Monthly Archives: September 2013

And in that Moment…..

Dreams, Insights, Spirit, Story Telling

I remember scary. I remember it everyday. When the sun comes up and I have to do it all over again, that’s scary. Until I realize the air I breath is still there and still as sweet as God’s own breath, and I hear the beautiful songs that the birds are singing to the sun. They may go hungry today or face a fierce storm or lose a hatchling but for this moment they sing to the sun because that is their gift to God’s gift. Returning their joy to be soaked up by all who will stop and listen, in that moment, And in that moment which is all that exist, joy trumps scary because joy is everything God gives us and scary is just an impulse in our brain.

Then comes the next moment and here comes scary again. Maybe bigger and harder this time. We all face it. But do you choose the joy in the moment that God gives and will always give back whenever you stop and breathe it in or do you let scary take that moment away? Honor the battle but Honor more the joy that is yours to live.

-P.Ciavardone

exit Pluto's cave

 Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved.

Knowing

Nature, Spirit, Story Telling

Turtle Moon

The mass of baby turtles, no bigger than silver dollars, frantically tried to swim through the sand on the beach towards the lulling waves they heard ahead. Breaking against that same beach, the ocean’s waves licked as much of the sand as its awesome tongue could reach, rolling forward all of the debris it could pick up and on its way back devouring even more.

The mother turtles, who had laid their eggs here, had long since left them with only a Knowing.  A Knowing that the sea was their mother. Dark and loud, rushing forward then receding while bringing forth and taking away all at once. The sea was beyond their comprehension, stretching beyond their tiny horizons it must have tested their instincts to run towards this huge unknown.

It was not a quiet kind of unknown. Although the purpose of the race was an unspoken agreement among the silent runners, there were also the sounds of the frenzied spectators feeding on many of them as well as the thrashing sea to distract them from their goal. But they were born with a Knowing that they were too young to have forgotten but not old enough to fear.

-P.Ciavardone

 

Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved.

  

 

Full Soul

Insights, Spirit

 

 

Ceremonial gifts
Ceremonial gifts

There are some teachers that have hurt me just by being human in their actions towards me. There are some teachers  that have lifted my head above the water then up to the sky just by being soulful in   their actions towards me.

Remember we are all teachers. Lead with your soul and you will heal the human in both of us.

-P.Ciavardone

 

Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved

After 9-11

Insights, Spirit, Story Telling

Written 09/11/2002
09.12.2001_blueNEW

Who would have thought I would have noticed the lack of contrails in the sky or the absence of air traffic noise. The world had become a surreal place overnight. The passengers on the train uncharacteristically acknowledged each other as if silently comforting each other, but no words were spoken. We were just together.

When I was a little girl I asked my mother what hell was. I couldn’t reconcile myself to the Idea that the God I grew up with  would hurt or torture people. My mom’s answers was simply that hell was the lack of the presence of God. That didn’t sound too bad to me as a child. As a child I couldn’t comprehend what that meant but it was an answer that seemed like a more gentle consequence. A choice already made by the souls that ended up there. After 9/11 I finally understood. I had never realized that God was a constant presence in my life. A part of every second of every day and I had just taken that presence for granted.

On 9/11, for the first time in my life, I felt the absence of God. He had totally left us as if he had never existed. It was the most painful, empty, frightening, lonely feeling I had ever experienced. I remembered what my mom had told me as a child and now it made perfect sense to me.

Several days later God came back to me in a sunset, a way he often shows himself to me, and started to help me heal from his absence. A slow process for all of us. I never want to be in hell again.

-P.Ciavardone

Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved

The Eagle and the Mouse

Spirit, Story Telling

After the Storm

The power was out because of the hurricane and everyone in the house had gone to bed early. The house was quiet for the loud wind beating down on the outside of the house. I was tired of reading but was not sleepy yet. What else could I do with my time, at night and without electricity?

Listening to this kind of wind was a frightening new experience and I thought this would be the perfect time and atmosphere to meditate, especially since I hadn’t meditated in a while. I closed my eyes and listened to the wind trying to soften it with my thoughts. During the meditation I felt my Native American Guide join me.

Addressing my fear of the wind he asked me to imagine the sound of the wind was the roar of the wings of a swooping eagle and that I was a tiny mouse. I slipped into the scene in my mind. The roar of the wings would send me scurrying, terrified and trying to dig into a hole to hide in but the eagle would swoop down and grab me before I could escape. As the eagle’s claws closed around me and ripped me from the ground her large talons pierced my body hastening my death as I flew in her grasp higher above the trees.

My guide asked”How did the mouse feel as he died? Was he remorseful? Was he consumed by his pain? Was he thinking ‘What if…’? Was he wishing he had done more before he died? Was he angry he didn’t have a chance at a longer better life?

I didn’t have to think about it, remembering his feelings. “No he was trying to stay alive just one more moment and then just another moment and another until he died. He was living in the present, which was all he had at that time.”

Not exactly encouraged by what I thought was a lesson in staying in the present I asked my guide “But what good did this do the mouse?” I didn’t get it. Then my Guide pointed out the real lesson. The bigger picture. “The mouse was taken to the nest and he was fed to her to the eaglets. Now he is not a little mouse but part of two great eagles.”

-P.Ciavardone

Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved

 

The Twisted Tree

Mt Shasta, Nature, Story Telling

 THE TWISTED TREE

 The twisted tree danced and swam around the vortex too slowly for the human eye to see but creating a most beautiful sculpture. It coiled and dipped, sung and swooned for decades unnoticed by everyone but the charmer, Mother Earth. As she played her music, she softly guided its microscopic movements with her gentle fingertips and subtle lullabies.

Now a masterpiece, it continues to dance, still unseen in the moment, but now its charms us and calls us closer with its mystery to experience for ourselves the same gentle fingertips and the hum of the lullaby flowing through the vortex.      

snaketree4

-P.Ciavardone

Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved