Hi,
Thanks for joining me,
Clara,
On this guided visualization for sleep,
Based on the garden of the impressionist painter Claude Monet.
In the latter part of his life,
Monet purchased a farm outside Paris,
Where he spent years creating a most magical masterpiece,
An exotic lotus land.
In the garden of Giverny,
He painted and meditated for almost 30 years.
Many of the canvases he made during this time depicted water lilies with large blossoms and pads suspended as if in space in the azure water mingled with the clouds.
Monet once said that he would like to paint the way a bird sings.
Nature inspired Monet,
And his garden is perhaps almost as famous as his exquisite art.
Before we begin,
Please find a place where you feel comfortable and can rest.
Close your eyes.
Relax all the muscles in your face.
Focus on your forehead and release all the tension.
Allow the tightness to melt away from your eyes.
Drop your shoulders as low as possible to ease any stress from your neck.
Relax your upper and lower arms.
Then move down to your fingers.
Relax your chest and fill your lungs with air.
Release.
Then move down to your hips and knees.
And then finish at your ankles and feet.
You embark on the train.
And as soon as the door to your railway carriage closes,
The train pulls out from the busy station.
Within a few minutes,
The train is beyond the city,
Passing through the leafy suburbs and eventually to the countryside.
Please sigh,
Lean back in the comfortable seat and watch as the scenery slowly flies through the trees.
The track meanders along the river,
Through fields where haymaking is going on,
And other areas where the tall grass is still uncut,
With swaths of poppies burning scarlet through them.
And the farther the train travels,
The farther time dials back.
Gradually you notice horses and carriages replacing cars.
Roads and powerlines disappear.
And even houses and buildings become fewer and farther between.
And when you look down at yourself,
Your phone has turned into a map.
And you're wearing a completely different clothing style.
More formal and stylish,
Yet looser and rather comfortable.
The train's interior has transformed from stainless steel to wood.
And the fabric of the seats,
From a patterned modern blue to a soft red velvet.
The palpable,
Modern-day tension in the atmosphere no longer exists.
The world,
As you knew it,
Has gently melted away.
Okay,
So this is a little strange,
But you feel calm and completely relaxed,
So you decide to go with the flow.
After a little while,
The train pulls into the station.
The station's sign reads,
Venant.
This is your destination,
So you disembark here,
Walk down the platform,
And follow the directions on the map to Monet's house.
As you make your way along the route,
It dawns on you that you may meet the artist himself,
Since you've travelled so far back in time.
The avenue to Giverny is quiet and shady,
Lined with flowering linden trees.
They smell sweet,
Like honeysuckle.
You pass by several stately shuttered homes,
And a tabby cat,
Sleeping in the sun.
A woman,
Sweeping her front doorstep,
Smiles at you as you walk by,
And says,
Bonjour.
On the outskirts of town,
The avenue heads downhill.
And then,
You find yourself on the peaceful lane,
Where Monet's house is.
You can't see over the high wall,
But eventually,
You find the garden gate,
With a little wooden sign that says Giverny,
Nailed onto the top of the frame.
Once you open the gate,
You enter a magical world,
The artist himself fashioned.
The shades of pink roses ramble,
Wildly uncontained from the grass,
Wreathing across an arch,
Covering a long,
Shady pathway.
The flowers,
And buds,
And blooms,
Swelling and bursting into cups of scent,
Delicately spilling into the garden air.
Their otherworldly perfume adds to the heightened sensation of being back in time,
Inside a place of so much beauty.
The roses are of epic proportion,
The loveliest of which grow almost twelve feet high,
With massive crimson blooms,
Covered with clouds of butterflies and buzzing bees.
At the end of the walkway,
You find yourself walking through large colour-themed flowerbeds,
Reminding you of assorted paint pots.
Purple with peonies,
Lavender and poppies,
The white paint box with hydrangeas,
Lilac and fox gloves,
An orange box with nasturtiums and verbena,
And yellow with sunflowers,
Golden rod and more poppies.
Monet's house is ahead,
But you head in the opposite direction,
Preferring to seek out the waterlily garden where Monet is bound to be painting.
The path here is quite marshy,
A little wild and lined by blue forget-me-nots,
Wild iris and beds of tall rushes.
You turn the handle on another wooden gate and enter a garden within a garden where weeping trees,
Bamboo and poplar trees shadow a silent pond.
You stroll across the green bridge,
Covered by vines of blooming light purple wisteria.
The colourful reflection cast into the water below is entwined within a tangle of white lilies resting on the pond's surface.
Your presence disturbs an iridescent kingfisher,
And your gaze follows it to where it perches on a painter's easel,
Set up on the side of the riverbank.
Walking across to where the unfinished canvas is,
You see the painting abstractly mirrors the painting with delicate pale waterlilies,
The green bridge and weeping willows,
The artist's palette and an array of brushes of all different sizes are all organised on a small table next to an unfinished cup of coffee.
A wide brimmed straw hat hangs from the corner of the wood easel,
And you notice the oil paint on the canvas is still wet.
Monet must have just stepped away.
You softly call out Claude,
Claude,
But there's no answer,
Just the sound of the birds.
Now you follow a narrow path between the tall reeds to a small wooden pier where a rowing boat is moored.
Here is a blue canvas deck chair and a couple of patterned pillows.
You sit in the chair,
Lean back on the cushions and look up through the leaves of the willow trees,
Whose branches sway gently in the breeze.
Light through the leaves plays around you.
The birds.
The kingfisher.
Shreds of the sky through the branches.
It's almost like you've disappeared inside a Monet painting.
What an intoxicating place to relax and have a daydream.
You breathe in and breathe out.
The air here,
Back in time,
In Monet's garden is sweet.
All the tension melts away.
Breathe in again.
And breathe out.
There's this feeling of relaxation throughout your whole body.
Within you there's a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.
It's caregivers.
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