Treehouse

Here we are in the redwood forest. I'm going to give you a little tour of one of my favorite places. It's a little treehouse in the forest by the ocean, so peaceful and so quiet, a perfect place to get some sleep. Before we begin our tour, it's nice to start with a wind down exercise. Tonight's wind down is a visualization, so when you're ready, let's begin. For tonight's wind down, you're going to use your imagination, so get your imagination ready, and let's begin. 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's 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. Look out of any window in the tree house and look above, lifting your gaze to the tops of the redwoods and beyond. Cumulonimbus clouds drift over the forest. Cumulonimbus is a big word but doesn't it feel perfect to describe clouds so big and fluffy? The sun spills over the edges of these clouds. It seems as if the clouds are embroidered with golden thread. Some of the light leaps over the clouds falling onto the forest in rays like the sun has unrolled great spools of yellow silk. This redwood forest is large and old. The green spires of trees tower over you and they wobble in the breeze. It's hard to believe that the massive redwood trunks grow and taper off into branches no bigger than a finger, but here they are anyway. Some of the trees are so tall that there are...