Can Wings Give Us Freedom?

7 min readNov 11, 2023

Breaking away from earth’s gravity and flying like birds and soaring high in the sky has always been a human desire and dream as well as struggle to conquer the atmosphere to survive and keep the spirits high. This is a deep-seated and ancient desire that now even seems to be the only escape route after the rising pollution (both within and without) that has now reached unbearably dangerous levels and has encaged the entire human race in its death trap. It can also be called a longing to return to heavens after the unceremonious fall from there while walking helplessly on the earth and gazing wistfully as well as in awe and wonder at the infinitely vast and pure bright blue sky.

Thus from the Greek myth of Icarus to the legend of Bellerophon and Pegasus, the desire to fly has been a constant theme in Greek mythology.

And to make this wish come true, reportedly countless silly as well as ambitious efforts were made (of course before the final success of Wright Brothers who made history in 1903 by becoming the ultimate inventors of the first mechanical aircraft that is also called the first fully practical airplane) to fly or float with agility in the skies. Prominent examples in history range from the Wan Hoo, a Chines official (2000 B.C.) who wanted to construct a vehicle that could carry him to the moon to the Persin King Cyrus the great (founder of the Achaemenian empire in 6th century B.C., centred on Persia and comprising the Near East from the Aegean Sea eastward to the Indus River) who attempted to fly to heavens by fastening trained young eagles to his gold-domed throne, enticing them with the pieces of meat dangling above but out of reach of these eagles. According to another legend, the king used his flying machine to travel all the way to China, but as he reached his destination the eagles grew tired, causing the throne to fall and crash. While another says he made a successful trip and landed safely in China.

However, one of the most appreciated or best-loved stories in mythology concerning flight is believed to be a mythical tale coming from Greece about Daedalus and his son Icarus.

According to some details, Daedalus, also believed to be a mythical or skillful architect, craftsman, and inventor seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power, created wings made of feathers and wax to escape from Crete (Greek island) where he and his son, Icarus, were held captive by King Minos. This story is often attributed to the Roman poet Ovid in his magnum opus Metamorphoses. According to one version, Daedalus and his son Icarus were imprisoned by King Minos in the labyrinth that Daedalus had built to imprison the Minotaur, a ferocious creature on the island, that was half man and half bull and loved nothing more than to feast on human flesh. Seeing that he had no further use for Daedalus, the King threw him into the labyrinth along with his son Icarus. They could not leave Crete by sea, as King Minos kept a strict watch on all vessels, permitting none to sail without being carefully searched. Since Minos also controlled the land routes, Daedalus set to work to make wings for himself and his son Icarus.

Icarus, however, ignored his father’s warnings about not flying too close to the sun and as a result his wings melted and he fell into the sea where he met his end. Thus the main theme is not only about the ingenuity and brilliance of man but also the misuse of that brilliance that can often lead to one’s own downfall.

Story is also a warning regarding man’s desire to escape Earth’s surface and reach unimaginable heights. Moreover, man must not get too carried away, and remain humble by not trying to go beyond his limitations.

Regardless, after a long and arduous struggle or gradual and consistent technological innovation in the filed of aviation or aeronautics, now man has not only landed on the moon ( Apollo 11 was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon in July 1969) but has also reached Mars and after the first successful flyby in 1965, several space agencies claim to have proudly made it to Mars. Soviet Union’s spacecraft Mars 3, which landed in 1971, is said to be the first successful Mars landing. And according to NASA, Mars missions have been launching from Earth with regularity since the 1960s, bent on exploring our planetary neighbor searching for life, understanding the surface and the planet’s evolution, and preparing for future human exploration.

But regrettably, what we are still unable to understand is that in spite reaching so high in the sky, in spite of all this progress, in spite of all spectacular achievements in civil aviation as well as space exploration (by means of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, and other technologies, such as the Webb telescope that is believed to be the largest-ever space telescope or space science observatory after Hubble costing an estimated U.S.$ 10 billion) revealing the complexity of innumerable distant and shimmering galaxies, observing extrasolar planets and or exoplanets, black-holes and other (discovered or still to be discovered) heavenly bodies — telltales of possible life beyond Earth in the unimaginable infinite and vast universe , man is still a savage from within.

In every land and in every culture still there are people who are imbecile, cruel, depraved, or ignorant, and who thus utterly fail to exhibit any sign of civility, maturity, farsightedness, and wisdom. In short they are still thirsty for power and thus moved by urges toward brutality and dominance over others on one pretext or the other. Dark side of human nature keeps appearing from time to time as one man’s act of violence against another is seen every day whether on a small individual scale and on the community level in the form of local conflicts, civil wars or big global wars despite churning out countless rules, laws, and social contracts or so-called Magna Cartas aiming to make order across the aeons. An excerpt from the New York Times makes shocking revelations:

“ Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.

How many people have died in war?

At least 108 million people were killed in wars in the twentieth century. Estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion.”

Latest addition to the tales of horrible savagery is that of ruthless, bloody and thus shameless murder of thousands of innocent women, children including infants and even newly born babies, patients, and senior citizens in Gaza (Palestine) since Oct. 07, 2023 that makes it evident that man’s hope to recognize and control the monster within man himself is fading away, if not totally dead. And the worlds’ so-called prestigious and largest governing body that is believed to be the “parliament of nations,” the United Nations, the forum where all the countries of the world meet to discuss the most important issues of global nature, such as peace, justice, human rights, security, social and economic development, and the fight against terrorism, among others, is as dumb as doorknob.

Thus technology seems to have created more problems than it claim to solve. And more we try to conquer heights more lowly get.

And it is because we are unable to understand that without the spiritual or intellectual development there is no development. Material progress or physical journey gets us nowhere if there is no spiritual journey. As famous spiritual leaders Abdul Baha (the eldest son and the designated successor of Baha’u’llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha’i Faith) puts it, “material civilization is one of the means for the progress of the world of mankind,” until it is “combined with Divine civilization, the desired result, which is the felicity of mankind, will not be attained.

Baha’s philosophy is in complete agreement with the ideology of Famous Persian sufi mystic and poet who reveals the secret of reaching zenith by saying that “it is only from the heart than you can touch the sky.” In other words, it is qualities of heart like love, kindness, compassion, empathy, affection, grace and tenderness that enable us to fly towards heavens without even lifting our feet.

Thus it is not the wings of an aeroplane that you get the freedom to fly but love that gives the heart wings to fly to untouchable heights. It is with the help of heart that even when we reach rock bottom at some points in our lives we can rise again when we learn that God and His love is all that we need. This heart is pure and free of any trace of the self-serving rationalisation of the lower mind, and able to see through to the dense matter, and know how best to serve and guide us on the upward path of love as we learn to respond to the pull of the great magnet of the heart at the core of our spiritual world.

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