Guided Imagery
Sights and Sounds in the Woods
Close your eyes and breath deeply. Try to imagine yourself in a wooded area with a lake and
gently sloping hillsides around.
The time of year is fall and many of the trees have lost their leaves.
Smell the air. The smell of composted organic material is under foot. The walls of your work-a-day world are pushed outward. So far outward that they finally disappear.
All you can sense is freedom and boundless space. The atmosphere is slightly breezy and crisp.
The overhead clouds keep any sunlight from being directly bright, though it is not dark.
Think of the colors of the woods. There are small tree-starts only a foot tall with only three big leaves. These three are deep red. There is a five foot sapling whose leaves are yellow and brown. There are four other nearby saplings whose leaves have mostly fallen, but there are a few branches with orange leaves still hanging there. Under the saplings, there are a few bright green ferns among the leaves.
Breath deeply again and smell the humidity in the light fog that covers the lake. You can just imagine seeing to the distant shore, but not clearly. The humidity is beginning to give way to mist. Feel the gentleness of the droplets on your face. Its friendly greeting makes you smile.
If you stepped down to the waters edge you could see a large oak that looked too closely at the lake. It is now head-down in the lake and its leaves cling to the bank. They are creating a yellow carpet among the tall green grasses at the edge of the water. The softness of the tall grasses brush gently against your hand as you bend over to pull your hand through them. At water's level, you can see the pattern of light rain on the surface of the lake.
Listen to the light pat, pat, pat, pat-pat, pat. It falls lightly against your hat and runs down the side of your rain jacket. You can feel the coolness on your pants leg as it drips there. Breath slowly and sense the woods relief at the water.
Turn again with your face lifted toward the ascending hill. The breeze comes down blowing your hair gently away from your cheek. The smell is again of the rain and the mossy woods. A few birds are still in the tree-tops. One call. Stop. One call and then an answer. Stop.
Walk carefully along the lake. Up ahead you hear a rustling sound. As you get closer to the sound you can hear that is it actually the sound of rushing water. Listen to that pouring water. It runs freely, and with great energy. The large dark boulders in the stream bed toss and drive the flow of water this way and that.
Put your hand in the water. Feel the water push against your fingers. It wants to carry your fingers away into the lake. Draw your hand against the current and feel the strength it takes to push through the water. The rushing water soothes your mind.
Thank the woods for its kindness and its goodness. Breath deeply of it as though you were a part of it.
