The Garden Of Wild Words

Allow your creativity to blossom in this fantasy bedtime story.

Sleep and Sorcery is a folklore and fantasy-inspired sleep series.

My name is Laurel,

And I'll be your guide on tonight's fantastical journey.

Sleep and Sorcery is one part bedtime story,

One part guided meditation,

And one part dreamy adventure.

Listen to my voice for as long as it serves you,

And when you're ready,

Feel free to let go of the story and relax into sleep.

If you're still awake as the story concludes,

I'll guide you through an extended body scan inspired by Yoga Nidra.

In tonight's story,

You are a gardener who longs to write poetry.

In a dreamlike state,

You visit the unfinished grounds of your latest garden project,

Seeking inspiration from nature.

Plunging your pen into the ground,

You bring the garden to life with wild-growing flora and even wilder words.

Hail to thee,

Blithe spirit,

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven or near it,

Poorest thy full heart in profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Percy Bysshe Shelley,

To a Skylark Yours are the hands of a laborer,

Skilled and certain,

With years of experience written in every wrinkle and fold.

These are hands that relish in the feel of natural things,

Of soil and roots and stone and cool water.

Hands that greet the rough,

Gritty and textured with tenderness,

That wash away dirt and grime at the end of long days,

Grateful for the toil and the rewards you reap.

To do the work you do,

To have those hands deep in the earth,

And to see your dreams and designs come to fruition as the seasonal cycles revolve,

Is immensely fulfilling.

You feel as if you are really changing things,

Setting wheels to turn,

Bringing forth life and beauty.

And every gardener,

Every landscape designer,

Everyone who works with natural elements to create environments and experiences,

Has the soul,

You believe,

Of an artist.

Instead of strokes of paint,

You light up the world with the colors of flowers and foliage.

Instead of notes on a harp,

You bring the atmosphere alive with the strains of birds,

The music of water in a fountain,

The quiet flutter of butterfly wings.

Instead of words and stanzas,

You compose with shape,

Texture,

And path,

Leading your audience through the poetry of the garden.

You love this work and the myriad worlds you create through communion with nature and plants.

But you must admit to yourself that there are days when you dream of having softer hands,

Untroubled by dirt and unroughened by hard work.

You dream of weaving words like you might train Clematis on an arch,

Of writing poetry and song as transcendent and wistful as the wisteria vines you love so much.

You have the heart of a poet and the hands of a gardener.

In your most recent project,

You were commissioned to lead the revitalization of an English garden in the country.

After the estate changed hands and fell into disrepair,

A new owner finally stepped in to restore the property.

But along with repairs that needed to be made to the great house,

It came with many acres of woodland,

Rolling hills,

And lakes,

Which once boasted the most exquisite landscape garden in the region.

You knew the estate by reputation long before you were contacted about the project.

It's long been a fascination of yours.

You recall the first time you pulled up to the magnificent estate.

Its iron gates and façade,

All overgrown with ivy,

Picturesque even at its shabbiest.

And how strolling through what was left of the garden felt like meeting an admired celebrity or childhood hero.

No photograph could compare to the reality of walking the paths,

Exploring the woodlands.

And as you moved through the overgrown,

Under-tended walkways and follies,

Splendidly gothic in their ruin and abandonment,

Your imagination took root,

Spiraling in a thousand glorious directions.

Never have you felt so inspired,

An artist with such an extraordinary canvas on which to create.

In the unkempt grottoes you saw dazzling relief,

Hidden faces and creeping vines.

In the algae-covered lakes you saw diverse waterfowl and thriving bracken.

In the neglected woodlands you saw snowdrops and bluebells,

Secluded statuary.

With eyes bright and head teeming with ideas,

You gleefully accepted the project and set about restoring the gardens to their former glory.

Today,

After months of planning and hard work,

You stand on the edge of the property's largest lake,

Now home to a lamentation of swans.

On the far bank,

Well past the swaying reeds,

Stands the restored rotunda,

A pillared pavilion with domed rooftop,

Rolling hills and evergreens beyond,

Some of the mature trees preserved and mighty still,

Others saplings,

Aspiring to the heights of their forebears.

How bold and bright a vision it is,

How gratifying to stand among the fruits of one's labor.

You owe this spectacle,

Only a slice of which you now behold,

To many others who joined you in the effort,

But as the project nears completion,

You take in the gardens alone.

While your team have a day off to rest before final inspections and adjustments,

You've come solo to the estate to survey the work,

Appreciate the nuances and magic of the landscape without distraction,

And experience the garden as it should be experienced.

It's your firm belief that a well-designed garden is more than just a peaceful place to while away the hours.

It is an invitation,

A hand held out to the seeker,

Inviting them into deep contemplation of the outer and inner world.

A successful garden is a font of inspiration,

Creativity,

Self-discovery,

And more.

That's what you hope to engender with this fully realized property,

To surprise,

Delight,

And inspire.

And beyond that,

You feel,

The garden is a story.

It has characters who move in and out of frame,

It responds to seasonal cycles by shedding its layers and building them anew,

And it wakens the mythic longings of the seeker.

Today,

You play the lone seeker,

A character in your own winding narrative of flowers,

Foliage,

And fruit.

You begin your walk through the gardens just after the aching beauty of dawn,

The shifting hues of which still glimmer on the horizon and reflect in the lake.

Light is a character in the epic poem of the garden,

Just as much as any wildlife,

Visitor,

Plant,

Or fixture.

She transforms everything she touches,

Stirring the imagination as she moves.

So you move through the dawn-kissed grounds,

Sweetened by the bliss of solitude and contemplation.

Would that you were a poet,

Able to translate the splendid spectacle of this place into language,

What you would give to grasp that alchemy,

That transmutation.

Perhaps it's some wistful fantasy,

But you've stashed a notebook and ink pen in your satchel for this walk,

Hopeful that the quiet stroll might move you to some words,

Channeled,

Intuited perhaps,

From the source well of inspiration.

While every seeker's journey through the garden will differ,

The narrative throughline metamorphosed by individual imaginations.

You designed this garden with a specific story in mind.

You found inspiration in the Greek myth of Prometheus,

That titan from the earliest ages of the earth,

Who befriended the Olympian gods and earned a place in their new order after the old was overthrown.

Prometheus,

Who loved the ingenuity of humankind,

Became their benefactor,

Even stealing divine fire from the gods in their honor.

In the myths,

He hid that spark of sacred flame within a fennel stalk before bearing it down from Mount Olympus to the fields of mortals.

For this reason,

You had a border of fennel planted along the entrance path to the garden.

The little yellow flowers radiate the most tender scent of licorice and honey as you pass by.

Perhaps it's not the most common plant to use in a romantic garden,

But you couldn't resist its thematic and sensory connotations.

Meanwhile,

It's visited by numerous species of butterfly in the dewy morning,

Adding a splash of color and life to the place.

You have covered the garden and its many domains with allusions to the mythic titan and surrounding motifs.

They're not easy to find if you're actively looking for them,

As they're made to be stumbled upon by the seeker who follows an intuitive path,

Surprises along the way rather than destinations.

In every garden you design,

You consider these things,

How to encourage an organic experience of the place,

Different every time you visit,

Rather than prescribing a single correct path.

This leads your mind astray as you enter the woodland,

To fancies of another fixture of both mythology and garden design,

The labyrinth.

There are two ways to approach such a centerpiece,

One known as unicursal,

In which there is a single winding path curled in on itself like a helix for walkers to traverse,

Beginning and ending,

Always in the same place.

Labyrinths like this can certainly encourage mindfulness,

Removing the concentration on the physical body and allowing the mind to be absolutely present.

But you are partial to the other approach,

The maze approach,

Which features many opposing paths,

Corners and choices,

Always yielding a different journey.

While you haven't built a formal hedge maze into this garden,

You think of it in its entirety as a complex series of choices,

Alternate paths and opportunities to safely let yourself get lost.

It mirrors life,

A garden of forking paths,

In all its beauty and bittersweetness.

Now we can never truly know the outcomes of our choices until we look back,

Much later,

To notice the patterns.

Water through the trees is the first of several sculptures commissioned for the garden,

And this is one of your favorites.

You follow the path to her feet,

Pandora,

Hewn in marble.

In the myths,

Zeus,

So angry with Prometheus for his theft of fire,

Commanded his blacksmith Hephaestus to create this original woman,

Molded from the earth.

She was equipped with a jar which contained a thousand plagues and evils,

Theretofore unknown on earth.

When the jar was opened,

All those evils spilled out,

And thus there is plague and misfortune in the world.

Pandora,

Bringer of all that is ill on earth,

Has naturally been maligned throughout the ages.

But do you think,

Perhaps,

Unfairly so?

For with the spilling forth of her jar,

Not unlike the temptation of Eve,

There came knowledge and wisdom to humankind.

What meaning does life have if trials and misfortune are never faced?

How much more fully do we live,

Knowing the value of all that is happy,

Sweet,

And desirable?

In other versions of the myth,

She is perceived as something closer to an all-giving goddess,

A bearer of gifts of many natures,

In some ways a benefactor to humanity in the vein of Prometheus.

It's with this more complex view of the myth that your Pandora was carved.

She stands tall,

Eyes lifted,

Holding the box that contains a thousand woes.

Its lid ajar,

Swirls of marble,

Like wisps of fabric flow,

All curling outward,

Upward and down.

And surrounding the platform on which she stands are cascades of spring flowers and purple meadow sage,

In such a romantic sweep that they almost blend with the swirls of marble from Pandora's box.

It's the first time you've seen the statue since the final flora was planted,

And the whole effect takes your breath away.

To see how the marble and botanicals entwine,

Overlapping and informing each other,

Art,

Nature,

Art again,

Story and song in the brushstrokes of the garden,

It's inspiring.

Once again,

You long for the kind of gift with words that might evoke a fraction of the majesty before you.

But what is all this longing for,

You wonder,

If you never pick up the pen and try?

What better time than this,

Your solitary stroll through the grounds,

To put pen to paper and see what might come through,

What words you could channel through the mystery of the garden.

And so,

Determined,

You take a seat where you can see Pandora still,

Your back pressed against the trunk of a mighty,

Mature oak that's long been guardian of these woods.

Its branches shade you from the climbing sun,

And its leaves send dappled light through to the forest floor.

You savor the contact with the tree,

Which seems to send its energy in the form of a subtle warmth through the tree trunk and roots.

You think of all the ages the oak must have seen,

All the swift change passing below its limbs,

The fall and renaissance of this very garden.

There's great poetry in trees,

There's slow pace and longevity.

You will that poetry to soak through the roots and soil,

And into your hand.

In the shadow of Pandora,

You open your notebook to the very first page,

Blank and waiting,

And you scribble the date in the corner to mark the occasion of your dabbling debut.

But when you set the tip of the pen to the line,

Nothing comes.

The words do not,

As you would hope,

Flow like water in a fountain,

Or flit like butterflies among the fennel flowers.

Instead you sigh in stillness,

Seemingly unable to push even a line across the blank paper.

You turn the pen over in your hands,

Feeling its smooth curves under your fingers.

This instrument,

So much more delicate than the typical tools of your trade,

The spades and trowels and heavier equipment,

Feels unknown,

Untested.

You feel for the same kind of warmth that the tree radiates,

And you do not find it.

Perhaps this is the problem,

The tool,

You're thinking about it wrong.

As you consider the weight of the pen,

Exploring its contours,

You try to imagine it as a fallen branch of oak or alder,

Carved smooth by a tender hand,

Not a pen,

But a wand,

An instrument of alchemy and magic.

You imagine words spilling from it,

Falling forth with effortless ease,

Just as the flowers burst from healthy soil,

As the tendrils of Pandora's gifts fall from the marble box.

The mid-morning breeze,

Cool and sweet-scented with flowers,

Kicks up through the trees,

Rustling the leaves and sending a shiver down your spine.

You close your eyes to savor it,

The sensory deluge.

Can you catch your poetry,

The breath of inspiration,

On the wind?

Might it push your pen across the page,

Unconscious and connected to some deeper source?

The breeze wraps itself around your mind and body with the tenderest touch,

Like silk ribbons caressing your skin.

When you gently blink your eyes open,

It seems a cloud has passed over the morning sun,

Leaving the wood in a pinkish,

Pearlescent haze.

The breeze tickles the flowers beneath Pandora's plinth.

You feel lighter somehow,

Energized,

Perhaps by your contact with the tree,

The soil.

You look again to the pen in your hand,

And you find that its curves and contours are less smooth than you recall,

That knots and grains run through it,

As if it really is a fallen twig of oak fashioned into a sorcerer's wand.

You lower your gaze to the notebook that lies open on your lap,

Only it isn't there.

Instead,

There's only a dusting of soil across your legs,

Sparkling in the pink play of light.

And with a whisper of leaves,

A flurry of butterfly wings,

You know what to do.

You know how to awaken the poetic spirit.

All this time you thought poetry was a gift you didn't possess,

Which was so different,

So separate from your gardener's spirit.

But now you understand.

With swift gesture,

You grasp the pen,

The wand in your fist,

Lift it high,

And plunge it into the soft soil.

It sinks with satisfying force.

What happens next is instantaneous,

And yet unfurls with balletic grace before you.

From the place where your pen struck the earth,

There suddenly springs forth a hundred spirals of creeping flocks,

Ivy and foxglove,

Poppies aplenty,

And dandelions,

Bluebells,

And may.

All varieties of flowers and foliage spinning forth in complex patterns,

Helical and awe-inspiring.

They burst abloom and form more forking paths,

Unfurling tenderly throughout the woodland and beyond.

You rise,

Amazed to follow,

As they unfold over the hills,

Blanketing the ground in scarlet and white and blush and green.

Your eyes cannot feast on it enough,

On the abundance and life that spread before you,

All bursting like a spring from the impact of your pen.

A small white butterfly floats beside you,

Seemingly dizzied by the explosion of flowers.

It comes to land on your outstretched hand,

Which you bring close to your face to behold the beautiful creature.

And now your eyes drink of an even more miraculous sight,

For the butterfly's wings frayed at the edges are made of paper,

And on them are scrawled tiny,

Elegant words.

Wonder-struck,

You look to the flowers unravelling below and before you.

These,

Too,

To your amazement,

Are made from the rolled edges of parchment in a hundred giddy hues,

With countless words curling inward and outward.

So you reach down,

And you pluck a red rose.

You must pull the petals,

One by one,

To read the script thereupon.

Through primrose tufts in that green bower the periwinkle trailed its wreaths,

And his faith that every flower enjoys the air it breathes.

Your heart lightens with the revelation of the poetry,

And expands as you realize every petal stretching out toward the lakes,

The fountains,

And the rotunda must contain some seed of sweet language like this.

In the petals of bright yellow flowers with skyward heads you find inscribed,

Ah,

Sunflower,

Weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the sun,

Seeking after that sweet golden clime where the traveller's journey is done.

Scribbled on the reeds that sing toward the lake,

You read,

There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide,

And many a fountain,

Rivulet,

And pond,

As clear as elemental diamond,

Or serene morning air,

And far beyond.

What rapturous language reveals itself to you with each plucked petal,

Each foraged flower,

And the poet's breath climbs the wind,

And you breathe with it.

In the sweetness of an apple blossom you read,

What wondrous life in this I lead,

Ripe apples drop about my head,

The luscious clusters of the vine upon my mouth do crush their wine,

The nectarine and curious peach into my hands themselves do reach.

Stumbling on melons as I pass,

Ensnared with flowers,

I fall on grass.

And scriven in the bell of a foxglove you find,

Come slowly,

Eden,

Lips unused to thee,

Bashful sip thy jessamines as the fainting bee,

Reaching late his flower,

Round her chamber hums,

Count his nectars,

Enters,

And is lost in balms.

How gloriously these paper flowers unwind their labyrinths in the climbing sun,

How the vines train themselves to climb trees and trellises,

Blanketing all in poetry.

And you move through the landscape as if through a dream,

It seems to ripple and undulate about you like sea life,

This is the transformative nature of the garden,

You think,

A truly breathtaking garden transcends itself,

Awakens the seeker to inspiration sought and unsought.

Along the path you come to the restored hermitage,

A staple of English romantic gardens,

The cottage hangs now with cascades of wisteria and trails of climbing ivy,

All paper-thin and fluttering in the breeze,

It's a place you could see yourself wasting years,

Decades,

Piling papers in every corner,

Filling every page with poetry,

You find verses inscribed here too,

On every leaf,

Every lilac flower.

Sound of vernal showers on the twinkling grass,

Rain awakened flowers,

All that ever was,

Joyous and clear and fresh,

Thy music doth surpass.

The words,

Wild and wonderful,

Manifest in every corner of the garden you explore,

Adorning even the little flowers,

The little trees,

The little shrubs,

The little shrubs of the meadow,

The little shrubs of the meadow,

The little shrubs of the meadow,

Adorning even the littlest leaves of grass with.

A child said,

What is the grass?

Fetching it to me with full hands,

How could I answer the child?

I do not know what it is,

Any more than he.

And you feel yourself bathed,

Enveloped in words like twining weeds,

Overtaking the environment,

Overtaking your soul.

Like the tendrils of marble spilling forth from Pandora's jar in that awe-inspiring sculpture,

They fill you to the brim with poetic spark and spirit such that cannot be contained.

All from the mighty plunge of your pen,

Your wand into the earth,

All from the play of your poet's heart and gardener's hands.

All manner of myths are written in the curves and coils of the garden.

It is alive and always evolving,

Tuned to the rhythms of a dancing world.

At last,

You come to what you consider the hidden gem of the garden and its beating heart,

The grotto,

An artificial cave built into the sloping hillside,

Lined in rough-hewn rock and designed to feel ancient,

Unmoving amid the natural beauty of the landscape.

Such follies serve many purposes in the English landscape garden,

Run through like this one with a cool spring.

They are a relief from summer heat or a retreat for meditation and solitude,

A rare interior space in amid the splendor of the great outdoors.

And this grotto,

Which you redesigned in the gothic style so that it appears to grow organically from the hillside,

An entrance to another world,

Is the home of your Prometheus,

The central figure of the garden's overarching narrative,

Carved in stone,

Concealed within.

The sound of trickling water lays a musical backdrop.

Overhead,

Etched in the stones,

Are words you carefully chose.

Ah,

Spare my slumbers,

Gently tread the cave,

And drink in silence or in silence lave.

And as you step within the grotto,

Moist and cool,

You find endless vines of paper moonflower thriving here in the shade.

On their trumpet pedals,

More poetry abides.

Once again,

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs that on a wild secluded scene impress thoughts of more deep seclusion and connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky.

Now inside the cave,

Rocks a glimmer with the rippling waters of the pool,

You behold the statue of Prometheus.

Like your Pandora,

He is grand and elegant,

Heroic in his complexity.

The expression on his face is the picture of a thousand unsaid words and longings,

And clutched in his hand the torch of fire,

Stolen back from the greedy Olympians to share with humanity.

With endless verse ringing in your head,

Rhythm and song alive throughout your body,

You marvel at the majesty of such a figure,

The beneficence of such a gift.

The titan who braved curses and eternal punishment to bring fire to the mortal plane,

To sustain humankind.

Fire,

The ember,

The spark,

And people with their hands in the earth,

Sowing and harvesting their crop,

Giving their all only to sustain life and species.

The gift of fire was more than sustenance,

More than a tool.

It was new breath,

New spirit.

It was inspiration and change and transformation,

The catalyst of movement,

Wonder and transcendence.

It made and makes the earthly into the ethereal.

Fire is poetry,

The transformative spark that connects the earth and the air.

Your laborer's hands,

Your blithe spirit.

You stand at the feet of Prometheus,

Humanity's great benefactor,

In the inner sanctum of this,

Your wild,

Wondrous creation,

And surrounded by a swirl of potential poetry.

Words like weeds that creep unbridled and feral,

Finally unleashed from your poet's heart.

And you know at last that you have always been the poet you long to become,

In possession of mighty contradictions and complexity.

And you are large.

You contain multitudes.

Within you are endless verses,

Untamed,

Even untranslatable,

Shining through you as wild wisteria,

Barbaric yawp,

One to be celebrated and sung.

Somewhere beyond the stones and the spring of the grotto,

Perhaps soaring lightly over the woodlands or the lakes,

Goes a skylark gaily singing,

Like a poet hidden in the light of thought.

And from your lips fall words of praise for that song,

Which echoes even here in the depths of the grotto.

Better than all measures of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures that in books are found,

All treasures that in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were,

Thou scorner of the ground.

Teach me half the gladness that thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness from my lips would flow.

The world should listen then,

As I am listening now.

Relax and soften.

Finding a comfortable stillness here,

And noticing if there are any small adjustments you can make in the body that would make you just a little bit more comfortable.

Finding a position you think you can remain in until you fall asleep.

And go ahead and bring your awareness to your breath,

Slowing down and taking a deep inhale.

Make this the biggest breath you've taken all day.

Exhale slowly,

Completely emptying out,

Feeling yourself relax deeply into place.

Now continuing to breathe in a rhythm that feels easy and natural for you.

And imagining that with every exhale,

You drop down one level,

Deeper,

Closer to the earth,

Closer to sleep,

And closer to the unconscious world beneath the surface.

We'll now scan the body,

Rotating our awareness throughout,

While continuing to use the breath to send you deeper and deeper into relaxation.

As I name a body part,

Simply send your focus there,

Imagining you're shining a warm light upon it,

Allowing that part to soften and relax,

Before moving on to the next.

If you find your mind beginning to wander,

Just come back to the breath,

The sound of my voice,

And the sensation of your body.

At any time,

You can let go and surrender to sleep.

We'll start on the right side of the body,

With the right hand thumb,

Index finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

Middle finger,

Pinky finger,

Feel the space between the fingers,

The palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Wrist,

Forearm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder,

Armpit,

The right side of the chest,

Right side of the waist,

Right hip,

Right side of the pelvis,

Thigh,

Knee,

Knee pit,

Lower leg,

Right ankle,

Right heel,

Sole of the foot,

Top of the foot,

Right big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe.

Feel the right side of the body,

Sending the breath like a current of relaxation throughout.

Now,

Move the awareness to the left hand thumb,

Index finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

Pinky finger,

Feel the space between the fingers,

Palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Wrist,

Forearm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Left side of the chest,

Right side of the waist,

Right hip,

Right side of the pelvis,

Thigh,

Knee,

Knee pit,

Lower leg,

Left ankle,

Left heel,

Sole of the foot,

Top of the foot,

Left big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe.

Feel the left side of the body,

Sending the breath like a wave of relaxation throughout.

Feel both sides of the body together,

Connected in relaxation and stillness.

Now,

Let your awareness travel upward through the back of the body,

Relaxing and surrendering as you go.

Feel the right heel,

Left heel,

Right calf,

Left calf,

Right knee pit,

Left knee pit,

Right back of the thigh,

Left back of the thigh,

Right glute,

Left glute,

Lower back,

Lower back,

Spine,

Mid and upper back,

Shoulder blades,

Back of the neck,

Muscles of the throat,

The chin,

The jaw,

Unclenching,

Mouth and lips,

Softening the tongue away from the roof of the mouth,

The cheeks,

Right ear,

Left ear,

The nose,

Right temple,

Left temple,

Right eye,

Left eye,

Right eyebrow,

Left eyebrow,

The center point between the eyebrows,

The forehead,

The crown of the head,

And the scalp.

Breathe.

Feel the whole right leg,

The whole left leg,

Both legs together,

The whole right arm,

The whole left arm,

Both arms together,

The whole back of the body,

The front of the body,

Front and back together,

The lower body,

The upper body,

The head,

The whole body together,

The whole body,

The whole body.

Release and breathe,

Softening,

Sinking,

Letting the breath carry you downward,

Further still,

Toward the door of sleep.

Good night.