Learning to whistle, learning to fly

Remember learning to whistle as a child?
An older brother or sister, maybe a parent tried to guide you to making the noise. But how to make a whistle happen is beyond words. It cannot be described, only pointed to with inadequate phrases like “kinda hold your mouth like THIS ok?”.

So you try to whistle and all you hear is rushing air. You maybe try so hard your head starts to spin from too much oxygen and you feel it will never happen. Perhaps you wonder how anyone worked out how to do this strange thing in the first place. It seems so alien.

You keep blowing air. It doesn’t seem like you are practising because practising suggests you are actually DOING the thing repeatedly to improve. But you’re not doing it, you’re just blowing air. There is a desire in you to be one who “whistles”, so on you go, blowing air. Till one time there is a quiet “tweet”. You pause and become giddy with the realization that you ARE going to make it. You too will be able to whistle like the other kids.

So it is with our spiritual growth. It seems so BIG and important. But it’s not.

I remember the feeling, but not the situation. It was years ago. I was in an argument, or to put it more accurately, someone was in an argument with me. They were saying things, implying things, that should have made my egoic self rise to battle, but no. I flew above the content like an eagle on a thermal current. I heard my voice saying, “ oh I see”, and “you make a good point” without my heart rate rising, no adrenaline, no connection with what was happening.

This was my first little “tweet”. It exists only as a memory now, and daily, I blow air, confident that one day I will fly again.