Elevated View

If we title this image “Elevated View” and decide to take a similar perspective on the world around and within us, assumptions and associations drop.

Everyone knows the sudden splendor of our continent, North America, when seen from an airplane 35,000 feet up in the air: The oceans trace the East and West Coasts with frothy white kisses as sea water meets shorelines. Midwest agricultural land becomes a glorious green-and-gold patchwork quilt of squares, circles and rectangles. Cities at night light up like jewels set against black velvet. In daylight, vehicles resembling a child’s matchbox cars and trucks and move like lava along cement rivers. Mountains and canyons rise and fall, shifting according to the season and time of day in colors from sand to copper to icy blue, deep plum, fresh green, rich black, and frosty white.

This boy placed atop his elephant companion would have a similar, if less-spectacular lofty perspective. Adults would appear for the first time as tiny, their feet showing only if in motion. The ground that scars toughens his feet instead of being a minefield of sharp rocks and gritty sand might soften and appear to him to be a magical carpet upon which he and the elephant would travel to distant lands.

And what of the bowl held in his embrace? If we look at its contents at the end of his day from above, there will be coins. Given as gestures to reach a spirituality that is generous, kind, other-aware, disciplined, free of materiality, and reverent and respectful of all sentient beings, the coins are symbols of the highest elevation of all. It occurs to me that even when I am low or close to the ground, it is possible to be generous, to choose an elevated view, to rise and ride on the wings of angels.