When I was younger, I used to love flying on planes. I would get so excited about looking out of the window and seeing the ground fall away. I loved the stomach lurch when you took off. That ended for me when I started to feel sick on flights. Just a little at first, then more and more, so that eventually I dreaded getting on a plane, anticipating hours of nausea.
Well, this time it was different. All this reading I’ve been doing about presence and consciousness, combined with feeling so much less sick and afraid with food, filled me with a warrior’s confidence. On the way to the airport, I was being present, not thinking about how terrifying being in a security queue would be. Standing in the security queue, I reminded myself that the people around me, as much as they felt like a tired and mildly annoyed army, were people just like me. Finally, on the plane, I tried to stay calm and present as much as possible, and let Oprah’s dulcet tones soothe my soul. And, amazingly, I felt sick not at all.
Well, this time it was different. All this reading I’ve been doing about presence and consciousness, combined with feeling so much less sick and afraid with food, filled me with a warrior’s confidence. On the way to the airport, I was being present, not thinking about how terrifying being in a security queue would be. Standing in the security queue, I reminded myself that the people around me, as much as they felt like a tired and mildly annoyed army, were people just like me. Finally, on the plane, I tried to stay calm and present as much as possible, and let Oprah’s dulcet tones soothe my soul. And, amazingly, I felt sick not at all.
The best thing was the flight back home. It was 8 hours more or less from Reykjavik to Portland. We took off at 5pm local time, and landed at 5pm local time, with an 8 hour time difference. That means that relative to the sun we were in the same place the whole flight; essentially counteracting the spin of the earth. So what I visualised was us taking off and floating in space, while the earth spun underneath us. What I hadn’t anticipated was that it would be sunset, nor that a crescent moon would be on the horizon, accompanied by a bright Venus. That view accompanied me for the whole flight. Here’s a picture I took of it.
