Learning to Fly: Reflections on Fear, Trust, and the Joy of Letting Go | 
 enlarge | Author: Sam Keen
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 471801
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0767901770
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9780767901772
ASIN: 0767901770
Publication Date: September 5, 2000
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
For as far back as he could remember, Sam Keen had dreamed of flying. And so just before his 62nd birthday, Keen enrolled in a trapeze class at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, thus becoming "the oldest student at the circus." In this richly written memoir, Keen uses the details of trapeze training to frame his spiritual understanding of the world. Not surprisingly, the flight metaphors work--giving room for chapters titled "Leap of Faith," "A Fledgling Among the Eagles," and "On the Wings of Spirit." As a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Keen is a fine memoirist--able to step outside himself to tell a good story and willing to share his humiliations and inner fears as he became a student of flight. "My failures have taught me there is always a second chance.... Failing gives fallible human beings a chance to start over. And that is why every man, woman, and society needs a safety net." He now leads an "Upward Bound" trapeze program for abused women, drug addicts, and inner-city school children. --Gail Hudson
Product Description
The acclaimed author of Fire in the Belly presents an exhilarating memoir of his late-blooming love affair with the flying trapeze--and a provocative look at the potential it offers for growth, transformation, and overcoming deeply rooted fears.
An unprecedented adventure of the soul and psyche, Learning to Fly teaches us to soar on the wings of possibility as we watch Sam Keen and his students progress through breathtaking exercises on the trapeze which they use as a vehicle for exploring the challenges and dilemmas of life. As he describes takeoffs, knee hangs, and thrilling midair catches, Keen imparts moving revelations about risk-taking, trust, bravado, living more passionately, true strength, falling, and letting go. Guiding us on a remarkable inner journey through the "circus of the mind," Learning to Fly reveals the grace of ascending in body and spirit--and living with levity.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Thoughtful, quiet, inspired January 7, 2008
If you are more influenced by books that show rather than by books that tell, add this one to your list.
Keen gently unfolds his ideas of meeting the challenge of life changes and thriving through a gently told memoir of his experience of becoming a flying trapeze artist at the age of 62. The word artist is important here: an artist is one who strives for beauty, although he may not be the most accomplished of his co-strivers. The effort, and the successes that do occur, are enough.
Those who have found themselves dangling at the end of a parachute, kayaking a gorge, learning to run, or learning to surf at midlife or beyond will recognize the drive for efficiency and beauty in ones own bodies' actions.
This lovely metaphor for life has given new context to my own: I don't ask for more.
Part memoir, part metaphor. November 29, 2000
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
At age 62, Sam Keen learned to fly. In 1993, he started his training on the flying trapeze at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. The fact that he was the oldest student at the school did not deter Keen from pursuing his "strange passion" (p. 15). "Over the years," he observes," I have discovered that it is hazardous to ignore passing fantasies and emerging passions. To begin with, in the degree that I cease to pursue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears. When passion no longer waters and nurtures the psyche, fears spring up like weeds on the depleted soil of abandoned fields. I suspect the major cause of depression and despair and the appetite for violence in modern life is the result of the masses of people who are enslaved by an economic order that rewards them for laboring at jobs that do not engage their passion for creativity and meaning" (pp. 16-17).
Part memoir, part metaphor, Keen's book is filled with daring leaps, midair turns, somersaults, and catches. For Keen, the trapeze is a good teacher. From his six-year love affair with the trapeze, he derives insights into fear, trust, letting go, and what it means to live life passionately. If we learn to live life as a "ten-ring circus," he writes, in "a world ruled by enchantment--where magic existed before morality, wonder before worship, pleasure before piety, and amazement before practicality" (p. 24), then we will be "transformed, changed back into children whose horizons are open" (p. 25). "The Great Path is a spiral journey," Keen notes. "Every day we begin again, knowing that danger and death may be lurking, that we will be fearful and will need to cultivate courage. We will need to keep our balance and discern when it is time to wait and when to act. We will take leaps of faith, fall, and rise again. If we are diligent in our practice, there will be unexpected moments of grace and joy and a gradual growth of mastery in fashioning our lives into something of beauty" (p. 241).
Keen's LEARNING TO FLY is inspirational and insightful. Although reading it did not inspire me to attempt a triple somersault, it did encourage me to find a flying trapeze in my own life, and then to practice it, knowing that "practice is perfect" (p. 237).
G. Merritt
 Inspiration, courage and vitality May 21, 2000
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Everyone who reads Keen knows he writes very well and from the heart. But in this book his very soul flies through the air with his words. When Sam reviewed my book, PRIMAL AWARENESS, he said it was an adventurous search for the lost ark. LEARNING TO FLY is about finding the lost ark.
Life Lessons March 29, 2000
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read a passage from the book at my daughter's wedding and then I wished them wings and flight. I found this book to be absolutely fascinating and, at age 57 myself, found inspiration to try new ideas. Learning to Fly is never boring. I found the chapter-beginning drawings helpful as I tried to follow Sam Keen in flight, literally as well as figuratively. A real winner!
I'm Buying This Book for Everyone on My Christmas List December 1, 1999
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I read Sam Keen's "Learning to Fly" out loud with my husband over the course of a few road trips. It was a truly amazing experience for us. Sam Keen shares his experiences of life and trapeze in a philosophical way, but avoids being pedantic or condescending with his message about simultaneously taking hold and letting go. I've been thinking about what Sam Keen has to say ever since I finished the book.
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