Good evening.
Thank you for joining this unique session which promises to heal you through words.
My name is Anup Joke.
I am a performance artist and a storyteller here in India and I use spoken word as a medium to connect with everyone around me.
This is my first episode here at Insight Timer and I would request in case you connect with me and you feel some energy,
Do follow me out here.
So tonight it will be a two way process.
I'll be giving you a lot of words and you have to offer me some imagination.
Like every other energy exchange it will be a two way process.
Remember the time when you were young and your mother used to read stories to you,
Bedtime stories.
Well,
This is pretty much that.
But what we'll try to achieve through this is a good night's sleep.
I want you,
In fact I request you and invite you to lie down comfortably wherever you are and then close your eyes.
Like any other healing practice,
Initially I would want to or invite you to follow your breath.
Just take a deep breath in,
The deepest you have taken all day and release it with a sigh.
Empty whatever air you have collected.
Let's do it once more and release it with a sigh.
Now close your eyes,
Lie down comfortably,
As comfortably as you can be.
Can be upside down or backside up the way you like it.
You can breathe normally from this point on.
And as I tell you a story,
You have to imagine it playing in your head.
You have to imagine the place,
The characters and anything else.
The props,
Whatever you would like to imagine through this.
I'll just take a pause and then I'll begin a story from a small Indian village in Himachal Pradesh,
The mountain state.
This is a story about an eight year old boy who loves to dream.
After this pause,
The story would begin.
I saw that bird again.
Now I know it's a bird.
On previous nights I could just see a shadow,
A dark and blurry figure drawing circles in the sky.
This was the first time I noticed its shape.
It's like a storm cloud but with wings.
Have you ever seen a child play with crayons?
I imagined hundreds and hundreds of children drawing circles with crayons in the sky till it starts looking like a bird.
That's my bird.
As I was following the trail of the bird,
I started to wonder where it was going.
My mother,
She woke me up in the middle of the night.
She said I kept twitching my arms and legs and mumbling something incoherent.
Something about a gigantic bird.
I've been trying to remember my dream but my mind,
It seems blank.
A little later my dad walked into the room to check on me.
I pretended to be fast asleep.
Pretending to be dead or faking death to avoid a threat is a defense mechanism.
A lot of mammals used and I clearly have learned from them.
My science teacher once talked about some species who drop dead as a way to avoid a threat.
Well,
Whenever my dad drops in for a surprise visit to my room,
I would fake to be asleep.
Night is when I come alive.
I can't afford to waste my nights sleeping.
I saw that bird again.
I can now see the texture of its dark feathers and its arched beak and its claws.
A giant black bird.
I'm glad I'm one of those children who believe dreams have meanings.
If my dad dreamt of something like this,
He would freak out.
Not me.
I'm in love with this creature.
I want to be like this bird.
I want to fly so high that I discover tiny wings come out of me.
It was overwhelming at first,
But eventually I got used to my new feathers.
It was there again for the third time this week.
Every night I see it more clearly.
This time I found myself admiring it for a moment.
It's a large creature,
Odd but beautiful in its uniqueness.
I don't remember ever seeing a bird like this before.
I'm growing to be a bird like this one.
My feathers are a little bigger now than what they were a night before.
At this rate,
I shall be flying in a few days.
But then my mother woke me up again.
It was time for school.
I hate going to school because school comes between me and my dreams.
Also my friends can read and write something I could not learn.
But my teacher and school,
They do not know about my superpowers.
My ability to fly at night.
Fortunately none of them have noticed my new pair of wings.
I don't think my wings are visible during the day.
It's only when stars twinkle in the night sky my wings take shape.
I cannot wait for my first flight.
There was something special about tonight.
It was a no moon night,
Moonless.
A million stars were staring down at me as if an auditorium full of eyes was waiting for something dramatic to happen.
And something dramatic did happen.
My full grown wings were flapping for their first flight.
I took off.
I am in the middle of my first flight.
And from up here my little village looks so tiny.
A dark sleepy village catching up with its dreams,
Tiny pine sized dreams.
But I have bigger plans up my sleeves.
My first flight beyond the clouds and the horizon.
My life isn't the same anymore.
I have a connection with the other side.
I know it is dangerous to have this kind of connection.
But trust me I am in control.
It feels great when I am gliding at 12000 feet.
All my life I have seen flights take off and land.
I never thought this would be my reality too.
Here at 4 am I am celebrating my first flight on top of a cloud.
I think Bryan Adams was lying.
There is nothing called as cloud number 9.
In fact clouds don't have a number.
Each cloud makes me happy.
And I think Red Bull was lying as well.
I didn't get wings because I had a Red Bull.
I got wings because I believed in it.
Because I dared to dream.
Oops it's going to be 6 am.
I need to rush back home before my dad wakes up.
I want this secret life of mine to stay a secret.
It's time to go to bed.
And as I am going to bed I request all of you to stay in your beds with your eyes closed.
And keep dreaming.
Keep believing in yourself.
Unclip your wings.
And try to sleep.
Because if you would not sleep you would not get to meet the bird of your dreams.
And if you would not meet the bird of your dreams how would you go for your maiden flight?
This is your bird man.
Calling it a night.
My name is Anubhjug.
I shall see you soon with another episode of healing with words.
Till then,
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Have a good night.
