And There was Evening and There was Morning… (Book of Genesis)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last month our flight landed in Boston on the summer solstice. It was the longest day of the year, sunny and warm. That same day we had boarded the plane on the winter solstice; it was cold, damp and dark when we took off.

How did that happen?

It happened because Keith and I were returning from a month long visit with my daughter and grandchildren in the Australian winter, never having realized when we booked our flights that we would be flying from the longest night to the longest day.  We had crossed the international date line, which made it the same date the on the calendar. So that not only were we jet-lagged from the almost thirty-hour journey and the time change, we were completely flummoxed by the climatic polar opposites.

Now, almost four weeks later, I am finally feeling that my body and soul are in the same place. The experience has led me to ponder the effect that long flights have on the human body. Granted that this trip was unusual for its length and the time of year it occurred; still, every day there are planes full of travelers flying long distances through multiple time zones to other climates. More and more, because of our global economy, a lot of them are business people, often flying six to ten hours for a meeting or two and then returning the next day. On one of our flights from Australia, we met a man who had flown from Los Angeles two days earlier, arriving in the morning, met all day with colleagues, followed by drinks and dinner, slept a few hours in the airport hotel and boarded the plane home in the morning. Since we land in California in the morning (on the same date that we left Melbourne) I imagined that he would then have a quick shave, a clean shirt and head straight to work. He told us he makes this trip frequently.

My question is: What does frequent flying do to a person’s ability to function effectively when circadian rhythms, patchy sleep and sheer exhaustion are constantly in flux? Before we left, I had made sure to keep my days open for over a week upon return so I could recover. Because I’m retired I have the luxury do that. It turned out that wasn’t nearly enough time. Business people whose job it is to make careful, informed decisions every day don’t have that luxury.  I am even more worried about the diplomats, politicians and world leaders that careen around the globe.  Our lives are literally in their hands.

Perhaps the chaos that is prevalent in so many countries, including our own, is because we have become a people that has lost any sense of connection to the rhythm of the earth and the natural cycle of day and night; eating, sleeping and working as we do in an unnatural and extremely unhealthy pattern.  Far too often, days, even weeks can go by when all we see are glass and steel buildings, car-choked city streets and frantic airports, with not a blade of grass in sight. I am convinced that the dysfunction in government and in countless institutions is in part due to the fact that those who are charged with our well-being and our safety have lost sight of one essential truth: humanity is part and parcel of the natural world. Whether we do or do not accept that fact and whether we like it or not, our bodies are attuned to the seasons, affected by the weather and regulated to the cycle of day and night. Like the moon and the stars, birds, trees and all other living things, we live or we die according to our connection to the earth.

No one has said this better than William Wordsworth.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.