Speaker 1: The light is the light of late afternoon on a
Speaker 1: summer day that never ends, soft, golden, warm on the skin.
Speaker 1: There are no shadows, there are no hard edges. The
Speaker 1: garden is lit from everywhere. And nowhere you pass a
Speaker 1: bed of white flowers. The flowers gad as you walk past.
Speaker 1: You pass a trellis covered in climbing roses. The roses
Speaker 1: are pale, pink. The roses smell of honey. The sleep
Speaker 1: is still there, waiting for you, at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the count three two.
Speaker 2: One. And now.
Speaker 1: There are no numbers. There is only breath. There is
Speaker 1: only the rise and fall of the chest. There is
Speaker 1: only the slow tide of the body letting go. There
Speaker 1: are only the books. There are only the shelves. There
Speaker 1: are only the soft green lamps, and the worn leather chairs,
Speaker 1: and the thick carpet, and the centuries of stories held
Speaker 1: in the wood, and the paper. You close your eyes.
Speaker 1: The library is still there. You can feel it around you,
Speaker 1: the shelves, the books, the soft hum of all the
Speaker 1: words ever reach, held quietly in this one place, the
Speaker 1: library softens. The path winds gently between beds of plants
Speaker 1: you cannot quite name. The plants are not exotic. The
Speaker 1: plants are the kind of plants you might find in
Speaker 1: any quiet garden, leafy, soft, varieded in their greens. You
Speaker 1: walk the path slowly. You do not have to reach
Speaker 1: any destination. You are walking because walking feels good. The
Speaker 1: stones massage the soles of your feet. The air is warm.
Speaker 2: The dark is the kind of dark that wraps itself
Speaker 2: around you like a heavy blanket. You can see if
Speaker 2: you look the faintest suggestion of trees at the edge
Speaker 2: of the property. The trees are still. The trees are
Speaker 2: sleeping too. There is a clock in the room. The
Speaker 2: clock is not ticking. The clock is silent.
Speaker 1: Tonight time does not need to be measured. Tonight time
Speaker 1: will pass on its own, without any help from us,
Speaker 1: not in a rush. You step through the way you
Speaker 1: have been stepping through everything tonight, slowly, gently, one breath
Speaker 1: at a time. The door closes behind you. The door
Speaker 1: makes no sound. The door does not lock. You can
Speaker 1: return whenever you need to. The door will be there.
Speaker 1: The door is always there on the other side of
Speaker 1: the door. The world is soft. The world is far away.
Speaker 1: The fireplace is not lit, but you can imagine the fire.
Speaker 1: You can imagine the warmth. You can imagine sitting in
Speaker 1: the chair beside it, reading, listening to the rain. The
Speaker 1: sitting room is for winter evenings. The sitting room is
Speaker 1: not for tonight. You walk on, you come to a staircase.
Speaker 1: The staircase goes up, the staircase goes down. You do
Speaker 1: not need to take the staircase. You only need to
Speaker 1: see it. Let your attention rise very gently to the
Speaker 1: top of your head, to the crown, to the soft
Speaker 1: place where the hair begins. That place is quiet, now,
Speaker 1: that place is letting go. Feel the muscles of your forehead,
Speaker 1: the small muscles above your eyebrows, the tiny muscles at
Speaker 1: the corners of your eyes. Feel them soften, feel them release.
Speaker 1: Let your tongue rest gently against the roof of your mouth,
Speaker 1: or curl softly at its bottom, whichever feels more natural.
Speaker 1: Either way, the muscles of your face are learning to release. Now,
Speaker 1: let your attention drift to the back of your head,
Speaker 1: to the place where your head meets the pillow. Feel
Speaker 1: the weight of your head being held, Feel the pillow
Speaker 1: receiving you, feel the give, feel the support, feel it steady,
Speaker 1: feel it sure. You do not need to do anything
Speaker 1: about your heart, your heart knows what to do. Your
Speaker 1: heart has been beating since before you were born. It
Speaker 1: will beat long after this moment has passed. Trust it,
Speaker 1: Trust it to keep going while you rest. Let your
Speaker 1: attention sink to your belly, Let your belly soften, Let
Speaker 1: it rise with thee in breath, Let it fall with
Speaker 1: the out breath. The staircase is the spine of the house.
Speaker 1: The staircase connects all the rooms, all the floors, all
Speaker 1: the moments that have ever been lived here. At the
Speaker 1: end of the hallway, you reach the window. The window
Speaker 1: is large, the window is tall. Through the window, you
Speaker 1: can see the garden. It is the same garden. It
Speaker 1: is always the same garden. The garden is the place
Speaker 1: you return to in dream after dream. The chairs hold
Speaker 1: the shape of the people who have rested here. You
Speaker 1: sit in one of the chairs. The chair receives you.
Speaker 1: The chair has been waiting for you. The leather is
Speaker 1: cool at first, then warms to your body. On the
Speaker 1: desk in front of you, there is an open book.
Speaker 1: You do not remember opening it. The book is open
Speaker 1: to a page with no words, only an image. The
Speaker 1: image is of a window.
Speaker 3: You feel held by the garden. You feel held by
Speaker 3: the moment. In the garden, nothing is asked of you,
Speaker 3: nothing is needed from you, nothing is waiting for you.
Speaker 3: You can stay here as long as you like. The
Speaker 3: garden does not track the time. The garden does not
Speaker 3: keep count. The garden simply holds you, the way the
Speaker 3: tree holds the birds that nest in its branches. The
Speaker 3: dream softens at the edges.
Speaker 1: You are exactly where you are suppose