#1: Look, See, Be, Fly!

This is Gebhard. He is my neighbor’s rooster. Gebhard can fly, just not very far. What if he was an eagle in disguise?

Looking at Gebhard reminds me of a story told by Prince Ea.

«That eagle lived and died a chicken because that is what he thought he was.»

Who do we think we are?

What does it take for us to get off the ground?

What is it like to truly fly?

Just to be clear, I am not referring to flying a plane, parachuting, skydiving or even base-jumping.

I remember my inaugural moment of flying perfectly well. It happened 1,206 days ago. A group of five people spending the third of 5 days of a fools workshop at the ESPACE CULTUREL GARE DU NORD in Pézenas in the South of France.

Jonathan Kay, the 21st Century Fool, shared the story of an Irish family experiencing separation during the Great Famine. The four of us were meant to perform on stage as Jonathan was telling his story. Time went by. Movements slowed down. Not only had we physically moved towards the back of the stage, we were also in tears.

I suddenly realized that I had experienced other people’s pain, suffering and loss in the sense that I was their pain, their suffering, their loss. Impossible to put into words. We called it FLYing. It was both a physical and deeply emotional experience.

I had transitioned through the initial phases of LOOKing, SEEing and BEing to ultimately achieve the state of FLYing.

For the next 365 days, I will take note of what I look at, what I see, who I am and what it is like to fly again.

365 days. 365 pictures. 365 stories.

It is an experiment. It is my new practice.