Fear of Flying

Get . Over . It. Conquer your fear.
It is ill-advised. Oh yes, there are
risks, but think of the risks alpinists
shake off as inconsequential to the
aspiration of summitting Earth's
highest peaks -- avalanches, hypoxia,
fallllllling from impossible heights
tumbling into giant crevasses from
which there is no escape. Those who
survive write books of their exploits.
So can you. In taking flight you merely
risk the vanishingly limited opportunity
to plunge precipitately into the abyss
of air or ocean; think of the romance 
of it! Oh yes, other risks come to mind;
being forcibly ejected from your
reserved-and-paid-for seat en route
to your desired place of comfort; in
the process sustaining a concussion
loss of teeth, broken nose, with
reconstructive surgery on the horizon.
Yet consider this: you will henceforth
fall into considerable wealth as a
citizen of the most litigious society
in the world, with a wealth of reasons
to sue the notoriously awful airline
that subjected you to harm and 
humiliation for which they will pay
dearly. And you become a celebrity!

Cassini pictured making a fly-by of Enceladus  Credit: Nasa 

NASA Notes

Something's happening here
what it is not exactly clear. Think:
space probes, satellites, radio
telescopes and you're on track.
Then confront strategic avoidance,
disappearing from search radar,
evasive action, antennae tuned...
They've been here. They chose to
arrive discreetly, to see and to
assess but not to linger nor to
conquer. Departing as quietly as
they arrived, no trace of their
presence left behind. Merely a
fear they might be discovered.

 

Dread Rituals

To the one wielding the scissors
the word is being groomed. To
the sibling puppies they are doomed.
There is no escape. How much
patience can be expected from two
restless little dogs, eager to egg one
another on to constant mischief?
Submitting to the ritual of grooming
assaults their sensibilities, an act of
sheer perversity forced upon the
poor foundlings. There is no
reward they can recognize in
being 'presentable' since they feel
perfectly presentable always as
they are, dishevelled and content.
For one there is a reward following
the snipping; the bathing ritual, far
more to his liking, in fact reason
for great excitement and expressions
of joyful expectation. For his sister
another ordeal to be suffered, poor
tyke. Doubly so; hating the immersion
and putting up with her brother's
jealous snipes when her turn arrives.
But there, all done, and don't they
look a treat? Puzzled and chagrined
but tidy, belying their inner demons.

Commentary

In the not-so-distant past
National Geographic indulged
its readers with photographic
evidence that primitive tribal
peoples' fixation on fashion and
beauty was quite unlike our own
where stretching necks and earlobes
wearing metal rings through noses
and tattoos covering every inch
of skin appeared to fascinate
and repel the fastidious among us.
The past has regenerated itself
among our own youth who struggle
to distinguish themselves through
their own inimitable aesthetic
so unlike that of the previous
generations wedded to their
ideas of gentry and elite fashion.
The problem it seemed to the
young was that what they would
make in vogue would migrate
toward the taste of those they
strove so mightily not to emulate
and their culture appropriated by
the despised masses that predated
their own enlightened appearance.
Until the young and the hip adopted
body-covering tattoos, lip-, naval-
and nose-piercings and the older
generation simply sighed and
left them to enjoy the radical
new focus on embroidering the
human form so tantalizingly.

Conundrum

Surely it represents the ultimate
perversity in human nature
that in a world whose choices
are plentiful in their appeal to
fortune's auspices how many
among us make the conscious
decision born of free will to seek 
out the bleaker aspect of fortune's 
will choosing of their own agency 
to drown their souls in a false sense 
of insensate ecstasy; in so doing
despite dire warning of the outcome 
proving Darwin's declaration on 
survival of humanity. That choice 
viewed as superior to the genius 
of imagination and curiosity
leading sound minds to explore
alternate options whose promises
are sound and proven in reality.
In rejecting opportunity and a future
they succumb to the temptation
of a degraded life of misery and
pain whose inclination spirals ever
downward, in the infinite search
of mindless rapture, whose brevity
demands repeats until that time
arrives all too soon when life itself 
craves rescue, choosing to make 
of its presence a short duration.

 

Spring Release

This preserve of nature is where
they feel most alive with curiosity
eager to explore always prepared to
challenge one another with piquant
discoveries in a conceit of ownership
where nature indulges their senses
and appetites for adventure using the
very attributes she has imbued them
with to achieve those goals. This is
a place for all reasons in all seasons
beloved of their kind, a place without
boundaries where they are at liberty
to frolic and gambol, argue and
provoke one another to exploits not
yet undertaken. Of the seasons that
pleasure them, winter with its downy
mattress of white invites them to
avalanche down slopes of ice in
the energy-cooling atmosphere of 
their playground. But it is in spring
that they exploit with passion the
gold rush of their El Dorado when
balmy breezes unleash divine fragrances
driving them irresistibly toward those
hugely appealing nasty nuggets of
winter leavings that spring releases.

Encore!

Look closely, there where the
soil has been newly liberated with
the snow gradually shrinking its
presence thanks to the graceful kiss
of the sun, a presence felt as well by
those that have been imprisoned for
so long, isolated from the world
below the garden's promise of a
new awakening. There they are
tentative issues of green and red
shoots barely discernible verifying
for themselves that the episode of
their confinement has passed once
again. And once more they prepare
to allow themselves to be nurtured
by the gentler rains of spring, by the
warming rays of a spring sun and
the wind ruffling new foliage in an
atmosphere quite unlike that which
had so recently locked them in a
state of darkness and despair. The
gardener anxiously recalls where 
each of the familiar, cherished plants
should be, hoping none has perished
over a long and icy winter, prepared
to welcome them, every one to
the burgeoning spring industriously
developing the glory of blooms
to cheer the forlorn garden right 
into the hazy, lazy summer months.