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

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