Sense of space. On an

August 04, 2002

Sense of space. On an airplane to Winnipeg right now. Will enlightenment happen here? What does context do to initiate awareness. I can try to tune into this space but it will be shallower water than some other situations. I suppose that beyond the rumble, white noise and stale smells there is the realization that there is extreme space outside the fuselage. I’ve done that one before though. I grew up flying in planes with my dad (pilot) and it took me until I was about twenty before the thought occurred to me that it was unnatural to be thousands of feet up in the sky rocketing along in a metal tube. I remember being up with dad one day and bending down to put my eye to this little vent in the cockpit glass. If I put my eye on the opening then there was no Plexiglas between me and the outside world. We were at about 8,000 feet and I can still remember the green of the trees below becoming the same kind of green I saw on the ground. Things were unfiltered and undistorted by that film of lexan. No minor reflections or refractions. I could feel real air. The distance, speed and situation shot into me a few seconds later and I knew what I had been doing all these years. It’s one thing to go flying and its another thing for the realization of what you are actually doing to strike right to your core.
Recently I had my sense of space awaken me to new vulnerabilities. Over the last nine weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time camping with my family. Each night we’d set the tent up. Each morning we would tear it down. Camping is not new to me and sleeping in a tent seems a natural thing to do. Previously I had thought that it was merely a cost effective, practical and portable way to seek shelter as you traveled to exotic and primeval places. Its a way to unobtrusively transport your reality into alien worlds. Its cheaper than a hotel. You feel the elements. You learn to hate certain elements. A little bit of rain is pleasant if you don’t have to tear down at daybreak. Nothing is worse than waking up after a temperature drop as the cold rain pastes the fly to the inner sanctum of the tent. You pull up the sleeping bag and pretend you never have to leave. You’re in for misery. With hands frozen into useless mud covered claws you tear it all down and try not to speak to anyone for fear of the irrational and bitter things you might spit out. Become an expert at stringing a tarp over base camp and watch the skies. This last trip has me looking at the skies many times daily. I don’t think I ever used to do that. I’ll look up all the time now and say, “that’s a nice one” or “isn’t that amazing”. I have even taken to taking pictures of the sky. No horizon. No other subject matter. How “new age”. As long as I don’t start wearing clothing with clouds printed on it I will be OK. I think I remember Doug Henning wearing one of these cloud suits for his Natural Law Party promotional campaigns. For those who don’t remember (or those not Canadian) he was a magician who ran for a government seat based on the idea that all constituents could be helped through the practice of “yogic flying”. From the outside it looks like people in the lotus position hopping up and down like amputee frogs. I really wished my laser witted scottish granddad were alive to give me his thoughts on that one. Oh what I would pay to be watching TV with him and have Doug Henning come on to sell his idea. My granddad was the guy who would call the hockey game with the sound off because he, “didn’t need those bloody idiots telling him what he was watching”. I can tell you his commentary was damn entertaining for a young lad. Far more colourful. He didn’t like the Habs. I, therefore, always wanted to be at his place for the Habs games. I liked the Canadiens and loved to get him going.
Back to the tent. It was just the other day in Glacier National Park Montana. We had a great spot and had reached the right kind of exhaustion after a twilight swim in Lake MacDonald. The bear warnings were kept in perspective. The fresh bear scat right beside our tent was kept a secret to allow the kids some R.E.M. sleep. At about 4:00am I somehow moved from drool trickling dreaming into the half sleep that is my most creative space. Its the place you go just before you hit deep sleep. Sounds become shapes and your creative mind takes logical notions to the next place. Its a place where things seem to make total sense but are probably stretching the boundaries of making sense. Elastic space. Sometimes I can force myself awake to write down what is happening. When read in the morning it can be brilliant or absolute shit. I moved into this space and began to put together the picture around me. I lay there in the silence and took inventory of my surroundings. I could feel and hear the family around me and placed myself in the world. In a second I was shooting out all over the globe. Nothing was in the way. The tent was close to transparent and that helped me be aware of every tiny sound, the temperature, the moisture. The air provided no resistance to my travel. All the miles I had logged over the previous months had combined within me to make me hyper aware of where I was at that instant. I could travel the roads out to each town I’d been in. I lay there and was very happy. It didn’t scare me. Then I felt vulnerable to the elements. Then I felt calm. Then I told myself to bookmark the feeling and the moment. Rare.
In that instant I could feel time and space connect and see it all at once. Like everything that just happens to me . . . I’ll try to repeat that instant as many times as I can and probably fail. I feel pretty good that this short revelation lead ultimately to contentment. It could have triggered a pretty decent freak out. Not a freaky as flying. This was the ground travel equivalent. I’m going to split the difference and start practicing my yogic flying. Heh...look at those clouds.