Alive Inside a Mountain of Cloud!
I close my eyes and I feel clouds envelop the mountains around me. They are inside of me. The stones turn to red and then pure white. I scream out to the mountains and become a part of their mass. My hand runs along the curves of the pines, the yellow leaves of autumn’s trees; along the back edge of the furthest mountain peak, inside the crevice where green rivers of trees run; along the distant blue horizon and the stones below my crossed legs.
If all connection is about recognizing the space between my hand and this place—and
knowing that the space in between can be any distance I make it or don’t make it—then the separation between ourselves and this world is an illusion. When I am in awe of the beauty of this place, I can start to be the energy of light that forms this all and makes it beautiful. I see how this energy of light is connected to me, and that we are not two solids, but two liquid matters flowing like a river into each other.
I open and close my eyes as Richard and I sit at the top of the Sandia Mountains—the same mountains that called me when I was driving through Arkansas (although it took me a while to realize that this was the place, and not a mountain in LA). We feel the utter peace of being here, 10,000-plus-feet above sea level. Then, we drive down curving roads, slowly, listening to every note of a Maria Callas recording. The past and the present are melding together—the mountains are as much home to me as the familiar sound of Maria Callas’s opera my father used to play throughout the house when I was a child. It brings me back to my creative passion as an artist. Art and nature. The land and music connected. It is so great to share this moment with Richard. No talking, just driving a snail’s pace down this mountain of clouds.
When did you experience a joy of no separation?
Michelle Adam is an experienced writer, teacher, and healer. She recently published her novel, Child of Duende, after twenty-plus years as a magazine and newspaper writer. Her articles have appeared in The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine; Hibernia Magazine, an Irish magazine; Vista Magazine, a Hispanic insert of major national newspapers; and multiple other publications.
Michelle has also been a photographer and artist; has taught middle school students Spanish for the past dozen years; and has worked as a healer and shaman. Michelle has created healing and teaching circles of song and sound, assisting others in awakening the spirit of the earth, “duende,” within them, and creating a space for the celebration of life.
