There is a great documentary out right now called, Apollo 13 Survival. If you’re not familiar with the story, on April 13, 1970, two days into lift off, an oxygen tank in their service module exploded, leaving three astronauts without most of their oxygen supply, electricity and other vital resources. Basically, the shit hit the fan. Astronaut Jim Lovell’s now famous quote came across the radio to mission control in five words:
“Houston, we’ve had a problem”.
A problem was putting it mildly as he calmly stated disaster beyond imagination. They were about two days shy of oxygen to get home at their current rate of speed. Together, with the astronauts, mission control worked tirelessly, chain smoking many packs of Pall Mall’s to figure out how to get them back, not only safely, but quicker. They crawled into the lunar module that was built for two that had never been flown, now turned life boat hurling through space and awaited advice. Time was running out.
Ultimately, mission control made a bold decision. Instead of Apollo 13 turning right back around toward Earth, they decided the doomed spacecraft needed to go AWAY from the Earth and around the moon to get home. To get back to Earth they were going to use the moon’s gravity to ‘slingshot’ the spacecraft with much more force and speed.
Spoiler alert: these three astronauts, Lovell, Swigert and Haise survived their near death mission to tell the tale of leadership, teamwork and hope.
I simply can’t imagine what was going through their minds as they went further AWAY from Earth and all the way around the dark side of the moon. So counterintuitive.
It got me thinking. Not just physically, but emotionally and metaphorically they had to face the “shadow’ of their lives. How fitting their journey is to me right now on our little blue ball spinning in space.
That there are moments in life where we need to let go, even if we don’t want to. We have to go toward the moon, when every ounce of our body shouts, go back! And fast. Of having to let go, even and especially when we don’t want to. We have to go toward the moon. We have to let go of knowing and certainty. That we have to open up to whatever is asked of us. Those three brave men had to pay attention to another way of thinking and let the plan go as it was. They had to open doors and crawl into a module that was never meant to be flown in space.
They had to let go to receive. They had to let go of attachments on how things ‘should be’. The had to surrender a plan for the greater good to survive. They had to stay the course of going further out, even if it felt isolating and lonely.
THEY HAD TO TRUST IN THE UNKNOWN.
“Home. It suddenly dawned on us, what we had just done when we landed. On looking out at the Earth from space I realized it was the only place we could go to. The only place that was home to us”, said Jim Lovell when they landed.
Like that lunar module having orbited the dark side of the moon, crisis brings a fuel to ignite the engine of the soul, igniting fires within us when it seems there is no hope in sight. That there is so much struggle and pain in the world, but looking down out at the Earth from afar we can see there is so much more!
We are all on this spaceship together. Stay the course, even if it feels isolating and lonely while orbiting the dark side of the moon. Look for alternative options in your situation. Enlist in help from others, your very own mission control. Detach from the proverbial plan and let it be. Rise above ‘it’ into a place of trusting in the unknown. Instead of continuing on a ‘botched’ mission we can choose to wonder if closed door after closed door, obstacle after obstacle is just a prompt to look for the way to get back to the Earth. To groundedness. To life. To love. To balance ourselves on a spinning planet that is our spaceship. Like those astronauts, to pay attention to another way. And to ask for help.
I wish you peace. I wish you safe. I wish you love.
Nancy + Team Sweet Bird