Learning to Fly: Reflections on Fear, Trust, and the Joy of Letting Go

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.

Sam Keen regularly conducts Upward Bound workshops at the Omega Institute and at his farm in Sonoma, California. The author of twelve books, including the bestseller Fire in the Belly, and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he served as consulting editor of Psychology Today for many years.


From the Hardcover edition.