Calling All Angels

I am experiencing a brilliant demonstration of how our cognitive lives are an aurora borealis of illusions.

I was listening to "Calling All Angels" when I first looked out of the airplane window two nights ago at 4:30 am. After several hours of flying over Pacific water, on a dark and very starry night, I looked up and was thrilled by the sudden appearance of spectacular lights- San Francisco. It was an epiphany moment. Listening to the song again today, I am right back in that moment.

I experienced in the very same instant, these things: First, I saw the glow of lights in purposeful patterns surrounding the San Francisco Bay- the roads, the buildings, the pinnacle of human intellect manifested in this magnificent city, its technology, infrastructure, and functionality. Second, I imagined, because of the variety of structures from which those lights eminated, that below the lights, every manner of human experience was being lived right down close to the earth. Third, I saw, because of my distance above, the huge energy manifestation, drawing its glow from deep inside the earth, the clock ticking unto the day when this city will go dark again.

I lingered without judgement in this simultaneous elation and sadness until I realized that the demise of glowing cities is not tragic, but an eventuality in the sequence of cause and effect. Different than offhanded or intellecutally spoken words, it was a profound, experiential realization.

I turned my mind to God, realizing that we are not created to live forever, as individuals or as a species. Does this seem trite? Every previous moment in which I have had this thought seems trite, but this moment was not.

"Calling All Angels" http://www.andiesisle.com/Calling_All_Angels.html