Sleeper Mountain

Good evening and welcome to Sleeper Mountain. When the sun is out, it's a pretty nice place. But if you ask me, it's in the nighttime that it really comes into its own. Some people might not get what I find so interesting about it. Well, I think if we sit still, we're guaranteed to see something of interest. And the longer we sit, the more we'll learn. Each night, we like to start with a short wind down. It's particularly helpful if you're troubled by a busy mind when you're trying to get to sleep. 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, if they arise. We're not trying to replace them with anything else. We're simply labeling thinking as thinking, feeling as feeling. It may sound incredibly simple, but it can help to create distance between ourselves and the thought. Ourselves and the feeling. So we don't get so involved in it. And that 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 the 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. Hm, thinking. And return to the breath. Or if a feeling arises, huh, 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 gonna give you a few moments just to keep counting the breath and noting any thoughts and feelings that arise. That's great. Night falls like a blanket over Sleeper Mountain. Shadows pour down at slopes, catching and pooling beyond the boulders and trees and gathering in ravines and gullies. As the sun sets beyond the far ridge, you can see how the mountain got its name. Seen in silhouette, the ridge across from us looks like the profile of a sleeping man. You can make out the sharp point of his nose, the round peak of his chin against the bright clouds picked out against the sky by the setting sun. It's as though some giant chose this place to rest his body and slept and slept until in time he was...