Cauldron Of Cerridwen

In this bedtime story, you enter into the service of Cerridwen, a powerful goddess who possesses gifts of magic and poetry. You assist her in brewing a special potion intended for her son: a draught containing all the spark of poetic inspiration, that will make the drinker the greatest poet alive.

Inspired by Celtic mythology

Music/Sound: A Glimpse of Avalon by Flouw, Pandora’s Box by Arthur Benson from Epidemic Sound

Transcript

Stir the cauldron of Chyridwen and unlock the gift of poetic inspiration in tonight's bedtime story inspired by Celtic mythology.

Sleep in Sorcery is a folklore and fantasy inspired sleep series.

My name is Laurel and I'll be your guide on tonight's fantastical journey.

Sleep in Sorcery is one part bedtime story,

One part guided meditation,

And one part dreamy adventure.

If you're still awake,

As the story concludes,

I'll guide you through a meditation for sleep and inspiration.

In tonight's bedtime story,

You enter into the service of a powerful goddess who possesses gifts of magic and poetry.

You assist her in brewing a special potion intended for her son,

A draft containing all the spark of poetic inspiration that will make the drinker the greatest poet alive.

But only the first three drops will grant the magical gifts.

Through an accident of circumstance,

You,

And not the goddess's son,

Become the drinker of the potion.

You feel your mind open to new gifts,

Knowledge,

And inspiration.

And I am he,

And well I know,

Caridwen's power protects me still,

And hence,

O'er hill and vale I go,

And sing unharmed whatever I will.

She has for me time's veil withdrawn,

The images of things long gone,

The shadows of the coming days,

Are present to my visioned gaze.

The Cauldron of Caridwen,

Thomas Love Peacock.

Mind shakes the leaves and catkins of the alder woods,

A rustle faint and flowering.

You feel the breeze disturb the grasses and send a tingling down the back of your neck and shoulders.

It seems to you that the breeze almost sings,

Soft and sweet with the touch of evening,

The voice at once familiar and foreign.

You catch yourself humming,

Trying in vain to harmonize with the near inaudible tones of the wind.

Would that you were a harp and the breeze might play your strings with its tender hands.

Would that you could make such beautiful otherworldly music.

A word forms soundlessly on your tongue,

But lingers there and dissolves.

You can hear it almost echo in your head,

But you cannot bring it forth,

Not yet.

A sigh escapes your parted lips and you return your eyes,

Which have drifted toward the tops of the alder trees,

To your task.

Your hands have never stopped their toil,

Of course.

The goddess forbade you to let your arms fall or to slow your speed or forget your task.

Now your gaze falls again on the simmering surface of the liquid.

Funny you think,

How it changes color and consistency as you stir,

How you do not seem to recognize the change as it happens,

But if you turn away for even a moment and return to the sight,

It seems to you a wholly new thing.

Once ago you could swear its color was a deep and opaque purple,

Its consistency thick and resistant.

Now it bubbles crimson with an edge of shining gold and it moves like weightless water against your paddle.

You've found a constant rhythm of stirring,

Your paddle hardly touching the rim of the cauldron,

Moving smoothly withershins through the bubbling potion.

How many nights have you toiled?

How many more lie before you in your task?

The ache in your shoulders from the first few hours of labor has dulled to quiet relief as though your body has surrendered to the repetition of the task.

Round and round you stir.

The goddess,

The lady,

Honored you with the assignment.

She picked the herbs and berries from the hazel grove.

You were not by her side for the harvesting.

She went alone,

As she often does to yonder woods.

She passed,

You think,

Beyond the veil of the world even,

Into that unknown country where there are herbs and flowers and simples unfamiliar to those who walk upon the green earth.

When she returned you watched her from the window of your quarters as she prepared the ingredients and set the mixture to boiling over a blazing fire on the shore of the lake.

You are only a low attendant to the lady of the castle,

But she dotes on you,

Giving you a chamber of your own with a view to the lake.

There are some in the village who whisper about her ways,

Her affinity for magic and the healing arts.

They call her sorceress,

Enchantress,

Witch.

But to you she will always be the goddess.

In the spring she blesses the groves and fields of grain.

At the harvest,

Bearing her willow staff,

She oversees the cutting of the corn and barley.

She sings and plays the harp as beautifully as any bard,

Rules the land fairly and justly,

And does kindness to the unfortunate.

She took you into her service and treated you with compassion and curiosity.

To you she is like a mother,

A teacher,

And a friend.

The lady,

Corridwen,

Has her own children,

A daughter,

Bright-eyed and well-loved,

And a son,

Lacking in beauty,

Charm,

Or wit.

It's out of tenderness for him that she set about making the potion you now stir.

If brewed carefully and administered properly,

The potion holds the power of poetic inspiration and the potential to make the drinker wise,

Beyond measure,

And possessed of divine poetry.

A coveted gift indeed,

And one that would bless Corridwen's son to a charmed life and immortality through song and poetry.

With such gifts,

He might be happier,

More loved,

More accepted by his peers.

Corridwen loves her children and laments to see them suffer.

Thus,

She undertakes this most difficult and precise of potions with your valued assistance.

The heat from the fire tickles your toes.

The potion,

Somehow right before your eyes,

Has gone all gold and sparkling.

Spirals of steam curl upward from the surface,

Carrying whiffs of herbal scent to your senses.

There's a fragrance you recognize,

The mysterious perfume of wild poppy,

You suppose.

But all else is unfamiliar,

Either blended into the unknown or produced by plants salvaged from that other world,

The one your queen tiptoes into from time to time.

And now you realize,

For the first time,

That you can see your own reflection in the surface of the liquid.

You wonder how long you've stared down at yourself,

Unaware,

Not seeing or recognizing your own face.

For a brief moment,

The reflection shines,

Gleams,

Radiant as the sun.

Now like the moon,

When it's full and golden at the harvest,

Your brow shines bright as though a coronal were placed there.

This task has a way of playing tricks on you,

And surely the hypnotic perfumes of the potion do you no favors.

But you keep your pace,

Slow and deliberate,

Eyes fixed on their pale mirror below.

Funny how the ripples and bubbles in the liquid distort your visage slightly,

Stretching and resetting,

And yet it remains your face,

Unmistakable and true.

You think of how your face has changed as you've grown,

So different from the face of your childhood and yet recognizably yours.

How your body has stretched and settled and carries your soul still.

An assemblage of words float distantly in your subconscious,

Rippling like water or wind.

I have been a multitude of shapes before I assumed a consistent form.

You hear the words dull and echoing from somewhere else,

And you feel them aching to be said aloud.

They do not come to your lips,

But you can almost taste them.

You feel the dimming of night creep across the land,

Curling around your shoulders.

The next time you steal a glance at the sky,

Away from your toiling,

The moon is bright and waxing nearly full.

You mark the phase in your mind and search your memories for how many moons like this have hung in the sky.

How many months have you stirred the cauldron now?

How many more until your task is complete?

You think that by its end you will know the movement of the earth and stars,

The phases of the moon and sun,

As well as your own countenance.

You'll feel the sun and moon tides within your veins.

A year and a day,

That's what the lady commanded.

It's been.

You stretch your mind to count the moons and months.

By your estimation,

Only a fortnight remains.

Your shoulders loosen at the very thought,

But the task seems all the more challenging for the promise of looming release.

The potion appears dark and shimmering green in the darkness,

And its surface catches the pure white reflection of the moon,

Rippling and flickering so.

And at midnight,

Moon big and bright and straight overhead,

The goddess comes as she does every midnight.

She brings you fresh-baked bread,

Ripe fruit,

And clear water to break your fast.

She drapes a warm cloak over your shoulders against the night's chill.

She looks upon the cauldron with quiet composure,

And she sets you back at your work.

It seems the moon shines brighter when she's at hand,

As if just as the tides are drawn to the movements of the moon,

So is the moon tied to her.

It sinks close to be nearer her presence,

And as she departs,

It slowly shrinks back to its corner of the sky,

Having drunk its fill of her beauty.

You like the night,

The hum of crickets,

The call of owls,

And the rustle of night breezes.

The crisp evening air is a balm to your sore muscles and perspiring brow.

Before you undertook your labor,

The Lady Corridwen worked her enchantments so that you would need little nourishment and not a wink of sleep to disturb your year-long effort.

Still,

Sleepless,

Each night you dream.

Shapes and images take form out of formlessness on the surface of the potion.

From whence they come,

You cannot say,

Whether from your own mind searching for pattern in the darkness,

Or from that other world where dreams are made.

They are strange sometimes,

And often delightful.

You recall one dream,

Or vision,

That came to you in the cauldron many months ago.

It was,

You think,

At the Flower Moon,

Not long after Beltane.

It seemed that petals of broom,

Meadow sweet,

And oak flowers fell delicately into the cauldron,

Though none of those plants grew nearby.

And as you watched,

They fell into the pattern of a woman's form,

A flower maiden,

Who then sprung to life as flesh and blood.

Another night,

It seemed to you that a fleet of boats sailed across the surface of the potion,

Miniature but so real to the eye you could have reached out to touch them.

In the bow of the boat at the head of the fleet was a king,

Crowned and robed in finery.

You stirred the cauldron still,

And your movements created the gentle waves upon which they rowed.

Then before your eyes the tiny ships passed through a shimmering veil and vanished.

And then upon the water a mist seemed to hang,

Shining and golden beneath your moon.

Three boatfuls of men stood in the mists,

And another world took shape in the shifting winds.

The men were fierce of face,

Warrior stock,

And you watched them lay siege to an unknown kingdom.

The people of that country in the mist went not quietly,

But fought bravely and without restraint.

But the invading forces claimed a hard-won victory.

And then you watched as the surviving force,

The king and a mere seven men,

Returned on their boats,

Now laden with the spoils of war.

Curls that shone with inner light,

A brindled ox richly adorned,

And most prized of all,

Riding in the boat with the king,

The cauldron of the chief of the other world,

A cauldron that brought forth wine and food aplenty,

Never running out.

Can you recall the dream now?

Once again some distant verse is there on the wind,

Or in the recesses of your mind,

Words that find no voice.

I have been a sword,

Narrow,

Variegated.

I have been a tear in the air.

I have been in the dullest of stars.

You stir on round the rim of the cauldron.

The potion,

Though low-lit,

Is a pale silver-green now.

Your paddle sends gentle ripples through the liquid.

For a moment your eyes slide out of focus,

Your vision blurring.

When you blink them back to concentration,

You find your head is drooping toward the liquid,

Your nose mere inches from the surface.

You pull back,

Careful to maintain your effort.

But there are again shapes and movement in the cauldron.

It's time to dream again.

You wonder what visions the cauldron will conjure for you tonight,

So close to the frost moon.

No,

You think,

There are shapes,

Indeed,

On the surface of the cauldron.

But they are only the dim reflection of the alder and willow woods cast in moonlight.

Perhaps no dream awaits you tonight.

You stir,

And then you see the trees,

Reflected as shades on the liquid,

Sprout and grow upward from within the cauldron.

The alder,

The willow,

The rowan,

Cherry trees and birch,

Pine trees,

Elm and hazel too,

Holly and hawthorn,

Chestnut,

Oak.

Before you,

A full forest grows in minuscule form with exquisite detail.

The round and round of your paddle a stir sends ripples of wind through the tiny leaves,

An undulating dance of breeze and bend and sway.

Leaves whisper,

Trunks groan,

Roots sigh.

But it is more than the small disturbance of your labor,

Your endless stirring.

The whisper,

The groan,

The sigh all build to a chorus.

You can almost hear the voices of the trees,

Each varied and distinct.

The alder's voice you recognize,

For the woods near the lake sing with that timbre.

You feel it resonate in your body as though you were a harp string.

Now the trees all swept into song and speech are pulling up their roots from the depths of the cauldron.

With slow movement,

Like the gate of herons on the marsh,

Their branches twist and bodies sway.

They move with deliberation into formal rows and groupings,

Readying,

You realize,

For battle.

Transfixed on the slow and steady spectacle,

You watch the very trees assemble armies.

The wood,

So like the alder forest and hazel grove in your own country,

Is at war.

Perhaps enchanted to enact some conflict between gods and sorcerers.

Or,

And this thought gives you some amusement,

What you see is a reflection of reality.

As if the trees and woods of your world are always moving toward war,

But they move so slowly that their efforts are imperceptible to the mortal eye.

Their conflict playing out over the ages,

Unseen by man.

As slowly and deliberately as their warring began,

The trees plant their roots again and ease into stasis.

Soon the only movement left in the forest of the cauldron is the windswept shaking of leaves.

The alder,

Sacred king of the forest is the last tree to resume stillness.

And sometime later,

The liquid is clear and rippling again,

The forest cleared and dissolved into mist,

Though your eyes hold the image of the battling trees for a long time still.

Again you question the source of the dreams on the water.

Are they gifts of the goddess to pass your time without tedium?

Shadows of history or prophecy?

Things that have been or things that have not yet come to pass?

Or are they visions born of the cauldron itself,

Born of the potion of poetic inspiration?

Are they poetry made solid?

Somewhere in the chamber of mind and memory,

You hear in your own far away voice,

I have been a word among letters.

I have been a book in the origin.

You turn the paddle round the cauldron's edge and soon it's dawn again,

The sun breaking with golden crest over the forest,

Which sparkles with fresh dew.

In the chill of early morning,

You're warm beside the cauldron and the flame.

The dawn chorus,

Led by the blackbirds and thrushes,

Swells amid the trees.

And so the cycle begins again.

As you stir,

It seems you keep the wheel of time turning.

The arc of the sun powered by your mechanical movements and the travel of the wind spun in your hands.

You turn the earth and wake the moon.

You set the moon and call forth the sun.

Should you stop your labor,

Let the potion simmer unstirred,

You'd be surprised if the world didn't halt in its tracks,

Frozen in stillness and unmoved by time.

I have been the light of lanterns a year and a day.

The moon changes to full,

Then wanes night by night to the faintest of glimmers.

If your attention to the moon phase is right,

Though after all this time at work you do not know if you can rely on your memory.

At the dawn after the new moon,

You will have completed your task,

One year and one day.

The potion and its power of poetic inspiration will be activated.

You expect the goddess will fly to your side at its moment of readiness.

You look forward to putting down the paddle at last,

And you wonder if you will be handsomely rewarded for your effort,

A castle perhaps,

Or a great feast in your honor,

Gold,

And titles.

Though as tempting as the thought of riches and recognition may be,

A part of you buried somewhere under devotion and loyalty would be most satisfied by no more than a drop of the potion itself.

You long to enjoy the fruit of your labor and to feel in your own body and mind the effects of Caridwen's magic,

To taste the spark of poetic inspiration.

But you must shrug off this dreaming.

Of all the rewards that might await you,

This is the only one the goddess cannot and will not grant.

For the art of her magic is precise,

With no room for error,

And only the first three drops of the potion of poetic inspiration will grant its gifts to the drinker.

The potion is intended,

As you know,

For the lady's son,

And no drop will go to waste on you.

Still,

You think,

What a poet you'd be,

Were you given the skill and savvy.

If you could find the words and string together the songs you'd bring to life the visions that float on the surface of the cauldron,

You'd call up the very roots of the trees and wake the rocks of the mountains to sway to your songs,

Like that ancient bard,

Orpheus.

And indeed,

A gifted bard is always met with praise and honor at Caridwen's court.

Would that she would honor you so,

And listen to your voice and harp at the great feasting days.

What a poet you would be.

I have been a continuing bridge over three score rivers.

On the eve of the new moon,

As the sun sinks out of sight over the lake,

Clouds gather to shower the country with gentle rain.

While the water coats the grasses and the treetops,

Caridwen's magic protects you,

Forming a kind of canopy over your head,

Shielding you from the rain.

With no moon to light the night and black clouds blurring the sky,

There are no stars even.

The rain passes quickly but the darkness remains,

Falling over the lake and forest like a light blanket.

The only light is the fire beneath the cauldron.

Your eyes,

Accustomed to night,

Search for the movement of wind on the water of the lake or the rustle of the trees.

The darkness is comforting somehow,

As though in its near total blackness it opens you to new sight.

Just as when you close your eyes you still find light and image in the void.

You drink in the darkness like a healing elixir.

It smells sweet and smooth,

Fresh with the specter of rain.

At midnight you can feel the moon swaying the tides of your body,

Though it cannot be seen overhead.

Caridwen comes one final time to check your progress and bring you nourishment.

Her features are lit only from beneath by the flames,

But you can tell she's pleased.

Only hours remain till the potion is ready.

She'll be back in the morning to relieve you from your duty,

At which time you'll be escorted to your chambers for rest and recovery.

You've done good work,

For which the lady is eternally grateful and your efforts will be generously repaid.

After she goes,

You wait for the dreaming to start,

For the mists to rise on the potion or the figures to skate across its surface.

But no vision comes.

The potion grows thick and resistant to the paddle,

But you keep up your pace and strengthen your resolve.

You're nearly there.

The clouds clear soon after,

And a dazzling array of stars smear the sky.

By their light you suspect the potion has taken on a hue of deep copper.

Light bubbles seeming to sing or vibrate on a familiar frequency.

I have been a drop in a shower.

I have been a sword in the grasp of the hand.

I have been a shield in battle.

Among the stars is the form of the hunter,

With bright belt and bow strung.

By his progress across the sky you track the hours of night in the absence of the moon.

Soon he too sinks out of sight,

And dawn's blush blooms over the alder trees with the choir of birdsong.

You expect the goddess will return at any moment.

The potion is thin again,

A rosy gold color,

And it bubbles vigorously within the cauldron.

At last you allow yourself to feel the ache in your arms and shoulders,

For you are very nearly at your long effort's end.

But in letting the soreness break through your steely composure,

Like the reheating of a blade once tempered,

You feel your whole self loosen and relax.

Your hand slips against the shaft of the paddle and your stirring slows.

At once,

Just as the sun breaks full over the forest,

A great bubble on the surface of the potion bursts and lets fly a small splatter of liquid.

You let go the paddle against the brim of the cauldron and pull your arms away from the sputtering potion,

And just then three drops of rosy liquid,

Hot as bright coals,

Land delicately upon your hand.

Feeling the sharp heat of the potion on your skin,

You instinctively raise your hand to your mouth to soothe the tiny burns.

And in an instant,

You know what you've done.

For the three drops of potion land now effortlessly on your tongue.

The potion tastes of sweet orange and honey-scented elderflower,

Light and elegant as moonbeams.

Some part of you nearly succumbs to laughter,

For the irony is as delicious as the potion that you should have toiled here for so long,

Limbs stiff at the cauldron for the promise of the goddess's reward.

And now,

You are the recipient of the unintended gifts of her magic.

Only the first three drops grant the power of poetic inspiration.

The taste lingers on your tongue as you feel your lips curl into the start of a syllable,

A great ah that starts a word you do not know,

Did not know until now.

A word that hums like a string in a harp as great as the wide world strung from Salisbury Plain to the sunken city of Atlantis into the stars and beyond the known world.

The word,

Awen.

It's like a shiver on the water or a groan of ancient trees.

As hot like fire and bright as the sun on your brow.

It seems your limbs are lengthening,

Stretching into the branches of a great alder tree,

Then weeping like the tendrils of the willow.

As you take in a sweet breath,

Your body yawns into expansive greatness.

And as your breath flows outward,

You contract to the size of a tiny seed or grain of corn.

You feel your boundaries,

The edges of your physical presence soften and become indistinct as you reach outward to incorporate the swaying forest and the glittering lake.

You thrum like a harp string.

You are a harp string plucked and played by the morning breeze.

And now you are the whole harp,

The slope of the willow wood carved by loving hands.

You feel the music and poetry deep in your belly vibrating on a clear and ringing note.

Now it seems you are the willow itself,

Your feet dug as roots into rich soil and your trunk solid as stone.

You are the seed of the willow and the fallen leaves and the willow harp.

You are past,

Present,

And future.

You move with graceful languidness,

Unbothered by the spinning of time's wheel.

You move faster than the lightning in a spring storm.

You run with the deer of the forest and you roll as a boulder over the sides of mountains.

You are the drop of water in a shower of rain and you are the shield and sword of the king.

You are the boats over the waves and you are the mists of the unknown country.

Before you,

The cauldron overflows with the finest foods you've ever seen.

And it sparkles as a basin of clear water,

A mirror in which your reflection,

Familiar and yet unrecognizable,

Shines back at you.

Your brow,

Crowned with light and radiant like the sun or the moon.

The new word comes to you again.

Awen,

Powerful and musical in a voice that's your own and is also the voice of the singing winds and trees and water.

You understand now that this word and the sensation of expansiveness is the spark,

Is the flow,

The inspiration,

The poetry.

Now comes another word,

A name,

Your new name,

A name that means you understand,

Radiant brow.

You are a poet now,

A bard,

A keeper of awen and it's through awen,

Poetic inspiration,

That your eyes now see beyond the veil of time to what has been,

What shall be,

And what might be.

Your mind unfolding and opening to new feeling and understanding burns bright with shining inspiration.

All at once the visions of the cauldron move with elegant clarity through you and they climb your harp strings to become words and songs.

You can reach through the visions to pull forth the epic songs and sagas of great kings and warriors of a distant past.

And you can reach forward to pull into song the shadows of things to come.

Past,

Present,

And future dissolve into a constant march of poetry folded into your mind as awen.

I have been an eagle.

I have been a coracle in the seas.

I played in the twilight.

I slept in purple.

I slept in a hundred islands.

I dwelt in a hundred castles.

A golden gem in a golden jewel.

I am splendid as the stars.

You spare a moment's apprehension for the fury of Caridwen in whose name you've toiled for these many moons.

You've tasted the spoils she had long promised to her son.

But you do not fear her wrath.

For as you call up her image in your mind,

You see her face radiant with love in the presence of your gifts,

Shining with tears and devotion as if you were indeed her child.

It was your fate to stir the cauldron,

To receive the visions,

To drink the potion.

Caridwen is the mother of your poetry,

And she remains the goddess,

The muse in whose name you will sing always.

Carrying forth your new gift and your new name,

You rise from beside the cauldron.

To leave this place,

To seek the promised willow tree,

Whether in this world or that other world beyond the veil,

Wherein your harp lies raw and ungarved.

It already exists.

You've seen it,

Just as you've seen the seed from which the willow grew.

But someone will have to reach in and give it form,

String it with horsehair and silk,

And tune it to the music of Awen.

Soften and relax.

Find stillness,

But in that stillness,

Recognize the rise and fall of your breath,

The slowing down and the softening of your body,

The tiny movements of your muscles as they settle into relaxation.

Notice how the earth vibrates beneath you,

Solid and still,

Yet always in subtle motion,

Breathing with you,

Humming in silence like the oscillation of a harp string.

Feel yourself like a single notch in a single string in that harp,

Which is larger than the world.

Feel its movement and its music flowing through you like breath.

Relax.

Feel yourself melt,

Your edges melt away.

Feel where your body is in contact with bed,

Surface,

Blanket,

Air,

And let the distinctions become fuzzy.

Let the edges blur.

Feel how you are part of everything around you,

How you do not end or begin,

But simply move through space and time like a wave on the ocean or a hum through harp strings,

Part of the larger melody and movement.

Soften.

Breathe.

Feel yourself like a great tree with roots that burrow deep in the earth and branches that stretch high in the sky.

Feel grounded in the earth and ever drawn upward into infinity.

Be still,

Solid,

And steadfast,

Yet allow yourself to bend and breathe and sway.

Feel how your roots connect and communicate with the whole of the forest,

An enormous interconnected system grounded in history and nourished by the elements,

Containing in it all the stories of the past,

All the rings around the trees,

All the seeds of future generations,

Part of something bigger,

Connected to something great.

Breathe and soften.

Melt.

Feel yourself like a star in the firmament,

Kindled as fire,

Unimaginably ancient,

One among many,

Radiant and still in the void.

Feel your light travel,

Reach distant planets,

Shine on unknown worlds.

Feel yourself as a center of gravity around which expansive systems turn.

Let your breath sustain your light and the revolutions of galaxies,

And feel yourself strung like the harp to your kin,

The other stars that seem so far away but are part of your same constellation.

Feel their warmth upon you and breathe with them.

Feel your light nourish the tree.

Feel your branches flourish in the light.

Feel the breeze play upon your strings.

Let that music hum in your chest,

Your belly,

Your head,

Your limbs,

Your roots,

And out beyond your edges.

Wrap yourself in a soft blanket of quivering music,

Honey sweet and warm.

Breathe.

Feel your light travel,

Reach distant planets,

Shine on unknown worlds.

Reviews

Amazing! Everytime I listen to a new story from your collection, I think “this is the best one yet”, and then I listen to another…. Well done, you!

Thankyou, Dear Laurel, for yet another dreamily narrated tale from Sleep & Scorcery.
Today, you accompanied me on my morning walk. A different, but very welcome kind of Friend 🧡 🤗 xo 🪷Léna 🐾🐈‍⬛🐆🐨🦘🇦🇺

I never know how these stories end… and that’s a good thing!

I've loved each of your stories. Listening day after day, I've been able to see something of your evolution into the master that you've become. Especially, I love the stories like this, gentle and soothing but so magical and rather startlingly original (even when I know the lore a tale is based on, your rendering is always unique). My creative muse has felt so nurtured by this Goddess and her apprentice. Thank you!

Thanks for helping me fall asleep.

🙏🏻🌟✨🌟💫🌟🙏🏻

Well done and enjoyable! I fell asleep pretty quickly. Thank you!

A lovely tale that I only got ten minutes of before I was fast asleep and in dreamland.
The imagery was lovely and full of mystical wonder and delight. Laurel'voice is amazing.
Can't wait to listen again!