By Nadia (ms.nadia@mail.com)
Date: 20 September 2000
The Flight
'The Flight'
Whoever invented the expression 'to fall in love' was a fool. Love is not a fall, it is a rising up, a flight. Eros, the god of love, was rightly depicted with wings. He picks us up and takes us with him on a wonderful voyage towards the skies, towards the moon, the stars and the sun.
Our spirits soar and we are raised up on a personal level, filled suddenly with feelings of goodness, charity and sympathy. We are flooded with light and we 'glow'. We want to spread the warmth, we want to shout our love and we want for the entire world to share in its splendor. We are elevated to a higher level of humanity when Love lifts us. We are better people.
The 'fall' comes afterwards, when Love lets go and drops us. Then we fall. And there, also, lies the irony of Love. The higher we flew on his wings the further we have to fall when he releases us. And the more it hurts when we hit the ground.
Therein lies the challenge with which we are faced each and every time we see Love's shadow circling in the sky overhead. We can run into a cave, or the shade of a tree, and hide from love. Or we can throw back our arms, lift our faces to the sky and so offer ourselves up to Love.
The former is the safer of the two choices. It is also by far the duller and those of us who consistently choose to hide do not know what it is to live.
To stand defenseless in the face of Love, to fly with him, even anticipating the painful fall to come, that is living. And that is the choice we must make.
To accept the pain as the necessary price of joy, to embrace it as such, takes courage. But the reward… ah, the reward is to fly so high on Love's wings that we may have a glimpse of heaven.
April 27, 1994
Paris, France
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