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.
