When Falling Becomes Flying

How soft can you become?

(photo by Melissa Fritchle)

Ahh the grace of flight. Wings outstretched, soaring, our winged kin seem to us born to the air.

But the process of learning to fly is actually falling repeatedly, until the baby bird learns to open its wings and engage the air to lift.

One lucky year we had a pair of owls who nested and raised their 3 babies in a eucalyptus grove down the street from us. Each day I would walk down at dusk and stand back, letting my eyes adjust like those eye trick puzzles so that I could discern feathers from bark. And then big golden eyes blinking back at me. Eventually, as the babies grew, I would walk down and find them on the big logs underneath the tree. They would stretch their wings, trying out flapping and then make some leaps up into low branches. Not yet graceful, a far cry from the eventual swooping airborne acrobatics they would do, but learning.

Learning to do what they are born to do is a fraught and clumsy process. As babies gain strength, parent birds begin to hold the necessary morsels of food closer and closer to the edge of the nest so the babies have to reach for it. Teetering on the edge those first times the baby falls, protected only by its light weight it drops straight to the ground. From there she has to hop her way back up, branch to branch to make it back to the nest for a well-earned rest. As she hops, she will experiment with spreading her wings, pushing them against the air for a boost. Bit by bit, learning the strength in her body until she flies. Her body in conversation with the unseen air, pressing into it, relying on it, being carried by it.

“‎Dancing is not just getting up painlessly, like a leaf blown on the wind; dancing is when you tear your heart out and rise out of your body to hang suspended between the worlds.

― Rumi

Discovering our true capacity often feels like plummeting towards the earth, faster than our plans can abide. New beginnings may not have many handholds and growth can bring bruises. The Spring energy may be calling us out of the warm nest, but oh wow its quite a humbling view staring over that edge into who we can be.

What can we learn from our winged friends about this process of finding our own grace and freedom? First we need to see that we cannot skip ahead. We need to begin with the falling.

Here I go again, another painful interaction with my mother and I am fumbling, feeling hungry and unmet. I stretched for something I wanted that remains out of reach and it feels like I am going down hard. My mind grabs for memories, justifications, incriminations, grudges and guilts. Each thought taking me into a density – I never…she always…it should be…right…wrong. These thoughts constructing a limited reality that is so dense, like a brick it hurtles toward the solid earth of this actual moment. Now I hit the present moment hard, so much mental weight built in. Really the moment is just what is, just right now. Really the harsh word is just a harsh word. It could just float away.

Is there a way to land in the tangibility of human life with softness?

What allows the little birds to survive falling from nests to the ground below? It is the lightness of their bodies, so light they do not hurt themselves as they land. For us humans this may mean finding the lightness in our minds. It means addressing the rigid beliefs that overtake lithe possibility or ethereal unknowns. Patterns within weight us down with disappointment, fears, shame, criticism and all the stories we tell ourselves about why we shouldn’t fall or shouldn’t be down here on the ground again, and how ever will we make our way back up to the safe branches?

How can we cultivate a lightness of being so that we can fall and fall and fall until it becomes flying?

Can our hearts and minds be light when we plunge again down into the places where we do not feel held, so that we do not crash but land softly enough to reorient and decide what to do next? Can we be free enough to visit the vulnerability of not knowing and in the beginner’s mind a kind of protection? Can we quiet the internal narrative enough to hear a call to take up more space rather than less, like wings open and exposed so they can fully meet the vast sky they are falling through?

Sometimes finding something new, in our self or the world, requires letting go of what we thought we knew. Feel the loving open space all around you. Fall. Fall through this sky. And then find the way the sky lifts you up.

Invitations …

(photo by Melissa Fritchle)

COMMUNION

Let’s ask the Sacred Wild to help us lighten what we carry. For this sacred communion time, bring or collect some pebbles or leaves

that you can carry with you and then release. As you collect them, as if that can hold some of the burdens of your mind for a little while. Walk with them and feel them with you. Just allow yourself to notice the act of carrying them.

Bring yourself to a place where you can be at the edge of a drop-off. This could be a creek bank where you can stand over a creek or just sitting on a big rock or at the peak of a cliff. Just find a place you can drop your pebbles or leaves and watch them fall. Take your time to just sit and be with all that you carry. Rest. Then when you feel ready, begin to pick up your pebbles or leaves one by one. You may name what they represent to you – beliefs or old memories that you are ready to release so that they no longer weigh you down. Note, this is different than throwing something away in anger – which we also sometimes need to do. For this time, play with your willingness to let these things go and to no longer reach for them when you feel unsteady.

As you drop them, watch them fall through the air. Imagine them, not disappearing or smashing at the bottom, but opening wings and transforming into something light and free. Imagine your heart also becoming free, capable of soaring.

EMBODY

The breath can help you release and connect to lightness. It is a reminder that each moment, each breath, is a new beginning. Right here, right now, just this breath. Allow yourself to sit comfortably or lay down if that is better for your body today. Then just allow yourself to gently focus on your breath. Feel the way the in-breath lifts your ribs out, making space in your chest and belly. Feel yourself letting go of the past breath with each out-breath. Just relax and let yourself ride the rising and falling of the breath as it comes and goes.

You might try this mantra with your breath. In-breath : So light Out-breath : this sky

Continue on as you enjoy – So light..this sky

JOURNAL

What part of you wants to fly? Has it taken a leap?

Is there is a time in your life when you let yourself fall again and again? What was that like? What kept you going? What strength did you grow?

Write about an unexpected soft landing.