The Dream of Icarus Rising

Today is Bodhi Day.  I awoke from a dream and sat down at the computer keyboard at 4.44 am.  I had been dreaming about flying.  This has been a recurring dream throughout my life, although it is the first dream of this sort that I have had in many years.  Still I remember these flying dreams over the course of many years, going back to early childhood.  They were always vivid and gripping.  No matter how inscrutable they seemed at the time, they always brought a sense of succor and relief.  To be possessed of such a power, even if only in a dream state, provided me with deep and abiding comfort, like a guiding assurance in the middle of the night, one way or another, that everything was going to be alright.  

In my dream this morning, just as I was waking up, I remember sitting perched atop a wall.  The police and various others were in pursuit.  The wall was about 15 feet high.  In other words, it was just high enough it would likely prove suitable to use for take off, that being a height from which I am normally able (in a dream state) to leap and achieve flight.  But perched on the wall this morning, I also realized I would likely have survived if I tumbled instead of soared.  

Now after all these years I finally understand what these flying dreams are about.  I’ve cracked the code as it were of my own codex.  This is both liberating and terrifying. Mystery and enigma being our most reliable means of self-support, who will protect a spirit that finally comprehends itself?  

The dream of flying, I now realize, is a dream about immortality.  Flying is an expression of the spirit’s longing for eternity.  And here I am, on Bodhi Day, perched on top of a 15 foot wall preparing myself for whatever comes next.