A Visit From The Seventeen: A Morning Ritual To Reset

This 17-minute morning ritual blends spoken-word poetry, birdsong, and intentional stillness to guide you into your day with clarity, calm, and creativity.

Inspired by the rhythms of fasting, meditation, and daily creation, A Visit from The Seventeen invites you to: Let go of what you don’t need. Listen to what your body and mind are saying. Sit in silence (with birds as your guides). And emerge renewed, ready to create from a place of peace.

It’s not medical advice—just one guy in the woods skipping dinner, listening to his body, and discovering how less can lead to so much more.

What if just one small shift could change everything?

Start with the words. Stay for the birds.

This is your Seventeen.

Transcript

Twas the dawn of the day and the forest was still.

Not a creature was stirring,

Not even free will.

The birds were just warming their notes in the trees,

While I woke with a stretch and a soft bellied ease.

No dinner last night,

No regret in my bones,

Just seventeen hours of skipping the scones.

No hunger,

No headache,

No midnight attack,

Just me and my breath as the daylight came back.

The sleep,

It was deeper than usual too,

Like diving through velvet or bathing in dew.

No tossing,

No turning,

No sugar-fed flight,

Just silence,

Just starlight,

Just rest through the night.

I rose with a spark and a spring in my feet,

No dragging,

No groaning,

No need for retreat.

My body felt lighter,

My mind was so clear.

I whispered,

Let's go,

And the birds said,

We're here.

Now,

Fasting,

They say,

Is some health-nut cliché,

But I found it the simplest of paths to the day.

From four until nine,

I give food a break,

And my system returns to the form I forsake.

Now,

Wait just a second,

I must interject.

I'm not giving orders and don't self-correct.

No doctorate hangs from the wall where I live,

Just stories and stillness,

And one shift to give.

The rhythm,

My friends,

Is quite clean and serene,

Seventeen hours of fasting unseen,

Then seventeen minutes of breath in the chair with thoughts floating gently like mist in the air.

Then seventeen minutes,

I promise no fluff,

Of making a thing,

Even something quite rough,

A poem,

A plan,

A page,

Or a line,

Creation that comes when your center aligns.

It's not just a fast,

It's not just a pause,

It's a pattern of living with purpose and pause,

A rhythm,

A ritual,

A roadmap,

A key,

A gift you unwrap,

You just let it be.

So this track you now hear,

Seventeen end to end,

First me,

Then the birds,

Your unspoken friend.

They'll guide you through stillness and soften your gaze,

And maybe,

Just maybe,

They'll shift all your days.

So stay through the silence,

Don't scroll,

Don't escape,

Let this moment reshape you,

Reshape and reshape.

Then rise up and make,

Write,

Sing,

Sketch,

Or spin from the breath and the stillness now pulsing within.

For you don't have to,

No shame,

No demand,

But if you want more,

Take the brush in your hand.

You've got tools,

You've got time,

You've got skies to be seen,

And the courage to walk with the visit of seventeen.