spiritual flying
A Way In Up & Out
“A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.” — Marcus Aurelius
What about you? Do you have ambitions or aspirations?
When I was about ten years old I remember having an identity crisis. You may ask, how can one so young have anything that seems too serious going on, as if some type of existential crisis? I doubt from where I’m looking at it now, that it was actually too serious. But of course at the time it seemed so. Yet I do believe to this day that it set me on a course that led me to where I am today. And for me, that is important.
We only have moments as they are played out in our life, for the past is only a memory, and the future is only a hope, a dream, or a fear. But I think in those ‘important’ moments is where we set the sails for our life’s destiny. And that moment at ten was one of those ‘important’ moments. I don’t consciously remember how I comprehended that moment, but for the most part I do remember how I felt. And that is where I think the journey I am currently on actually started.
Letting Go & Getting Up
“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.” — Simone Weil
Isn’t it fun, interesting, sad, intriguing, and on and on, about all the stuff we get to see, do, have, play with, experience in this crazy world … and eventually have to let go of? Eventually? Really? Aahh, we really have to let go of all that stuff, and all those people? But why? Why? I need it. I want it … no, no. I think I’m gonna cry. Ah yes, another sad song on the radio, about that stuff, and all those people, I just keep losing.
Life is sad. Life is happy. Life is nothing. Life is everything. Life is lots of things in between. Always. But we all know that, right? Yet doesn’t this simulation of life we all live in seem but a shadow of what it really seems it could be? Can that really be true? I think so, but you may not get to know unless …
All types of things and people come in and out of lives continually. And we have a tendency to want to keep everything we can, based on what we think we want or need. And over time we become attached to many of these items, as well as the people. We get used to them and feel they provide some type of comfort, happiness, and security. But do we really need them? We may want them, but what is behind the wanting of them?
Rocket Man
“And I think its gonna be a long, long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home.
Oh no, no, no, I’m a rocket man.
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone …”
“Rocket Man”, Elton John
Do you remember when you were little, and you thought for the very first time you knew what you wanted to be when you grew up? I actually remember that day very clearly, for it was when one of my very first dreams took root. Which makes remembering when John Glenn orbited the Earth for the first time special, not only because it was around my 10th birthday but because it was about that dream.
In the early 1960’s I remember reading about the new space program in our little Weekly Readers in elementary school. And I became mesmerized with it. So I started reading everything I could find about it. Anything I guess an elementary school kid could understand. But I couldn’t get enough of it. When I got a book about what it took to be an astronaut, I was hooked. I wanted to go in space. One way or another I was going. I had to, or else… I just never realized it would be without my physical body.
A Matter of Altitude
“May your spirit soar throughout the vast cathedral of your being.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The last month or so, I have down in the dumps a bit. Not really down in a depressed way, but just not at my normal foundation of “up-ness.” For the most part, meditating provides me with a lift, but lately not quite enough to what my level of ‘normal’ is. I haven’t really let it concern me too much but after almost a month of it, which is usually a long funk for me, I have been wondering what was up. Most of the time I try to go through a checklist of any issue or problem that comes up.
I first try to decipher if it’s something that’s going on inside of me. If I don’t get any clues there, I start searching outside myself. If not much comes up there, I have to ponder deeper. I did all those things, but nothing significant presented itself. Only minor, seemingly insignificant things came up. So now, I was at a bit of a loss. I just decided to keep up with my normal day to day routine and hoped I would pull myself out of it somehow. Nothing gave, so I gave up on my normal routine for a few days and wound up doing very little for awhile. That just made me tired and drained, and then I felt worse. Something needed to happen. Ask and ye shall receive, as they say. Or someone did, I think in the Bible.
Creation’s Elevator
“Who are you? … How have you joined creation?” – The Watcher Rock, ‘Dreams Awake’
The first time I truly experienced the elevator I had a little over ten years in. Meaning I had been meditating on the inner sound current that long. By this point I had had some pretty intriguing experiences, but nothing like ‘the elevator’. Now yes, I had been lucky enough to taste a bit of it. In meditation, when I finally got relaxed enough and out of the mind raps, I would feel like I was starting to go up in an elevator. And just as I would anticipate what was going to happen, the elevator would stop abruptly before it really got started, and there was no more going up. Basically because as I did the anticipation routine, that tension locked me up. So I did learn early on that tension was a buzz kill for meditation. Which was a bit of a catch-22. You needed to relax to get into meditation, but you needed to meditate to relax. It seemed there was a balance somewhere in there to find.
So, when that grand elevator day came, I wasn’t expecting it. Ha, see…no anticipation. It was one of those days that you could never forget. If I live to be a hundred and my great grandkids hop upon my knee, I would still be able to speak coherently about the first time I traveled up inside creation’s elevator. I have since had the experience numerous times, and even in more expansive, exciting ways. But you always remember the first time, so I was no longer a spiritual flyer virgin.