Warm words

Night time, fires & sleeping under stars

QUICK RECAP FOR new subscribers. When we exercise our positive neural networks through warm words and seeing the beauty, it supports our brain to shift from a stressed state to a relaxed one.

Sometimes stress levels are so high it can be difficult to see the beauty or do anything that will fire up our positive neural networks, and it helps if someone does it for you. That’s what these warm words are about.

The survival brain starts taking over when stress is high, and we respond with anxiety or depression or anger (sometimes a mixture). At these times warm words can irritate someone whose survival brain leans towards anger. But if that is you, and you can get beyond this, the magic can still happen. Especially when the words are spoken in a fall asleep story.

The ‘fall asleep’ stories I’m sharing extracts of (to be recorded a little later in the year), are to support the brain to shift from a stressed state to a relaxed one when they are listened to rather than read – spoken to a rhythm that shifts the brainwaves from beta (wide awake) and high beta (stressed) to theta (relaxed).

When I write warm words and extracts of my ‘fall asleep stories’, I often read them out loud a few times, to check for edits. I was doing that last night for these words and when I’d finished I looked up at the tree out front, and the sky above and behind. A deep sense of connection arose. In that moment there were no words, just a feeling of being deeply connected to the natural world around me. When the brain relaxes, our connection to the world around us can open up and the best of what it is to be human, can flow.

Warm words

A PEARLY SKY is drifting across my view with soft pinks, pale blues and smudges of bluey mauve. The shapes keep shifting, ever so slowly, while the leaves on the tree out front gently rustle, hardly moving at all. The pink fading now, just mother of pearl blue remains, soft smudges start to turn day into night and the last gull glides off to bed. A wood pigeon flies into the tree out front, a magpie cha tak cha taks then this little corner of the world where I sit and stare seems to slumber, as the sky turns into night.

This post-midsummer slowly darkening sky stretches deep and wide, with twinkles from stars arriving late under the hush of nearly early morning hours. Fires are to be had, casting orange slithers into the darkness, while friends sip on glasses of something, telling stories and listening to each other’s lives, as conversation unfurls with the flames and wood smoke coils.

I walk silently into the garden out back, and find the little pile of kindling I collected from a wood. There are twigs of different sizes, and branches; some thin, some larger like little logs. Ever so quietly, I build a small fire in a fire wok I found along the road, strike a match, lighting up the darkness, then sit. The smell of earth is in the air as the flames trickle around the twigs. Slowly at first, so I blow a little from underneath and soon, with gentle feeding of increasingly thicker twigs, I have a little fire to keep me company, under the stars.

I wait for owls, but tonight they don’t come. It’s just me, the smell of the earth, a few stars twinkling, and the crackle of wood as orange flames warm my face. I remember other fires I have sat around, as memories of old friends unfurl across my mind, cocooning my senses. Perhaps I shall sleep out under the sky tonight, earth beneath and stars above, staring at the firelight, as the branches turn into embers.

Sweeping the Moon Away

Here is another tiny installment of ‘Sweeping the Moon Away’ you can find the others here here here and here (in order). This will become one of the ‘fall asleep stories’ that I will record to help you fall asleep, if you or anyone you know, would benefit from this. I nearly called them ‘bore yourself to sleep stories’, because nothing ever really happens in them – that’s the point, they are designed to allow the survival brain to feel completely safe. When I record them, they will be spoken to a rhythm that will de-stress the brain. You may find you start to fall asleep as you read them.

The next day, the man was in his front garden looking at the earth. There were cracks appearing where the soil had become thirsty during the summer months. As the man watered the soil, the cat watched from a neighbours roof. The water gurgled and spluttered as it made its way through the hose, to soften the ground.

When I sat on my wall, I could see the mans south facing fence, there were huge pots, full of fig trees. Underneath these and between, raspberries grew, and underneath those, wild strawberries, onions and marigolds. Garlic had been planted around the roses, and in the middle of the mans front garden there was a huge greengage tree, with a little wooden table and two chairs perched underneath in the shade. Sometimes, his friend would come and together they would sit there.

The man attached the hose to a sprinkler, then went into his back garden and sat in his stripy deckchair with a newspaper. The cat climbed down from the neighbours conservatory roof and wandered out onto the street. Little paws walking across the hot pavement, but not minding the warm ground.

The cats tail and whiskers twitched as a bird flew into a tree, it stood still for a moment then, just shrugged and wandered on. Next it jumped onto a wall and spent the rest of the afternoon lazing in the sun, tail dangling, relaxed and at peace. The man in his deckchair had fallen asleep, as the earth in the front garden became refreshed, the water going deep, deep into the ground, bringing everything alive again. It was a good day.

Till Friday, when I shall post recipes to nourish your body, mind and heart.

Warmest wishes,

Lucy x

photos in order: Joshua Woroniecki, Kevin, Myiams-fotos – pixabay