Let it Flow

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Dear Friend,

I was in my thirties the first time I flew on an aeroplane. I’d got my first “proper’ job, with a salary. Before it started I booked a holiday to Greece. I’d been ‘off island’ before, but had travelled by sea and land.

I don’t think I’ll ever fully come to terms with air travel. You wake up in one culture and go to bed in another. It’s like time travel. You get in the winged tube, sit there for a while and emerge in another time and place.

London’s airports are hectic places.

The security checks, the rampant commercialism. The forced march through pristine retail units. Perfumes, chocolates, clothing, alcohol, electrical goods. Armed security guards with automatic weapons.

A form of capitalist theatre.

And then there’s the flying itself.

Your body at speed, up in the heavens, higher than mountains.

The thrust of the engines pushing me back into my seat. That scooping feeling in your guts as the wheels leave the tarmac and you’re in the air. Emerging through the clouds into brilliant sunlight. I think I spent that first flight glued to the window.

Craning to take it all in. The clouds a rolling sea of wonderment, giving way to oceans and mountain ranges.

Today a plane will be speeding me towards Chiara, who I’ve not seen now for close to a month. It’s all I can think about. Do any of us really appreciate how much we are loved?

I’m not sure I’m so great at showing how much I love the people in my life. Maybe more to the point is how much we are able to love and appreciate ourselves. What would our world be like if the barriers to love came down?

Each one of us fully self accepting, sharing the love that pours through us with all who we meet. What if the fear factory closed and we woke up to what we have in common with one another, got curious about the differences?

We can do that on an individual level. It spreads. You don’t need the whole of humanity to join in, because they won’t be able to. It’s not that other people need to change. When we change inside it’s amazing how the people you meet change.

It’s as if the whole experience in an airport is designed to cause anxiety. A microcosm of our culture. Stay in your lane, conform, consume.

The fear factory outlet trickles its wares into our consciousness somehow. We’re swimming in it. The project is to divide and manipulate.

I switched off the news decades ago. It still gets through.

Today is a good day to practice kindness and trust.

I’ll lay my head down next to Chiara this evening.

Between now and then endless opportunities to silently express loving kindness. Trusting that life has me. Will take me where I need to go. Letting go of attachment to how it should be and accepting what is.

Living in the flow of divine energy that makes our universe.

Easy to say. It’s the living of it that counts.

Airports, excellent environments to practice.

The next post will be from Italy.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey