Slow Train

There's something about taking a slow train across the country that is fundamentally satisfying. While the train isn't an express, it's showing no sign of delay. It's just chugging slowly and inevitably through the landscape. Of course, one boards a train to get from A to B. Just by sitting in one place, you're doing that, which means everything else is, well, extra. You're free to relax, enjoy the passing scenery without any sense that there's something else that requires your attention. That to-do list is just going to have to wait. But now, everything that could be done has been done. All that's left is the pure enjoyment of the land unrolling around you like a never-ending tapestry. To get us in the mood for this journey, it's always nice to begin with a little wind down. Tonight's wind down is a visualization. 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 to the back and the stomach. It as though it washes away any discomfort. It continues up through the chest and the 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's nothing other than that sense of stillness remaining. And now, just gently bringing the attention back to the body. A train cruises through a range of foothills. It must have rained here recently, drifting through your window, the air is fresh and almost smells damp like laundry drying on a line. Great puffs of white cloud float over the foothills as if the clouds were round sponges run clean of water. The grass on the hills is long and green, growing wild. As the grasses ripple in the wind, you spot the sun glinting on the yellow undersides of each leaf. This is how you can follow a...