If wishes were wings, we’d spread them wide.
They’d lift us up where fears can’t hide.
Where clouds are pillows to rest our hearts,
and tears fade faster then falling stars.
Peggy Ciavardone
Copyright 2014. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved
Category Archives: Dreams
GAZE
If the moment could speak,
What the flower would dream,
And if the lips should kiss,
What the eyes could gleam,
What a prayer the flower would sing!
P.Ciavardone
Copyright 2014. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved
The Waterfall
Sometimes just living life feels like clinging to that last slippery rock on the edge of what seems to be a great waterfall, in a driving rainstorm. You can’t see past the edge where the water drops off but you can hear the crashing water, so loud it almost drowns out the thunderous storm swirling above your head and conspiring to help push you over that edge.
Between the rock and the safety of the shores on either side, everything that passes heads earnestly over that edge. A myriad of creations, not thinking, not struggling, but you watch as that log slides just past the edge, dips its root end down and its arms reach once again to the sky, briefly celebrating the life it lived. Then it quickly disappears beneath the horizon that is the waterfalls’ edge into the frenzy of the nothingness below. You know nothing of that “nothingness” except your fear of it and you wonder “if that great old man of the forest succumbed so easily, what can I do?”
Your little hands clasped about the rock, while the rest of your body is pulled and tugged towards the inevitable and in a moment of terror you feel the base of the rock loosen just a little. You know any control you think youhave over this decision is running out. Your hands can’t hold to the rock forever, you are only human. Even so, if faced with an eternity of just holding on, is that what you want?
The rock you cling to is battling the rushing water rising from the storm, beaten by debris and pulled by your anchor, it cannot hold you forever. The storm that rages above will subside but others will follow and some will be even fiercer. And on either side, even the shores that cannot be reached may have meadows but surely they also have their own dark nights, hungry beasts and perilous cliffs.
So the path that is laid before you is to let go and trust. All the frightful sounds you hear ahead of you are undefined except by the stories in your own head. You have all the power to let go of the stories you have told yourself about those unknown sounds ahead and let them be what they are, which is the sound of God’s story. And the Universe is asking you to trust and be a part of that Great Story. Like the beautiful tree had shown as it flowed ahead of you and into God’s story, celebrating what it had become. Because once you find the peace to let go of the certainty ,hat only exist in your head, and flow with the waterfall, what is on the other side becomes a story between you and God.
– P.Ciavardone
Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved
And in that Moment…..
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
Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved.
Dragonfly Dreams and Better
Dragonfly Dreams and Better
We’ve all done this. Once in a while we’ll ask for a special experience in a dream. Maybe a chance to feel what it’s like to fly or to speak with a lost loved one. Once in a while we’ll be inspired to ask for a special indulgence, To experience something outside of what we can fully experience in our waking life, because sleep is where we are allowed to experience all possibilities without having to answer to logic. My special request had to do with the artist in me. I was feeling stagnant and stuck. I could paint a pretty picture but felt unable to create art that would inspire anyone to feel anything on an emotional level.
During a before bed meditation and prayer I put out a dream request to experience what it is like to see through the eyes of a dragonfly. Dragonflies have a 360 degree field of vision. They see a much greater range of colors than humans starting at orange (no red but that’s not one of my favorite colors anyway) all the way up the range of UV light not visible to the human eye. What a magnificent world they must see! To experience that just briefly in a dream could teach me to see like an artist again. The first and most important part of being an artist is to see through the eyes of an artist. Any technical skills are mechanical and can be learned, or not, depending how you chose to express yourself.
When I woke up the next morning from a very sound sleep I couldn’t remember any of my dreams, let alone a dragonfly dream, but not to worry. Answers almost never come when and how you expect. Just stay open and you will recognize it later, when you are not looking for it.
Later that day we had gone through another series of earlier evening thunderstorms that were quickly dissolving as the sunset became visible. What was left of the storms created a deliciously fluffy kaleidoscope of colors. Bright burning orange cottony clouds piled along the eastern horizon, bordered by beautiful blue, purple and gray frosted outlined clouds occupying different places in the atmosphere. At first I just wanted to sit back and enjoy because it was wonderful just watching the colors and shapes change. Part of me wanted to grab my camera because I would probably never see those colors again but my logical mind said “Why bother? In 10 minutes there are going to be ½ a dozen pictures of the same clouds on face book. Any more there are an infinite number of pictures of magnificent clouds on the internet”. But something deeper inside told me the pictures were an important part of holding onto the inspiration.
The next day I downloaded the photos onto the computer for a closer look. It was then that I realized I had lived my Dragonfly dream, confirmed by the dragonfly caught very clearly flying through a photo against the brightly burning clouds in the background.
– P.Ciavardone
click pics to enlarge
Copyright 2013. Face the Mountain. All rights reserved.