[Daily OM]: As earthbound beings, humans have
always had a fascination with winged creatures of all kinds. The idea of
being able to spontaneously lift off from the earth and fly is so
compelling to us that we invented airplanes and helicopters and myriad
other flying machines in order to provide ourselves with the many gifts
of being airborne. Flying high in the sky, we look down on the earth
that is our home and see things from an entirely different perspective.
We can see more, and we can see farther than we can when we're on the
ground. As if all this weren't enough, the out-of-this-world feeling of
freedom that comes with groundlessness inspires us to want to take
flight again and again.
Metaphorically, we take flight whenever we break free of the gravity
that holds us to a particular way of thinking or feeling or being. We
take flight mentally when we rise above our habitual ways of thinking
about things and experience new insights. This is what it means to open
our minds. Emotionally, we take flight when the strength of our passion
exceeds the strength of our blockages; the floodgates open and we are
free to feel fully. Spiritually we take flight when we locate that part
of ourselves that is beyond the constraint of linear time and the world
of form. It is in this place that we experience the essential
boundlessness that defines the experience of flight.
Taking flight is always about freeing ourselves from form, if only
temporarily. When we literally fly, in a plane or on a hang glider, we
free ourselves from the strength of gravity's pull. As we open our minds
and our hearts, we free ourselves from habitual patterns of thought and
emotional blockages. As we remember our true nature, we free ourselves
from identification with the temporary state of our physical forms. The
more we stretch our wings, the clearer it becomes that taking flight is a
state of grace that simply reminds us of who we really are.