The Thunderer On High | Greek Mythology Sleep Story

In tonight’s bedtime story, inspired by Greek mythology and accompanied by rain sounds, a storm gathers. You, the god of thunder, roll in with the clouds and summon bolts of lightning to your fingers. You orchestrate the storm, bringing rain to the land and lighting up the sky with your gifts. When your work is done, you part the clouds, allowing the sun to once more shine upon the land. If you’re still awake as the story comes to an end, I’ll guide you through a grounding meditation.

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

Transcript

Create a spectacular thunderstorm in tonight's bedtime story inspired by Greek mythology and accompanied by rain sounds.

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 the story and relax into sleep.

If you're still awake as the story concludes,

I'll guide you through a meditation for rest and grounding.

In tonight's story,

A storm gathers.

You the god of thunder,

Roll in with the clouds,

And summon bolts of lightning to your fingers.

You orchestrate the storm,

Bringing rain to the land,

And lighting up the sky with your gifts.

When your work is done,

You part the clouds,

Allowing the sun to once more shine upon the land.

Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless.

A silent lightning leaves this starless night.

Leave me not.

Percy Bysshe Shelley,

Adonais Black grows the grass on the rolling Arcadian hillside.

Here is the land of plenty,

Of pastoral splendor.

Green meadows dotted with woolly white sheep,

Shepherds following behind with their crooks.

This is a land that most enchants from a distance,

When the looker can appreciate the vastness of sky,

The mightiness of mountains,

And nature's great majesty compared with the smallness of humankind.

These valleys,

Carved by centuries of movement,

Of forgotten wars with titans,

Of giants' Now,

Shepherds traverse them with little knowledge of what walked here before.

They have not the minds for ancient memory,

Only for work and for romance and for joy in the treasures of the here and now.

They have minds for moving sheep and wooing nymphs,

For effervescent life that feels both painfully fleeting and everlasting.

Memory is what gods are for,

What you are for,

Each of you,

With your own domains.

You hold in your immeasurable hands the dominion and thus the memory of the sky.

To your brothers went the memories of the deep earth and sea,

And your many kin hold the keys to the dreams of humanity,

Animals,

Trees,

And everything else in the cosmos.

Even now the sun,

That shining child of long lost titans,

Drives his golden chariot across the sky,

Showering each blade of grass and mountain crag with bright wonder,

Waking shadows on the undersides.

He rises each morning,

Splendid and hot on the heels of his rosy sister,

The dawn,

A reminder,

To those who remember,

Of the forces that shaped this world and this day.

The winds,

Those four mutable suns of dusk and dawn,

Recall every sail they've filled,

Or meadow they've turned to rippling waves.

In this place,

This unspoiled paradise,

Is home to Pan,

That horned god of the wilds,

Of the shepherds and their flocks,

Of music and revelry,

Of the rustic sort.

Here on wild nights,

And under waxing moons,

The satyr dances among his belithe band of nymphs,

Playing merry tunes on his pipe,

Waking the flowers in the spring.

And you,

Well,

The air is changing.

In the sun's warm wake,

It gathers a tension and a moisture that heralds rain.

All becomes instantly cooler,

More alive,

Poised on the precipice of change.

A storm is gathering,

And Arcadia trembles beneath.

That glowing,

Golden tremble that precedes a shift in the atmosphere.

You imagine the shepherds,

And more likely their sheep,

Feel the quiver in their feet.

It's as you roll in,

Adrift on a heavy cloud,

That the tiny figures of the shepherds and their flocks begin their inevitable journeys toward shelter.

Their retreat leaves the grass all a-quiver.

The trees groan and mountains shudder.

This is a land so old and wild,

It cannot be tamed by shepherds or city dwellers.

It can only be danced with.

But it may be subdued,

Temporarily,

By forces older and grander than mountains or fire.

By storm.

The back of your neck prickles with the first inklings of what's to come.

You are,

After all,

The master of the storm.

Its inception,

Its fullness,

And its denouement,

All in one.

You are the sender of rain and the bringer of thunder.

With your great intake of breath,

A congregation of clouds assembles,

Blooming like flowers of night.

They obscure the sun's glistering chariot,

Bringing shadow across the hills.

And with your long,

Conscious exhale,

The clouds quake and release,

Dropping the first thin showers over the land.

The grass wavers under a tumultuous breeze,

Here standing on end,

There flocking in an elegant dance.

You watch the drops of water descend,

Slowly darkening the soil and the green in patches.

With wordless gesture,

You direct the clouds to multiply their efforts,

Summoning more voluminous cascades.

In mere moments,

The rain comes to fall in curtains,

Filling the countryside with a tingling white noise and the heavy scent of damp earth.

It's now that your accomplices begin to arrive,

Dancing between the raindrops come the Hyades,

The sisterhood of nymphs whose tears have watered many a forest grove.

In them,

Glistening with the rainfall,

Sorrow waltzes side by side with bountiful love and devotion.

You hold these rainmakers,

These weeping ones,

In high regard,

As they were the nurses of Dionysus,

The ecstatic god of theater,

Wine,

Fertility,

And transformation.

For their efforts,

You fashioned them celestial thrones to which they retreat each evening at moonrise,

Bright teardrops on the night sky.

You watch with admiration as they trip across the raindrops,

Wringing water from their clothing and hair,

Drenching the countryside in rain.

Soon comes Notus,

The capricious southern wind.

You feel his presence,

Warm and blustery,

Before you see him,

Mutable and gray,

Approaching over the hills.

He excites the atmosphere,

Mixing heat with the spark of the growing storm.

He blows the rain in all directions,

Creating brief patterns and spirals in the air.

The nymphs spin dizzily in his wake.

Together you orchestrate a rapturous symphony,

Winding up the fury of the skies.

The energy rises till palpable vibrations shake the air,

And you can no longer delay the inevitable.

In a quiver,

Slung over your back,

Quake the tools of your trade.

Forged for you by this cyclopes,

Thus making you the master of the cosmos,

The thunderbolts begin to glow,

Emitting warmth and vigor.

You reach behind your head and grasp one,

Which is hot to the touch,

Sending a vibrant shiver through your body.

Retrieved from the quiver,

The thunderbolt sings in your hand,

Pulsing with light.

With grace and strength,

You cast the thing forth from your hand and let it fly.

Time slows in the moments to follow,

As if old Kronos holds back the sands in his glass,

Letting them fall with utter grace,

One at a time.

As the thunderbolt,

Bright and golden,

Meets the southern wind and the tears of the dancing storms,

It seems to halt,

Suspended there,

Till it splits and branches in the sky.

From the once solid streak come forking tendrils,

Which scatter and weave in many directions at once,

Tracing fern-like fractals toward the earth.

The central spike of liquid fire extends its reach toward a towering cypress,

Where a reciprocal barb ignites and yearns forth to make the connection.

When the two prongs meet,

All at once,

The lightning flashes,

Changing the sky from miles around to icy platinum.

Then,

In an instant,

It's gone,

And the gray returns,

Settling like a cloak over the smoldering embers of cypress.

The tree sizzles until the tiny flames are extinguished by rain,

Its trunk standing as mighty as ever.

The torrent never abates,

But pelts the ground,

The grass,

The mountains even more.

This is the work you were made for,

The power only you were meant to wield.

Lightning drums through your fingertips,

And a crack of thunder splits the sky,

Making your chest hum,

And the ground shudder.

Gods are the keepers of memory,

Of time untold.

In the hurling of thunderbolts,

In the pulsing thereafter,

In the thrum of the thunder,

Is contained all the passion of the cosmos.

The stories told around dancing fires of your triumphs,

Your family's defeat of forces titanic,

How you lived to walk the green earth.

Humans are forgetful,

This you can forgive,

But a single spur of lightning in the crescendo of a storm is enough to ignite countless memories,

It's enough to awaken their sense of smallness in the world,

Their reverence for the cosmic,

And their responsibility to nature.

Time cuts new rivers through the grassy hills,

Joining and parting,

And joining again.

With practiced hand,

You toss another thunderbolt toward a cypress grove.

The trees swoon and sway under the breath of the wind,

Then singe and smolder with the kiss of lightning.

With the satisfying sizzle of power and precision,

You too are moved by the resilience of earthly things,

The trees that take the lightning and persist.

A sweet smell fills your senses,

And the thunder that follows your thrown bolt extends beyond its usual duration.

That charming echo,

You realize,

Is the clap of feathery wings.

Another stormy friend approaches.

He glides down from the stars,

Where he passes idle nights,

Unable to resist the tempest's call.

Curly white is his coat,

His eyes deepest brown,

With golden mane and tail.

Pegasus,

The winged stallion,

Soars past your eyeline,

Quick as a flash,

His hoof and wingbeats thunderous.

He catches the wild wind and whirls past the dancing hyades,

Shocking rainbows into the cascades of water through which he passes.

Slung across his back is a saddlebag bursting with bright bolts,

He brings reinforcements of lightning for your quiver.

This pack you grasp as he skates by again,

Refilling your quiver and hurling bolts across the mountains.

They spark through your fingertips and light the sky,

Thunder reverberating against the rocks and hills.

Pegasus,

Purest white,

Shines almost entirely golden in the glow.

He dances with the rush of rain and wind.

All is reaching a mighty crescendo,

Quaking mountains and flattened grasses seem to collectively inhale to brace,

But after the peak must come the inevitable fall,

The denouement.

You empty your quiver,

Almost lazily tossing the last of the thunderbolts,

Which gives a half-hearted flash and rumble.

You notice the stormy south wind blows less blustery,

Losing momentum.

The space between the heavy raindrops widens,

Giving ground.

The hyades are shaking the last of the water from their fingertips,

Weeping the last drops of rain over the countryside.

They climb the clouds toward their starry abodes,

Blowing you kisses on their way to the firmament.

Pegasus slows his wingbeats,

Gliding instead between the lightning clouds.

And soon a shy and rosy ray of sun shines through the feathers of his wings.

Helios,

The sun in his golden chariot,

Pushes against the billow of storm clouds,

Which dwindle in deference to his light.

What sun gleams through the lingering moisture in the air,

Catches the droplets,

And splits into dazzling spectra,

Tiny rainbows that assemble soon into a collective arc across the sky,

Its tail disappearing behind the mountains.

And as the hanging moisture begins to evaporate,

You,

Body all abuzz from the work of thunder,

Descend.

A stairway forms of cloud wisps to guide your way to the ground,

The feel of grass beneath your feet,

The tremble of the earth.

It is good,

Every once in a while,

For gods to feel this too.

These mountains,

The hills,

The sunken caves,

The sacred groves,

Are all the curves of Gaia,

Mother of the titans,

Gods,

And all.

It is good for you,

Who wield such power and might from the skies,

To remember how she holds and steadies you.

A storm leaves traces on her surface,

Split cypresses still singed from lightning,

And the long-worn grooves of heavy rain in the soil and rock.

But how easily mortals forget the strength of those forces that drive them into shelter and hiding.

Already as you walk the grassy hills of Arcadia,

As if summoned by the songs of the emerging birds,

Shepherds are surfacing anew.

Birth and merriment are in their faces,

Mingled with relief at the storm's passing.

You heave a hearty sigh,

Watching the shepherds and their maidens return so fleetly to the hills where the mountains so lately shook under your hands.

Will they ever learn,

You wonder,

That there is something sublime,

You suppose,

About the carefree way they revel,

The utter exuberance with which they approach life,

The blissful ignorance of sorrow and decay,

Or any change?

What heart have you to trouble the shepherds and the nymphs they woo with portents of winter's reckoning and the fading flowers?

Strange,

The way your perspective shifts with feet on the ground,

How much you come to prize these worldly pleasures when you leave behind your lofty seat,

Even for a moment.

The rainbow is more vibrant when you must look up into its face,

And the strings of golden sunlight warm you more readily.

The music of a shepherd's flute rises to meet a lyrical swell of birdsong.

The two melodies twine effortlessly under the auric cascades.

The lingering twitch of lightning at last fades from your muscles,

Slowly sinking through your feet and into the soil.

You feel earthly,

Earthbound,

Momentarily disconnected from godhood,

And there is a curious thrill to that realization.

And now it comes to you how much you have forgotten.

As the ruler of the heavens,

Bringer of storms,

And keeper of the memories of the skyward plain,

How quickly you can lose your connection to the soil,

The feeling of being grounded,

And with that feeling,

All the delights of the earthly plain.

The flute melody floats around you,

Twisting joyfully,

Bringing a wondrous lightness to your head,

And all the love you have for this fleeting world rushes back on a warm,

Rain-scented breeze.

Tonight fires will be made and danced about,

Love songs will be sung,

And your carefully crafted storm will fade to yesterday,

A thing lost,

Forgotten,

Until the next roll of thunder crackles over the hills of Arcadia.

Until then,

You'll walk amongst the shepherds,

Join their fires,

And share their merriment.

You'll bask in the bounty they bring,

Then rise with the moon to climb again to your throne on Olympus.

In the storm's wake,

The sun shimmers with shades of lavender and diaphanous pink.

What a wondrous thing it is,

You think,

To hold two worlds within yourself at once,

To command the skies and know their secrets,

And yet to have your feet firmly planted,

Your heart rooted in earthly bliss.

It is a oneness you can only hold briefly in the moments of threshold crossing,

For with every step you leave more of this sky world behind.

But for these moments,

You are vast,

Boundless even,

Containing such multitudes.

Now you walk in the footsteps of the wild god Pan,

And into the throngs of frolicking shepherds,

And the skies,

At last,

Become clear.

Take a deep breath in,

And exhale,

Slowly releasing,

Quieting down the mind,

Preparing the body for deep,

Nourishing rest.

Adding soft awareness to your breath,

Filling up the belly with each inhale,

Sending breath to all corners of the body,

And releasing completely with the exhale,

Letting tension melt away from head to toe.

Sink deep into your bed,

Softening deep or down,

Letting your body feel heavy,

Surrendering to the touch of gravity,

Knowing that there is nowhere else you need to be right now,

Nothing that you need to do.

With that knowledge,

See if you can let go just a little bit more.

Notice if there is any part of your body that's still holding on to tension,

And really release it,

Relaxing into the earth.

Notice the points of contact between your body and the surface that you're resting on.

What parts of your body are directly in contact with this surface?

Perhaps the back or side of your head,

Your shoulders,

Your legs,

Your heels,

Or the sides of your feet.

Notice how the earth holds and stabilizes you,

Allowing you to completely relax and embrace stillness.

Breathe deeply,

Letting go even more with each exhale.

If you are having trouble slowing down your thoughts and quieting your mind tonight,

Simply refocus your awareness on the breath and the sensation of the body cradled by the earth.

Allow your thoughts to simply rise and fall,

Acknowledging them without judgment and setting them free.

You might imagine them falling like raindrops away from your mind,

Disappearing into the soil.

You can always revisit them in the morning.

As you settle into this position,

Finding stillness and relaxation,

I invite you to visualize your bed,

Or the surface you're resting on,

As a bed of flowers or grass,

A soft,

Supportive space in nature,

Where you feel comfortable and close to the earth.

You might visualize a real place you've been,

Or imagine someplace new,

Letting your mind fill in the surroundings with comforting natural imagery,

Whether that's a body of water nearby,

An abundance of flowers,

Or a grove of trees.

Furnish this natural space in your mind with whatever brings you comfort,

Peace,

And stillness.

Feel your connection to the earth,

And let that connection ring through the entire body,

The crown of the head,

The muscles of the face,

The neck,

The shoulders,

The arms,

The hands and fingers,

The chest and back,

The belly,

The pelvis and hips,

The legs,

The feet and toes.

Feel how this connection you have with the earth creates a cocoon of softness and safety around you.

Breathe.

Let your heart soften into this space,

And your mind drop down a level,

Closer and closer to the arms of sleep,

The embrace of dreams,

Safe in the knowledge that the earth is here to catch and cradle you,

Providing stillness,

Stability,

And grounding.

Breathe in,

And out,

Dropping down another level.

With each breath now,

Letting yourself sink through the layers of consciousness toward your inner world and the realm of sleep,

And let the light dim in your visualization as you drop deeper and deeper down,

Sinking toward sleep.

I'll count down now from 10,

And with each number,

Feel yourself descend closer and closer to the unconscious,

Shedding layers,

Letting go,

Sinking into the earth's embrace,

10,

9,

8,

7,

6,

5,

4,

3,

2,

1.

Good night.

Reviews

Evocative, poetic, calming beautiful

Thank you— my mind was agitated and the meditation at the end did help soothe too, thank you🙏🏽

Thank you for storytelling. It allowed me to relax and fall asleep peacefully.

Nice soothing g take to get me to sleep tonight. Thank once again xx