The Sky Was Divided in Half ~ A Pinwheel Girl's Realm

I had a magnificent experience today in an airplane on my way to San Francisco. I am not sure I will be able to describe it well enough to give it its due justice but I would like to try. I had been in the air several hours already en route from Chicago and had been reading a delicious book which I had been devouring for several days. Deciding to take a little break from several hours of reading, I briefly looked out the window before taking what I thought would be an instant and much needed nap. But I could not believe my eyes at what was given to me outside the airplane window and so I spent the next 30 minutes absorbing all that I saw there, writing notes and sketching.

The sky was divided in half. Literally.

The top half was the most beautiful blue I have ever seen. It was the kind of blue that enters you. It was a deep azure, radiant, soft, crystal clear and yet there was nothing crystalline about it. It was the kind of blue that feels like a perfect blue, a healing blue, the blue of our bluest dreams...our beautiful sky...and there it was...all around me for miles and miles and miles...

Underneath it, exactly half way down in my visual field, was a thin dark gray line...a dividing line...subtle and almost imperceptible but nevertheless still faintly there. A thin gray line. That's all.

And then below the thin gray line, filling the lower half of the sky, there was nothing but pure white. Not grayish white. Not dull white. Not yellowy white. Just pure, unadulterated white. There were no shadows, no shapes, no undulations, no rippling...just a massive sea of plain but luxurious white. It was the kind of white that is not too bright so as to hurt your eyes but that had a glow about it in the softest yet exhilarating of ways. Of course, this white was that of cloud matter, but there was no "cottony" effect, no voids or openings showing our Earth below, no billowy rolling or uprising of white gaseous clouds...simply stated this white had no details. It was just pure, unadulterated white. And, like the blue above it, it went on for miles and miles and miles...

It was one of the most beautiful, panoramic vistas I have ever seen. A divided sky. One half blue. One half white. Beauty, so simple, yet so profound in its starkness that I felt an energetic shift in my heart, behind my eyes, and in my cognitive mind. I felt myself spiritually weeping from a state of grace and happiness. In many ways it felt like I had found a physical view of Heaven and I felt transcendent...in the flow...connected...whole...and at peace. I had happy eyes. I had a happy heart. And I had a happy soul.I stared at this precious vista for at least 30 minutes, jotting notes to document my thoughts, feelings and reactions to it, and trying to sketch what I was seeing using only a black ink pen.

I heard my Inner Voice whispering to me "memorize it, memorize it..." as I gazed. I saw a blank canvas and I want to paint this when I return home even though I have never painted anything before. I want to try.

I began to think about the concept of "halves" which led me to that of duality. I think about duality a lot and how so much of what I experience minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, and year to year, is fraught with duality. Two sides of the same coin. Opposite sides of the scales. We often think of duality in terms of "high" and "low" but obviously the concept is broader and deeper than this. I thought of all the times when I was faced with duality and how I, like most other people, would prefer one half of the duality over the other -- the pleasant half, the fun half, the pretty half, the easy half, the secure half. The heights. And I thought of all the times I was forced to confront the half I did not want to. The other half of the duality that made me feel weak, despairing, confused, frightened, tired, weary, and forlorn. The depths.

I began to make a list of all the dualities I've had to face over the last few years of my life, years in which I've made major life changes and begun a major transformation.

Death and Rebirth
Silence and Voice
Calm and Activity
Inner and Outer
Creation and Stagnation
Loneliness and Connection
Distance and Closeness
Love and Apathy
Surrender and Fight

And many, many more.

As I thought of these dualities, it occurred to me that they were staring me right in the face in the blue and white of the sky I was now gazing at out my airplane window...each color in equal measure beautiful, profound, and staggering in its awesomeness, its ability to move and propel me forward and deeper, and its ultimate calming and transcendent effect. It occurred to me that a new, more positive metaphor for the dualities we face and struggle with was this beautiful Divided Sky...the sky divided in half...equal parts blue and white. This was a much more positive metaphor than the constant maneuverings of a set of scales clanging up and down out of balance or a coin that endlessly tosses leaving us guessing at its outcome.

And so it is with duality -- each side beautiful and profound in equal measure, each side capable of moving us towards states of renewal, growth, vigor and vitality even as we experience rapture, and even as we suffer. The two are equal and create the balance just as in the blue and white vista before me.

Jolted back into my current reality by the Captain announcing that the seatbelt sign had just been turned on again, I realized I had been in a state of total bliss. This is the seventh stage of the Pinwheel Girl's journey...I am not sure if I have captured well-enough the essence of my experience up in the seventh stage of the Pinwheel Girl's realm of serenity, redemption and grace...but that's where I was. I hope so.

I also hope, if you have not, that you will one day see A Sky Divided in Half...that's where the Pinwheel Girl is...waiting for you.

Warm Winds To You All.