I've always wanted wings ...

My sister and her husband arrived in town to spend six weeks over the holidays with family and despite having a car packed to the gills, there was no room {Jaye has far too much common sense to even consider packing what is not truly needed} for a Christmas tree to put up in their rented condo.  Really not a problem as we sisters have a mania for Christmas odds and ends and so I offered my extra tree and ornaments and began sorting through them.

Angels and birds, and more angels and birds!  I have a large box, actually the largest box of ornaments, full of angel and bird ornaments.  I confess, none of these will go to her as I discovered while sorting that most contain memories of small hands - my boys - giving them to me.  Looking into the box, I saw wings of fanciful color made of feathers, metal, glass, clay and some kind of woven grass. And, in addition to wonderful memories, I also discovered that the possibilities available to creatures with wings, causes an ache deep inside myself:  I have always desired flight.

Sometimes my desire for flight is nothing more than the longing for the instant change of being somewhere else - away from rather than going to; sometimes the desire for flight is impatience over the slowness of life's unfolding and I wistfully fantasize wings taking me instantly to what I desire.  Wait! that's not flight - it's time travel!  Well, it's a fantasy after all and wings would seem useful in turning fantasy into reality.

My longest running fantasies always involve experiences of  freedom which makes sense as I once believed that my greatest personal need was for freedom. It seems to me that freedom would be more readily available if one had wings - with wings I could suddenly take flight when feeling too bound or confined.  Over the past couple years though I have discovered a deeper truth about myself and as much as I love - and need - a sense of freedom,  the deeper desire, the hunger that pushes the word freedom to the surface of my thoughts, is actually the word flow - the sensation of be completely and effortlessly engaged.  Birds when flying appear to effortlessly flow through the air.  Angels, at least to my mind, are effortlessly engaged in goodness. Clearly  I have believed this ability to engage effortlessly was because of wings!  My true desire is wings for experiencing the joy of flow; engaging life wholeheartedly.

To engage is to be involved or entangled with: when I engage something or someone, I join myself to it; we become part of one another's 'now' experience.  Flow occurs when this kind of mutual engagement is total and creative.  Great conversation, love-making, cooking and/or eating a delicious meal, journaling and writing, coloring mandalas, creating with my buttons and putting together collages are each occasions high in my personal potential for flow because when engaged in these acts I allow myself to engage creatively and I flow through time and space as though I were a bird or an angel with wings extended catching the upward draft of air.

Wings! When I experience flow, I do have wings.  My 'wings' unfurl as I intentionally use the power of thought to be completely present. Each of the occasions I mentioned, I know to be delightful and so 'wings' of intention unfurl without needing to even think about doing so: I expect enjoyment on those occasions and so I relax and voila! wings of thought extend and catch the flow of goodness: I fly and soar in the freedom of wonder and delight while doing what I expect to enjoy.

Ruminating on these ideas, it appears that I do have wings. It also appears that my wings and the wings of birds and angels are a tad different:: birds and angels seem to use their wings as a natural part of living: birds don't think about flying, they fly.  Angels don't think about carrying goodness around, they just do.  How then, do I, use the wings available to me more effortlessly?I

I suspect the answer is in the above paragraph: birds and angels catch the updrafts of energy for flight because they know why they exist and flight is simply a natural part of carrying out their purpose.
Ralph Waldo Emerson understood his purpose for being alive and described it as: "I am an organ through which Spirit executes It's will and Creative Power."  I read these words almost three years ago and have recited them, written many, many times about them in my journal and lit enough candles while uttering those words so the intention of the words is now engaged within my heart.  When I am able to live from those words, the Spirit Emerson refers to, does give me wings for catching the updrafts of goodness ceaselessly flowing in life and having been deliberate about extending myself to catch their flow, I am able to flow through much more of my day than I once did.

Despite my deliberate intention, I neither fly nor flow perfectly - not even close to perfectly - but today, after almost three years of engaging Emerson's words and making them mine, my wings of intention unfurl more frequently and more easily.  Sometimes I really am one with those lovely wings that I have always yearned to have for now I know, I do indeed have 'human' wings ... the wings of intentional thought.

In the world of religious thought the Spirit is generally depicted as a dove and although there are many images of traditional religious belief that I do not take as mine, I'm completely engaged with the image of the Spirit as a Dove: it's a bird; it has wings; it flows ceaselessly upon the energy of Goodness - yes indeed, I will indeed be an 'organ' or vehicle of such energy.  After all, I've always longed for wings and now I know where they may be found and how to use them.