I Believe I Can Fly

 I used to have a repetitive dream whereby I could fly on the mere belief that I could, that I was unlimited and without restrictions other than those I placed on myself. To enter flight I raised both arms up above my head and willed myself off the earth and into the air. Occasionally I would flap my arms very slowly to gain momentum and speed. Like a dolphin in water I moved lightly, playfully and with great grace. I felt light and jubilant and incredibly free until hidden psychological forces created weighed heavily upon my body and mind. With each fear and doubt my ability to soar diminished. The weight of gravity tugged firmly on my form and pulled me down onto the earth and into a cage, albeit each time I descended the cage was larger. Once caged, fears solidified until the belief of flight became a mere fancy of thought like a wish without faith. Eventually I believed I could not fly.

I instantly set about to the duties of being caged, methodical pacing back and forth, using the fullness of my weight to test the strength of the bars, peering out beyond the bars and wondering, was flight illusion or real? Why, after all, if I could fly, did I choose to become encaged? What purpose did this cage serve? Conversely, what purpose did flight serve? Moreover, if flight was so liberating, why then all this fear? Why the need to continuously return to being caged?

It never escaped me that the cage had no roof, merely four walls. Freedom was as simple as believing once again. But the distance between believing and not believing seemed too vast. What if I could fly? What would I do next and how long before gravity pulled me down into the next cage?

Internal instability erupted creating an overwhelming need to try. And so I set about the task of repetitively trying again and again until I realized it was not my body that needed commanding but merely my mind, a tiny shift in perception, a transformation from solid to ethereal belief. And so I stood, arms pointed upwards to the heavens, conjuring faith in the unbelievable until a luminary lightness that filled every cell of my being lifted me up, up, up out of the cage and into the vast and open space above the trees.

The higher I rose, the greater the feeling of uncertainty. If the ceiling begins in the first few millimeters above the surface of the earth, and space is infinite, then where does the ceiling end?

Lightness, though still in form, I ascended. Was I fearful of expanding beyond what I knew of my own existence? Though I had never traveled the circumference of the earth, I knew its boundaries and limitations. I knew nothing of space beyond the earth, the place that stars and planets and galaxies occupied. Was this the reason for my eventual and inevitable descent?

I hovered on the edge between known and unknown and was consumed by the vastness of being alone. The need to recapture myself was voluntary. To travel alone seemed too great a task without something or someone to share it with. And so the familiar feeling of gravity tugged yet once again and weighted me down closer to the earth. What was this need for connection and from where did it originate? More importantly, why the compulsion to attach instead of liberate?

The act of believing one can fly is not as difficult as one may initially presume. Yet to maintain flight, without giving into uncertainty, to allow oneself to remain unlimited, to expand beyond everything that is known, that is the greater barrier. Inconceivable? No. But the willingness, desire and decision to make it so must be stronger than anything ever before preconceived.