Day 14 – The Art of Hovering

I have declared, much to the annoyance of some of my friends, that in my next life, I want to be a bird. And I don’t think I am alone in this wish.

We have always envied birds their wings. We keep creating angels, superheroes, paper rockets and not to forget avian-human hybrids have been fixtures of myth, legend, science and art. Why, I wonder.

Where I live, I am privileged to have at least 15 different species with wings around me. And it is fascinating to watch, sometimes also scary.  I have been quite fascinated by the sunbirds, humming birds, and more recently the sparrows that come to my window. I sit and watch them. They come nosily and sometimes sit and sometimes fly – but mostly hover. As if trying to make up their mind.

I am drawn in by this hovering. It is strangely familiar.

This, “hovering” is quite a feat. An act of remaining in the air in one place. Almost an oxymoron and yet so fascinating. This ability of birds – could it be the proverbial, third stance, third space, an in-between state?. A bit like torpor but not quite.

Birds I feel have so much to teach us. I could certainly do with learning to be in one place while in the air.

When a bird hovers, it is flying, but not moving through the air. Fascinating- flying but not moving. Actively inactive. The Notion of what we call movement is so warped.  When a bird wind-hovers, it is flying through the air, but it is flying towards the wind at the same speed as the wind. An eagle, when it is wind-hovering, it is flying upwind at the speed of the wind. This enables it to hang over one spot on the surface and appear to be still.

I have seen this in crows also, when I sit by the ocean and the crows are just kind of still they look like they are cruising the winds. But of course, they are not just still or they would fall. That would be comical. I wonder if birds fall, humm.

As I think about this, I realize we also hover. In this moment I am hovering. Not landing and yet not taking off.. but waiting in and with anticipation.

Last evening, I was working with some Visual explorer cards, to look at Kabila, the organisation I founded and more recently has been coming up in conversation and I am having to respond. And I find myself not quite knowing what is it, the spirit of Kabila wants to say.  So, to make the unknown known, we laid out the cards, and I was to pick up 5 with some “question themes”, the cards were upside down, and in this process I noticed myself, my hand ..hovered over the cards, went back and forth stopped and then after a moment of hesitation went somewhere else and finally picked up the 5 cards. And unsurprisingly, they were the Exact match to what was going on inside, which I had no words to articulate. I am sure many of you can recall moments like this. As I realised, this was hovering. Being still in midair.

We do it, all the time. Like me with the cards, while cooking, shopping, about to dial, making a decision, in conversations, choosing something, including words…we hover.

What are we really doing when are hovering?

Hovering is being on the “Verge”. The third space – Where the known and unknown meet.

We hover over the unseen, unknown, in anticipation, till it is known.  It is feeling into the field, the winds of change that come, and meeting them with equal speed. Like birds then, we do know, we sense and so we stay still in that moment. Waiting for the right action, thought, card, word, person – to find us.

It’s quite sacred and beautiful, even though it make be an everyday event. We, in our minds, may not know, yet our body does know.

“Hovering is like an involuntary prayer in action.“

This moment cannot be hurried. Too soon as we scare it away, too slow and it goes off. Like goldilocks it has to be just right. Elegantly exquisite. It is not inaction, in-fact it is being In action of very high, quality. It is very close to an act of faith. If we only look closer, we surrender more often than not.

This hovering needs a certain quality of waiting.. It takes patience not tolerance, for the invisible to become visible. One can be quiet and yet not be still .

Patience is waiting for things to open – Tolerance is waiting for things to close.

Sometimes, the hovering can be a few hours. One can feel it in the body, It is a jumpy skin feeling, and one breathes as if watching a suspense scene in a movie. And as many of us may have experienced, that something the solution, the person, the inspiration, shows up from the nowhere. Archimedes must have been hovering, before his eureka moment. (Note to self: Sometimes I feel, if we hovered more in conversations, we would regret less.)

Hovering is being Ready for the unknown.

As I think about these unknown, unpredictable times that we are living in as we face this rough weather literally and metaphorically. Instead of withdrawing in denial of the changed reality or gushing forth and trying to fix everything back to “normal”, perhaps we can try a third stance? Perhaps we learn intentionally this art of hovering?

Hovering can to be cultivated

We need to hover not hurry. It’s a bit like placing an order for something on Amazon, and then not being at home to receive. It comes and goes back.

Perhaps we need to hover more. Like the birds, maybe we move in the direction of the winds of change. And wait in readiness a little longer, with a sense of alertness and yet surrender to the magic of moment, which is also rushing to meet us. Perhaps we let our open curiosity and wonder guide us, and let the mind follow.

Hovering is a Reframe.

If we looked at the moments, where the uncertainty makes us feel lost , contracted and anxious, and saw them as hovering instead, we could be able to be present, remain open to know to receive.

Maybe, we look at birds to, in unconscious resonance and acknowledgement of this unknown sense, this feeling that we are also, like them connecting the earth and sky. The practical and the ethereal. The seen and the unseen, through this portal and practice of hovering. And Being light of course helps.