Thursday, October 29, 2009

You CAN Fly

A friend of mine, a wonderful musician and lyricist, wrote a song called You Can't Fly. (You can get a copy of the CD, This Train at Vollie McKinzie's website or by contacting me) The song describes a dream he had about sneaking onto an airport and taking off in a plane, though he had no idea how to fly. It's a fairly common dream, but Vollie pulled amazing insight from that dream.

He says that every plane wants to fly, that it was made to fly. And that you need to have your own flight plan and not accept anyone else's. He encourages the listener to go for it. The man is wise, I tell you. You've got to hear the song.

His song This Train is not the This Train is Bound for Glory song you might be thinking of. McKinzie's This Train states "This train ain't got not beam. This train ain't got no steam. And staying on's insane. I'm up and off this train."

I've played both songs for clients to encourage them, but mostly I play them for myself to encourage me.

How often do we stay on the train for no other reason then it's where we find ourselves. If it ain't getting us where we want to go, then staying on's insane. Sure, hopping off might be scary. Flying might be scary. In fact, it's sure to be scary. But staying on the train to nowhere or staying on the ground is insane. Besides, it's boring. And the very worst way to die must be being bored to death.

I remember details of flying in my dreams. Sometimes I don't even use a plane. I remember the way it feels when my hair is blown away from my face. I can see the different personalities of trees when you see them from above. I remember that all I have to do is step up into the air and let go of gravity and there I am.

Even in my dreams it takes a good deal of trust and courage to step off the surface of the planet. But oh, it's so very worth it just to feel like the shimmer of a full moon reflecting off a still, clear lake. It's worth the risk of falling just to feel what it's like to be inside a breeze. To be weightless as smoke and strong as steel at the same time. Totally free.

Don't let anyone tell you that you can't fly. It's a nasty rumor spread by fridged, heartless people with no imagination. And get the CD.

5 comments:

  1. Full on flying is a rare dream, but it's not that uncommon to dream I can hover a few feet off the ground. In the dream I always remember how to do it. When I wake up, it never seems to work, even though there's a nagging feeling it should... :)

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  2. Kim,
    I often step up into the air. When I move my feet slowly, I stay up. It always surprises me when it happens because I thought it was only in dreams that it happened. Yes, I can remember it.

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  3. I'm nearly there! I can manage it with both feet individually, so surely it's just a matter of time before I can do both together...

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  4. I have dreams inside dreams about flying and in the inner dream I fly with a recognition of "yes, see, I knew I could do it in waking consciousness" and I fly and fly.. Then "wake up" but only into the container dream. Assuming I am now awake I fly again and have the same thing happen. "yes now I am awake and I can do it". I always know for sure that this must be in us all, we can all fly but somehow collectively lost how to. The dreams always have this theme of "remembering how" even though the flight and rest of the dreams settings are normally unique.

    I also often dream of drug states and have some very "trippy dreams" So here is an interesting fact for you, and the reason why we fly in dreams...

    THE strongest hallucinogen known to man is DMT and where is it made? In the brain! And when is it released? A little in dreams, a lot in childbirth, a lot at death (so the Near Death Experience) and also once during our time in the womb.

    So our dreams are a hallucination. But what chemicals are released by our own brains all day? a far more complex mix, and there we have this so called reality, itself too a shared dream and hallucination.

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  5. Yes, yes, lucid dreams inside of dreams. Perhaps I'll write about some other dreams I've had. Just a chemically induced hallucination you say? How terribly unromantic. I prefer to find the meaning in dreams. Of course, I can find meaning in library catalog cards drawn at random. It's not me finding the meaning, so much as it is me finding a reason to remember it.
    Good dreaming takes practice! Let's all dream tonight.

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