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 Sam Keen, Harvard Divinity School graduate and consulting editor for Psychology Today magazine for many years surprised himself and the people around him at age sixty-one, when he more or less decided to run off to the circus. He hooked up with the San Franscisco School of Circus Arts to learn Trapeze. He was the oldest student they have ever had, fulfilling in mid-life a long cherished boyhood urge. After half a life devoted to serving “gravity,” Keen recounts in Learning to Fly an inward journey to explore “levity” in his physical and spritual life through the remarkable experience of learning Trapeze.
Of course, Trapeze offers splendid metaphorical opportunities for elaborate philosophical dialogs on the nature of life and death, and our experience of time and space. Seasoned circus performers evoke wonder and admiration from their audiences with their apparently effortless and fearless flight. However, you cannot learn Trapeze in an instant. The value of Learning to Fly is in its discussions of all the things that happen along the way when you are learning the art of Trapeze. Learning to Fly is naturally also about learning to fall, and Sam Keen takes the time to tell us what he has learned about fear, bruises, limitations, risk, the anticipation of injury and death, and what it means to gain confidence, poise and mastery. Not that Sam Keen makes any claims to mastery of Trapeze. He jokes that like the talking dog, the miracle isn’t in how well he speaks, but that he does it at all. Keen went to many of the great Trapeze masters and their families and has researched circus stories of Trapeze artists through history. I found it somewhat surprising that Las Vegas seems to be the Mecca of Trapeze these days, with casinos like Circus Circus playing a larger role in Learning to Fly than the traditional circus venues. With all the big themes in Learning to Fly, there is alot to think about in one sitting. The language is rich and intelligent and the ideas are given plenty of time for full expression. My belief is that this book may be especially interesting to men of a certain age as one guy’s unusual approach to a mid life crisis. Sam Keen articulates his concerns for the second half of his life in a way that make even the implausible figure of a sixty year old Trapeze artist take on real dignity. Keen’s example also reminds us that we almost always can do more than people expect of us if we are passionate about what we are doing. If the book has a weakness, it is in the difficulty inherent in many esoteric subjects: Trapeze has its own jargon. I found myself wanting a few diagrams to nail down visually what kind of flying trick a “plange” really was. But most of the time, the descriptions of the actions, sensations and emotions of moving through physical space are vivid enough to give you a slight hollow sensation in the pit of your stomach when you think about falling to the net, and a corresponding thrill when you think of your body in midair, with arms and legs outstretched in flight. Keen has since extended his interest in Trapeze to start an Upward Bound program for anyone who has been challenged with debilitating fears. If you are interested in learning Trapeze, Sam Keen recommends the following web site: |
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