Traveling Towards Flight, I Hope

Krysten Merriman on unsplash

*

Traveling Towards Flight, I Hope

By Jane Tawel

September 19, 2025

*

I try not to ask myself too many questions.

After a while — and all this time — 

It is exhausting to interrogate myself so much — 

it only leads to judgment.

The comfort zone is best enjoyed

when only judging others.

I judge them with my anger

so that I may spend freely.

I judge them with my fears

to cover-up my fear of death.

But mostly to cover-over my fear of Life.

Or perhaps it is most often that I judge

to color-over my own lies — 

to color outside my own lines.

I am good at coloring outside the lines

of topical belief-systems.

*

To take the next step, it must be small.

And I must be small.

Like Alice, I must drink the draught

that comes only from a creative heart,

and shrink my self into a Space

large enough to hold my Self.

*

True Truth is a butterfly — 

Out there, flitting freely, no one knows where it may appear….

floating on the wind, like The Wind,

as the Holy Spirit says it does.

We may glimpse it but cannot grasp it.

But we must keep our eyes trained

on the horizons of our heart

and in Hope, the cocoon relaxes its bindings,

the fetters of our fears

and bonds of our desires

loosen, like the hand of an imprisoned adult,

we let go the grasping

and let the inner child go free.

*

Only a caterpillar can dream of crawling.

And so, I will today, embrace the moment

of crawling inch by inch,

dragging my insatiable, tiny belly

along this lovely, precious land.

Crawling inch by inch,

toward Flight.

“And what we shall be then,

We do not know,

But we know we will be

Changed.”

*

Traveling towards flight,

I inch painfully

towards Hope.

*

© Jane Tawel, 2025