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Transcript

A Bedtime Story from Muggle Country · Muggle Snuggle: A Boring Harry Potter Podcast to make you Sleep

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The flowers know you are there. They lean toward you,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the way sunflowers lean toward the sun and their feelings,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the joy, the peace, the surprise, the shyness, the nostalgia,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the grief, brush against you like hands reaching out in
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the dark, like voices calling from a great distance, like
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the whisper of a story you have heard before but
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: cannot quite remember. A story that is on the tip
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of your tongue, a story that you know, if you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: could just remember it, would change everything, would make the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: world make sense, would answer the question that you have
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: been carrying without knowing it for your entire life. But
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: you do not remember the story. Not yet, not here.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: The garden knows this. The garden is patient. The garden
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: has been here for a very long time and it
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: will be here for a very long time more and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it is in no hurry to reveal its secrets. The
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: garden knows that some things can only be remembered when
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you are not trying to remember them, that some truths
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: can only be found when you are not looking for them,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: that some stories can only be heard when you have
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: stopped listening and simply let the silence carry the words
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: to you. the way the wind carries seeds, the way
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the tide carries shells, the way the night carries dreams.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: You reach the center of the garden, the bench, the space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: You sit down. The bench is warm. It is the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: warmth of the earth, of the stone, of the centuries
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of dreamers who have sat here before you, Each one
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: leaving a little of their warmth behind. The way a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: fire leaves warmth behind in the stones of a hearth.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: The way a person leaves warmth behind in the sheets
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of a bed. The way a story leaves warmth behind
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: in the mind of a reader. The space beside you
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: is occupied. Not by a person. By a book. The
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: book without a name. The book that is always here.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: In this place. In this garden. On this bench. Waiting
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: for whoever comes to sit down. You pick it up.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: It is warm. It is the weight of a sleeping child.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: It is the color of the sky at midnight. The
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: pages are blank. Not empty blank. There is a difference.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The pages are blank because the story has not been
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: written yet. The story is being written now by you
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: in your sleep, in the garden, on the bench, with
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the moonlight falling around you like water and the flowers
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: leaning toward you like friends and the silence holding you
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the way the universe holds everything. Gently, patiently, with a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: love that is so vast and so deep and so old.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: that it has become indistinguishable from the fabric of reality itself.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You do not write the story with a pen. You
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: do not write it with a wand. You write it
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: with your breathing. Every breath you take is a word.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Every word is a feeling. Every feeling is a story.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And the story you are writing, in your sleep, in
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the garden, on the bench is the oldest story in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the world and the newest story in the world and
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the only story in the world which is this. It
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: is good to be. It is good to be here.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It is good to be now. It is good to
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: be you, in this moment, in this place, in this body,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: in this life, in this breath. in this heartbeat, in
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: this particular configuration of atoms and energy and consciousness that
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: will never exist again, that has never existed before, that
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: is unique and unrepeatable and precious beyond all measure. You
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: write the story. The story writes itself. The garden watches.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: The flowers lean closer. The moonlight falls like a blanket.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: The silence deepens. The darkness softens. The warmth grows. And
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you sleep. And the sleeping is good. And the garden
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: holds you. And the library holds you. And the castle
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: holds you. And the world holds you. And the universe
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: holds you. And the feeling, the bare, unadorned, uncomplicated feeling
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: of it is good to be. holds you, and you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: are held, and you are known, and you are part
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: of something vast and ancient and kind. Time passes in
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the library, but it passes differently. It does not pass
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: in minutes and hours, the way time passes in the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: waking world. It passes in breaths, in heartbeats, in the slow,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: rhythmic pulses of sleep that measure the distance between one
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: dream and the next, between one moment of warmth and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the next, between one exhalation and the next inhalation, which
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: is the most fundamental rhythm in the world, the rhythm
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that begins at birth and ends at death and continues,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: without interruption, without pause, without the slightest hesitation, for the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: entire duration of a life. The hours between midnight and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: dawn are the deepest hours. They are the hours when
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the world is most completely asleep, when even the insomniacs
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: have given up and the night shift workers are nodding
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: at their desks and the cats are curled in their
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: favorite spots and the dogs are dreaming of chasing rabbits
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: through fields of tall grass. These hours are not dark.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: They are deep. There is a difference. Dark is the
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: absence of light. Deep is the presence of sleep, which
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: is not the absence of anything but is, instead, the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: most positive, most affirming, most generous thing the world does.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Sleep is the world saying, you have done enough. You
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: have been enough. You have given enough. Now rest. Now
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: be still. Now let someone else hold the world for
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: a while. In the library The hours between midnight and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: dawn are marked not by the movement of the clock.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: There is no clock in the library. Clocks are for
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: people who need to be somewhere, and no one in
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the library needs to be anywhere but by the movement
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of the candles. The candles in the library change color
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: as the night progresses. moving through a spectrum that has
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: no name, from the deep violet of midnight to the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: pale gold of dawn, passing through shades of blue and
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: green and amber and rose along the way. Each color
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: is associated with a particular quality of sleep, a particular
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: depth of rest, a particular kind of dream. The deep
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: violet of midnight is the color of the first sleep,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the sleep that comes when you first lie down, when
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the body is tired but the mind is still active,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: when thoughts still drift across the surface of consciousness, like
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: clouds across the surface of a lake this is the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: shallowest sleep, the most wakeful sleep, the sleep that is
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: still close to waking, still aware of the room around it,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: still listening for the sounds of the night. the creak
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of the house, the whisper of the wind, the distant
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: rumble of traffic that is the sound of the world
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: still moving while you are still. The blue that follows
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: midnight is the color of the second sleep, the sleep
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that comes when the body has settled and the mind
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: has quieted and the thoughts have stopped drifting and have
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: sunk gently to the bottom of the lake where they rest,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: undisturbed like stones on a riverbed. This is the sleep
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of surrender, the sleep that says, I am not in control.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I do not need to be in control. I am held.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I am safe. I can let go. The green that
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: follows blue is the color of the third sleep, the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: deepest sleep, the sleep that comes in the small hours.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: when the body is so still and the mind is
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: so quiet that you could not tell from the outside
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: whether you are asleep or dead. Except for the breathing,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: which continues, steady as a heartbeat constant as a star,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: because the body does not need your permission to keep
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: you alive. It does not need your attention. It does
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: not need your effort. It simply does it. The way
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the heart beats, the way the lungs breathe, the way
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the world turns, without being asked, without being reminded, without
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: being pushed. This is the sleep where the deepest