Hello my friend,
Welcome to your sleep story.
My name is Stephen Dalton,
And it's my great privilege to be the voice that you listen to as you go to sleep tonight.
In tonight's story,
I continue my series,
Wanderings of an Irishman.
This time,
We'll be on my home island of Ireland,
In the north of the island,
As I tell you about a mountain that's very dear to my heart.
Now,
Let's begin with a relaxation session before we move on to the story.
Allow yourself to feel whatever way you need to feel in the bed.
Move,
Adjust.
Feel free to find your comfortable position.
And if your eyes aren't closed already,
Allow them to gently close now.
Just begin to notice your breath.
Don't do anything special with it.
Just notice it.
Doing things like noticing the breath brings us into the present,
And allows us to let go of thoughts that don't serve us.
So let go now of the day that was.
Let go of what might happen tomorrow.
You are safe.
You are protected.
And you have this opportunity to enter into a place of peace and calming tranquility by just indulging in the sound of my voice as I paint a picture for you.
So allow me to start to paint that picture.
Here,
I'd like you to visualize a little stream.
A beautiful stream.
In a forest,
Perhaps.
The water is clear.
It's pure.
So clear and pure.
You can drink from it if you wish.
What do you hear in this place?
What do you see?
Does the water run over smoothed out rocks?
Is there a canopy of green above you?
Breathe in this place.
This place offers you all that you need right now.
You don't have to do anything.
This is your time.
You deserve this time.
Now,
If you are still experiencing thoughts coming and going,
That's okay.
We don't fight thoughts.
We accept them as part of being a human being.
We don't judge them.
For we are not our thoughts.
Our thoughts are simply symptoms.
Symptoms of being human.
But I'd like you to gently allow these thoughts to pass.
Imagine them as leaves floating along the stream.
And as each thought arises,
See it float past you on the clear,
Pure water.
Simply watch it disappear from view and come back to this time you are spending in nature.
Continue to notice your surroundings,
The support of the earth beneath you,
Like a constant friend reassuring you.
You are safe.
You deserve this.
Any residual tension in your body,
Allow it to release.
Allow it to be softened by the nature around you.
Allow me to take you to another chapter of my life.
To a place that I hold dear.
To a mountain called Sleave Donnard.
Sleave Donnard is a beautiful mountain.
It is in a mountain range called the Morn Mountains.
And it sits towering above a little town called Newcastle.
I suppose the most beautiful thing about Sleave Donnard is that it sweeps down to the sea,
As a man called Percy French once wrote.
And it really does.
It's almost like the mountain starts at the sea.
And rises high above the town.
I was fortunate enough as a boy,
And subsequently as a young man,
To have a holiday home in Newcastle.
Right on the beach.
And for the first few years of visiting that place,
I used to swim in the sea every summer,
And play on the beach.
And I would look to that mountain.
That mystical,
Massive mountain.
And my mind would dance with imagination.
I would imagine the day it was formed.
What the earth looked like then.
I would imagine people of history climbing that mountain.
Viking warriors.
Ancient Celts.
And all manner of people.
And what I used to love about those thoughts,
Was that even though those people lived hundreds,
If not thousands of years ago,
The mountain they saw wouldn't have looked much different to the mountain I looked upon.
That's the thing with nature,
You see.
It kind of binds all of humanity's history together.
We've all seen a tree.
Whether you're an ancient Roman,
An ancient Greek,
Or a modern day person.
So I would look at this mountain,
And I would think about climbing it.
Was it even possible?
Of course it was.
And one day,
When I was in my middle teenage years,
I climbed it with my father.
That was a memorable day.
It was my first time to climb the mountain.
But not the last.
Once my father had opened the gateway of the mountain,
So to speak,
For me,
I wanted to climb it alone.
And so,
The following summer,
I woke up early one morning.
I prepared a little lunch,
Or maybe my mother did.
I had all my supplies,
And I left our little house,
Walked onto the beach.
The Irish sea,
Calm and tranquil.
The walk would be long along the beach.
So I took off my hiking boots,
And let my feet experience the sand.
As I walk along the beach,
I look up to the mountain.
I will stand on top of you today,
I say to myself.
I enjoy every step that I take.
I didn't know it then,
But I suppose I was trying to be mindful of the situation.
Savoring the smells of the sea air.
Feeling the soft summer breeze on my face.
Enjoying the sound of the lapping waves.
Gently caressing the shore.
Eventually,
After two,
Maybe three miles,
I would reach the little town,
And find the gateway to the park that led to the bottom of the mountain.
At the start of the hike,
At the bottom of the mountain,
There was a beautiful forest.
There is a beautiful forest,
With a river running through it.
I love this place.
It starts off easy,
The walk follows the movement of the river,
And as I climb higher and higher through the forest,
The river looks more and more inviting.
As I start to heat up,
I pass a perfect rock pool.
It's clear water,
So inviting that I can't help but take a swim.
I didn't know it,
But that rock pool would become a lifelong friend.
Every time I climb the mountain now,
I find this rock pool,
And every time I stop and jump in to its refreshing waters,
There is something so exhilarating and so healing about being immersed in mountain water.
You breathe deeper,
Your senses are alive.
I continue my climb.
Eventually leaving the forest behind,
And finally arriving in a beautiful valley.
A valley that looks quite small from below,
But when you stand in it,
With sleeve donnered towering up to the left,
It is nothing but majestic.
The grass is soft beneath me,
I smell,
Well,
All manner of smells,
Pine trees,
Sea air.
I walk and walk,
Each step a little bit of a great victory.
I try to resist from looking behind.
I know I am above the forest now,
And the view behind me is exceptional,
But I want to wait.
I'm good at that.
Delaying gratification,
Surrendering possible present pleasure for the opportunity of future higher pleasures.
I keep going.
I am now deep in the valley.
I am alone here,
But I feel so safe.
I love this land.
I see a rock in the distance.
I tell myself that when I reach that rock,
I will sit,
I will drink water,
And I will look at the view for the first time.
Eventually,
I reach the rock.
I take some water from the river running by,
The same river that runs down into the forest.
I sit on the reassuring,
Sturdy rock and look out towards the sea.
As I sit here and speak to you right now,
I have my eyes closed,
And I can see that view.
And honestly,
I have a tear in my eye,
Or maybe a fear.
That view is etched on my mind forever.
It looks up the northern coast,
And on a clear day,
You can even see over to Scotland.
But I must continue my climb.
Here,
It gets harder,
Because I must now start to go along the side of the mountain.
I reach what they call the Mourn Wall.
A wall that runs the length of the Mourn Mountains.
The wall that will lead me up the side of Sleave Donnard.
I am hungry now,
But I will wait.
I climb and climb.
I greet the odd-passing fellow climber.
And it is in those moments of shared understanding of the beauty of nature when you look into the eyes of another human,
That all differences subside,
And you recognize humanity,
Kindness in another.
I keep thinking I will reach the top,
But it feels like the mountain keeps going.
Then I see it.
The little pile of stones that sits atop Sleave Donnard.
And I know I've made it.
There is no one else here today.
At this moment,
I am the only one on the top of the mountain.
The sky is blue.
The breeze gentle.
And I sit on a little rock,
Looking down upon the vast blue sea beneath me.
And I feel so peaceful here.
All of my troubles,
All of my worries,
Are far away right now.
I eat my lunch,
Sandwiches,
And now that I think of it,
They definitely were prepared by my mother.
There is nothing quite like food made by a mother.
Or a father.
After nourishing myself,
I decide to journal.
I always feel that in nature,
I have perspective.
I write about what is happening in my life.
Where I want to be.
What I want to achieve.
I decide upon something.
I write ten promises to myself.
I then take that page with the ten promises out of my journal.
I fold it neatly.
I place it in a piece of plastic.
Something from my lunch.
I then decide to place that piece of paper wrapped in that piece of plastic into the wall at the top of the mountain.
I draw a little map of how the stones look around it in my journal.
And I vow to myself to come back one year from then to see if I keep any of those promises.
To find the piece of paper.
It is,
In a way,
A method of keeping myself accountable.
You may wonder,
Did I ever find it?
I did.
Had I kept the promises?
Honestly?
Not at the time I found it again.
But now,
I can say that I have.
Quite a few years later,
It's time to go down the mountain.
I feel elated that I have conquered this mountain alone.
I look forward to getting back.
I descend slowly,
Taking my time,
Watching each step.
I am looking forward to comfort,
To warmth.
I walk back through the forest and it greets me like an old friend.
Soon I find myself back on the beach.
And as the sun begins to say goodbye to the day,
I see my family.
They are on the beach,
Enjoying the evening air,
Sitting by a little campfire.
And I sit and join them,
Looking up at the mountain that I just climbed,
With a deep feeling of satisfaction within my heart and soul.
