Grandmother Tree - Tali & Mara Kids Sleep Story

Hi,

My name is Trish and I'd like to introduce you to Taly and Mara.

These two girls love to go on adventures.

Would you like to go on an adventure with them?

If you're up for an adventure,

Get yourself all snuggled into bed.

Close your eyes because this adventure can only happen when you close your eyes and you open up your mind to what comes next.

So with your eyes closed,

Get yourself comfy.

Wriggle around if you need to.

You might even,

If you're a bit fidgety,

You might want to clench all your muscles super,

Super tight.

And super tight,

Tighter,

Tighter and release them.

Does that feel good?

You can do it one more time.

Clench those muscles super tight and relax them.

Now if you'd like to meet Taly and Mara,

Take your breath.

Notice it breathing in and breathing out.

And then pop,

You can imagine them in your mind.

Taly and Mara.

And they want to go for a walk down to the river.

Would you like to come with them?

Well,

Let's set off.

So Taly and Mara walked ahead with you right there in between them,

Walking down the path to the river.

You can hear the river rushing in the distance as you step down the dirt path.

With vines crawling out of the ground on either side,

Trees tall above.

As you walk down the path,

You see birds flying overhead.

And the sound of the river gets a little louder as you get closer.

See a little rabbit pop up out of the bush and back down again and off it goes.

A tribe of black cockatoos have just flown up out of the trees and launched themselves into the sky.

Flying overhead,

You watch up and watch them in awe.

I'm so excited about this adventure,

Says Taly.

Me too,

Says Mara.

I can't wait to go down to the river.

Hey,

Says Taly,

Maybe we should go and see Grandmother Tree today.

Yes,

I love Grandmother Tree,

Says Mara.

Would you like to go and visit Grandmother Tree?

To get to Grandmother Tree,

We need to go down to the river and along the path.

This way,

Says Taly,

And together you all wander down past the river,

Streams flowing nice and strong.

You can see it moving,

Moving,

Moving,

And the sound of the water rushing past.

As you turn down a path that leads along the side of the river,

As you weave in and out of the bush,

Mara gives a little giggle and looks back to you and says,

Are you enjoying it?

As you keep on going,

You go past a whole lot of trees.

Taly and Mara are very excited about this adventure and to show you the Grandmother Tree.

One more turn and around the bend,

You come to a place where there is this massive tree.

So big.

Wow,

She's so beautiful,

Says Taly.

Yeah,

Every time we come here,

I'm so amazed by her,

Says Mara.

What do you think of the Grandmother Tree?

Can you see her branches reaching high,

High up,

High up into the sky?

Let's climb it,

Says Taly.

So they all begin climbing the tree.

You can climb it too if you like.

So Mara and Taly jump up into the branches and start to climb.

And they start and they're giggling and they're having so much fun.

Branch by branch,

Having a wonderful time.

And it's a nice easy climb.

Grandmother Tree seems to almost as if her branches come to help them to move on up the tree.

She loves the sound of their giggling and their laughter and their joy.

Little way up though,

Mara starts to get a bit frustrated.

She kind of wants to be a bit in front of Taly and she wants to get up the tree quicker.

So she starts to get a bit frustrated.

She gets frustrated and she starts being a little bit mean.

None of us really like that,

But interestingly,

I don't think the Grandmother Tree does either.

Because as this happens,

The branches seem to stretch out further apart and she has to work really hard to move from branch to branch.

And as this happens,

She seems to get more frustrated,

More frustrated as the tree seems to make it more and more difficult.

So she gets to a point where it's all become too hard.

And she just sits down on the branch and watches out over the river as it rushes past underneath and sees as the black cockatoos come back in to nest.

She feels herself relax against the branches of the tree and the trunk is supporting her.

She starts to see the support that the tree is giving her.

She starts to feel the flow of the river underneath her and see the way that the birds are flying and the joy that they still hold and the joy starts to creep back into her heart.

And then as the joy comes back,

So too does the ears of the climb and she continues on her way.

Tully,

At the same time,

Has been having a little bit of a battle too.

She started to worry about a whole lot of other things that were happening and too,

For her,

The tree's branches started to get further away.

Then she worried she was falling behind.

She started to feel quite sad and worried.

And she too stopped and sat down on the branch because it was all getting so hard and she was getting so worried.

And she leaned again against the trunk of grandmother tree,

The branches stretching out in front of her.

And then she watched as some butterflies came fluttering past,

Their movements a little bit jerky and a little bit beautiful,

As they flitted around her and positioned themselves on the leaves around her head.

She was so amazed and in awe of the beauty of the butterflies that she too started to feel the joy and the happiness coming back into her heart and filling her up again with that feeling of happiness.

And as this happened too for her,

The branches became closer together and easier to climb.

And again she found the happiness and the joy of climbing in grandmother tree.

Then Tully and Mara met eyes and they met eyes with you too,

As you all climbed together to the top of grandmother tree,

The top that is high above all the other trees,

Where you can see to the horizon in every direction,

The horizon of life and everything within it.

You all feel on top of the world and you let out a big,

Big excited cry and you see when you sit at the cry all the birds that have been sitting in the trees launch up into the sky as well.

It's now time to descend down the tree and everybody climbs down with big smiles on their faces and the climb down is so smooth and easy and short.

It feels like they've only been climbing for a few minutes when again their feet touch the ground.

Tully and Mara and you all put your arms around the base of grandmother tree and give her a big beautiful hug and then you head back down the path along the river as the river flows.

Leaves drop into the river and skate along its surface.

You see another couple of rabbits bouncing around in the bush as you walk along the path.

And back and this is where you say goodbye to Tully and Mara because they're going home to bed to sleep and if you're still awake and not quite asleep yet you may like to spend a little bit more time hanging out having adventures down by the river.

Keep imagining the beautiful powerful energy of the grandmother tree and the flow of the river as you go off to sleep.

You