The take-off of an aeroplane is always something of a test of courage: one runs faster and faster and while doing so one storms not only gravity but also one’s own fear. Finally, the elements are conquered and one is lifted violently into the bottomless vastness – and one feels astonished that, despite all the strenuous mechanical struggles, the skies do not let one fall. The take-off of an aircraft is a squeeze in the air, a primitive form of heaving, a wonderful cramp or a cramped wonder – certainly something that is of no use for purposes of Ascension. Just imagine: the Madonna and disciples assemble at the end of a runway, Jesus stands on the opposite side with tightened brakes and starts to run…oh, no, it could not have been like that.
More likely, it was like the take-off of a helicopter, which rises gently and sedately into the air in a vertical lift until the craft is swinging a few metres over the heads of the earthlings, and only then steers, with an elegant little swing, towards its destination – which, after such a start, can only be paradisiacal in nature. That’s an Ascension! Definitely, the lift-off of a helicopter has much more to do with the dream to fly than the take-off a plane does – because, primarily, this passion has less to do with advancement and more to do with moving in different dimensions that have as yet been unconquered by the human movement-apparatus, to do with the experience of a unique power that is so great that it far exceeds categories such as physical effort and exertion. The flying force, quite like that our dreams give birth to, is not powered by burnt kerosene but by a blazing spirit – it is a combination of will and wish that allows us to fly. We spread open our arms – and lift off.
The take-off of a helicopter comes closer to this dream of flying than every other form of air travel – even the Montgolfier cannot match it, at least not when it’s viewed from the outside, because the sheer mass of the air-balloon exposes the crude trick by which gravity is conquered. However, when we watch a helicopter rise into the air, we detect how our desire to fly strikes the eyes inside us.
First Publication: 6-9-2013
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