The Halls Of Asgard

In tonight’s bedtime story, you are a child of Asgard, and beloved by the Aesir. As such, they welcome you into their magnificent halls. You wander, for a day, through your favorite places, learning from the gods, like Frigg, Odin, and Thor. As night draws near, you join Heimdall, the watcher for the gods, outside the gates – and as you guard Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, he tells you stories of how all things came to be. If you’re still awake as the story comes to an end, I’ll guide you through a relaxing visualization exercise.

Music/Sound: A Glimpse of Avalon by Flouw, Nordic Sunrise by Bruce Brus, Epidemic Sound

Transcript

Gather wisdom throughout the city of the gods in this Norse mythology-inspired bedtime story.

Sleep and 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 and Sorcery is one part bedtime story,

One part guided meditation,

And one part dreamy adventure.

Listen to my voice for as long as you like,

And when you're ready,

Feel free to let go of this story and relax into sleep.

If you're still awake as the story comes to an end,

I'll guide you through a relaxing visualization exercise.

In tonight's bedtime story,

You are a child of Asgard,

And beloved by the Aesir.

As such,

The gods welcome you into their magnificent halls.

You wander for a day through your favorite places,

Learning from the gods,

Like Frigg,

Odin,

And Thor.

As night draws near,

You join Heimdall,

The watcher for the gods outside the gates of Asgard.

And as you guard Bifrost,

The rainbow bridge,

He tells you stories of how all things came to be.

On the day the Gjallarhorn is blown,

It will wake the gods,

No matter where they are,

No matter how deeply they sleep.

Neil Gaiman,

Norse Mythology The way dawn breaks over the elegant curves and spires and mountains of Asgard,

City of the gods,

Is unmatched.

Golden is the city at dawn,

With shimmers of pink that light up the flecks in the stone from which the great palaces are built.

The deep blues of the waters are turned to holographic shifts,

Brightened and darkened all at once.

The leaves of the wood and the grasses of the hills dance in the light with moody hues.

In none other of the nine realms of creation are such dazzling spectra unlocked at the time of sunrise.

You like to be awake before the sun comes hurtling across the sky for this reason,

To watch the subtle and not-so-subtle changes that come over the land.

To observe how each day,

Each season,

The play of color and light is ever-so-slightly different,

Warmer,

Cooler,

Brighter,

Deeper.

You watch from your tower,

In your mother's palace,

Overlooking her cherished meadows.

Soon overhead,

In hot pursuit of the galloping sun,

Come the thunderous feet of Skull,

The great wolf.

He chases the chariot every day with the same ferocious determination.

And the sun goddess,

Soul,

Can only flee.

The wolf's brother,

Hati,

Chases the moon each night in the same way.

They are a fleet of foot,

But always falter a few paces behind the celestial chariots.

It is foretold that they will chase the sun and moon until the end times,

Ragnarok,

When they will at last catch up.

From where you stand and watch,

A hand raised to shield your eyes against the brilliance of the sun,

Skull might be made of many thousands of droplets of dew,

Each catching the light at a different angle and scattering countless tiny rainbows across the sky and meadow below.

Indeed,

They spill outward to touch all the corners of Asgard,

Shining city of the gods,

And splash over the waterfalls at its edges.

Dawn has broken,

And the day begins.

You find your mother,

Freya,

In the great hall,

Already seated for breakfast,

Blazing by her feet are her two well-loved and well-fed cats.

Their bellies rise and fall with the sounds of overlapping purrs,

Their blue-gray fur like clouds of smoke beneath the table.

An amber jewel gleams at her neck,

The necklace she never takes off.

Her eyes sparkle as keenly as the gemstone when she sees you.

There's bread and fruit and many delights on the table for your enjoyment.

You dine with your mother,

The radiant goddess of love and battle,

And you bask in her tender devotion.

Her days are often long and tiring,

So these sweet and fleeting moments with her are precious.

Many of the dwellers in Asgard dote on you,

Being the youngest among them,

But none so much as Freya.

When you've breakfasted,

She bestows kisses upon you,

Then retreats to welcome her guests.

Each day she greets legions of those slain in battle and chooses from among them the honored ones who will reside in bliss in her meadows.

The rest are overseen by Odin,

The All-Father,

In his splendid hall,

Valhalla.

One of the gray cats bats playfully at your ankles as you rise to leave your mother's table.

You lean down to scratch him under the chin,

Eliciting more fervent purrs than before.

You bathe and dress in your chambers,

Then take leave of the palace.

Wonders await every day throughout the god's golden city,

And the doors of its many palaces are always open to you.

On this morning,

When the wolf who chases the sun appeared to you to be made of sparkling mist,

You feel yourself called first to Fensalir.

Its name means the Halls of Mist,

And it is the dwelling place of the goddess Frigg,

Whose husband is Odin.

Her palace sits in balance over the shifting fens,

Beyond the reedy banks where the wind sings.

There is a rolling mist that hovers across the surface of the gray waters,

And you must board a small skiff to steer yourself to her doorway.

The mists part to let you through,

And the doors of Fensalir are poised,

Already open to welcome you.

Frigg,

Who is a goddess of magic and prophecy,

Must have known you were coming.

You find her seated,

As you often do,

Before the roaring hearth,

Busy with her distaff,

Spinning thread.

Her fingers tug gently at the ends,

Nimble and soft.

Without looking up from her work,

The goddess greets you,

And nods her head at a seat by the fire.

In the deepest night of winter,

Or on the brightest summer morning,

This hall carries the same cozy,

Enclosed energy,

With an opal light as if from an artificial moon.

It feels always outside of the cycles of time and nature,

And it might always be midnight.

The flames make shadows dance on the hearth,

And cast shifting lights on the opulent interior.

You join Frigg,

Taking your seat by the fire,

And taking up your drop spindle,

Placed nearby in anticipation of your arrival.

The goddess has been teaching you to spin wool,

As you've shown some interest,

Though your skills are far behind hers.

More than anything,

You like sitting with her,

And watching her work.

You let the spindle drop and whirl beneath your hands as you twist the thread.

Frigg smiles approvingly.

For a while,

You sit in silence,

With the crackle of the fire the only sound in the cavernous hall.

You watch as her hands deftly pull the even thread forth,

Which shines like moonstone in the light.

She might be spinning pure starlight,

You think.

Your thread is uneven and frayed at parts,

But after all,

You are only a novice.

Frigg speaks and you perk up with bright attention,

Eager to take in whatever wisdom she wishes to share.

What do you know of the Norns,

Child?

She asks.

You work to keep your fingers moving without stopping,

As you rack your memory.

You've heard the word before,

But you cannot call up its meaning.

Before you answer,

Frigg continues,

As if she's read your mind.

There are three maidens who reside near one of the roots of Yggdrasil,

The great ash tree around which all the nine realms grow.

They tend to the root,

Drawing water from their well to nourish the tree and prevent it from rot.

And these maidens are called the Norns.

They shape the destinies of all living beings.

And you know how they do this.

You shake your head,

Trying to maintain your concentration.

They weave threads into a golden web of fate,

Frigg says,

Turning her distaff.

Some threads are long,

Some are short.

Some can be strung across great distances without intersecting another.

And some are tangled or twined so tightly with others,

You couldn't pull them apart.

You imagine such a web spun from gleaming golden threads,

Strung across the branches of the giant ash tree.

The goddess continues,

This is why I spin,

She says.

For when I pull the twine forth,

I am drawing from the Norns' well.

Sometimes in the thread,

I can catch a glimpse of another's fate or read messages of what's to come.

It's how I know you will achieve great things,

Little one.

I have seen it in the thread.

You can feel your face flush.

You continue to work with the drop spindle,

And Frigg notes that your technique has improved.

You wonder if you will ever spin as evenly as she,

Or master the distaff,

Or touch the source of prophecy within the thread as she does.

For now,

It is enough to soak up her wisdom by the light of the fire.

When your lesson is done,

You part ways with simple manners.

You board the skiff once more and row across the bog through the parting mists.

Emerging from the dim glow of Fensalir,

Your eyes must adjust to the brightness of Asgard.

The sun climbs high overhead now,

With a sparkling wolf still nipping at her heels.

You've been invited to dine with Thor and Sif today in their decadent palace,

Bilskirnir.

That wondrous hall,

Fit with more than five hundred rooms and adorned with countless golden gables,

Lies not far down the path.

When you arrive,

You find a splendid place already set at the table for you.

Thor smiles from the head of the long table,

His wife by his side.

You relay the regards of Frigg,

Who is Thor's mother,

As you take your seat.

You've always enjoyed being in the presence of the couple,

Basking in the incandescence of their love.

Thor often tells stories of his hair-raising adventures in Jotunheim,

The land of giants,

Or in Midgard,

The realm of humankind,

While tossing back horns of ale.

He is the god of thunder and strength,

And his tales are likewise loud and bombastic.

Sif,

Meanwhile,

Is quiet,

Cunning,

And kind.

She communicates more solemnly,

With an air of the same mystery you admire about Frigg.

Her domain is fertility,

The land and the crop,

The fields of golden wheat that so resemble her glowing golden hair.

In the afternoon light,

Which streams in through the open windows of the hall,

Her long,

Long hair shines brighter than you've ever seen it.

Each strand shimmers and falls with such tenderness that it might be spun from bricks of pure gold.

You are reminded of the threads pulled from Frigg's distaff,

And of those woven by the norns as they shape the fates of the living.

Thor is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment as he bites into a chunk of meat.

As if plucking the thoughts of golden yarn from your mind,

Sif speaks.

She wonders if you know the tale of her golden hair.

You shake your head,

You'd happily hear it.

The married couple tell the tale in tandem.

Sif was always known for her beauty,

So enhanced and brightened by her long,

Yellow hair.

It was Thor's favorite thing about her,

In fact.

But one morning,

Thor rose to find his wife's head completely shorn,

Her golden hair taken from the root,

So that it might never grow back.

There was only one soul in Asgard who could be responsible for such mischief,

Of course.

The trickster god Loki.

Sif was devastated,

And Thor enraged,

So he confronted Loki and forced him to have a replacement made for the goddess's gold tresses.

Loki turned to his duplicitous friends the dwarves,

Who dwell in Svartalfheim and are skilled in the forge.

These dwarves did not want to create any treasure for the dwellers in Asgard,

But Loki,

Who was clever,

Convinced them to do it by means of a trick.

From this,

Many treasures were made for the gods,

For Sif,

A headpiece strung with threads of spun gold,

Which shone even brighter than her brilliant golden hair,

For Odin,

A spear that never missed in its aim,

And a ring that would drip new rings every ninth night,

For Freyr,

Your uncle,

A fine ship that could be folded up into his pocket when not in use.

And for me,

Says Thor,

This.

Here he retrieves from his hip the glorious hammer Mjolnir,

Which he's never seen without.

This too catches the light and sparkles,

A thing both of combat and of blessing.

The hour passes swiftly as Thor recounts his glories with Mjolnir at his side.

You part with pleasantries,

And you leave the hall agreeably full,

A walk,

You think,

In the golden-leaved wood,

Glassier,

Would do you well.

The way the light hits the leaves at this hour is simply sublime,

Bringing forth the reddish-gold hues and casting mottled shadows on the white bark of the trees.

The leaves are as gold as the gleaming strands of Sif's hair,

Or the threads of fate woven by the Norns.

A fragrant breeze sweeps through the trees,

Shuddering the leaves so that the forest sounds like it's breathing.

You inhale deeply,

Taking in the sweet scent of sap and fertile ground.

And you exhale slowly.

Your heartbeat softly slows to the rhythm of the forest.

There's a halcyon tranquility to this grove at all times,

Owing perhaps to its placement at the very border of Valhalla,

Odin's glorious hall reserved for the victorious slain.

Like your mother's field,

It is a paradise.

Most days,

When you walk the sun-dappled paths of glassier,

You never come across another soul.

But on others,

You meet a wanderer from among the dwellers in Asgard.

Today,

As you wind your way along,

A voice comes,

Soft and low,

Singing through the trees.

You know that voice.

But before the singer steps forth from between the trunks,

There comes a clatter of black feathers overhead.

Landing on an outstretched limb are two great and glossy black birds.

They shuffle from side to side on the branch,

Blinking and angling their heads at you.

The pair bring a smile to your face.

Hello there,

You say to the ravens,

Ugin and Munin.

Their master cannot be far behind.

But there are further heralds of his presence.

The next moment,

Bounding through the trees,

Come two great hounds,

Resembling the wolves who chase the sun and moon,

But playful as pups.

They leap to your side,

Sniffing at your feet and licking your fingers.

The voice comes again,

Not in song,

But calling the names of the hounds.

And soon after,

The owner of the voice appears under the golden-leaved canopy.

He is cloaked with a blue mantle and crowned with a helm bearing the shape of an eagle.

A large staff he grasps in his hand as he walks.

The dogs bound toward him,

Their frantic energy calming slightly as they return to his side.

His face softens into a warm smile when he sees you.

He is Odin,

The father of the gods and most revered in Asgard.

You lower your head to acknowledge him,

But he sweeps you into a grandfatherly embrace.

How are you,

Child?

He asks.

It's been some time since your paths crossed.

He invites you to walk alongside him.

The hounds follow a few paces behind,

And the ravens join.

One sits attentively upon Odin's shoulder,

And the other soars overhead,

Darting in and out of the trees.

Where once you shook with nerves in the presence of such an admired god,

After many such meetings in the serene wood,

You feel at ease at his side.

Like many of the Aesir,

He loves you.

After only a few moments together,

You sense that something has changed about him.

A silver patch is over his right eye,

Which was not there before,

But this somehow is the least remarkable shift.

There's something deeper,

Something in the way he speaks and carries himself,

That hints at a mysterious reckoning.

You know he was away from Asgard for some time,

And that his sons went traveling with him,

But you know nothing more of what transpired during their absence.

You hesitate,

Then muster the courage to ask.

Allfather,

You say,

What happened to your eye?

Odin glances down at you,

And a curious smile crosses his lips.

One that contains great pride,

Yes,

But also some sense of regret,

Perhaps.

Like one who has gained great knowledge,

And vaguely misses the bliss of ignorance.

You walk under the rustling leaves of the golden-bowed glacier,

And Odin tells you his story.

It began when one day,

His ravens returned from their daily flight throughout the Nine Realms,

Bearing shadowy foreknowledge of challenging days to come.

Aching to know more,

Odin decided to seek the wisdom of the Norns who spin the threads of fate,

And they confirmed the forebodings brought by the ravens,

Giving shape to that which was once only nebulous shadow.

The three wise women,

Who have the knowledge of past,

Present and future,

Gave Odin a glimpse of Ragnarok.

A breeze tickles the back of your neck,

And above the trees,

You imagine you can hear the thundering feet of Skal,

The wolf,

Chasing the chariot of the sun.

When he saw what he saw in the eyes of the Norns,

Odin determined to make good use of that terrible knowledge.

Begging leave of his wife and his sons,

He put aside his eagle helm and his golden armor,

And he donned a traveler's cloak and stick,

And assumed the role of wanderer god.

He took to walking,

And he met many strange folk on his travels through Midgard and Jotunheim.

Wherever he went,

He posed his burning questions about the coming darkness,

But he could scarce find satisfying answers.

At last,

He traveled to the root of Yggdrasil,

The world tree,

The one which is fed by the well of wisdom,

And guarded by Mimir,

The wise.

Now you come to the bank of a small pool,

Which reflects the sparkling gold of the leaves.

Your companion would rest here,

And let his dogs drink from the pool.

You and the Allfather sit side by side on two great rocks,

Watching as the hounds lap up the crystal-clear waters.

The ravens keep watch on a nearby branch.

The story continues.

Odin the Wanderer intended to drink from Mimir's well,

Thirsty for its wisdom,

But a price had to be paid for it.

Thus,

Odin gave his eye for the right to drink from the well,

And he dipped his horn in the waters that feed Yggdrasil,

And drank.

I saw many things when I drunk of that well,

Odin says,

The whole of the future twisting before me in strands as fine as golden threads.

I saw futures I would not trouble your head with,

And I saw the end of all things.

You watch as the dogs,

Their thirst satisfied,

Begin to wrestle playfully over a large stick.

A few leaves fall lazily from the trees,

Landing weightlessly upon the surface of the water and spinning in the breeze.

And though much of what I saw brought me sorrow,

Odin goes on,

I felt,

Too,

The great weight of remembering,

As if the events I witnessed unfolding many ages in the future were indeed my distant past,

Or my dreams.

I saw how the seeds of time grew into strands and branched in every possible direction,

Becoming the roots and the branches of a great ash tree,

Around which all the worlds shaped themselves.

I saw the same tree aflame and breaking apart,

But then I saw the ashes and the ruins of it,

Sowing the seeds of its own renewal.

I no longer knew any fear in drinking from the well of wisdom,

Child,

Because I came to see that the ending I feared was in fact the beginning,

The origin.

All that is to come is only an echo,

A dream of the past.

The water ripples on the pool,

Odin's words are more than you can fully comprehend,

And yet they bring you immense comfort,

As if your heart can understand them,

Even if your head struggles to grasp.

You sit together for some time longer,

Contentedly watching the hounds at play.

The same wise,

Enigmatic smile lingers on Odin's face.

Yes,

You think,

He is changed.

He is Allfather,

Wanderer,

And Wise God.

He sees more now with one eye than you can with two.

The wood is peaceful as the light goes,

Shifting the leaves from fiery red gold to a cool,

Quiet brown.

You leave the eldest of the gods there by the pool with his animal companions.

He intends to stay a while and think.

It was good to see you,

Little one,

He says with tenderness in his voice.

When you emerge from the wood,

Evening casts its purple glow on the mountains and spires of Asgard.

You ought to go home,

You think,

And have supper with your mother,

But Odin's story buzzes in your mind and fingers,

And you are not ready to return to Freya's hall just yet.

There's one more place to visit,

One more person to see.

He waits there and watches.

He is always watching.

Because he is Heimdall,

The watcher for the gods.

He stays at his post,

Night and day,

Throughout all the seasons,

Never sleeping,

And only greeting other souls when they come and go from Asgard.

So your company is always welcome at the gate.

Heimdall is the warder of Bifrost,

The rainbow bridge which connects Asgard to the world of men.

He knows all who come and go from here,

And he holds the stories of all the ages.

Welcome,

Little one,

He says as you approach,

Though he stands before the gate with his back turned to you.

He can see for a hundred miles in all directions,

He claims,

And you wouldn't dream of arguing.

Bifrost stretches out before him,

A curling ribbon of rainbow fire.

It marks the edge of Asgard,

City of the gods,

And twists its way into the starry vastness of the universe,

Wrapping round the trunk of the world tree.

On Heimdall's hip is a horn,

The Gjallarhorn.

Like Thor and his beloved hammer,

Heimdall is seldom seen without this instrument,

Though you've never once heard him blow upon it.

He will blow the Gjallarhorn once,

At the end of all things.

Ragnarok,

Comes the echo of a memory.

You can't recall who said such a thing to you,

Odin,

Frigg,

Or your mother,

Perhaps.

Nor can you remember when you heard it,

But the knowledge is there,

Clear as a bell.

Beside the gate and the threshold of Bifrost,

There grows a great and gnarled branch of Yggdrasil.

It is thick and sturdy enough to sit upon,

And it's here that you recline when you come to spend time with Heimdall.

You hoist yourself atop the branch and lean into its solid nooks.

From here,

You have a spectacular vista.

You can look forth into deep swirls of sky and stars,

Or downward following the twists and knots of Bifrost and the Ash Tree.

This is the edge of everything there is.

From here,

All the adventures of Thor,

Tricks of Loki,

And grudges of giants and dwarves seem trivial.

It's moonrise over Asgard.

The sun disappears along with her pursuer.

Another wolf,

Ati,

Emerges now,

Chasing the shadow of the moon.

You sit in silence beside Heimdall,

Watching how the fiery hues of Bifrost seem to throw reflections against the curtain of night sky itself.

Tendrils of green and white and violet twist,

Feathered in the emptiness,

A dance of whispered light.

All the strange and wonderful stories you've heard today appear to shimmer there upon the velvet darkness.

How funny you think that with every tale you take in,

Though you surely know more than you did before,

You seem to understand less about the nature of the universe.

It's like a distaff spinning backwards.

The tangible golden threads of the gods,

Their fates,

And their stories unspool,

Unravel with every telling,

Into nebulous,

Ungraspable fibers of light.

This is what it feels like,

You suppose,

To be thirsty for a drink from the well of wisdom.

Heimdall,

You wonder aloud,

What can you tell me of what came before?

Before Asgard and Yggdrasil and all the Nine Realms?

From the Watcher of the Gods there comes a swelling intake of breath,

As if he's waited all his life for someone to ask this very question.

After all,

He is as old as time itself.

Before Asgard,

Before the Nine Realms and the gods and the dwarves and the giants,

There was a great chasm,

Ginnungagap,

The Yawning Void.

And in that chasm,

Earth and sea and sky were all mixed together with fire and ice as well.

Therein lay the potential for all things.

All it needed was a push.

Heimdall tells of how Ginnungagap filled with ice,

And when the ice met the fire,

Sparks flew from the chasm,

And thick mists poured out of it.

In the meeting of the elements,

Moisture froze and heated again and evaporated,

Then fell as rain and dew,

And from this dew was born Ymir,

The ancient giant.

He was the first being in the universe and is the ancestor of all the giants.

Ymir,

In traveling through the wreckage of the void,

Came upon a giant cow,

And he drank her milk to make himself strong.

One day,

She began to lick at a cliff of ice,

And from the place where she licked sprang forth the first heroes of the age,

The ancestors of Odin and the Aesir.

A great war ensued between Ymir's brood and Odin's fellowship,

And Odin was victorious.

From the body of Ymir,

The primordial giant,

The gods made the mountains and the skies and the forests.

They made the moon,

The sun,

And the stars.

And so came night and day.

And Odin made men and women and fashioned for them a realm of their own.

Realms were made for the giants,

For the dwarves,

And for the gods,

And they were bound up by the roots and branches of Yggdrasil.

Did Odin create Yggdrasil,

Too,

You ask?

Heimdall's eyes sparkle,

Mysterious and kind,

As he turns to you.

No one knows of a time when Yggdrasil was not growing.

You soften into the crook of your branch,

And a subtle warmth seems to radiate from it,

This ageless tree of many wonders.

Heimdall says,

In the branches of the ash tree,

High above our heads,

Four giant stags graze,

And when they shake the water from their horns,

It falls as rain upon the realms.

Atop the highest branch there sits an eagle,

Who sees and knows all things,

And seated upon the beak of the eagle is a hawk,

Who sees what the eagle cannot.

At the deepest root of Yggdrasil,

Which burrows into the underworld,

A fearsome dragon lies coiled.

This dragon gnaws at the root each day,

And between the root and the branches,

Above and below,

Runs Ratatosk,

A mischievous squirrel.

He carries messages between the realms,

And in his mischief,

He tells the dragon and the eagle lies about one another,

In the hope of provoking trouble.

You have seen this very squirrel,

You realize,

From time to time,

Scurrying up and down the branches of the tree that twist through Asgard.

You had no clue he intended such devilry.

Should we not fear the destruction of Yggdrasil,

You ask,

Earnestly.

I think not,

Heimdall replies,

For now,

The forces remain in balance.

The wells that feed the other two roots of the tree are tended well,

And nourish it greatly,

And those wells are guarded by the most loyal warders,

Mimir the Wise,

And Erda of the Norns.

These names,

Of course,

Are familiar to you.

Your mind traces a winding journey along the trunk of the world tree,

And across the fiery rainbow trails of Bifrost.

Your memory tiptoes along the golden threads of fate,

And swings from the ends of Sif's golden hair.

You chase the sun and moon through the darkening sky.

When the sun rises tomorrow,

Shedding golden rays across the mountains and rooftops of Asgard,

The gods will still slumber,

And spin,

And feast in their splendid halls.

Odin will wander still through the golden-leaved wood,

Heimdall will still be watching,

Waiting,

The horn untouched,

At his side.

You gaze out at the vastness of the cosmos,

And strain your eyes to see the way Heimdall sees,

Envisioning past,

Present,

And future,

Yawning voids,

Primordial giants,

And cosmic cows.

What great fortune you've had to grow up in the halls of Asgard,

Where stories twine and unravel,

And wisdom drips from the lips of your doting kin.

All the yearning majesty of the place is made only more rapturous by the mystery of what lies beyond and before.

The beginning is the end,

Is the beginning,

You think.

No one can remember a time when the ash tree did not grow.

Cradled in the curve of the branch,

You watch the twisting shimmers of light,

Until your eyelids become irresistibly heavy.

The moon shines down,

Washing Asgard in opals and blues.

You are fast asleep in the glow of bifrost when your mother comes to collect you.

She often finds you here when bedtimes come and gone.

You stir softly in her arms,

Opening your eyes just enough to see the gleam of the amber gem around her neck.

She is carrying you home.

The gods sleep,

The fires burn in the forges of the dwarves,

The squirrel runs gleefully up and down the length of the world tree.

Four great stags shake the moisture from their antlers,

Which falls as a mist over Asgard.

Heimdall watches at the gate.

Take a long,

Slow,

Deep breath in,

And exhale,

Softening into your bed and letting your body find a natural stillness.

Notice if there is any part of you still holding on to physical,

Mental,

Or emotional tension.

Then breathe deeply,

Sending the energy of your breath into those spaces,

Easing out the stress,

And giving yourself permission to relax completely.

There is nowhere else you need to be right now,

And nothing you need to do but rest.

As you settle into this state of tranquility,

Begin to visualize the world tree.

A monumental,

Majestic harbor whose roots burrow deep and whose branches reach high into the sky.

The world tree in your mind's eye might resemble an ash,

Like Yggdrasil,

Or it might be a mighty oak,

Or elm,

Linden,

Or birch.

Allow your mind to conjure an image that connects with you.

Observe the qualities of the tree,

The color and texture of its bark,

The sturdiness of its trunk,

The tangled root systems and network of branches.

Listen to the wind rustling the leaves,

Take in the scent of the sap or the fruit.

Know that the tree before you is unimaginably ancient,

And that it carries the wisdom of that agelessness,

The wisdom you have access to.

As you gaze upon the tree,

Begin to breathe with it,

Imagining yourself being drawn into its vast and ancient consciousness.

Breathe together in an exchange of resources and feel yourself becoming one with the tree,

Connecting to all of the worlds that it spans.

With each breath,

Feel your awareness expanding,

Reaching out through the branches and roots,

Touching the farthest reaches of existence and dreams.

As you drift deeper into a state of relaxation,

Let the world tree guide you toward a deep and restful sleep.

Allow its branches to cradle you gently,

Let its roots anchor you to the earth,

Grounding you in a sense of peace and security.

Breathe together.

In this state of connection with the wisdom of the tree,

Allow your mind to wander freely,

Exploring the depths of your subconscious and the vastness of the universe,

Knowing that you are safe and protected,

Grounded under the watchful gaze of the world tree.

As you continue to breathe naturally,

Let yourself be carried away on the currents of the cosmos,

Let the wisdom of the world tree guide your dreams,

Rocking you in its bows under a gentle breeze.

Good night.

Reviews

Always lovely to listen to your beautiful imagery. I fell asleep quickly.

Second time in a row, and still don’t know what it’s about! Lovely as always, thank you 🙏

Great story. Fell asleep so have to try again. So much wisdom. Thanks for your knowledge and wonderful storytelling!!

Thank you laurel! I’m coming up on 450 nights of listening to your stories, and they almost never fail to put me to sleep. Thank you for all your hard work, and I’m looking forward to what comes next!

We relaxing and soothing before sleep I just wish I could hear the end of these stories sometimes thank you x