Our story tonight is called The Willow Tree, and it’s a story about the first signs of spring on an open field beside a lake. It’s also about stepping stones, a bench up high on the bluff, geese paddling at the shore, tall rubber boots, a breeze that blows the hat from your head and the calm quiet that comes when you stop chasing some other moment and make a home in this one. We give to a different charity each week and this week we are giving to A Home for Hooves Sanctuary. They offer a forever home for rescued farmed animals. AquaTru water purifier: Click here and get 20% OFF with code NOTHINGMUCH. Beam Dream Powder: Click here for up to 40% off with code NOTHINGMUCH. BIOptimizers’ Sleep Breakthrough: Click here and use code NOTHINGMUCH for 10% off any order! Cymbiotika products: Click here for 20% off and free shipping! Moonbird, the world’s first handheld breathing coach: Click here and save 20%! Order your own NMH weighted pillow now! Subscribe for ad-free, bonus and extra long episodes now, as well as ad-free and early episodes of Stories from the Village of Nothing Much! Search for NMH Premium channel on Apple podcast or follow this link. Listen to our daytime show Stories from the Village of Nothing Much on your favorite podcast app. Join us tomorrow morning for a meditation.
Chapter 1: What is The Willow Tree podcast about?
I've got another sleep-inducing podcast to recommend to you. It's called I Can't Sleep, and it's hosted by Benjamin Boster. I'm supposed to tell you that his show is intentionally boring, but as someone who writes whole stories about label makers, I just can't. Bookbinding? Philodendrons? Egyptian hieroglyphs? Yes, please.
I want to get all snuggled up and listen to these perfect topics as I drift off into a great night's sleep. Benjamin's voice is soothing, and I feel like I might just learn something as I sleep. All of us here know how vital it is to get good sleep. It affects every part of your health. So check out the I Can't Sleep podcast now and get ready to wind down and relax.
Find I Can't Sleep wherever you listen to podcasts.
Chapter 2: Who hosts Bedtime Stories for Everyone?
Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Everyone, in which nothing much happens. You feel good, and then you fall asleep. I'm Katherine Nicolai. I create everything you hear, and nothing much happens.
Chapter 3: How can I support A Home for Hooves Sanctuary?
Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. We give to a different charity each week, and this week we are giving to a Home for Hooves Sanctuary. They offer a forever home for rescued farmed animals. You can learn more about them in our show notes. If you are looking for more ways to invite coziness into your life, we have some ideas for that.
Chapter 4: What products are available from Nothing Much Happens?
We just put together a coloring pack with a Nothing Much Happens mini coloring book, colored pencils, and a downloadable exclusive story. It's such a nice gift. We also have our signature Bob Wittersheim t-shirt, our weighted pillow and wind-down box, our premium subscriptions and autographed books.
Chapter 5: How can listening to a story help me sleep?
It's all at NothingMuchHappens.com. Now, I've made a place for you to rest your mind. A very simple story to pull around you like a warm blanket. All you need to do is listen. I'll tell the story twice, and I'll go a little slower the second time through.
If you wake later in the night, don't hesitate to turn an episode back on, or just think through any parts of the story that you can remember, and you'll drop right back off.
Our story tonight is called The Willow Tree.
Chapter 6: What is the story behind The Willow Tree?
And it's a story about the first signs of spring on an open field beside a lake. It's also about stepping stones, a bench up high on a bluff, geese paddling at the shore, tall rubber boots, a breeze that blows the hat from your head, and the calm quiet that comes when you stop chasing some other moment.
and make a home in this one. It's time. Turn off the light. Put down anything you've been looking at or working on.
Slide down into your sheets and get the right pillow in the right spot and feel your whole body relax. Take a deep breath in through your nose. And sigh from your mouth. Nice. Again, inhale. And release it.
Chapter 7: How does nature influence The Willow Tree story?
Good. The willow tree.
It isn't just that the willow is the first tree each spring to sprout leaves, though that is certainly a glimmer I go looking for each year, to see the light yellow haze like a flaxen fog hovering in its branches. And it isn't just the way its long, draping limbs dip leaves into the lake, like a beaded, viridescent curtain that I can slide through on my kayak, as if passing into a magic world.
Though those things are already a lot for a tree to gift to the world, For me, it is the way a willow seems to curl around you. There is something protective in its architecture. It's a place to shelter in the rain, to cool off on a sunny day.
To hide away and read or just be with something bigger than you.
To feel small and safe under its umbrella. I tracked across the broad, open land on my way to the willow tree. The ground was springy and damp. the grass just beginning to show green again, and I'd worn my tall boots in case of any flooded spots.
The snow had been gone for just a week or two, but the sun had been shining so brightly each day, that it felt like we were riding downhill toward summer.
In just my jeans and a sweater, I felt warmed through as I trod over the bare ground. Even this far off, I could smell the lake, the fresh scent of the water, clear and mineral, just released from the ice, was in every breath I took. The steady plod of my feet, the rising color in my cheeks, made me feel like I was sinking up with the natural world around me.
Of course, I am nature myself, and I can never really be unstitched from that fabric. But after months inside, after weeks with barely a glimpse of the sun, or more than a few moments in the open air, You can feel like old friends have gone far too long without a catch-up.
So I was breathing deep, opening my ears and eyes to all that I could. A breeze began to nudge my hat from my head, and I reached up and swiped it off.
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