From the greasy, smudged window of the airplane I looked to the firmament and sensed God’s presence in the smeared pink and azure gauze of scudded clouds. Hazy diaphanous wings of angels brushed the horizon with silver gilt tips, and the steady drone of the plane’s engine reminded me of the thin fragile veil partitioning my mortal existence from eventual death.

From thirty thousand feet, the earth was a bas relief of furrows, veins, and curvatures.

We are tinier than bacteria as viewed from up there in the clouds, but just as lethal, nonetheless. We are six billion parasitic microbes, killing our host planet which has sustained our very existence from the beginning of time. Funny, how thirty thousand f eet can put everything into perspective.

Down there, beyond the discernment of my naked eye, wars were being fought, children were starving, and atrocities were abounding. But from up there, all I could see were meandering rivers, mountain chains, and the deep blue of the ocean’s surface.

The ego of humankind is meaningless at thirty thousand feet. It occurred to me that the pursuit of material goods is entirely ludicrous when viewed through the window of a plane traveling miles above the earth.

What did not seem ludicrous however, to my wandering thoughts, was the notion of human love and kindness. When pondered from thirty thousand feet, it appeared that those things transcended all physicality, floating out there in the ethos, as shimmering and beautiful as beacons of light.

When we ceased living in clans and tribes with the advent of “civilization”, where we were once wholly inter-dependent on both each other and nature, we severed our direct conduit to the spirit world. We also severed our connection to all other living things and each other, choosing and valuing individuality over community. In the process of doing so, we forgot who we were, losing ourselves in the process.

The older I get, the more I sense the loosening of the ties and desire for things I once deemed as important. I no longer want to be shackled to material things that weigh down my spirit and enslave me.

I want to travel light.