Things Aren’t Always What They Seem.

I recently received a link to a YouTube video  from a friend who is in the vintage aircraft restoration business.  It recorded the historic first flight of a restored, ex-military aircraft that took 12 years to complete. This type of aircraft was used as an air rescue service by USAF. The restoration was a way for aviation enthusiasts to honor the yeoman service these aircraft did in saving lives.  As the camera slowly panned  the cabin showing every nook and cranny, the voice-over was proudly documenting some of the painstaking efforts that went into returning this abandoned hulk to its original flight status. There were interviews with flight crew who were about to launch, and a spot with my friend and chief restorer, Chuck Wootan.

To an outsider watching this,  there was nothing to crow about. In fact, the aircraft was not painted yet and its nakedness revealed various sections on its exterior of different colors, giving it a patchwork look. Inside, it was clean and new looking but nothing flashy or attractive to the untrained eye…so….

Why, you might ask, was this such a big deal?

Well, it has something to do with the unseen element of the project. Imagine patiently and meticulously working on a project for 12 years! That is 12 x 365 days!!!!  and then have it flawlessly take to the skies and return to its intended purpose. In every word spoken, in every shot of the details of the restoration and in the exhuberance of the post flight interviews, there was a golden thread of spirit – of joy, of communal understanding about what lies inside every picture that was shown – it was pride, joy and the essence of passion.  Unless you were part of the experience or had one similar, it is hard to appreciate what is baked into the public final presentation.

The situation was similar with my flying experiences. It was so easy to say I was a formation pilot and flew a WWII warbird aircraft at airshows. What was not seen in the product was the years of blood, sweat and tears that forged every flight. It was the result of a dedication of others who had a vested interested in helping me achieve something I never thought I could aspire to and it was the heart of my own intense efforts and desire that produced the success.

Something much deeper than the product fuels the action…..

The Spiritual Essence of all things –

In relationship, it is similar – there is a story and a spiritual essence folded into the path of those whose lives come together. That path is the guidance of each soul intent on expansion of its experience and bound to its destiny. So, to say that you are married to another betrays the events and choices and sacrifices and joys and allowing and love that had to be part of that final decision.

Nothing is as it seems, is it?

When someone ends a relationship, the same path of destiny that played in the coming together, also is the essential ingredient of departure. It is the spiritual essence of soul truth that is at stake and soul will always win out in the end. …. no matter how painful or joy-filled the experience. It may look very different on the surface of it and often carry judgment and guilt and remorse with it but digging into its essence carries a much truer and clearer picture…find the engine that runs the show and you will find heart.

The outcomes source from spirit, no matter what they are – the essence of spirit is infused in every effort that is made in this life and it is expressed in how you feel, what you desire, what you respect and how dogged the pursuit of the focus.

The Heart in Everything

A friend of mine recently lost his wife to a tragic aircraft accident. Theirs was the consummately beautiful, soul-mated relationship. Ute was a beautiful being…her soul light shone through in every picture of her and in every endeavor she undertook. She was a flight attendant who lost her life in northern Canada just yesterday. Her husband’s announcement on Facebook stoically told a short story – the deeper essence of it -the loss, the sadness, the heart break would never be known unless you knew the whole story or were privy to even a snippet of it. Ute was a dedicated mother and wife. She and Jim were in my life for a very short time but long enough to know what a dynamic connection they shared.

Nothing is as it seems – perhaps the invitation here is to open up to what lies underneath the surface of our life. It is fueled by things hidden from our physical eyes, by the life giving story that mobilizes what happens on the outer layer – what you see always has more to it…no exceptions. What if we learned to see with our soul’s eye –  would it change a view, experience, opinion, direction, connection in our life?

“Where there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”  ~Dorthea Lange

Filed under: Multidimensional Reality, passion and purpose, Spiritual Growth, This Physical Reality | Tagged: HU-16 Albatross, relationship, seeing with the soul, what is the meaning in what we do |