I open my eyes.
And what I see, what I feel, is something I will never be able to accurately describe. Down below is the valley linking the two lakes, and the town between them. I’m flying, free in space and silence as we follow the wind, sailing in circles. The mountains surrounding us no longer seem so high or threatening, but friendly, dressed in white, with the sun glistening all around.
My hands relax, I let go of the straps, and I open my arms like a bird. The man behind me must have realized that I’m a different person. Instead of continuing down, he starts to rise, using invisible currents of warm air in what once seemed like a homogeneous atmosphere.
Ahead of us is an eagle, sailing the same ocean and effortlessly using its wings to control its mysterious flight. Where does it want to go? Is it just having fun, enjoying life and the beauty all around it?
It feels like I’m communicating with the eagle by telepathy. The flight instructor follows it, our guide. Show us where we need to go to climb increasingly skyward—to fly forever. I feel the same thing I felt that day in Nyon when I imagined running until my body couldn’t run anymore.
And the eagle tells me: “Come. You are heaven and earth, the wind and the clouds, the snow and the lakes.”
It seems like I am in my mother’s womb, completely safe and protected and experiencing things for the first time. Soon I will be born, and I will turn back into a human being who walks with two feet on the face of the Earth. At the moment, though, all I am doing is existing in this womb, putting up no resistance and letting myself go wherever I’m taken.
I’m free.
Yes, I’m free. And the eagle is right: I am the mountains and the lakes. I have no past, present, or future. I am getting to know what people call “Eternity.”
For a split second I wonder: Does everyone who jumps have this same feeling? But what does that matter? I don’t want to think about others. I’m floating in Eternity. Nature speaks to me as if I were its beloved daughter. The mountain tells me: “You have my strength.” The lakes tell me: “You have my peace and my calm.” The sun tells me: “Shine like me, go beyond yourself. Listen.”
I start to hear the voices that have been stifled inside for so long, stifled by haunting thoughts, by loneliness, by night terrors, the fear of change, and the fear that everything will stay the same. The higher we go, the further I distance myself from me.
I’m in another world where things fall perfectly into place. Far from that life full of chores to do, impossible desires, suffering, and pleasure. I have nothing and I am everything.
The eagle begins to turn toward the valley. With open arms I mimic the movement of its wings. If anyone could see me right now, they wouldn’t know who I am, because I am light, space, and time. I’m in another world.
And the eagle tells me: “This is Eternity.”
In Eternity, we don’t exist; we are just an instrument of the Hand that created the mountains, the snow, the lakes, and the sun. I go back in time and space to the moment when everything is created and the stars walk backward. I want to serve this Hand.
Several ideas appear and disappear without changing the way I feel. My mind has left my body and blended with nature. Oh, what a pity the eagle and I must land at the park across from the hotel down below. But what does it matter what will happen in the future? I am here, in this womb made of nothing and everything.
My heart fills every corner of the universe. I try to explain this to myself in words, try to find a way to remember what I feel right now, but soon these thoughts disappear and emptiness returns to fill everything once again.
My heart!
Before I saw a gigantic universe around me; and now the universe seems like a little dot within my heart that has infinitely expanded, like space. An instrument. A blessing. My mind struggles to maintain control and explain at least something that I’m feeling, but the power is stronger.
Power. The feeling of Eternity gives me a mysterious feeling of power. I can do anything, even end world suffering. I am flying and talking with the angels, hearing voices and revelations that will soon be forgotten, but that, at this moment, are as real as the eagle before me. I will never be capable of explaining what I feel, not even to myself, but what does it matter? It’s the future, and I’m not there yet. I’m in the present.
The rational mind disappears again and I am grateful. I bow to my gigantic heart filled with light and power, which can encompass everything that has already happened and what will happen from now until the end of time.
For the first time I hear something: dogs barking. We are nearing the ground and reality begins to return. In a moment I will be stepping on the planet where I live, but in my heart I have experienced all the planets and all the suns, which was greater than anything.
I want to stay in this state, but my thoughts are returning. I see our hotel to the right. The lakes are already hidden by the forests and small hills.
My God, can’t I stay this way forever?
“You cannot,” says the eagle, who led us to the park where we will land shortly, and who now bids us farewell because it has found a new stream of warm air. It climbs up again effortlessly, without battings its wings, and controls the wind with its feathers. “If you stayed this way forever, you couldn’t live in this world,” it says.
So what? I begin to argue with the eagle, but I find that I am doing it rationally, trying to reason. How will I live in this world after having gone through what I did in Eternity?
“Find a way,” replies the eagle, almost inaudibly. Then it departs—forever—from my life.
The instructor whispers something—he reminds me that I have to run when my feet hit the ground.
I see the grass in front of me. The thing I had so yearned for before—reaching solid ground—has now turned into the end of something.
Of what, exactly?
My feet hit the ground. I run a little, and the instructor controls the paraglider. Then he comes up to me and loosens the chains. He looks at me. I gaze at the sky. All I can see are other colorful paragliders, approaching where I am.
I realize that I am crying.
“Are you all right?”
I nod yes. I don’t know if he understands what I experienced up there.
Yes, he understands. He says that once a year he flies with someone who has the same reaction as me.
“When I ask what it is, they aren’t able to explain it. The same thing happens to my friends; some people go into a state of shock and they only recover when their feet touch the ground.”
It’s exactly the opposite. But I don’t feel like explaining anything.
I thank him for his comforting words. I would like to explain that I never wanted what I experienced up there to end. But it’s over, and I have no obligation to sit here explaining anything to anyone. I walk away to sit on one of the park benches and wait for my husband.
I can’t stop crying. He lands, approaches me with a big grin, and says it was a fantastic experience. I keep crying. He hugs me, says it’s all over now, and that he shouldn’t have made me do something I didn’t want to.
It’s not that at all, I say. Just leave me alone, please. I’ll be fine in a little while.
Someone from the support team comes to collect our outfits and special shoes and hands us our coats. I do everything automatically, but my every move brings me back to a different world, the one we call the “real” world, the one where I don’t want to be at all.
But I have no choice. The only thing I can do is ask my husband to leave me alone for a while. He asks if we should go back to the hotel because it’s cold. No, I’m fine right here.