Learning To Fly..

The experience of life balance or attempt for life balance was so clear to me recently while flying my first kite. Just to get it off the ground felt like a miracle in aeronautics. Our five year old was the kite runner, yet there was so much wind he only needed to hold it in place as the wind moved past it. This whole process, of waiting, holding and balancing the kite is very much like the process of following life and where it may lead us.

The kite flyer is in all of us, consistently striving to hold onto our anchor or dowel as life pulls and tugs us in new directions. Our failures, let downs, and personal blocks are sometimes (old ways), that as humans, we try to hold onto. Trying something different like flying a kite can put a different perspective of how life can really be. It was amazing how just a little wind little wind can lift one to experience life effortlessly.

In life and in kite flying, we wait with anticipation for that right lift that will carry us with minimal effort or force. Because, with too much tether we barely catch our lift but rather limp along. A balance of letting out enough of who we are in the world without giving all of what we have in us away. With a little grit and determination, we hold on tight and we force change or things to happen for us in a certain way. A particular outcome. Forcing something that does not fit keeps us grounded. The fewer options we think we have in our life keeps us grounded. Creativity thrives on the many, on the endless possibilities that is available to us if we are open and willing to listen. Letting go and listening to the our inner compass helps us determine which way the wind is blowing or whether we need to put forth effort or be guided in the moment. When we live this way we discover self determination and a new life that appears without lift.

So we wait, and listen, to be guided by something greater than who we are. And just like that we are air bound! How we got there we do not know, yet we are there just the same. We watch in amazement as we fly, soar with pure joy and exhilaration. It almost takes our breath away. Quickly, we learn to be guided. It pulls on our heart strings, and we remember yes this is how it feels to be free. Feeling our way along, we fall behind this force, we are led and we have “let go.”

This freedom, we may have felt at times in our life or not at all. This is uncharted territory to be in this new place of unexpected change and growth. If we feed into this fear we will suddenly be taken off course or take a sudden nose dive back to earth. 

Without knowing where the winds of change may take us we start to feel the same anxiety we felt before we ever left the ground.  We worry that there may not be enough wind to fill our sails. We start to question what fills us out. Keeps us expansive and fulfills us from within. We pay attention to the wind direction,  to those things are in our life that fulfill us.

So we gently fall behind this grace once again, and there is stillness. Pure, stillness and a peace as we hang in the balance of where life can begin for us. Being fully present to where it may lead us. To be gentle with ourselves and others as we change and as life changes around us. The freedom to be more of who we are without imposing too many restrictions.