Sora’s Desert Planetarium

Welcome back to the Desert Planetarium. You're right on time. Out here, time is a flexible concept. Even the stars are traveling from light years away. There's nowhere we need to be. We can enjoy the planetarium and take in all the stars. Far and away from the city, it's so quiet out here. Just the gentle wind rolling past your shoulders. The marble hexagon is patiently waiting, filled with wondrous cosmic mysteries. Before we start exploring, let's settle in with a brief wind down exercise. Tonight's wind down is an exercise we call noting. It helps to soothe the mind, and once you've learned it, you can even use it if you wake up during 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 as feeling. It may sound incredibly simple, but it can help to create distance between ourselves and the thought and 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 conditions for gentle, restful sleep. So to begin, just take a moment or two to get comfortable. Make sure you're nice and cool. Just starting with some 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 feeling the weight of the body pressing you 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, note it as feeling and return to the breath. 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 and feelings that arise. That's great. Every night, in the Cinenova Dome, Zora leads a tour of the night sky. A large projector cascades images onto the curved roof with such precision, it seems the stars are just within reach. Visitors are invited to relax onto air-tufted platforms as though they are floating through space on a cloud. The gentle whir of the projector's fan harmonizes with Zora's presentation. One of Zora's favorite places to visit is the Crab Nebula in the Taurus constellation. Resembling a crinkled ball of iridescent paper, this celestial landmark was first observed almost 1,000 years ago. The aftermath of a massive supernova, it is thought...