Mary Oliver Poetry For Sleep | Grounded Sleep Episode #30

Welcome to the Grounded Sleep Podcast! You don't have to do anything except get into bed, close your eyes, and allow David to guide you into a deep, peaceful rest. Enjoy letting go of the day, quieting all the mental noise, and going back to that primordial place of stillness that is calling you back.

Transcript

Hey,

Friend.

Welcome back to the Grounded Sleep Podcast.

I'm David and I'm going to guide you to sleep tonight.

And hopefully you're already in bed and the lights are off and you've sent your last email,

Text message,

And you could just let the day go and surrender into the night.

Alright,

Let's start.

So I've got a special poem for us tonight.

One of my favorite poets of all time,

Mary Oliver.

And we're going to read a few poems from her.

And the first one is called The Journey.

Before we start,

Just let your body settle into your bed.

Let the pillow be nice and soft behind your head.

Allow your breath to move deeply and slowly into your stomach.

And as you breathe out,

You just release and you surrender any tension.

Anything you've been holding onto a little too tightly,

Can you just let it go?

And if you can't,

That's okay.

Let it be there and just be at peace with it.

Just falling asleep is really about finding peace.

You don't need to knock yourself unconscious or override your feelings by just digesting too much content before you sleep.

It's about coming home to yourself and letting go into the stillness of the night.

So with your eyes closed and your body relaxed,

The day behind you and the night calling,

Let's start with Mary Oliver's Sleeping in the Forest.

I thought the earth remembered me.

She took me back so tenderly.

Arranging her dark skirts,

Her pockets full of lichens and seeds,

I slept as never before,

A stone on the riverbed.

Nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts and a floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms,

Breathing around me,

The insects and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell,

As if in water,

Grappling with the luminous doom.

By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

And this one is called Wild Geese.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees.

For a hundred miles through the desert repenting,

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair,

Yours and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes,

Over the prairies and the deep trees,

The mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese,

High in the clean blue air,

Are heading home again.

Whoever you are,

No matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination.

Calls to you like the wild geese,

Harsh and exciting,

Over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

And this poem is called The Spirit Likes to Dress Up.

The spirit likes to dress up like this,

Ten fingers,

Ten toes,

Shoulders and all the rest at night in the black branches in the morning,

In the blue branches of the world.

It could float,

Of course,

But would rather plumb rough matter,

Hairy and shapeless thing it needs the metaphor of the body.

Lime and appetite,

The oceanic fluids,

It needs the body's world,

Instinct and imagination and the dark hug of time.

Sweetness and tangibility,

To be understood to be more than pure light that burns where no one is.

So it enters us in the morning,

Shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning and at night lights up the deep wondrous drownings of the body like a star.

And this poem is called Song of the Builders.

On a summer morning,

I sat down on a hillside to think about God.

A worthy pastime,

Near me I saw a single cricket.

It was moving the grains of the hillside.

This way and that way,

How great was its energy,

How humble its effort.

Let us hope it will always be like this,

Each of us going on in our inexplicable ways,

Building the universe.

Where does the dance begin?

Where does it end?

Don't call this world adorable or useful,

That it's not.

It's frisky and a theater for more than fair winds.

The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.

The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks straight to the white feet of the trees whose mouths open.

Doesn't the wind turning in circles invent the dance?

Haven't the flowers moved slowly across Asia and Europe until at last now they shine in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation or even an education.

On the Sufi poet world,

Was he looking outward to the mountains,

So solidly there,

In a white capped ring,

Or was he looking to the center of everything?

The seed,

The egg,

The idea that was also there,

Beautiful as the thumb,

Curved and touching the finger tenderly,

Little love ring,

As he whirled,

Oh drug of breath in the garden of dust.

And just as you're laying in bed,

Slowly drifting off into sleep,

Allowing the words of Mary Oliver to help you rest in this beautiful,

Creative womb.

Perhaps as you're deep,

Deep in sleep tonight,

Some kind of seed of creativity,

Of spirituality,

A seed of realization may start to sprout.

Allow doing nothing and letting go of everything help you understand and become who you are.

Breathe deeply.

Release any tension.

Realize that you're in command and you also get to decide when you want to let go.

Allow your boat of calmness to take you across the river of sleep.

And in the morning you'll journey back across to the land of the awake.

Right now,

This evening,

You're taking a trip deep into the land of sleep,

Into the land of rest,

Into the land of rejuvenation.

It's a place where you don't need to think or solve or explain.

It's a place where you don't need to compete,

To fight,

To win.

Go rest.

Rest the way a lion sleeps,

The way a bear naps.

Rest deeply,

Just like every animal in the kingdom.

Allow yourself to cross the river of sleep.

And I'll see you in the morning when you come back.

Sleep well.

Please.

You You

Reviews

Enjoyed these poems thanks 🙏

Thank you, David ❤️🇨🇦🙏

I love this, can you do Emily Dickinson next? 💛

So glad I found these!!!

A surprise of poetry I never heard before very soothing and comforting voice I listened to it in the morning

Love Mary Oliver and this was wonderful! Loved the soft music afterward . Great to fall asleep to . Bookmarked and will share .

That was beautiful. It certainly failed to bore me to sleep, instead, eased me to it. Thank you!🙏❤️

Love Mary Oliver and love the grounded sleep podcast for falling asleep. I’m always in dreamland within five minutes. Thanks!

Thank you

Well this did the trick! Fell asleep quickly! Your voice was so so soothing! Will listen again to hear all the poems! Thanks very much!! 🙏🏽💚✨💚

Your wonderful! Thank you very much for this sleep inducing meditation.

Excellent! One of my fav poets read with a beautiful voice and cadence… Lulled me to sleep.

The best! You always put me to sleep. I’m very grateful for your meditations. Love Mary Oliver.🙏🏾🙏🙏🏼🫶🌺🥀🌻🪷💯

🙏🙏Thank you 🙏

Mary Oliver was a true natural genius. Beautiful visions, beautiful words. "Wild Geese" has always been a favorite. Thank you for sharing this with us. I see you and the light within you. Be well. 🤲🏻❤🤲🏻

Lovely voice and poetry, thank you 🙏