Glowing Stones

It's a peaceful day at the beach boardwalk here at the end of summer. The water rushes in and the water rushes out. It's as though the ocean is breathing along with you. The air smells fresh by the sea and feels good to breathe here. Inhale and exhale. Might be nice to spend an evening wandering through the outdoor market. There are tables for shells, candles, secondhand books. One seater table by the front has a white tablecloth with rocks spread thoughtfully over the fabric. Each stone has a unique shape and color formed in different landscapes over time. There's a long story in each stone about the earth around it and how they came to be. Before we begin tonight, let's start with a little wind down exercise. Tonight's wind down is an exercise we call noting. It helps to sooth the mind and once you've learned it, you can even use it if you wake up in the night. We're going to be counting our breaths and then just gently noting thoughts and feelings as they arise. We're not trying to change them. We're simply labeling thinking as thinking, feeling is feeling. It may sound incredibly simple but it can help to create the distance between ourselves and the thought, ourselves and the feeling so we don't get so involved in it. That in turn creates a more restful state of mind. In other words, the perfect state of mind for gentle, restful sleep. So to begin with, just take a moment or two to get comfortable. Make sure you're nice and cool. Just starting with some nice big, deep breaths. Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. And with the next out-breath, allow the breath to return to its natural rhythm. In and out through the nose and just feeling the weight of the body pressing down into your bed. And in your own time, starting to count the breaths as they pass. One with the rise, two with the fall. Just up to a count of 10. When you get to 10, you can stop and start again at one. And remember any time you get distracted, the moment you realize you're distracted by thought, simply note it thinking and return to the breath. Or if a feeling arises, feeling, and return to the breath. That noting is very gentle, not harsh at all. Think of it like a feather just gently touching the surface of a crystal glass. I'm going to give you a few moments just to keep counting the breath and noting any thoughts or feelings that arise. That's great. This fern fossil looks especially pretty against the white tablecloth. The large flat stone, roughly the size of a Frisbee, holds the deep imprint of an old, old plant. The fossil itself is gray, but the leafy imprint seems so detailed and lively. You can just imagine some great green fern swaying in the wind. Hundreds of millions of...