My breath is hot and fast in my own ears, words forming quicksilver in my mind. Waves of tension grip my body—and then wash past me, leaving my eyes wider than ever before, fixed on a hawk circling below me. Banking upwards, our wings caress the spring air, sensing and grasping the invisible vines that we swing from and climb to towers in the sky.
This little hawk, is his mind on fire like mine? It seems unlikely, but then again, this is the world the hawk is born to, breathing pure electricity, no questions, no separation, a mote in the wind and also its master, and so he must be burning alive.
For me in this moment the heat is unbearable. It seems that any moment my very self will explode from my body out into the sky—and then I gulp some air, inhale deeply, slow my heartbeat, and reach out, opening my arms, and my soul returns to my body, taking in the view. The green hills below are framed by tendrils of cloud at my fingertips.