Falling Asleep in the Forest — A Deep Sleep Meditation for Anxiety, Stress and Depression

The sixth episode in the Falling Asleep By series.

It is night in an ancient forest. 🌲 🌲 🌲 Moonlight filters through the canopy above, falling in soft silver shafts onto the moss and the ferns and the forest floor. The air is cool and still and carries the deep, rich smell of earth and ancient wood.

You are lying on a cashmere blanket on a bed of soft moss. Dark and warm and completely enclosed by trees that have been here for centuries.

And there, just within sight among the ferns, a single luminous flower. White with the palest blush of pink. Glowing softly in the moonlight as though it carries its own quiet light.

As sleep arrives, its petals begin to close. One by one. 

Until the forest is still. And you are gone into the most beautiful sleep.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this session: sylvia@sylviaingle.com

And if today's meditation has stirred something in you, a curiosity, a longing, a quiet sense that you are ready for more, I would love to support you further.

Visit www.sylviaingle.co.uk to find out how we can work together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Close your eyes. Close your eye. Take one slow breath in and let it go. Take another deep breath in. And let it go. And we can begin. You are in a forest. An ancient forest. The kind that has been here for so long. It's got its own quality of silence. Quality of so dark, its own smell that it's unlike anything else in the world. The smell of deep earth and old wood and moss, and the cool, still air of a place that time moves through very slowly. It's a safe night. Above you, the canopy of ancient trees, the branches so old, so wide, they have reached across the sky and woven themselves together into a ceiling of dark leaves and silver light. Moonlight filters through in soft still moments, falling onto the forest floor around you, onto the moist moss, onto the ancient ferns that grow in the spaces between the great roots. But where you lie safe and dark, a warm, soft dark, the kind of dark that surrounds and reassures, the kind of dark that's been here for centuries and knows exactly what it's doing. You're here lying on a Kashmir soft blanket, spread across a deep bed of moss, cool and giving beneath you the softest natural surface. You are enclosed by them, protected by them, held within a cycle of ancient, completely unmovable things, and a silence, the most extraordinary silence you've ever known. Not empty, full, the silence of a place that has been silent for so long, it has become something in itself, something of texture and depth, and quality of peace that settles into you with every breath you take. Weave it in and let go, weaving it in and letting go this ancient deep forest silence, just gently feel the moss beneath your blanket, even though through the blanket you can sense it, cool and deep and impossibly soft, living and ancient, and perfectly content to be exactly what it is. It's been growing here in this exact spot, perhaps for longer than you can imagine. And tonight it is your bed. Quality of this coolness is that of a forest at night, clean and still, and carrying that deep green smell of living things, of earth that's never been disturbed, of wood that's been standing through centuries, of seasons without moving. Your hands rest on the blanket beside you, warm still, the fibers are so soft against your skin. Around you are ancient ferns, dark and velvety and still in the moonlight, their fronts curving gently, perfectly still in the absence of any breeze, the moonlight catching the edges silver and dark green, making them glow very faintly in the stillness, and the trees above, the branches moving so slightly that you are not sure they are moving at all, or perhaps it's simply the moonlight shifting through the leaves, dark and silver, ancient and still, the silence continues deeper now, as though the forest has noticed that you are here, and it has drawn its quiet around you like something to be protected, like a gift. Breathe in the forest air. Let it go through you and cleanse and breathe out whatever you brought with you into this forest tonight, whatever the day left in you, whatever the week left in you, breathing it out into this ancient earth where the trees will take it quietly as they have everything and turn it into something clean, breathing in, letting go, breathing in, letting go, and then just within sight among the ancient ferns to your left, something glowing softly, quietly, as though it has always been there, and you are only now still enough to see it, a flower growing from the moss beneath the roots of the oldest tree, its stem slender and straight, its petals open and luminous, white with a very palest blush of pink at their edges, beautiful pink that glows in the moonlight, simply with that particular quality that white flowers have at night, as though they gather all the available light and hold it gently, giving it back to the darkness around them. Its petals are fully open, perfectly symmetrical. You look at it though through your heavy, calculated eyes. The most beautiful thing growing here in the ancient forest, in the moonlight, among the ferns, as though it grew here specifically for you for this moment, for you to find it, for you to watch it, its white petals luminous in the dark, its pale pink edges, the softest thing in this soft, dark, ancient silver wood. Your breath is very slow now and deep. Your body's warm and heavy and completely held by this forest, silence complete, and the flower is beginning to close so slowly, so gently, the way it always does at the end of a day, and the end of the light when the world grows quiet and still, and it's time, the outmost petals first, curling inward slowly, the palest pink edges turning towards the center, and the next following, curling gently inward the white of them, catching the moonlight one last time before they fold, and the next and the next, each petal finding its place, folding home, returning to the center, flowers growing smaller, more perfectly itself with every petal that closes until only the innermost remain open for just a moment longer, as they're waiting as though they know that when they close everything will be still, your breath deeper, your body warm, completely in rest, going deeper, the forest silent around you, the last petal closing so slowly, closing the flower perfectly completely peaceful, closed the forest still anew, already in a most beautiful deep sleep.