Above the cloudline…
As my plane left the ground and gained altitude, rising up above the French city of Bordeaux, I was struck once again by how peaceful the world looks from up there. The light reflecting off the river that meanders through the city and out to the sea, the soft haze that blankets the buildings, the structures and patterns only gesturing towards the creativity, the choices, the productivity of those living on the land.
And then the plane ascended up through the cloudline, and the world below disappeared, cloaked in white fluff, and above that, miles and miles of blue blue sky illuminated by a naked sun.
Rumi’s words about a field threaded through my thoughts. A field beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing. A field where the soul lies down when the world is too full to talk about. A field of invitation, connection, belonging.
Looking out at the clouds and the sky and the sun, the ‘too full’ world dropping away with every inch we climbed, I felt the grace of distance, the gift of this most expansive of perspectives. Objectivity – that which we receive in the gap that opens up between event and personal response – is what sets us apart as the reflective, conscious, aware creatures that we are.
We don’t live in the gap any more that we live in Rumi’s field. Although the thought may certainly appeal! We don’t live there because we are called in vital and passionate ways to connect with our family – both personal, composed of immediate and extended family, friends, colleagues etc, and transpersonal, this global family of which we are all a part.
The invitation is not, my loves, to opt out… but to opt in. And we can do this without losing ourselves to the turbulent winds of violent change by remembering that we have the capacity to step back when we need to – to regroup, reflect, realign with right action – so that we might once more step up and lean in.
That’s the invitation. Do you accept?
