Cori here.
Let's do a story together,
A sleepy,
Relaxing bedtime story.
Climb up into your bed and get comfortable.
Adjust your body so that you'll be able to fall asleep where you are.
You don't necessarily have to lay on your back.
You can lay on your side and snuggle into your bed pillow,
Whatever you want to do.
Let's get started.
Julia was staring out of her kitchen window.
She was washing the dishes.
She'd had four cups,
Two plates and some cutlery in the sink for a few days now.
It was time to wash the dishes.
It was just after dinner.
It was going a little bit dark outside,
But it wasn't too bad.
She was staring off into space,
Thinking about her life.
How the days are lately just kept blending into each other.
How the months,
Even when she thought about it,
The years.
It was like day after day,
She was doing the same things,
Feeling the same way.
And right then in that moment,
She was feeling pretty low.
She wasn't in a relationship at the moment.
Her job wasn't fulfilling.
She was definitely not excited about work.
She just felt in general that she needed something in her life.
She just wasn't sure what.
Her thoughts were going around and around in her head as she mindlessly washed the same cup over and over,
Staring out of the window,
Looking at the trees off in the distance.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually gone outside for a walk.
She'd lived in that house for about six years now,
And it must be at least three years since she walked in the woods,
The ones that she could see out of the window right now.
She put the very clean cup on the side of the sink,
Wiped off her hands,
And decided she was going to go for a walk.
It was really cold outside,
So she got wrapped up.
She put on her warm,
Fur-lined boots,
A big padded jacket,
A scarf and a hat.
She locked the door behind her and started to walk the path down the side of her house,
Which led towards the woods.
It was that time of evening where everyone was probably inside having dinner.
There was a quietness around.
She turned her head to the right and looked on the street behind the path and noticed all the different lights on in the houses.
There were a lot of cars on the street at this time of night,
So she assumed that everyone was probably home from work,
Inside the house,
Having their dinners,
Families,
Husbands and wives or lovers together,
Enjoying each other.
She felt a pine inside of her chest,
A pain,
Like when you get heartburn.
Her chest tightened and it physically hurt.
She thought about how long she'd felt like she was alone.
She turned her head forward again and carried on walking.
No point in dwelling in that kind of thinking,
She thought to herself.
She stared at the ground for a while on the path,
Looking where her feet were going to land step by step.
She wasn't really paying attention to being outside,
What was around her.
She noticed the quietness and then as she got closer to the woods,
She noticed that the air smelled different.
It started to smell cleaner,
Fresher.
She thought that this was a little bit crazy.
She'd only walked about five minutes and the air seemed to smell different,
As if she was walking away from the hustle and bustle of being on a street,
In a town,
Next to a city.
Just by walking for five minutes,
She felt like she was leaving all of that behind.
She felt the cool,
Fresh air on her cheeks.
And when she breathed in through her nose,
She could feel how cold it was.
She took a big,
Deep breath and breathed out through her mouth and watched her breath there in front of her face,
Like a cloud.
This made her think about when she was younger,
When she was a child,
And she used to do that all the time.
She liked the fact that she could see what she was breathing and when she was breathing.
She would move her head around in circles as if she was directing the white,
Foggy smoke coming out of her mouth,
Like a dragon or something.
Wow,
It had been a long time since she'd done that.
She did it.
She took a big,
Deep breath in through her nose and it stung a little bit,
It was so cold.
And then she moved her head around in a big circle as she breathed out,
As if she was roaring out flames,
Just like a dragon.
This made her smile and she carried on walking.
The ground now was different underneath her feet,
She was on the dirt.
She was coming towards the first group of trees.
And as she walked closer and closer to them,
Little twigs cracked underneath her big boots.
She liked the sensation,
It was like when you're a child and you jump on crispy leaves on the street and they crunch underneath your shoes.
And it feels really fulfilling for some reason.
The crunchy sound as she walked made her look up more and look around.
The trees were quite bare at this time of year,
Like skeletons,
Standing really tall around her.
The sky was getting darker,
But she didn't feel any kind of concern.
She just walked through the woods.
The smell of damp leaves on the ground,
The fresh air all around her,
Made her feel a little bit better already.
Without even trying,
It was like the trees and the earth and the forest were all just waiting for her there to make her feel better.
And yet she hadn't been anywhere near them for so long.
There weren't really any birds around,
No squirrels popping around on the ground,
Nothing that you would think would be cute or more interesting to focus on.
It was just her and the bare trees.
Up ahead she noticed that there was a big rock,
Like a stone,
Big enough that you could sit down on it,
Right there in the middle of all the trees.
She stopped when she got to the rock.
It looked wet and cold.
She thought about whether she wanted to sit on it or not.
Something as simple as sitting on a rock at her age made her feel as if she was being childish.
How often do you just sit on a rock?
She thought to herself.
She would do things like that all the time when she was younger.
She was thinking about when she was younger,
How she was happier a lot more back then.
And the smallest things like sitting on a rock would make her feel good.
It was fun.
Screw it,
She thought,
I'm going to sit on the rock.
She tried to climb up from one side and her boots kept slipping so she went around a different way.
Until she found a place where she could easily get on top of the rock.
She sat there.
She made sure that her coat was underneath her bum so it didn't get cold and wet.
She crossed her legs and criss-crossed applesauce.
Her hips creaked a little bit,
Which made her think that she should get back into yoga.
She'd even let go of that.
It had been years since she did yoga.
Years since she regularly did something for her body.
Her thoughts moved on quickly and she rested her elbows on her knees and let her arms relax.
She looked over to the left and took in everything that was there.
Then she looked straight forward.
And then finally over to the right.
Just to feel like she knew what was all around her.
And what was all around her were these thin,
Tall,
Bare trees.
Now she started to think of the trees as people,
As if they were standing there all around her and she was just sat with them.
In some kind of gathering.
And then again she noticed the quiet.
Now that she was further away from the streets and the houses.
Now that she was in the middle of the trees alone.
It was quiet.
And instinctively she just let her head fall back a little bit.
And she closed her eyes really slowly.
And just listened.
The most noticeable thing she heard was her breath.
Her breathing in and breathing out.
Something shifted and she went from hearing her breath externally to internally.
Like she was listening from the inside.
And when that happened she started to hear a chorus of breathing.
And the breaths that she heard were all breathing in union with her breath.
Like she tapped into some silent language in the middle of the woods.
The breath of the trees all around her.
The breath of the dirt on the ground.
The breath of the air,
The sky,
The moon that was starting to now show.
She could feel her heart beating inside of her chest.
And then she felt the rock underneath her sit bones.
Vibrating and beating at the same pace.
And then she felt the earth underneath the rock.
Vibrating and beating at the same pace.
Everything around her,
Underneath her and above her seemed to come in and out and in and out,
Expanding and contracting over and over again with her breath.
Everything around her was connected to her.
It felt really foreign and strange at first.
She noticed a small feeling of resistance in the pit of her stomach.
But then she breathed that feeling out and allowed herself to surrender and just let go.
Her whole body felt like it was pulsating in and out,
Expanding and then contracting,
Expanding and contracting.
Like a big,
Giant,
Vroom,
Vroom,
Vroom kind of sensation.
She had to check in with herself.
She knew she hadn't been drinking or smoking or anything like that,
But that's kind of what it made her think of at first.
Like she was riding on a sensation inside of herself that felt a little bit scary at first,
But then when she gave into it,
It felt familiar and blissful.
She had the biggest smile on her face and didn't even realize.
And when she opened her eyes and looked up at the sky,
It was like the moon had joined in with the party happening down below.
The rays of light coming down from the moon felt good on her face.
She actually could feel it,
As if it was tingling on her cheeks and penetrating through the flesh,
Into her body,
Into her blood,
Into her heart.
In fact,
That's what everything around her felt like it was doing.
Like there were no barrier to her body,
No barrier to the trees,
No barrier to the rock.
It was like everything melted together.
And as everything became one,
She became aware of all of the different energies of each of these things.
She could feel the presence of them,
But at the same time,
She felt like she was them.
Just new parts of who she was inside of her.
She definitely wasn't alone,
And the fact that she felt so lonely not too long ago felt a little bit absurd right now.
Ridiculous.
She was far from alone.
A light bulb came on in her head and she realized that actually she was always connected like this.
It was just something maybe that she did with her thinking that made her feel separate.
Maybe she didn't get quiet enough and everything else in her life was just a distraction from knowing the truth.
The truth was that she was definitely not alone.
Julia stayed there,
Connected,
For a really long time.
Until her humanness called and she needed to go to the bathroom,
Her body was feeling stiff and cold.
And it was late.
She mentally could feel herself unplugging from the trees and the rock,
The earth,
The sky,
The moon.
She unplugged slowly though,
Bit by bit,
Step by step,
Until she reached her front door.
And when she got inside it was like the veil dropped from that other world and everything seemed to just go back to normal.
When she got up the next morning she realized the importance of keeping her connection strong.
It wouldn't be too long before Julia was back in the woods.
The End.
