John & Anne Wiley

Today I had an eDialog with an eFriend, about the eXquisite nature of reality. OK, now that I’ve perhaps annoyed you, let me clarify a bit. By eDialog I mean conversation via email, as you probably guessed. eFriend is my way of describing a wonderful multi-year relationship I (and a few times Anne) have carried on with someone whom we’ve never met. I mangled “exquisite” just to playfully over extend the theme. 🙂

It’s such an increasingly strange and wonderful world we inhabit. Sure we’ve watched “You’ve Got Mail” with friends and talked at length about virtual friendships (including with our virtual friends). We’ve also enjoyed the great precursor films “Shop Around the Corner” and “Good Old Summertime” filmed back when it was all about exchanging physical snail mail with an unknown Dear Friend. But today I’m thinking for example about the greater depth I find in eDialog than back when I had physical pen pals.

Molly enjoys TXTing, and we’re doing more of that now but it’s declined precipitously now that she’s in France for the Summer. That medium and tweeting seem to me lacking in substance and capability, though TXTing can be very useful for some logistical stuff. To digress a moment, our cellphones often don’t ring so when we’re in Costco or some other big box store it can be frustrating to connect via voicemail, when a simple “Computer aisle” TXT does it instantly.

Email though, seems to beautifully mingle the dialog with our literary minds. Each participant can read and reply at will and whenever convenient, yet there’s instant delivery so topics don’t tend to stale as with snail mail. The fact it’s email rather than voice gives us the time and tools to easily edit and clarify our expressions via the literary part of our consciousness, rather than limiting our expressions to the vocal circuits (oh how many times I’ve left a truly stupid and incomprehensible voicemail!). I also like that my large amount of email dialog has improved (my opinion, but ask Anne) my verbal dialog.

So does any of this make sense? Do you have similar or contradictory opinions or experience?

Anyway, I’d like to also share another of yesterday’s aerial perspectives on this little bit of paradise we call home.

0852 SB Beneath Our Wing

I’ve trimmed the highlights with a photo editor to better show something like what we saw, so the wing strut is reduced to the almost black angle bottom-left. I don’t know if you can make out the tread clamped on there, that I climb up on to check and add fuel. Some photos like this one (before I edited it) show that tread or one of our wheels, and remind me we’re in a vehicle. I mean, often while flying I’m in some special dual state. Part of me is flying, monitoring radio and all the instruments; and maintaining a 3D mental image of the airspace including nearest landing spots, other aircraft, obstacles, etc.

The “larger” part of my consciousness while flying though is in dream time. That special state so similar to my childhood flying dreams that I’ve written elsewhere might account for “prop advance.” This spacious awareness is more present and alive than my ordinary earthbound experience. This part of flying is why I most love it. Far beyond the many other joys of flying, this part resonates with infinity within me.

Noticing a tread I’ve recently stood on, or a strut, wheel or other part of the aircraft somehow yanks me into a sudden integration of ordinary reality with this “big” part of flying. Lots of words, but hopefully some glimmer of what I’m trying to express.

Do you get any inkling of what flying can be from the words and pictures?

Speaking of perspectives, occasionally we like to fly over Oprah’s mansion or some other playground (Neverland, for example) because it’s a glimpse of an entirely different reality.

0870 Part of Oprah's SB Estate

There’s something really fascinating about seeing beyond the hedges and walls, because you get a dim and distant impression of what a person with basically unlimited resources will create as an expression of self. That of course, gets me noticing what our little place looks like and what we would do with limitless funds. O the possibilities. I like to imagine something small and modest, with the funds going to some sort of Grameen Bank effort and other contributions to our species and planet. What would you do with a billion dollars?