The Nest Of Angels

Jonathan Seagull spent the rest of his days alone, but he flew away out beyond the Far Cliffs. His one sorrow was not solitude, it was that other gulls refused to believe the glory of flight that awaited them; they refused to open their eyes and see.

He learned more each day. He learned that a stream-lined high-speed dive could bring him to find the rare and tasty fish that schooled ten feet below the surface of the ocean; he no longer needed fishing boats and stale bread for survival. He learned to sleep in the air, setting a course at night across the offshore wind, covering a hundred miles from sunset to sunrise. With the same inner control, he flew through heavy sea-fogs and climbed above them into dazzling clear skies . . . in the very times when every other gull stood on the ground, knowing nothing but mist and rain. He learned to ride the high winds far inland, to dine there on delicate insects.

What he had once hoped for the flock, he now gained for himself alone; he learned to fly and was not sorry for the price he had paid. Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom, fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with these gone from his thoughts, he lived a long fine life indeed.

Richard Bach opened the eyes of readers back in 1970 when Jonathan Livingston Seagull was published. Opening our eyes and seeing is a morning task that starts another day, but we rarely see the beauty of within that task. We are so immersed in the influences and associations of previous days we fail to fly solo as we wake and address each new day. Our sense of beauty is a diluted form of reality where conformity covers our inner awareness.

Paying attention to the creative act of opening our eyes can start a process of knowing that usually waits between the dark shadows of fear. If we pull ourselves out of our fixated bed and wash the cobwebs of objective intoxication from our thoughts, we begin to sense the art of flying. We fly solo into the far reaches of consciousness and we intermingle with clouds of wisdom. We see and sense what we never see as we open our eyes each morning.

Absorbing that wisdom is our birthright. It is our badge of connected individuality. It is the birthplace of the soul and the nest of angels.