Hawk reminds me we can fly

 

I am drifting around dawn in the liminal state between sleep and awake, where I recommend that you learn to spend more time because it's a natural launchpad for lucid dream adventures. It's a place where creative connections are made easily. It's a place where you are highly psychic and your psyche - come on, let's call it soul - can be quite mobile. 
     I am drifting around dawn. The image of a feather floats up on my inner screen. I see the pattern and I know it is the feather of a red-tailed hawk, a bird that has played an important role in my life.  Suddenly, I realize the feather is attached to a live bird, to a wing that is quivering in mid-air. I look at the wing, at the back of the bird, at the silver-white belly feathers.I look ino the intense yellow eyes that are looking at me and I feel an invitation. To do what? To lift up, to fly with the hawk.
    Now I am floating over the rooftops of the city and over the green park. I have gone through my window without noticing. I am vaguely aware of the body I have left in bed, but my focus is on the adventure ahead. Extraordinary things have happened when I have flown with the hawk before. This already feels so good.  I, am enjoying going with the wind, the pure freedom of flight. The hawk is no longer separate. I think the hawk and I have become a hybrid. Or I have taken the form of a hawk.
     Frequent flyers beyond the body do it in different ways, Some fly Superman style, arms out, straight as a rocket. Some swim through the air or go doggy-style, or pedal. I often find myself winging it like the birds. So maybe I am a hawk now.
      But I am distracted by mechanical noise. I have not lost track of the physical environment. I am in two places and two states of mind at once. I am floating above the city and at the same time I am aware of my body in bed and the physical life of the night city below me. I search for the source of the noise and see a helicopter, probably going to or from a nearby hospital on an emergency call. I tell myself the noise will go away. Let me stay with the hawk in flight and find out where it wants to take me this time.
      The noise of the chopper blades does fade. But now there is a louder, harsher, churning noise, I think of a military aircraft. This is really pulling me out of my lovely aerial experience. As soon as my attention shifts, I drop back in my dormant body in the bedroom with a soft thud.
      This is a small anecdote, nothing important going on, but little incidents like this remind us that in dreams and dreamlike states, we can fly. This is a talent to be grown and to be mastered. It has been valued in most cultures as far back as we can track even if many in modern society have forgotten.