There's a full moon tonight. I hope you can see it where you are. It's beautiful. It's called the snow moon and it's different from other moons. Unusually clear and bright. Maybe because the air is so cold and clean in February. Or maybe it's because the moon's light reflects off all that snow. Whatever the reason, the snow moon feels present. And what it offers us tonight, I think, is a lesson in patience. Because this winter moon looks down on a world that's waiting. Fields waiting under snow for spring. Seeds waiting. Animals waiting out the cold. Everything in the natural world knows how to wait without anxiety. Without checking the clock. But we are not always so patient, are we? Especially when it comes to sleep. You know how it goes. You lie there in the dark and your mind starts doing the math. If I fall asleep right now, I can still get seven hours. And then six. And then five. And with each calculation, you get more anxious. More awake. It's kind of ironic. The more you want sleep, the more it eludes you. But the moon doesn't hurry across the sky. It doesn't check how many hours until dawn. It just moves at its own pace. Patient. And that's what we're going to practice tonight. Patience. The kind of patience that doesn't feel like waiting at all. The kind that feels like rest. So tonight, we'll use the moon to guide you into sleep. Along with some hypnotherapy and progressive relaxation. I'll take you to a place where patience lives. And somewhere in that place, sleep will find you. But before we begin, please make sure you're somewhere safe to fall asleep. There is a full disclosure in the show notes. And if this podcast helps you sleep, please consider leaving a review or a rating. It's how other people lying awake at night find the show. And I know you'll probably be asleep by the time I finish talking. But if you think of it tomorrow, that would be amazing. Now, let's begin. Take a moment to make yourself as comfortable as you can. Adjust your pillow. If you need to, sit up, grab that pillow and fluff it up. When you lay down again, shift your body until you find that position where everything feels right. Pull your blankets to exactly the right place. I like to tuck mine in all around me. In a moment, I'm going to guide you down a staircase. 10 steps down, not too many. And with each step down, your body will grow heavier and your mind quieter. You don't have to try to make this happen. Your body will know how to relax. As you descend these stairs, you'll find yourself moving deeper into calm. By the time you reach the bottom, you will have left all your tension, all your overthinking, all your stress behind. Let's begin. You're standing at the top of the staircase now. Take a slow, deep breath in. And as you exhale, take that first step down. With this breath, you're sending a signal to your nervous system. It's safe now. You can rest. Nine, take another step down. And as you breathe, you begin to notice the weight of your body. Maybe you feel it most in your shoulders, or your hips, or the backs of your legs. Just allow that weight. The heaviness. Let gravity do all the work. Eight, step down again. With each step, you sink deeper into rest. And your breathing is slowing now. Each inhale and exhale is becoming longer, deeper, and more even. Seven, another step. You might notice that your eyelids are growing heavier. Or maybe they're already closed. Either way is perfect. Six, down another step. On this step, I'm going to ask you to scrunch your face up for just a few seconds. Wrinkle your nose. You know, there are over 40 muscles in your face. And right now, they're all working. But now, release them all. Let it all go. Feel those tiny muscles unclench. Your mouth relaxes. Your forehead is smooth. All that tension you didn't even know you were carrying, gone. Five, pull your shoulders up toward your ears. Just, just for a moment. Keep them up there, and then let them drop. Just let them fall. Notice how much heavier they feel now. How much more relaxed. Four, another step down. And now, your arms are growing heavier. The left arm, or maybe the right arm. Maybe both arms at once. It doesn't matter which. What matters is discovering how still they can become. Three, down again. Your chest is expanding more easily with each breath. Your heart is slowing. You can't sleep until your heart reaches a much lower rate. Much lower than your normal daytime rhythm. But it's slowing now. With every deep, slow breath. Two, almost at the bottom now. Everything now has slowed down. Your thoughts, your breathing. One, you're standing at the bottom of the staircase now. And everything is quiet. And all around you, stretching endlessly in every direction, lies the prairie. Above, the snow moon hangs in the winter sky. Luminous and full. Its light is different tonight than it will be in any other month. It's pure white. Clean, almost blue-white where it touches the snow below. And there is snow everywhere. The prairie stretches to the horizon in every direction. A vast expanse of white that seems to go on forever. This is what the prairie does best. It teaches you about space. About endlessness. There are no mountains here to block your view. Just the gentle roll of land meeting the dome of stars. The moon looks down and sees the snow lying smooth across the fields. The wind has sculpted it into soft drifts that curve and flow like frozen waves. In some places, the snow lies completely flat, undisturbed. In others, it's built up against fence lines and rises in graceful ridges. And everywhere, on the surface, tiny ice crystals catch the light. They sparkle. Thousands of them. Millions. Like stars that have fallen to earth. Beneath this snow, beneath these frozen fields, the earth is sleeping. The soil that was worked and planted and harvested. It's resting now. The roots of the prairie grasses, dormant in the frozen ground, are waiting. Nothing here is anxious about spring. Nothing is checking to see if it's time yet. Nothing is trying to force growth before it's season. The prairie knows how to wait. Your breathing has slowed to match the stillness of this landscape. Each breath is deep and even. Like the patient earth beneath the snow. The moon's light illuminates a line of fence posts, marching across the landscape. These posts were set by some farmer. Years ago. In summer, they're almost invisible among the tall prairie grasses. But now, each one stands stark and clear. The fence wire sags between the posts. An ice has formed along its length. The moonlight catches on this ice, making the fence line glitter. A strand of frozen diamonds, stretching toward the horizon. One post stands crooked, leaning slightly. Time and frost heaves have pushed it off-center. But it still stands. It doesn't need to be perfect. You don't need to be perfect, either. Your sleep doesn't need to come quickly, or easily, or on schedule. It just needs to come. And it will. In its own time. In the distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile. From where the moon's gaze rests, there is a barn. The wood siding has weathered to a dark gray. Almost black in the moonlight. Snow covers the root completely, smoothing its angles. Inside, in the darkness, animals are resting. Three horses stand together in a large stall. They stand hip to hip. Head to tail. Their bodies touching. Sharing warmth. Each horse is drowsing. Head lowered. Eyes half closed. Their breathing slow and deep. Every so often, one shifts its weight from one leg to another. Or flicks an ear at some sound too soft for us to hear. They're not anxious about the cold outside. They're simply here, in this warm barn. Resting. Waiting for morning. With the infinite patience of creatures who trust in the cycle of days. The barn cat, an orange tabby, is curled in the hayloft. She's made a nest in the loose hay. And she's buried herself into it. Only her face is visible. Her paws are tucked under her chest. Occasionally, she purrs. She's warm. She's safe. Below, seven chickens roost on a wooden beam. They've puffed up, their feathers fluffed out to trap warm air against their skin. They look twice their normal size. Their heads are tucked back into their wing feathers. Everything in this barn is waiting for dawn. Not impatiently. Not checking to see if it's time yet. Notice how your own body has settled now. How your muscles have released their grip. You're not trying to make sleep happen. You're simply resting. Waiting. Beyond the barn, 50 yards across the snow-covered field, stands a farmhouse. There's a small covered porch at the front door. And the snow has drifted high on one side of it. Most of the windows are dark. But one, a window on the second floor, glows with warm, golden light. Inside that room, someone has left a lamp on. Maybe someone is still awake, reading, or unable to sleep. Sitting by that window, looking out at the moonlit landscape, the house itself feels sleepy. The old wooden beams creak occasionally as the temperature drops and the wood contracts. The furnace in the basement runs quietly. The refrigerator in the kitchen hums its low, constant song. The house is shelter. Safety. Rest, when the world outside demands too much. You have your shelter, too. Your bed. Your blanket's pulled up just right. You're safe here. Protected. There's a small creek that winds through this landscape. In summer, it's lined with cottonwood trees and wild grasses. In winter, it's a white line across the fields. The creek is frozen. Under that ice, the water still moves. Slow, dark, moving toward a river that's miles away, that will eventually reach the ocean. The full moon shines on a small rise in the prairie. Not a hill, really. Just a slight swell in the land. And on that rise, a tumbleweed is caught against a drift of snow. In summer, this tumbleweed was a plant. A Russian thistle, growing green and round in some field. But in autumn, it dried and broke free from its roots. The wind took it. Sent it rolling across the landscape. Going wherever the wind pushed it. But now it's caught, held by the snow. And it sits there. A perfect sphere of dried branches, pressing into the white drift. The moon's light shines through it. Creating intricate shadows on the snow behind it. Delicate lacework of shadow and light. The tumbleweed isn't fighting to be free. It isn't struggling against the snow that holds it.  It simply rests there. And when spring comes, when the snow melts, it will either break apart and return to the soil, or the wind will take it again and send it rolling on. Either way is fine. Right now, it simply waits. You've been tumbling too, perhaps. Blown by the winds of your days. Moving from task to task, obligation to obligation. But now you've stopped. Held by this bed, by this moment of quiet. And it's okay to stop tumbling. It's okay to simply rest. The temperature is dropping. Inside the barn, the horses press closer together. Inside the farmhouse, the furnace runs a little longer. Under the snow, mice and voles and sleeping things burrow deeper into their nests. Everything is adapting. Adjusting. Your body is doing this too. Finding its balance. Your temperature is dropping slightly. Your metabolism is slowing. Your body is shifting from the active state of waking to the restorative state of rest. 

The moon continues it’s arc across the sky. Its now directly overhead. The entire prairie is illuminated. Every detail visible. The fields wait under their blanket of snow. The barn shelters its sleeping animals. The farmhouse holds its warm light. 

Nothing is rushing. Nothing is demanding that time move faster. The moon will cross the sky. The hours will pass. And you, you're learning what the prairie knows.That rest is its own kind of work. Your thoughts are becoming softer now. Slower. Like clouds drifting across a vast sky. You might notice that you're thinking less about thinking. That your mind is growing quiet in the same way the prairie is quiet. Not empty. Just... still. 

Your sleep is like this dawn. It's approaching. Moving toward you. You don't need to check if it's here yet. You don't need to worry if it's taking too long. It's coming. Trust in that. Trust in the same rhythm that brings dawn after night, spring after winter. Your breathing is so slow now. The kind of breathing that happens right at the edge of sleep. That place where you're not quite awake but not quite asleep either. That threshold place. The snow will melt. The creek will rush with spring runoff. The fields will turn green and then gold. Life will return in its abundance. But that's not what matters right now. Right now, everything rests. Waits. You're part of this peace now. Part of this patient waiting. Your body rests like the barn rests, like the frozen creek rests. Sleep is coming. It's been moving toward you all along. Like dawn moves toward the prairie. Inevitable. Natural. Requiring nothing from you but patience. Your arms and legs are so heavy now they've become part of the bed beneath you. Your breathing is deep and slow, each exhale carrying you further down into warmth and darkness. Your heartbeat is quiet, steady, barely noticeable. You've crossed over into that drowsy, floating space where thought becomes dream, where conscious becomes unconscious. And where sleep is waiting. I’m Suzanne. This is your ticket to snoozeville. Sleep now. Sleep deeply. Sleep well.