The upper half of the arms and the lower half of the arms switching off. The hands, fingers, just switching off. Any muscles around the throat and the neck, switching off. The head, the face, the jaw, the eyes, any last areas of tension, melting away as the muscles shut down, switch off. At rest for the night. And allowing thoughts to come and go. Allowing the mind and body the space they need to rest. You notice something on the floor: small bits of paper, like flower pedals that have fallen softly to the grass when no one was watching, Or, confetti. Confetti on the street: red, orange, yellow, blue, green, violet. Bits of costumes too. There are feathers. There are ribbons: red, orange, yellow, blue, green, violet. The road is now a collage, and you are the center of this canvas. You are a giant, looking down on a riot of color beneath your feet. Some of these look like they've fallen from a particular costume, What's called on this island a Pierrot Gourmand. A figure in a...