Flying Lessons

When I was little, I was fascinated by things that could fly. I completely believed in fairies (still do!), loved Peter Pan, and got a thrill from riding my bike downhill. There's a thrill of freedom that arises with the wind in my hair.

When I was in college, I was determined to learn to fly. I was either going to hang-glide off a mountain or become a barnstormer. I loved Richard Bach's Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah and his other books but only got so far as a pilot's permit.

Later, my dream turned to one of performing the role of Peter Pan in the musical. I would have only been flying from a wire, but it would have been an amazing experience. I came within a hair's breath of that one, but didn't get the part in the end.

The week after that let down, I started a Toltec apprenticeship with Spiritweavers during which we made power sticks. When my guide handed me back my stick, he laughed and said, "I don't know what this means, but use this to become Peter Pan." We then walked up a hill to a medicine wheel to perform a ceremony with our sticks. The wind started to kick up something fierce as we held our sticks to the setting sun. I really did feel like I was flying in that moment, leaning into the wind with my arms stretched like wings. It was an unforgettable moment.

The things is, I still have that feeling of flying. In fact, the more I sing, and the more I use the voice for my own healing and that of others, the more I realize that singing is really a type of flying. I have always wanted a pair of wings. I didn't know I've always had them and that they were called "vocal chords!"

I feel like I've been in flight school my whole life and didn't even know it. But I've always been licensed to fly. If you can sing, you can fly. No one should be denied nor deny themselves this role!

I'll conclude with a poem by Sri Chinmoy from The Source of Music: Music and Mantra for Self Realization:

“Let us not try to understand music with our mind. Let us not even try to feel it with our heart. Let us simply and spontaneously allow the music-bird to fly in our heart-sky. While flying, it will unconditionally reveal to us what it has and what it is. What it has is Immortality’s message. And what it is is Eternity’s passage.”