Arabian Nights - Night 1 - Bedtime Story & Sleep Meditation

Welcome to One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of timeless Arabian stories, told in a calm, relaxing manner, designed specifically to help you sleep, with an accompaniment of wonderful ambient music by Oleg Mazur. This meditation consists of two parts. First, I will help you relax, with some calming breathing exercises, and then I'll tell you one of the wonderful stories of Queen Scheherazade.

Transcript

Hello and welcome,

My dear friend.

My name is Sonia and today I will accompany you in this wonderful journey into a peaceful,

Rejuvenating sleep.

This meditation consists of two parts.

First,

We'll focus on letting go of the tensions and worries of the past day through some calming breathing exercises.

Then,

I will venture with you into the realm of wonderful dreams by telling you amazing stories written down centuries ago in one thousand and one night.

I will do my best to help you relax and find peace and comfort in the safety of your own bed.

Feel free to get comfortable as I introduce you to our journey.

Twist and turn as much as you wish and find that perfect position that is most comfortable for you.

You can lay flat on your back with your hands alongside your body and stretch your arms,

Legs and relax.

You can curl up on your side,

Laying cozily under your warm blanket.

Feel free to hug a pillow or your favorite stuffed animal.

You can even sit up with your favorite cup of sleepytime tea as long as you make sure that your lights are either turned off or dimmed down.

Allow yourself to just exist in the calmness of the dark.

Allow yourself to embrace the night and let go of the day just for a little bit.

Tomorrow will come another day and tomorrow there will be time for basking in the sun and enjoying life in its full,

Brightly lit glory.

But that will come tomorrow.

Now it's time to let go.

Breathe,

Listen,

Relax and sleep.

Now that you're comfortable,

You might start feeling your body is relaxing.

The tension of the past day slowly leaving your feet,

Your knees,

Your hips and the entirety of your legs.

Your breathing is slowing down and you can feel your belly rise and fall calmly and gently.

Your hands resting,

Getting ready for another day of adventure and wonderful experiences.

Your wrists are relaxing and so are your elbows and your shoulders.

Your neck is gently melting into your pillow,

Allowing itself to let go of the heaviness of your head after a long day.

Your eyes are closed and you're surrounded by the calm and safety of darkness.

And I am here with you.

The gentle sounds of my voice and music are filling up your head,

Pushing away all the stress and worries of the past day.

Now try focusing on your breath.

Can you feel it calming down?

On your inhale,

Imagine the air entering your nostrils,

Swirling around in your head,

Taking all the unnecessary thoughts with it,

Like a fresh gust of wind lifting up leaves and dust off the ground.

As you exhale,

Imagine all those thoughts and worries picked up by your breath leaving your head through your mouth,

Or nose if you prefer.

There is no right or wrong here,

It's just you,

Me,

Breathing and soft reassuring darkness.

Inhale,

Pick up all the silly thoughts and let them go when you exhale.

Inhale,

Allow your breath to stay in your lungs and then exhale,

Allowing yourself to let go completely.

Inhale and exhale.

In through your nose and out through your mouth.

In slowly and calmly and out.

In and out.

Just a few more inhale and exhale.

Your body is letting go and your mind is being emptied by the fresh breeze of your breathing,

Picking up all those nasty thoughts and stresses of the past day and leaving it all behind,

Getting ready for sleep and venturing into the wonderful land of dreams and stories.

Long,

Long time ago,

In the warmth of distant Arabian lands,

Lived a powerful Persian king who ruled far and wide over India and China.

His name was Shariar,

And he was married to one of the most beautiful women in the known world who unfortunately was unfaithful.

After her betrayal,

The heard emperor lost all his faith in women and decided all of them are just as deceitful and deserve punishment.

He took a different wife every night for three years and executed them all before they could betray him like his first wife did.

That was until a wise and beautiful daughter of Shariar's vizier named Shahrazad decided to marry the Persian king.

To postpone her inevitable death,

She began to tell him a story so fascinating and beautiful,

The king needed to know how it ends.

Entranced by her words,

He allowed Shahrazad to live another day so that she can finish her story.

And so it lasted for one thousand and one nights,

During which Shariar grew into a wise ruler and buried the flame of his distrust towards women,

Allowing him to live long and happily with his witty wife,

Shahrazad.

The first night,

The story of the merchant and the genie.

It has been related to me,

O happy king,

Said Shahrazad,

That there was a certain merchant who had great wealth and traded extensively with surrounding countries,

And one day he mounted his horse and journeyed to a neighboring country to collect what was due to him,

And the heat oppressing him,

He sat under a tree in a garden and put his hand into his saddlebag,

And ate a morsel of bread and a date which were among his provisions.

Having eaten the date,

He threw aside the stone and immediately there appeared before him an efreet of enormous height,

Who,

Holding a drawn sword in his hand,

Approached him and said,

Rise,

That I may kill thee as thou hast killed my son.

The merchant asked him,

How have I killed thy son?

He answered,

When thou atest the date,

And threwest aside the stone,

It struck my son upon the chest,

And as fate has decreed against him,

He instantly died.

The merchant,

On hearing these words,

Exclaimed,

Verily to God we belong,

And verily to him we must return.

There is no strength nor power but in God,

The High,

The Great.

If I killed him,

I did it not intentionally,

But without knowing it,

And I trust in thee that thou wilt pardon me.

The genie answered,

Thy death is indispensable as thou hast killed my son,

And so saying he dragged him and threw him on the ground and raised his arm to strike him with the sword.

The merchant upon this wept bitterly and said to the genie,

I commit my affair unto God,

For no one can avoid what he hath decreed,

And he continued his lamentation,

Repeating the following verses.

Time consists of two days,

This bright and that gloomy,

And the life of two moieties,

Safe and that fearful.

Say to him who hath taunted us on account of misfortunes,

Doth fortune oppose any but the eminent?

Dost thou not observe that corpses float upon the sea,

While the precious pearls remain in its furthest depths?

When the hands of time play with us,

Misfortune is impaired to us by its proacted kiss.

In heaven are stars that cannot be numbered,

But none is eclipsed save the sun and the moon.

How many green and dry trees are on the earth,

But none is assailed with stones,

Save that which beareth root?

Go thottest well of the days when they went well with thee,

And fear it's not the evil that destiny was bringing.

When he had finished reciting these verses,

The genie said to him,

Spare thy words,

For thy death is unavoidable.

Then said the merchant,

Know,

O Ifrit,

That I have debts to pay,

And I have much property and children and a wife,

And I have pledges also in my possession.

Let me,

Therefore,

Go back to my house,

And give to every one his due,

And then I will return to thee.

I bind myself by vow and covenant that I will return to thee,

And thou shalt do what thou will,

And God is witness of what I say.

Upon this the genie accepted his covenant and liberated him,

Granting him a respite until the expiration of the year.

The merchant therefore returned to his town,

Accomplished all that was upon his mind to do,

Paid every one what he owned him,

And informed his wife and children of the event that had befallen him.

Upon hearing which,

They and all his family and women wept.

He appointed a guardian over his children,

And remained with his family until the end of the year,

When he took his grave clothes under his arm,

Bade farewell to his household and neighbors and all his relations,

And went forth in spite to himself,

His family raising cries of lamentation and shrieking.

He proceeded until he arrived at the garden before mentioned,

And it was the first day of the new year,

And as he sat,

Weeping for the calamity which he expected soon to befall him,

A sheikh,

Advanced in years,

Approached him,

Leading a gazelle with a chain attached to its neck.

The sheikh saluted the merchant,

Wishing him a long life,

And said to him,

What is the reason of thy sitting alone in this place,

Seeing that it is a resort of the Djinn?

The merchant therefore informed him of what had befallen him with the efreet,

And of the cause of his sitting there,

At which the sheikh,

The owner of the gazelle,

Was astonished and said,

By Allah!

O my brother,

Thy faithfulness is great,

And thy story is wonderful!

If it were engraved upon the intellect,

It would be a lesson to him who would be admonished.

And he sat down by his side and said,

By Allah!

O my brother,

I will not quit this place until I see what will happen unto thee with this efreet.

So he sat down and conversed with him,

And the merchant became almost senseless.

Fear entered him,

And terror,

And violent grief,

And excessive anxiety.

And as the owner of the gazelle sat by his side,

Lo,

A second sheikh approached them with two black hounds,

And inquired of them after saluting them the reason of their sitting in that place,

Seeing that it was a resort of the Djinn.

And they hold him,

The story from beginning to end.

And he had hardly sat down when there approached them a third sheikh with a dapple mule,

And he asked them the same question which was answered in the same manner.

Immediately after,

The dust was agitated and became an enormous revolving pillar approaching them from the midst of the desert.

And this dust subsided,

And behold,

The Djinni,

With a drawn sword in his hand,

His eyes casting forth sparks of fire.

He came to them and dragged from them the merchant and said to him,

Rise,

That I may kill thee as thou killest my son,

The vital spirit of my heart.

And the merchant wailed and wept,

And the three sheikhs also manifested their sorrow by weeping and crying aloud and wailing.

But the first sheikh,

Who was the owner of the gazelle,

Recovering his self-possession,

Kissed the hand of the efreet and said to him,

O zho Djinni,

The crown of the kings of the Djinn,

If I relate to thee the story of myself and this gazelle,

And thou find it to be wonderful and more so than adventure of this merchant,

Will thou give up to me a third of thy claim to his blood?

He answered,

Yes,

O sheikh,

If thou relate to me the story,

And I find it to be as thou hast said,

I will give up to thee a third of my claim to his blood.

Then said the sheikh,

Know,

O efreet,

That this gazelle is the daughter of my paternal uncle,

And she is of my flesh and my blood,

And took her as my wife when she was young and lived with her about thirty years.

But I was not blessed with a child by her,

So I took to me a concubine slave,

And by her I was blessed with a male child,

Like the rising full moon,

With beautiful eyes and delicately shaped eyebrows and perfectly formed limbs.

And he grew up by little and little until he attained the age of fifteen years.

At this period I unexpectedly had occasion to journey to a certain city and went thither with a great stock of merchandise.

Now my cousin,

This gazelle,

Had studied enchantment and divination from her early years,

And during my absence she transformed the youth above mentioned into a calf and his mother into a cow,

And committed them to care of the herdsmen.

And when I returned after a long time from my journey,

I asked after my son and his mother,

And she said,

Thy slave is dead,

And thy son hath fled,

And I know not whither he is gone.

After hearing this I remained for the space of a year,

While,

Burning heart and weeping eye,

Until the festival of the sacrifice,

When I sent to the herdsman and ordered him to choose for me a fat cow,

And he brought me one.

And it was my concubine,

Whom this gazelle had enchanted.

I tucked up my skirts and sleeves,

And took the knife in my hand,

And prepared myself to slaughter her,

Upon which she moaned and cried so violently that I left her,

And ordered the herdsman to kill and skin her.

And he did so,

But found in her neither fat nor flesh,

Nor anything but skin and bone,

And I repented of slaughtering her,

When repentance was of no avail.

I therefore gave her to the herdsman,

And said to him,

Bring me a fat calf,

And he brought me my son,

Who was transformed into a calf.

And when the calf saw me,

He broke his rope and came to me,

And fawned upon me,

And wailed and cried,

So that I was moved with pity for him,

And I said to the herdsman,

Bring me a cow,

And led this.

And that was the tale that Scheherazade told her king on the first night,

Leaving him full of anticipation and curiosity as to how the story of the first sheik ends.

And so I will leave you too for now,

So that you can find refuge in the calmness and darkness of the night.

I hope to see you tomorrow too,

And for the next one thousand nights as well.