The voice came to him as it had in the first day that he had met Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

“The trick, Fletcher, is that we are trying to overcome our limitations in order, patiently. We don’t tackle fling through solid rock until a little later in the program.”

“Jonathan!!!”

“Also known as the son of the Great Gull,” his instructor said dryly.

“What are you doing here? The cliff!!! Haven’t I — didn’t I die?”

“Oh, Fletch, come on. Think: If you are talking to me now, then obviously you didn’t die, did you? What you did manage to do was to change your level of consciousness rather abruptly. It’s your choice now. You can stay here and learn on this level–which is quite a bit higher than the one you left by the way…or you can go back and keep working with the Flock. The Elders were hoping for some kind of disaster, but they’re startled that you obliged them so well.”

“I want to go back to the Flock, of course. I’ve barely begun with the new group!”

“Very well, Fletcher. Remember what we were saying about one’s body being nothing more than thought itself….?”

Fletch shook his head and stretched his wings and opened his eyes at the base of the cliff, in the center of the whole Flock assembled. There was a great clamor of squawks and screams from the crowd when first he moved.

“He lives — He that was dead…lives…”

“Touched him with a wingtip; brought him to life, the Son of the Great Gull!!!”

“No! He’s a devil! DEVIL, come to break the Flock!!”

There were four thousand gulls in the crowd, frightened at what had happened, and the cry DEVIL went through them like the wind of an ocean storm. Eyes glazed, beaks sharp, they closed in to destroy.

“Would you feel better if we left, Fletcher?” asked Jonathan.

“I certainly wouldn’t object too much if we did…”

Instantly they stood together a half-mile away, and the flashing beaks of the mob closed in on empty air.

“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?”

Fletcher still blinked from the change of scene. “What did you just do? How did we get here?”

“You did say you wanted to be out of the mob, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but how did you….?”

“Like everything else, Fletch, Practice.”

……..Jonathan sighed and looked out to sea. “You don’t need me any longer. You need to keep finding yourself, a little more each day…that real, unlimited Fletcher Seagull. He’s your instructor. You need to understand him and to practice…him.”

A moment later, Jonathan’s body wavered in the air, shimmering, and began to go transparent. “Don’t let them spread silly rumors about me, or make me a god, OK, Fletch? I’m a seagull. I like to fly, maybe…..”
From Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull

And remember, practice makes permanent.

Blessings,

Brenda

http://www.jasonsnetwork.com/brenda

http://twitter.com/brendajaybee

Brenda@BeeBlessedDaily.com

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