Reality Shifting Through The Seasons: Bedtime Tale

So just take a moment to allow yourself to close your eyes and allow yourself to begin to relax.

And as you begin to comfortably fall asleep,

I'm just going to tell this bedtime story in the background.

And as you listen to this bedtime story,

I don't know whether you'll drift to sleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words.

And as you comfortably fall asleep,

I'm just going to tell a bedtime story about a hermit crab.

This hermit crab is crawling calmly and quietly along the sandy seabed.

And on its back is a bell.

And it's more of a shell of a bell.

It's not able to ring with the crab inside.

And it's waddling along the seafloor.

Waves passing overhead.

And as those waves pass overhead,

So the water pulses past.

And while that water pulses,

So the crab can notice itself being pushed back and forth gently.

And the sand occasionally churning a little bit around it.

And it continues along this sandy seafloor.

Dancing strips of light.

Moving,

Undulating and weaving their way across the seafloor as the waves move overhead.

When the crab looks up,

They can see the shimmering shards of light dancing in the water.

And this seafloor is very bare here.

And they're heading towards some rocks.

And as they get nearer to the rocks,

So the water is getting shallower and shallower.

And that crab can hear the rumble of the waves as they break on the shore.

And the gurgle as they pull back out to sea.

And as they near the seafloor,

They can hear a musical sound.

Like the ocean is playing musical instruments.

And the nearer they get,

The louder the sound gets.

And as they near the shore,

They see a row of frogs.

And that row of frogs is jumping into the water,

Swimming down in the water with rocks.

And bouncing rocks off the top of drum-like plants under the water.

And the rocks bounce in rhythms.

As those frogs dive down,

Throw the rocks at the drums.

And swim back up.

All taking it in turns to beat out the rhythm on those drums.

And the closer the crab gets,

The faster and faster those frogs play the drums.

And they're diving into the water so fast,

Leaving bubbling trails behind them.

That the bubbles barely have time to disperse by the time they're diving in next.

Creating a cloud of bubbles above those drums.

And while diving in,

Those bubbles start making a high-pitched whine sound.

And that whining sound comes from that blanket of bubbles.

And then it begins to shimmer and shine and sparkle.

And a blue light begins to form from those bubbles.

As the music gets faster and faster.

And the hermit crab gets closer and closer.

And as the hermit crab gets right up to those frogs.

So its shell,

That bell,

Seems to almost get sucked off of its back into the bubbles.

And then it finds itself pulled into those bubbles.

And it tries to cling on to the sea floor a little bit.

But then just feels this overwhelming urge to let go and go with the flow.

And it gets pulled into the bubbles.

And those bubbles pass across its body.

Tickling it from the head down to the tips of its feet.

To the end of each leg.

And then it flies out the other side of those bubbles.

And it's spinning and flying through the air.

Aware that wherever it looks,

It looks very strange.

Not a world it's ever seen before.

And it manages to somehow get balance.

But it finds that it gets balance by putting out some legs.

Only when it looks to its left and right,

It no longer has legs.

It has two graceful wings.

And it's covered in feathers.

And realizes it's an eagle flying through the air.

Away from the bubbling,

Tinkling blue light behind it.

And it finds it's got the most incredible eyesight as it surveys the landscape below.

It can see the seashore.

It can see the bubbling going on down on the seashore.

Along the edge of the water.

It can see the undulating hills.

Sandy beaches.

Feel the warmth of the sun.

The air through its feathers.

And it can see across the distant forest.

And the wispy white clouds overhead.

And it can feel the warming air.

And see this landscape springing to life.

As it flies across this landscape.

Catching an updraft spiraling up higher.

Seeing a myriad of colors stretching through the meadows.

The waves of grass moving below.

Such good eyesight it can notice the small insects and small mammals as they forage.

The bees dancing from flower to flower.

Butterflies with their delicate wings.

Flying from plant to plant.

The different shades of greens of the plant life.

The family of deer in a field.

One gazing up at the eagle overhead.

Some newborn deer taking their first steps.

The way the sunlight glints and glistens on rivers and streams.

The sight of fish eating bits from the surface of the water.

The little mouths poking out of the water.

And then darting away whenever a shadow moves across the water.

Perhaps with a breeze in the reeds.

As they glide and fly.

As the sun rises.

And they swoop and swerve and fly lower to take a closer look.

And they can see an otter singing a lullaby to its baby helping to settle that baby down.

And they swoop up higher again over the forest hearing the sounds of the other birds within the forest.

And noticing a shimmering light way off in the distance.

And they feel compelled to fly towards that light.

And so they fly in the direction of that light.

Almost like a rip in space and time.

And yet something about it seems so inviting.

And as they get nearer so it opens up and wraps around them and while they pass through this time.

Almost like passing through a time tunnel.

So they see cuckoo clocks all around them and the faces of other clocks.

And the cuckoo clocks having something coming out of them with those clocks almost spiraling and spinning around them.

And as they exit the other side they can feel the warmth of this environment.

A vast meadowed area of undulating hills and a graceful wide river stretching through this landscape.

A horse and cart trundling along a gravel track and then turning down onto a dirt lane heading down towards a small town.

An abundance of greenery and life.

The sun bright and warm overhead.

A child sat on the edge of the river enjoying a slice of watermelon plunging its face into that slice getting the watermelon up its cheeks round its mouth,

Up under its nose on its chin.

The watermelon juice dripping everywhere its hands sticky the eagle picking up on the intense warm feelings from that child and the warmth from other animals enjoying this weather and the abundance of food and resources and it continues to glide seeing what looks like a castle off in the distance and decides to head towards that castle and on its journey to the castle so it follows the river the light still glistening on the surface of the water down low and hovers above a couple travelling along the river on a gondola laughing at each other as they struggle to make it move with any kind of speed and having to try and keep balance how that couple will get on as it can see some rapids up ahead and it doesn't think they're necessarily prepared for those rapids but they're only gentle rapids but enough to make their journey interesting in a short while and looking at each other but not really paying attention to their surroundings and as they continue to fly towards that castle so they can see there's something unusual about the castle the colour they necessarily expect it seems paler almost a pinky white and it's not reflecting the light as they would expect and as they get nearer so they see a slight haze between them and the castle and they fly into that haze being encouraged to land as if the atmosphere is gradually getting heavier and heavier and as they touch the ground and find themselves touching the grass and that grass tickling around their body so they notice that something's happening to them their body starts to shimmer and shine and sparkle and they notice as their body changes that they're losing their wings and they land among the grass as a tiny little mouse and they've got the faintest of squeaks and the tiniest of feet and the grass is significantly taller than they are and they run through that grass almost like running and pushing through a grass jungle still heading towards that castle which is now towering high above them and yet still in the distance and they run through this long grass cutting through towards the river to try and run along the edge of the river where there won't be the grass to have to push through no matter where they're going and as they come out on the riverbank so they see in the water a row of ferrets looking like they're about to have races in different boats they've built some of them are in long boats stretching the length of their body others are in more upright positions in different shaped boats and the boats all look rustic and metal and like they've just been hammered together and they seem to have different materials attached to them one of them has some leather straps wrapped around the top of the boat and wrapped over their front shoulders to hold them in place and small dark goggles over their eyes and a little leather racing hat holding its ears in and back and small leather gloves with the fingers sticking through and they're holding a lever in their hand and on the shore is a caterpillar counting them down and holding a flag and then it waves that flag and those ferrets set off their boats powering down the river some with electric arcing from point to point powering an electric boat others having steam powered boats almost turning the water into jets sucking in the water at the front boiling that water and pushing the steam out the back through the water as those ferrets power down that river and the mouse watches as they head along the river and he runs along the river bank to try and keep up and the sun setting off in the distance over the river with that sun low across the water and the one with the dark goggles isn't affected by that very low light and the others lose their direction a bit and have to slow down and that one shoots off ahead and as it crosses a finishing line a caterpillar at the other end waves a flag and there seems to be a small group of animals that jump up and down in excitement at the winner as the others take their turn to cross the finish line and the mouse continues to run to try and get to that finish line to be part of the excitement and fireworks are going off at the side of the river and as the fireworks are going off so a group of swans are dancing in the water using their large wings to push themselves up into the air stretch their chests out standing as tall as they can in the water almost pirouetting in the water managing to somehow gracefully hold themselves high in the air and then diving down into the water sticking their bottoms out the water and waving their legs in synchronized movements stretching and pulling their toes in and out moving their feet side to side and at different angles so sometimes the sunlight shines through the skin between the toes other times it doesn't making all sorts of different patterns and gentle splashes of water and as the dancing comes to an end so the ferrets head over to the shore disembark their boats and once disembarked and the boats are pulled up onto the shore the first,

Second and third place ferrets head over to a podium and they stand on the relevant stand at the podium and the third place ferret is given a mince pie for coming in third the second place ferret is told that they can have a giant teddy bear and they're handed a giant teddy bear that's significantly larger than they are and the winning ferret is given a ski trip holiday and a set of skis and some ski equipment and the mouse arrives at the little gathering of animals all jumping and cheering and it gets sucked up for a while in the excitement before noticing the sun is now setting on the horizon the sky is turning orange and they want to make it to the castle and so they continue on towards that castle and it seems so far when they're so small and as they continue on towards that castle they encounter a pigeon who offers to give them a lift and the pigeon introduces themselves as Jim from the jungle often known as Jungle Jim they're used to giving smaller animals a lift or just carrying messages anything they can pick up they're happy to carry and so they take hold of the little mouse they flap their wings and fly up and carry that mouse towards the castle and as the mouse approaches the castle so they can smell the sweetest of scents and they see this castle doesn't seem to be an ordinary castle as they'd suspected it looks soft and squidgy and the pigeon drops them off at the entrance to the castle and they can really smell that marshmallowy smell of this castle as they walk up towards the entrance walking along a licorice floor that they think doesn't smell as nice as the marshmallow castle itself and as they reach the castle the sun has almost fully set they can see the stars emerging in the night sky and they knock on the castle door but their little paw just absorbs in with the marshmallow and so they don't know how to get attention and so they climb up a little bit easily grabbing hold of that marshmallow and they find their way in through a crack high up in the door squeezing through that crack wrapped in a hug of marshmallow and they pop out the other side inside the castle and as they fall to the floor so they make a discovery that the marshmallow inside the castle is bouncy and they just bounce on the floor and they try and right themselves but as they land they bounce again and again and again and they try and work their way through this castle bouncing their way and they end up inadvertently bouncing their way into the armory and in the armory they find some metal shoes and so they place those tiny metal shoes on their feet and those metal shoes grip the marshmallow and so they can walk but their walking isn't very efficient like walking in wet sand that you can do it but it takes a lot of effort and so they feel it takes ages just to get through the main hall of this castle and while walking through the castle they see that the moonlight is shining in a window and that silvery light is shining directly upon a flower floating in space above a plinth and the plinth is made of marshmallow and they head over towards that flower and they see that it's a yellow rose with the silkiest of petals and they climb up and touch the petals of the flower and as they touch those silky yellow petals so the moonlight seems to sparkle and almost like a transporter they seem to be teleported through that moonlight back out of the castle and they find themselves back in the air again flying once more as that eagle only now there's no castle below them just the most incredible vast forest and the air has cooled and this forest is full of different browns and golds and bronzes the most incredible autumn sight the trees all softly rustling as the dry leaves rub together and they fly over this autumnal landscape feeling the approaching coolness of the air seeing clouds softly rolling in softening the light seeing animals settling down in preparation for the winter squirrels beginning to store nuts seeing a small cabin in this forest and through the window of the cabin seeing someone baking a cake in an oven and the scent of that cake rising up tickling the nostrils of the eagle the wisp of smoke rising from the chimney enjoying how peaceful this time of year is seeing a quaint church in a very small village its weathervane signaling the direction of the wind and the approaching cool air and flying above that cozy cottage that small little cabin in this forest catching the very slight updraft from the warmth rising from its chimney and aware that the moon is rising the sun is setting but the clouds hide what's going on and so the sky is just gently darkening with a very slight silvery glow appearing and occasionally the clouds will part ever so slightly and the silver shimmering light beams down to the earth and moves across the earth until night time sets in everything goes dark apart from looking back in the direction of that cabin seeing the glow at the windows and in the darkness the eagle notices a faint blue light and flies towards that faint blue light passes through that faint light and out the other side finds themselves flying over a rugged coastline with tall cliffs jagged rocks crashing waves the landscape covered in snow the trees just a shadow of their former selves just white gaunt sentinels standing shuddering at the tops of the cliffs as the wind blows through those trees and seeing a person sitting by a campfire very close keeping their hands warm and next to them on a structure they've built using some of the wood from the trees seeing what almost looks like a spider's web but it's actually a dream catcher and as they are resting there next to that fire it crackling softly the wind flickering those flames the dream catcher begins to glow as if granting a dream and this landscape seems so quiet as far less life around here like everything has gone to sleep just a few footprints in the snow from different animals a white fox trudging back towards the forest a white owl hooting in a tree but everything keeping warm and cosy and that person just resting there by that fire and the eagle flies down to take a closer look circles that fire sees the person sat there with their eyes closed speaking in a language they don't know somehow imbuing that dream catcher with some kind of magic and then the dream catcher seems to spin and the eagle can't tell if it's an imagined spin and just their senses playing a trick on them or if it's actually spinning and as it spins so they hear the sound of a bell and they're reminded of the bell they had as a shell now a long time ago and while thinking of that bell that was once their shell they heard a bell ringing in their ears so they found themselves drawn towards the dream catcher drawn from this cold place and they pass through the dream catcher like passing through a portal and they find themselves splashing down in the ocean once more falling to the floor of the ocean as that crab again not far from those frogs playing those drums and the frogs playing is calming down and as the frogs playing is calming down they see a mermaid tap dancing on the sea floor holding its tail slightly up with two feet poking out the bottom where the tail would be its legs still made of a tail right down to the ankles and so all it can do is tap dance being very vertical and its tap dancing to the tune of the frogs and the crab watches this happening and while watching a catfish swims over introduces themselves as Katniss and says that they're a witch of the ocean and they help different creatures to have experiences that bring enlightenment and wisdom and help them to gain new perspectives and an understanding of things in a whole new way like seeing life from birth all the way through all the seasons seeing the variety the challenges the happiness and they explain how they gave this crab that experience and now the crab has lost its bell and so it needs a new shell and the catfish says that someone left a bucket in the river that flows to the sea and the bucket has holes in it and they'd been asked to fill the bucket with water and told that if they could fill the bucket with water they could pass a certain challenge and so they went and placed that bucket with holes into the river and then walked back to the elders and said they've done the challenge they filled the bucket with water and the elders in disbelief went and checked saw that bucket in the water and realized they had done as was asked of them and now this bucket can make a very good shell there's room in the bucket to grow and the holes can always be plugged with different creatures that can grow on the outside of this new shell and then you can give them a lift and an experience of new worlds and new places perhaps they can grow out of those holes and maybe when you're done with the bucket you can leave it behind and they can stretch from the holes down into the ground and start their own new home there and when you know it's time that you've outgrown that home and it's time to go on an adventure to find a new home and Katniss hands over the bucket and the crab sets off to find a comfortable place to settle down to sleep and once they've found a comfortable spot they relax down in their new home and they drift peacefully and comfortably relaxed asleep into slumberland