Archive for the ‘Flying’ Category
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
When I walk on the beautiful land in the Sutherland Valley, beneath the Catalina Mountains, the land reminds me that Mother Earth has a heartbeat, a rhythm. Being in nature attunes my body to her rhythm and reminds me of my own natural pace. So does meditation—it is a way of stopping to check in with the Source, and with my own body/mind, and re-calibrating.
I need to change my “attitude,”—an aviation term for the angle of the airplane– to pull the nose of my airplane up a bit and slow my speed.
When I think of the idea of slowing my pace, my “small mind” immediately panics at the thought. What will I miss? What will I not accomplish?
Fortunately my “larger mind” responds by asking, “Where are you going so fast? What is your destination or goal that is so crucial? Isn’t the journey the point?”
My small mind says nothing.
I remember Thich Nhat Hahn’s cautions about our pace, his advice about mindful walking and mindful eating and avoiding multi-tasking.
My small mind points out how many things I accomplish by multi-tasking. Is that really true? Recent research points out that our brains don’t operate at maximum efficiency when we do more than one thing at a time. Maybe we are sacrificing focus, intensity and depth of thought, excellence in problem-solving.
Perhaps I suffer from the aviator’s dreaded plague, “get-there-itis,” the disease that leads to unwise decisions like flying too late, or into bad weather, or when sick, or in conditions outside our expertise. If we crash, we might ask ourselves what was so important about that destination and how much time we really saved.
If I take time to gaze out the window, perhaps I’ll really see something like the scene in the photo of the water and cloud formations along the Sea of Cortez. What’s the hurry, really?
These are thoughts each of us must bring to consciousness as we pilot our way through a year that may challenge us to drop old patterns, to take responsibility for our own energy, to ask treasured family and friends to support us as responsible pilots who have taken the left seat. We may not be able to manage the strong winds of life, but we can manage ourselves.
What are your thoughts? Interact with us at Facebook.com/FlyingLessons!
Tags: Being, consciousness, Flying, Flying metaphor, inner peace, living today, managing change, meditation, musings, Nature and the soul, new life, own pace, Photography, spiritual practice, The Beauty Way
Posted in aviation, Being, coaching, conscious evolution, consciousness, Flying, happiness, healing, health, inner landscape, loving ourselves, managing change, meditation, mindfulness, new life, not doing, nourishing ourselves, Photography, returning to essence, seeing oneself, self-healing, shifting how we see, shifting paradigms, spiritual practices, The Beauty Path, Tools for seeing ourselves | No Comments »
Sunday, December 18th, 2011
Holidays, despite the fun and joy and lights, can exacerbate the tensions within and between us. People are tired and expectations are high. Sometimes scenes we imagined would be warm and close present unexpected tension. When that happens, it can feel like our feet are stuck in the sand. Hard to move out of the situation or through it with much grace.
The old way would be to try to power through it. Summon the adrenaline. Fight back. Use mental or even physical force. We know where this has led in our personal and corporate lives–to wars of private and global dimensions. Surely it’s the season to something other than digging ourselves deeper.
In my new book, Flying Lessons: How to Be the Pilot of Your Own Life, I made the suggestion that we “rise to the occasion” by elevating our consciousness and finding a new, higher form of power.
Here are some practical suggestions, just in case you get a chance to practice! If you are triggered by someone and tempted to act out of the old kind of power, here’s an alternative formula:
1. Stop.
2. Breathe.
3. Call on your inner observer.
4. Ask that observer what the highest good could come out of this situation.
5. Ask how you might contribute to the highest good.
6. Review your options.
7. Make your powerful decision and then act from that place.
Now, how does the landscape look? Even that sand that once entrapped your feet might form lovely patterns from your position as the observer who can rise above the “gravity” of the challenge.
May you find true peace in your own heart during this holy season.
Tags: centering techniques, consciousness, Flying, Flying metaphor, inner landscape, inner peace, managing change, Photography, spiritual practice
Posted in aviation, conscious evolution, consciousness, Flying, inner landscape, managing change, nature as mirror, Photography, seeing oneself, shifting how we see, shifting paradigms, spiritual practices, Tools for seeing ourselves, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
Just because you are reading this, I think you deserve congratulations for taking the time to read something just for you! No matter what your holiday traditions, this is a busy time!
Which is why I ended up reading my own Flying Lesson #2 over again. It’s Bring Enough Fuel for the Journey. Here are some excerpts and thoughts that struck me all over again as good advice for the season:
It’s food for thought that even though there’s no excuse for running out of fuel in the aviation world, we consider running on empty a normal part of our culture. In some circles there’s even a sort of nobility attached to being such a hard worker that everyone knows you never sleep. Even when people refer to someone as being a workaholic, rarely do they shake their heads in sadness or suggest a good treatment center. In many cases, overworking and overdoing is considered the means to success.
But when we have the ambition to fly, to rise above the gravity of our current situation, self-care becomes a crucial function. If we are going to push the envelope and move into a lofty territory where humans have only dreamed of operating we’ll have to pay attention to everything we’re doing and be conscious.
Being conscious is what piloting our lives is all about. And the proof of the pudding (especially the Christmas pudding) is how well we manage our own energy.
Have you ever stopped in the midst of rushing around to listen to a small voice saying something like, “What AM I DOING?”
This is the same voice who might ask other wise questions, like:
- How about a 15-20 minute power nap?
- What if I just took a hot bath instead of…
- Is the food I’m about to eat truly my premium fuel?
- What if I went to bed at 9 tonight?
- Do I really want to go to that party?
- Is this conversation nourishing me?
Never running out of fuel is about taking 100% responsibility for not burning out, not depleting yourself, and for knowing and cultivating the kinds of premium fuel that truly give you energy. Who else will do this for you?
Hmmm, maybe Santa. On the other hand, why not put this present right in the center of your being this minute:
Peace.
Joy.
Freedom to manage your own energy.
May you find the generous heart within that wants to give you these gifts this season.
In love and light,
Pam
Tags: consciousness, Flying, Flying metaphor, holidays, inner landscape, inner peace, living today, managing change, managing energy, managing stress, musings, new life, perception, Photography, spiritual practice, The Beauty Way, winter
Posted in aviation, conscious evolution, consciousness, creativity and empowerment, Flying, health, inner landscape, loving ourselves, new life, nourishing ourselves, Photography, seeing oneself, self-healing, shifting how we see, shifting paradigms, spiritual practices, Tools for seeing ourselves | No Comments »
Monday, December 5th, 2011
How do we pace ourselves during this holiday season so that we can “fly” through busy schedules, family relationships, celebrations and sometimes travel? After all, the body doesn’t know the difference between “good” and “bad” stress. What it does note is an imbalance.
To fly a plane, a pilot has to master the controls of four forces of flight that act on the airplane: thrust, drag, lift and gravity. The engine can provide the thrust, and power also provides lift. But we don’t want to overdo it, either in the air or on our holiday rounds.
If it’s all thrust, we’ll burn out our fuel and be too speedy to be in control. If we let drag take over, we won’t have the speed we need to fly. Lift is wonderful, but getting too “high” isn’t always wise. Gravity, on the other hand, can bring a body down too quickly, whether it’s made of metal or flesh.
Piloting is the art and science of managing our energy so that our vehicle–whether it has wings or not–can operate with the most ease and efficiency possible. After all, that’s what it was made to do.
Here are some tips for managing your energy so you can soar through this season:
1. Use your mental “dipstick” to mentally measure the energy you have every day, on a scale of 1-10.
2. Decide what your personal minimum should be.
3. How and when will you pause to re-fuel? Schedule breaks.
4. What is your premium fuel? Is it solitude? Prayer? Family? Nature? What have you learned about this?
5. Discipline yourself. Does that seem dreary? It won’t if it means you get through the holidays with your well-being and cheer intact.
6. Joy is the key word for this time of year, but sometimes it’s hard to come by. Track your joy. Pursue it. Treasure it. Give it. It’s good for you!
Tags: consciousness, Flying, Flying metaphor, living today, managing change, perception, Photography, spiritual practice, winter
Posted in aviation, coaching, conscious evolution, consciousness, Flying, happiness, healing, health, nourishing ourselves, Photography, seeing oneself, self-healing, shifting paradigms, spiritual practices, Tools for seeing ourselves, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
Sand Spirit Insight card #1
It doesn’t feel at all like fall yet in Tucson, but they tell us that the fall equinox is Wednesday, September 22. This marks the beginning of fall in the northern hemisphere. So I drew a Sand Spirit card, asking the question in the title: how do I best get ready for fall?
I drew card #1, which looks to me like a being who is very still and focused inside. I see the hands in prayer, and I see another being or energy in the lower right hand corner–perhaps another person or issue that is in the outer world. What do you see in this image?
This being tells me this is a good time for me to be focused inward, to remain calm and remember who I truly am. What does your image have to say to you?
Fall is a new beginning for many of us who grew accustomed to school beginning, and thus entering a “new year.” I used to buy day timers that went from September to September. Does a new chapter begin for you in fall?
I’ve recently gotten a little more interested in numerology and how it relates to the Sand Spirits. #1 is all about new beginnings. And September, being the 9th month, is all about completions, prior to October, being a #10, which reduces to a #1. So the message I get is, focus inside and find that still place, that place of reverence and prayer and solid ground–so that you can be calm as you complete things this month and prepare for new beginnings next month.
Finding the still place resonates with me, because I’m finishing the editing of the first of the seven lessons in my book, Flying Lessons. The first lesson is “Know Where You’re Going to Land.” It’s all about finding solid ground inside.
What is your safe landing space in life? Do you look to relationships? To your job? Do you have a still place inside that is there despite outer circumstances? Surely we all need this in times like these.
I wish for you that you see something inspiring in this message and that you use it to get yourself ready for fall, for new beginnings, and for strengthening that place within you that represents solid ground.
Tags: autumn equinox, centering, centering techniques, consciousness, Flying metaphor, inner landscape, inner peace, meditation, Photography, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, transitions
Posted in centering techniques, coaching, conscious evolution, consciousness, Flying, Imagination, inner landscape, managing change, meditation, nourishing ourselves, Photography, returning to essence, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, self-healing, shifting how we see, shifting paradigms, spiritual practices, Tools for seeing ourselves | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Guanacaste sunset
When we were in Costa Rica last month, I had some heavy things on my mind. Despite the fact that we were so fortunate, despite the profusion of juicy jungle life all around us, I was burdened. (I’m probably not the only one who has had things changing, falling apart and challenging me lately!) So my vacation To Do list had just one thing on it. It was one of the 7 Flying Lessons from my forthcoming book. It was easy to pick the appropriate one: Remember Why You Long to Fly.
As if I had called on her, Nature helped me with this lesson. For most of the first week it had been too cloudy for any sunsets. So when we had a clear evening, we planted ourselves on the beach. It was quite a show. The cloud blanket that had been providing the overcast lifted just enough to be completely lit up, creating a rose glow on everything and everybody. Nothing to do here but point, laugh, exclaim. Pure, unadulterated beauty.
Being on that beach was like flying. I felt lifted, transported. In the presence of something wondrous and magical. It rendered any of my own concerns small…or perhaps it just bathed them in a rosy light and made me see that all will be well. All is already well, I remembered.
What do you think happened in this scene? I believe I finally re-opened my heart. The beauty had been all around me the whole time, but this overwhelming scene just cracked my heart open, and I remembered.
I want that feeling of flying, that ecstatic feeling, because it re-connects me with the truth. The truth that I am a spiritual being capable of great flights, and that I am connected to everyone and everything.
What makes you remember why you long to fly? What lifts you and transports you and opens your heart and causes you to remember All That Is?
I wish you that experience of soaring. Why not remember today?
Tags: beauty, consciousness, Flying, Flying metaphor, inner peace, living today, perception, Photography, The Beauty Way
Posted in aviation, consciousness, Flying, Imagination, nature as mirror, nourishing ourselves, Photography, returning to essence, seeing oneself, shifting how we see, shifting paradigms, The Beauty Path | No Comments »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Blue Morpho
This is my favorite Costa Rican Butterfly, which I got to see again at a Butterfly farm, where the trained guide held this one in his hand for us to see and appreciate. The butterfly facts of life he shared were stunning to me, and made me think again about the subject of transformation.
Did you know that caterpillars have within them “imaginal cells” that carry the blueprints of their future lives as butterflies? I think of these almost like photographic negatives, and also like the luminous field that surrounds us all. This energy carries a blueprint of what we might become as well, and that’s why it’s so important to “clean” this field as often as possible and to keep gathering light energy around and within us. We want those blueprints or negatives to carry the highest and best possibility that we will then manifest in form.
Are we like imaginal cells in our society, who all carry blueprints of transformational possibilities for the planet? I like to think so. What do you think?
I found it amazing to hear that caterpillars also have wings! They aren’t visible, but they are incorporated into the caterpillar’s body. During their stay in the chrysalis, the wings begin to unfold so they can be available when the chrysalis breaks down and the butterfly emerges.
Perhaps we too have wings of sorts–forgotten angelic parts that are within us. When our time come to break out of this form, I like to picture those wings unfolding and presto! Flight!
Finally, one more fact about the Blue Morpho delighted me. The wings are not really the beautiful sky blue they appear to be; they are transparent. From ground level, one can look up at the morpho and see that the wings are transparent. But the top part of the wing reflects the sky, and so appears to us to be exactly the sky’s color.
So we too may not be the “color” we appear to be to others. We are really light beings, and so we reflect what is around us. In reality, we are transparent, light-filled. And all our colors, though beautiful, may be illusions.
And so how is all this butterfly stuff useful? Well, for me it helps me to remember that there is “more than meets the eye” in every person and every situation. If much of what I see is illusion, then I must continue to train my inner eye to see the invisible, and to bring that vision into my life that I might see more clearly and use that vision to become a wiser, clearer, more loving human being.
Tags: beauty, consciousness, Flying, Photography, The Beauty Way
Posted in bringing out your gifts, conscious evolution, consciousness, creative imagination, death and new life, Flying, Imagination, inner landscape, nature as mirror, seeing oneself, shifting how we see | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
In the fall my husband Jon and I flew our Cessna 182 from Tucson to Taos to visit friends who have a wonderful mountain cabin. On the way, we saw fall leaves coming to their peak, almost as quickly as time lapse photography on the Discovery Channel. By the end of the long weekend when we returned, spots of gold like this one had spread, and whole swatches of forest were brilliant gold and orange. Superimposed on it all, I would see a moving shadow of our little plane, projected onto the screen of nature.
Plato saw reality in a way similar to this, as I recall–shadows projected on the back of a cave, like a camera obscura. Is everything we are so attached to a moving set of illusions?
Part of the Flying Lessons process I teach is the notion of seeing that we can move our vantage point around, seeing ourselves and our lives from above when that is helpful, defying the gravity of events on the ground level.
Another flying lesson is about opening our hearts to the beauty and wonder of nature, and to the beauty and wonder of our inner words as well. After all, we are part of the creation, and when we see that we are full of gratitude and a sense of connection to the whole web of life. The stories that fill the “middle world” which we usually inhabit are like this shadow of a small vehicle moving across the canvass of nature.
The key here is that we can observe all this. We are the first species that is conscious of ourselves. We have choices no part of creation has had before. What will we do with this awareness? Where will we travel on our journeys? What will our relationship be to the planet? What will our exclamations be as we observe our interaction with the planet; will they be utterances of wonder or cynicism? Small views or large? How curious are we to see what the extent is of our powers? How will we use them?
Or is the plane shadow just a “plain shadow,” just an illusion, just a passing image that no one saw anyhow?
What do you think? If, like me, you are a “philoser,” as I used to call myself when I was a child, and you too are sipping from a pot of tea, drop in and share your observations.
Tags: afternoon tea, beauty, Flying, Flying metaphor, inner landscape, musings, non-attachment, perception, Photography, relationship, Self, The Beauty Way
Posted in aviation, conscious evolution, consciousness, Flying, Gaia, Guided imagery, Imagination, inner landscape, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence, seeing oneself, shifting paradigms, The Beauty Path | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
OK, so actually this was taken from our Cessna 182. Which is a balcony of sorts. From the window of the airplane, I look down on the stage of life, where stories are being played out. I wonder who lives in that house? What is the red building and what goes on there? What dramas have been played out in full view of each other, and what has gone on in hiding? What are the interior lives like of the people who live within that fence?
Many times with clients, I have them shift to a lens where they look at their lives as if from a balcony–or maybe a Cessna 182. Looking down on our lives allows us to see the big picture. You might ask yourself questions in the third person as you look down on your life, like:
Who is this person? Where did she come from? Why is she here?
How have his surroundings affected him?
What are her relationships like and where do they seem to be going?
What is his life work and is he doing it?
What needs to change to make her happy? What inner resources does she need to bring out to help her?
What is this person “growing” on the ground of their being? What is their life about?
What do you see from the balcony and how is it different from what you see when you are on the stage, in the middle of the action?
Tags: Flying, Flying metaphor, inner landscape, living today, musings, non-attachment, perception, Photography, seeing oneself, Self, shifting lenses, winter
Posted in Flying, Guided imagery, Imagination, inner landscape, Photography, self-healing | No Comments »
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Is it a piece of crumpled paper? a well-worn piece of leather? Or an aerial photo of a river system?
One of the things we can see from the air is the similarity between the surface of the earth and the surface of some of the smaller things we find on earth. Did you know, for instance, that the mathematical relationship between rivers and their tributaries is the same as the mathematical relationship between veins and arteries of the human circulatory system?
The airplane, as St. Exupery pointed out, “revealed the face of the earth.” And then of course space flight revealed the body of Gaia. So now we can see what no other generation has ever seen, except in their mind’s eye.
So, what do we want to do with what we can now see? How do these visions of the connections between your body and Mother Earth’s body affect you? What are you inspired to remember or be or do?
Tags: consciousness, earth, Flying, Gaia, perception, Photography, seeing
Posted in consciousness, Flying, Gaia, nature as mirror, Photography | No Comments »
