Observations placeholder
MacLaine, Shirley - Willing away the fear
Identifier
026559
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Out on a Limb – Shirley MacLaine
I sat quietly tense, held in place by the seat-belt-man’s answer to the electrical storm exploding around us.
The airplane shook and bobbed violently in the stupefying display of dazzling, raw, natural power visible from every window. What was night outside had become a thunderously electrified daylight, flash after blazing flash revealing clouds and colors and an astral terrain of currents and rains whirling and raging around our small craft.
No one spoke.
No one screamed.
As far as I could tell, no one cried.
We had no choice. It was moments like this, I thought, that forced one to think and stretch one's awareness beyond what we had been taught. It was moments like this, maybe too few and far between, that acted as a catalyst for our understanding a little better the internal control of which we were really capable.
No one in the airplane could fight the storm. No one could overcome it. No one could really even understand it. It just was. And this elemental crisis had brought us all together sharing without a word having been spoken.
I determined to relax, beginning with my feet. Then I worked my way up, through ankles, legs, arms, hands, solar plexus, and chest. It worked. I began to feel I was part of the bobbing, creaking plane. My breathing came more evenly. My heart stopped beating so fast. The perspiration on my midriff and forehead cooled.
Then I stopped and realized I had controlled my fear by using the mind to control the body. . . positive mind insisting on not being afraid. And what was controlling my mind? I can only say it was my soul.
My soul knew it was going to be all right, no matter what happened to the body. My soul-my own, subconscious, individualized piece of the universal energy-believed it was a part of everything, even of the crashing, tumultuous storm outside. My soul knew it would survive, that it was eternal, that it was ongoing and unlimited in its understanding that this, too, was part of the adventure we call life.
At peace and exhausted, I fell asleep.