Monsoon Hour

You are safe here, watching the birth of a monsoon from a high hill overlooking the paddy terraces. Behind you, a home of strong wood, worn smooth by its many years of service as refuge from seasons such as this, stands quiet, steadfast. Lanterns glow like wonder-filled eyes from its windows. You can almost feel their shadow plays tickling your back. It is evening and the rains are coming. It's time to put down the day and prepare for rest. To help us make the most of this special time, I think it's nice to begin with a little wind-down. 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, noticing 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. In 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 in 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. Though the air is emptied of birdsong, it is thick with the scent of jasmine. You can feel the patience of water in it and its desire, finally, to fall. The darkness is now almost complete, neither sun, nor moon, nor star is visible anywhere. Only the roil of stratocumuli like a silent hoard of horses overhead. They advance from the west, blooming, separating, merging, charged with a mysterious force that now and then reveals itself as a silver glimmer. Lightning, shy and softened by layers of billowing cloud, illuminates without breaking the night. Each glimmer accompanied by a tremor that you know to be distant thunder, but feel more than hear in the space between neck and shoulder,...