The Labyrinth (Encore)
Our story tonight is called The Labyrinth and it’s a story about a slow walk on a gravel path in mid-summer. It’s also about hidden places, unseen acts of kindness, the way cats sit in their windows, and always looking for magic.
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Speaker 1 welcome to bedtime stories for everyone
Speaker 1 in which
Speaker 1 nothing much happens
Speaker 1 you feel good
Speaker 1 and then
Speaker 1 you fall asleep
Speaker 1 i'm katherine nikolai i write and read
Speaker 1 all the stories you hear on nothing much happens
Speaker 1 audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim.
Speaker 1 We are bringing you an encore episode tonight, meaning that this story originally aired at some point in the past. It could have been recorded with different equipment in a different location.
Speaker 1 And since I'm a person and not a computer, I sometimes sound just slightly different.
Speaker 1 But the stories are always soothing and family-friendly. And our wishes for you are always deep rest and sweet dreams.
Speaker 1 Now,
Speaker 1 let's get ready to sleep.
Speaker 1 I'll read you a story.
Speaker 1 It's a place to rest your mind,
Speaker 1 like an upturned leaf resting on the surface of a river.
Speaker 1 Your mind will follow along with the moving current of my voice and our story.
Speaker 1 And before you know it,
Speaker 1 it will ease you into a deep sleep.
Speaker 1 I'll read the story twice, and I'll go a little slower on the second read.
Speaker 1 If you wake in the night, take yourself back into the story,
Speaker 1 thinking back through any bit you can remember.
Speaker 1 This interrupts your brain's tendency to cycle through thought
Speaker 1 and will put you right back into sleep mode.
Speaker 1 It is brain training and it might take a bit of practice. So be patient if you are new to this.
Speaker 1 Now,
Speaker 1 it's time to switch off the light.
Speaker 1 Set down anything you've been looking at.
Speaker 1 You've looked at a screen for the last time today.
Speaker 1 Adjust your pillows and comforter until you feel completely at ease.
Speaker 1 If you sometimes clench your jaw as you sleep, try resting the tip of your tongue at the place where your upper teeth meet the gums on the inside.
Speaker 1 That will help to keep your jaw relaxed.
Speaker 1 Now take a deep breath in through your nose
Speaker 1 and sigh out of your mouth.
Speaker 1 Again breathe in
Speaker 1 and out with sound.
Speaker 1 Good.
Speaker 1 Our story tonight is called The Labyrinth
Speaker 1 and it's it's a story about a slow walk on a gravel path in midsummer.
Speaker 1 It's also about hidden places, unseen acts of kindness,
Speaker 1 the way cats sit in their windows,
Speaker 1 and always, always
Speaker 1 looking for magic.
Speaker 1 The labyrinth
Speaker 1 in the gardens of the big house,
Speaker 1 on the far side of an open meadow,
Speaker 1 where deer have worn narrow trails through the grass,
Speaker 1 there is a stone wall that was built when our great-grandparents were children.
Speaker 1 And often when I am out there,
Speaker 1 my shoes damp with dew on a summer morning,
Speaker 1 I feel like it's possible
Speaker 1 to slip through time.
Speaker 1 I look across the meadow
Speaker 1 and watch purple cone flowers bobbing in the wind,
Speaker 1 and listen to whipper wells
Speaker 1 and morning doves
Speaker 1 layering their calls one over the other
Speaker 1 and think that this hour could belong to a day from a hundred years before,
Speaker 1 and that maybe
Speaker 1 through some trick of the unseen world,
Speaker 1 by stepping into a footprint laid deep in the ground,
Speaker 1 or passing under a particular branch at the right moment, when the moon is at a certain place in the sky,
Speaker 1 with Venus rising over her shoulder,
Speaker 1 I might have fallen out of the fabric of time
Speaker 1 and into another moment.
Speaker 1 This little bit of fanciful imagination
Speaker 1 is a leftover from childhood.
Speaker 1 I'm still looking for the door into the other world.
Speaker 1 I might run my hands over the stone wall,
Speaker 1 feeling the smooth rock face
Speaker 1 and the rough, gravelly mortar,
Speaker 1 and find a tiny hole
Speaker 1 that could be a keyhole,
Speaker 1 and then check my pockets, just in case a wrought iron skeleton key
Speaker 1 had somehow been magicked there for me to find.
Speaker 1 I doubt I'll ever lose this little habit of looking for magic.
Speaker 1 On this morning,
Speaker 1 the mist,
Speaker 1 made from warm air floating over the lake,
Speaker 1 was still lingering around the edge of the water,
Speaker 1 and between tree trunks,
Speaker 1 like cotton batting that had been stuffed into place
Speaker 1 by invisible hands.
Speaker 1 I went around the edge of the stone wall,
Speaker 1 a wide brimmed straw hat in my hand,
Speaker 1 in preparation for when the sun made its way over the tree tops.
Speaker 1 The air smelled sweet,
Speaker 1 like grass and like water,
Speaker 1 and had that cool, clean feeling
Speaker 1 that rejuvenates you when you breathe it in.
Speaker 1 How lovely
Speaker 1 to be reminded
Speaker 1 that every morning can be a fresh start,
Speaker 1 that you can begin again
Speaker 1 just by deciding to.
Speaker 1 I kept walking,
Speaker 1 with the stone wall receding behind me,
Speaker 1 and the grass becoming thinner at my feet.
Speaker 1 I was almost there now.
Speaker 1 The labyrinth was in front of me,
Speaker 1 and this morning
Speaker 1 I looked to be the only one here to walk it.
Speaker 1 Though even on days,
Speaker 1 when there were many people out to stroll its paths,
Speaker 1 it was always a quiet place.
Speaker 1 People didn't come here to chat or socialize.
Speaker 1 They might give you a small wave
Speaker 1 or a kind, acknowledging nod.
Speaker 1 But they'd leave you to your walk,
Speaker 1 and you'd leave them to theirs.
Speaker 1 Labyrinths come in all sorts of shapes and styles,
Speaker 1 and I've walked them in many places around the world.
Speaker 1 I've found them in city squares, in front of old cathedrals,
Speaker 1 made of polished marble and granite,
Speaker 1 laid out in an intricate pattern in the street.
Speaker 1 I've found them in the woods,
Speaker 1 made from fallen branches,
Speaker 1 in city parks,
Speaker 1 drawn with bright lines of spray paint,
Speaker 1 and, of course,
Speaker 1 here beside the gardens of the big house,
Speaker 1 where its paths and hedges are just visible from the map room.
Speaker 1 This labyrinth has paths bordered by low shrubs that are trimmed neatly so their even tops are only a foot above the ground.
Speaker 1 You can see where the path takes you.
Speaker 1 There's no secret about it.
Speaker 1 That's the difference between a maze and a labyrinth.
Speaker 1 A maze asks you to solve a puzzle.
Speaker 1 It might trick you into a dead end
Speaker 1 and send you back to try another route.
Speaker 1 But a labyrinth is just giving you somewhere to place your feet
Speaker 1 and a way to practice journeying with calm attention.
Speaker 1 It might take you down a winding trail
Speaker 1 that turns back and forth again and again
Speaker 1 before you arrive at its center.
Speaker 1 But it's nothing to unravel or conquer.
Speaker 1 It's just a process of movement.
Speaker 1 The paths themselves were laid with tiny white stones,
Speaker 1 which were regularly and carefully
Speaker 1 raked by a volunteer from the house at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 I was the first to step on to them this morning,
Speaker 1 and I took a moment just to be grateful
Speaker 1 that people were kind enough to care about such things.
Speaker 1 So many kind people
Speaker 1 work behind the scenes of everyday life.
Speaker 1 We often don't see the bite-sized gestures that are made a million times a day
Speaker 1 to make the world a little softer
Speaker 1 and more welcoming to others.
Speaker 1 But they are still happening.
Speaker 1 I reminded myself to do my own part in that work today.
Speaker 1 Maybe I'd pick up a bit of garbage along the road,
Speaker 1 or leave the best parking spot for someone else,
Speaker 1 or just
Speaker 1 not take more than I needed.
Speaker 1 It all added up.
Speaker 1 At the edge of the labyrinth path,
Speaker 1 I stopped and slid my feet together underneath me.
Speaker 1 I thought of the way that cats often sit with their front paws together,
Speaker 1 their their toes in a row, when they are watching birds outside their windows.
Speaker 1 It seemed like a sign of deliberation and watchfulness.
Speaker 1 So I had adopted it as a habit before I took my first step.
Speaker 1 I caught my hands together behind my back
Speaker 1 and felt my breath moving over my lip.
Speaker 1 Sometimes I brought a specific thought to chew on while I walked.
Speaker 1 And when I did,
Speaker 1 I often found that the steady rhythm of my gait evened my mind out.
Speaker 1 I might not know the answer to a question I'd carried in at the start.
Speaker 1 But by the end,
Speaker 1 I felt more relaxed with not knowing
Speaker 1 safe to just keep asking.
Speaker 1 Today,
Speaker 1 after a good night's sleep,
Speaker 1 my mind was already
Speaker 1 a bit like the lake
Speaker 1 on the other side of the garden,
Speaker 1 a few ripples on the surface,
Speaker 1 but mostly placid and still.
Speaker 1 So just walking,
Speaker 1 feeling the weight shift from heel to toe,
Speaker 1 was the main event,
Speaker 1 and enough to keep my attention.
Speaker 1 I followed the turns in the path,
Speaker 1 let them take me nearly all the way around the labyrinth,
Speaker 1 and then a step closer to its center,
Speaker 1 and nearly all the way around the other way.
Speaker 1 At its heart was a large flat piece of slate,
Speaker 1 with hedges around it, trimmed to point to the four cardinal directions.
Speaker 1 As I stood there,
Speaker 1 the wind picked up around me
Speaker 1 and rushed through the treetops.
Speaker 1 I closed my eyes
Speaker 1 and thought
Speaker 1 that maybe in these small moments,
Speaker 1 when we feel quite tied into the world,
Speaker 1 when we remember we can begin again,
Speaker 1 and that our only real work is kindness.
Speaker 1 Maybe that is when the door opens.
Speaker 1 Maybe that is magic.
Speaker 1 The labyrinth
Speaker 1 in the gardens of the big house,
Speaker 1 on the far side of an open meadow
Speaker 1 where deer have worn narrow trails through the grass.
Speaker 1 There is a stone wall
Speaker 1 that was built when our great-grandparents were children,
Speaker 1 and often
Speaker 1 when I am out there,
Speaker 1 my shoes damp with dew on a summer morning,
Speaker 1 I feel like
Speaker 1 it's possible
Speaker 1 to slip through time.
Speaker 1 I look across the meadow
Speaker 1 and watch purple cone flowers
Speaker 1 bobbing in the wind
Speaker 1 and listen to whipperwills
Speaker 1 and morning doves
Speaker 1 layering their calls
Speaker 1 one
Speaker 1 over the other.
Speaker 1 And I think that this hour
Speaker 1 could belong to a day
Speaker 1 from a hundred years before,
Speaker 1 and that may be
Speaker 1 through some trick of the unseen world
Speaker 1 by stepping into a footprint laid deep in the ground,
Speaker 1 or passing under a particular branch at the right moment
Speaker 1 when the moon is in a certain place in the sky,
Speaker 1 with Venus rising over her shoulder.
Speaker 1 I might have fallen out of the fabric of time
Speaker 1 and into another moment.
Speaker 1 This little bit
Speaker 1 of fanciful imagination
Speaker 1 It's a leftover from childhood.
Speaker 1 I'm still looking for the door
Speaker 1 into the other world.
Speaker 1 I might run my hands over the stone wall,
Speaker 1 feeling the smooth rock face
Speaker 1 and the rough gravelly mortar,
Speaker 1 and find a tiny hole
Speaker 1 that could be a keyhole
Speaker 1 and check my pockets
Speaker 1 just in case a wrought iron skeleton key
Speaker 1 had somehow been magicked there for me to find.
Speaker 1 I doubt I'll ever stop this little habit of looking for magic.
Speaker 1 On this morning,
Speaker 1 the mist made from warm air floating over the lake
Speaker 1 was still lingering around the edge of the water
Speaker 1 and between tree trunks,
Speaker 1 like cotton batting
Speaker 1 that had been stuffed into place
Speaker 1 by invisible hands.
Speaker 1 I went around the edge of the stone wall,
Speaker 1 a wide-brimmed straw hat in my hand,
Speaker 1 in preparation for when the sun made its way over the tree tops.
Speaker 1 The air smelled sweet
Speaker 1 like grass and lake water
Speaker 1 and had the cool, clean feeling
Speaker 1 that rejuvenates you when you breathe it in.
Speaker 1 How lovely
Speaker 1 to be reminded
Speaker 1 that every morning can be a fresh start,
Speaker 1 that you can begin again
Speaker 1 just by deciding to.
Speaker 1 I kept walking,
Speaker 1 with the stone wall receding behind me,
Speaker 1 and the grass becoming thinner at my feet.
Speaker 1 I was almost there now.
Speaker 1 The labyrinth was in front of me,
Speaker 1 and this morning I looked to be the only one
Speaker 1 out here to walk it,
Speaker 1 though even on days when there are many people
Speaker 1 out to stroll its paths,
Speaker 1 it was always a quiet place.
Speaker 1 People didn't come here to chat or socialize.
Speaker 1 They might give you a small wave
Speaker 1 or kind, acknowledging nod.
Speaker 1 But they'd leave you to your walk
Speaker 1 and you'd leave them to theirs.
Speaker 1 Labyrinths come in all sorts of shapes and styles.
Speaker 1 And I've walked them in many places around the world.
Speaker 1 I've found them in city squares, in front of old cathedrals,
Speaker 1 made of polished marble and granite,
Speaker 1 laid out in intricate patterns in the street.
Speaker 1 I found them in the woods,
Speaker 1 made from fallen branches,
Speaker 1 in city parks, drawn with bright lines of spray paint,
Speaker 1 and of course, here,
Speaker 1 beside the gardens of the big house,
Speaker 1 where its paths and hedges
Speaker 1 are just visible from the map room.
Speaker 1 This labyrinth has paths bordered by low shrubs
Speaker 1 that are trimmed neatly
Speaker 1 so their even tops are only a foot above the ground.
Speaker 1 You can see where the path takes you.
Speaker 1 There's no secret about it. it.
Speaker 1 That's the difference between a maze and a labyrinth.
Speaker 1 A maze asks you to solve a puzzle.
Speaker 1 It might trick you into a dead end
Speaker 1 and send you back to try another route.
Speaker 1 But a labyrinth is just giving you somewhere to place your feet
Speaker 1 and a way to practice journeying with calm attention.
Speaker 1 It might take you down a winding trail
Speaker 1 that turns back and forth
Speaker 1 again and again
Speaker 1 before you arrive at its center.
Speaker 1 But it's nothing to unravel or conquer.
Speaker 1 It's just a process of movement.
Speaker 1 The paths themselves were laid with tiny white stones,
Speaker 1 which were regularly and carefully raked by a volunteer from the house at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 I was the first to step on to them this morning,
Speaker 1 and I took a moment
Speaker 1 just to be grateful
Speaker 1 that people were kind enough to care about such things.
Speaker 1 So many kind people
Speaker 1 work behind the scenes of everyday life.
Speaker 1 We often don't see the bite-sized gestures that are made a million times a day
Speaker 1 to make the world a little softer and more welcoming to others.
Speaker 1 But they are still happening.
Speaker 1 I reminded myself
Speaker 1 to do my own part in that work today.
Speaker 1 Maybe I'd pick up a bit of garbage along the road,
Speaker 1 or leave the best parking spot for someone else,
Speaker 1 or just not take more than I needed.
Speaker 1 It all added up.
Speaker 1 At the edge of the labyrinth path,
Speaker 1 I stopped
Speaker 1 and slid my feet together underneath me.
Speaker 1 I thought of the way that cats often sit
Speaker 1 with their front paws together,
Speaker 1 their toes in a row,
Speaker 1 when they are watching birds outside their windows.
Speaker 1 It seemed like a sign of deliberation
Speaker 1 and watchfulness.
Speaker 1 So I'd adopted it as a habit
Speaker 1 before I took my first step.
Speaker 1 I caught my hands together behind my back
Speaker 1 and felt my breath moving over my lip.
Speaker 1 Sometimes I brought a specific thought to chew on while I walked.
Speaker 1 And when I did,
Speaker 1 I often found that the steady rhythm of my gait
Speaker 1 evened my mind out.
Speaker 1 I might not know the answer to a question
Speaker 1 I'd carried in at the start.
Speaker 1 But by the end, I felt more relaxed with not knowing.
Speaker 1 Safe
Speaker 1 to just keep asking.
Speaker 1 Today,
Speaker 1 after a good night's sleep,
Speaker 1 my mind was already a bit like the lake
Speaker 1 on the other side of the garden,
Speaker 1 a few ripples on the surface,
Speaker 1 but mostly placid and still.
Speaker 1 So just walking,
Speaker 1 feeling the weight shift from heel to toe,
Speaker 1 was the main event,
Speaker 1 and enough to keep my attention.
Speaker 1 I followed the turns in the path,
Speaker 1 let them take me nearly all the way around the labyrinth,
Speaker 1 and then a step closer to its center,
Speaker 1 and nearly all the way around the other way.
Speaker 1 At its heart was a large flat piece of slate,
Speaker 1 with hedges around it
Speaker 1 trimmed to point to the four cardinal directions.
Speaker 1 As I stood there,
Speaker 1 the wind picked up around me
Speaker 1 and rushed through the treetops.
Speaker 1 I closed my eyes
Speaker 1 and thought that maybe
Speaker 1 in these small moments
Speaker 1 when we feel quite tied into the world,
Speaker 1 when we remember
Speaker 1 that we can begin again,
Speaker 1 and that our only real work is kindness.
Speaker 1 Maybe that is when the door opens.
Speaker 1 Maybe that is magic.
Speaker 1 Sweet dreams.
