Music Inspires

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Sleepless Nights….Sending Peace and Prayer

Why are some souls restless and others peaceful? Is the night air prejudice? Or, perhaps it is unsettled as it lingers, waiting for signs of weakness and not unlike a virus, it feeds on the weak and wraps itself around their core until they stir with unrest. Like many things in life, the more you experience something, the more arduous it is to break the pattern, especially if it is a detrimental one.
To find peace is a gift. To sleep with peace is a blessing. Can one embrace peace after battling with the sleep demon? Sleep is common to all life forms and during this natural necessity we are at a minimal degree of consciousness. We drift off and forget the world, at least the real world. If we dream, it is of another world…something far better or something far worse.
To watch a child sleep brings peace to many. It slows the heart down as it mirrors that of the child. Their soft breath exhaling and their small lungs filling up with the night air. Long and hard they rest. Growing and regenerating. Their precious, petite bodies gently bow to the evening stars as an ethereal presence hovers over them.
My children use dream catchers each night, or rather, I do for them. It has become part of their routine. Somehow we came to rely on these Native American traditions that are meant to protect the children from nightmares. By each bedside hangs a web of color to catch the bad dreams accompanied by the following verse: “Bad dreams, bad dreams go away. Come on back another day! Good dreams, good dreams come our way. Good dreams, good dreams here to stay!” Even if a bad dream does occur, there seems to be no memory of it come morning.
Another legend of the dream catcher tells the tale of the web catching the good dreams adding them to the web of life and the bad dreams are lost through the center hole. It has also been said that the morning sunlight purifies the web of dreams and the feather often found hanging from them allows the dream to slip down it into dreamtime.
The most important component of the dream catcher is that it is surrounded with prayer. Through prayer we calm our souls and allow it to evolve into its ultimate purpose - peace. We connect with our inner self. Slowing our fast pace down to that of nothing. Where are we running to? Why can’t we be “nothing” for a moment in time and let the rest of the world pass us by? Let the moments unfold and body intertwine with the soul like an ebb and flow. Let our heads lay to rest in the palm of the Maker’s hands.
In a time of need a verse was shared with me from my uncle. It is an imprint on my heart now and it reads: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13 NIV When total surrender occurs, there is a new light. A new way to approach life and each obstacle it throws at you. For there is only One who will love you consistently each day of your life. He is waiting for us to ask Him into our life. Often we think we have, but one day it will all be clear; The glasses will come off and the peace will fall upon us as we sleep and when we wake.
The sleep demon took years from one man, but he has found a process…a path to peace. “While I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep, my thoughts are focused on the days events and I have to take each event, analyze it, put it in a box and then put it on a shelf in alphabetical order. Once I've done that for all the days’ events I can go to sleep. Imagine being in a wind tunnel and your thoughts being confetti, each thought associated with a particular event is color coded, I have to gather all the like colors in the wind tunnel prior to putting them in the box to be filed ... but honestly, I did not come to the place I am now, in peace, until I started praying.”
Some choose supplements, herbs, alcohol (clearly noted to have an adverse effect on sleep), and other physical crutches, but perhaps one day they will come to realize that three deep breaths and some time for prayer is the best remedy. For nothing great was ever accomplished with out sleep (or was it enthusiasm? or was it passion?). A delicate balance may be the key, but according to the Dalai Lama ~ “Sleep is the best meditation.”

For those with a fetish for facts:

According to the National Sleep Foundation, those getting a good sleep (and enough of it) are two times as likely to be more productive at work, eat healthy and maintain an active lifestyle. 28% of Americans sleep over eight hours and 20% get less than six.