Eyes Turned Skyward

July 19, 2022

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

~Leonardo da Vinci

I hesitate to admit this, but I haven’t flown since the July 4th weekend of 1990.

The Painted Cave Fire, which ushered in what some consider the modern era of massive wildfires in Santa Barbara, was still smoldering. In one chaotic night and day, it had burned through roughly 400 homes, jumped Highway 101 with unprecedented fiery audacity, and scared the bejeebers out of everyone.

More than thirty years later, we are (unfortunately) used to this scenario. But then, it was an arson-instigated fluke born of high heat and howling sundowner winds, something I viewed as a-once-in-a-lifetime horror to live through…surely never to be repeated.

When we took off from the Santa Barbara airport the jet banked, heading toward Utah where I would be attending computer training for my job. I stared, transfixed, at the scene unrolling beneath me, the surreal and desiccated gray land smoldering over many square miles of what had been forested mountains and hillsides with houses.

*****

The flight to Provo, with a stopover in Las Vegas where it seemed every other person was smoking cigarettes in the enclosed airport, was uneventful. Upon takeoff for the flight home, I wrote, “What is this cord that I feel connecting me to Earth?” I was keenly aware of my groundedness in the planet even as my body was lifted skyward in a fragile silver capsule of pressurized air.

I happened upon that entry months ago when idly thumbing through old journals. I hadn’t remembered that I sensed that deep and abiding Earth connection, so strong that it obliterated any fear I felt about flying. But there it was, evidence of a higher awareness, a love note from Self Past to Self Present: You’re not just awakening. You’ve been working on it your whole life. 

*****

We forget, and remember, and forget again. Many esoteric teachings hold that we, the soul that we are, never forgets. We pass between incarnations, shuffling options like a cosmic deck of cards. What shall we learn next? What did we neglect to complete last time?

And always, at some frequently inchoate level of awareness, we yearn for flight.

The world as it is now seems like an antique pantomime to me. What is this posturing? Who designed these ugly sets? And these emotional costumes of fear and lack are not attractive at all.

I’m yearning for flight, even as I plod through what often feels like a meaningless day. I mechanically engage in actions like eating and sleeping and taking care of the physical environment.

The waiting that we who consider ourselves awake continue to endure feels increasingly pointless. Whereas I used to eagerly read channelings and watch videos, most hold little interest for me. (Apparently I am not alone in this sense of uncomfortable stasis. Many have been describing similar sentiments, including Vidya Frazier in her recent blog post.)

I am keeping the barest toehold in the realm of physical reality, just holding with thumb and forefinger one string of one balloon that calls itself “what is real.”

I’d like to pour my self-essence into that upward-tugging balloon. Attach my awareness to it, let go the string that anchors it to Earth, and rise higher and higher, into unexplored realms, star fields that stretch on forever.

I keep my eyes turned skyward and continue biding my time. The silver spaceships are coming, I’m sure they are. And I intend to be ready to greet them.