The Jets of Ecstasy
By Wayne Saalman
[Photo by Ben Neale]
THE JOY OF JETTING OFF to distant cities and foreign lands immersed in the excitement of anticipation was once a luxury that millions of us took entirely for granted.
Not anymore.
Now we find ourselves pondering the idea of wandering through exotic cultures and wondering — in the wake of a global pandemic — just how safe it will be. At the moment, the privilege of journeying off across the world seems almost like a fairy tale.
Nevertheless, we do still live in an era when air travel, which was once a routine part of so many lives, will be ours to enjoy again. It’s just a matter of time.
In my first two novels, The Dream Illuminati and The Illuminati of Immortality, I celebrated the thrill of flying as the character’s primary activity in those books. (In fact, the opening chapter of the second book was entitled The Jets of Ecstasy, which the title of this post happily echoes.) The angle within the plot had as much to do with flying in our dreams as it did in terms of physically flying through the sky on some form of hi-tech jet. The reason for that is because I believe we humans have been enthralled with the idea of flying since the dawn of self-reflective consciousness, especially as we observed the graceful beauty of birds soaring and swooping through the firmament with a freedom that we could only envy.
As any readers of those books will know, there was also a hugely spiritual facet to those tales. The reason for that is that after decades of perusing the metaphysical literature of the world, I have come to the conclusion that upon our departure from this earth we will become disembodied entities, still quite conscious and self-aware, who will be able to travel at will anywhere we wish at whatever speed we choose, at times even at the speed of light!
We certainly won’t need wings. According to those who have undergone a “near-death experience”, we will find ourselves in another dimension entirely after we pass from this planet and, once there, the laws of earthly gravity simply will not apply. As a result, we will be able to exert our own personal will and simply fly off.
The exhilaration, no doubt, will be utterly electrifying!
In the meantime, we are here upon this earth in bodies which require aerodynamic machines in order for us to be propelled along through the sky and on out into space, but those machines are both remarkable and amazing. What is astounding to consider in relation to this fact is that it has only been a little over a century since the Wright Brothers took to the sky in the world’s first airplane. Since then, of course, we have rocketed off to the Moon and will soon be pressing on for Mars.
In light of such spectacular progress, it is almost beyond any of us to imagine what life will be like here on Earth in another hundred years!
Even so, the jets of ecstasy are for real here and now. So, too, is our planetary freestyle spirituality and our beautiful, boundless dreams.
In time, great travel adventures will be ours to have again if we all do our part to end the spread of this troublesome pandemic.
