Behind the Photo Contest — Edition 4

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This is my entry for the Behind the Photo contest, sponsored by @appreciator and hosted by @nelyp.

To submit, check out this link

Typically, I do not look outside the window when I fly, which is often.

I’ll request an isle seat, to accommodate my long legs (I’m around 6 feet, 3 inches) and either zone with a book, movie or try to sleep. I think it has something to do with not wishing to think too much about the fact that I’m in a giant steel bird up in the air!

My wife, however, is my opposite — in many ways. She relishes window seats & will not pass an opportunity to look out. Emboldened by her irrepressible, puppy-like enthusiasm, I hazard a peek out the window and this is what I first saw:

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Now, this was magnificent, I thought. As close as I was going to get to seeing earth from outer space.

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A moment later, another look:

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I think I might have, audibly, gasped. Wow. This could be a book cover; maybe, my next one. I played around with the angle of my iPhone 8+, set it to portrait mode and snapped away.

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The light on the horizon was magic. Much, of course, was lost in translation; how do you capture a Miracle? But, I did have the sense of some sort of God’s eye view & was transfixed.

The reflection of the light on the water was mesmerizing—-like the sky and the sea were mirroring each other, merging, One.

I understood why astronauts describe the experience of being outer space as humbling and spiritual.

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At this point, the sun was setting & I could imagine the globe-like shape of our planet, the gravitationally curved trajectory of Earth traveling around the sun and how remarkable it was that we orbit at, precisely, the right distance from the sun to sustain life.

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Night falls and my mind returns to the mystery and marvel of clouds.

Here’s a short meditation I wrote that I hope you will appreciate:

Clouds

To find the origin,
trace back the manifestations

—Tao

Between being and non-being
barely there
these sails of water, ice, air -

Indifferent drifters, wandering
high on freedom
of the homeless

Restlessly swithering
like ghosts, slithering through substance
in puffs and wisps

Lending an enchanting or ominous air
luminous or casting shadows,
ambivalent filters of reality

Bequeathing wreaths, or
modesty veils to great natural beauties
like mountain peaks

Sometimes simply hanging there
airborne abstract art
in open air

Suspended animation
continually contorting:
great sky whales, now, horse drawn carriages

unpinpointable thought forms,
punctuating the endless sentence of the sky.

© Yahia Lababidi