At an age when most rockers had burned out, overdosed, or taken permanent residency in rehab, the undisputed King of Heavy Metal burst in with his first solo mega-hit, “Holy Diver,” well into his mid-40s. I had been yelling along, with the starting demonic howl and all, since my teens without the faintest idea what Ronnie James Dio was singing about. Recently, I looked it up. Apparently, it’s about some transdimensional, chain swinging Batmanesque masked messianic figure taking a dive to save an ungrateful humanity.
Sounds familiar.
Now on a personal level, “Holy Diver” has lately come to mean something else.
One, call her the manifestation of my Jungian Anima, the female archetype lurking in a man’s psyche, or simply the temptress, a Sky Dakini in the flesh luring me to take the plunge.
This Diver, a Skydiver actually, is no fantasy. She is the latest YouTube demigoddess I stumbled upon. A striking, brown-haired, yet a decidedly unglamorous young woman who sits on a chair in a white top and greenish trousers, listening intently. She turns to the camera, smiles shyly, and flashes a V-sign. No Instagram peacock, this one.
Then, she is in a hangar, zipping up a black-and-white skydiving suit, usually the mark of an instructor or someone advanced. A faint smile. A distant etheric gaze as she ties her fiery hair into a bun, and walks toward a red-and-white turboprop registered in North Carolina. She glances back with another quick smile, and boards.
Then she jumps.
The Matrix glitches, and the plane behind her morphs into a blue and white Russian one, with giant blue Cyrillic words across the wings’ underside saying “Kolomna,” after Russia’s skydiving Mecca.
Next she sketches figures against the sky.
That is where I sigh deeply. Knowing how woefully I have lost, before I even started.
If her looks and demeanor, not to mention the magical ability to board an American plane and exit a Russian one midair, weren’t enough to leave me mystified and smitten, ready to play the fool a dozen times over, she also breaks the final barrier by doing the unthinkable. She jumps.
Alas, I am petrified of heights.
I have known at least four women who have taken the leap. Three went tandem, thrill-seekers who urged me to try. They insisted they too had been afraid of heights. The fourth, an army reservist, did three jumps. She admitted that her team of young women were essentially booted out of the plane, parachutes deploying automatically. Half the recruits were bawling or wetting themselves until the dull thud of landing brought them back to earth.
Only on her third jump did she dare open her eyes midair. She had an epiphany, filled with a strange serenity and feeling her own insignificance against the vast earth below. Still, no thank you, she would not be doing it again.
Which leaves me in a peculiar bind - my sky bucket list. The Concorde is retired, Russians no longer hawk MiG-29 rides. And aeroplane bathrooms these days are far too cramped for me to join the so-called “club”. Seemingly, the only remaining option to experience the sky in all its glory is to take a dive.
But really?
I just hope I do not meet the brown-haired Skydiver from North Carolina, or is it Kolomna, at least not anytime soon.
That brings me to the Holy part, consoling my heart watching the outrageously gorgeous Hare Krsna Diva, LilaRani Gauragi Devi Dasi belt out her kirtans. Who despite having very few videos online, still manages to find herself on my YouTube recommended list at least once a week.
Plus, she does seem a safer bet.
Faced with a real choice, renouncing my Stoic-Taoist atheism for a cultish life, with gods I do not believe in and submitting to karma-free dining, might feel safer than stepping out of a perfectly good plane. It would likely be just as pointless, however ethereal the woman involved.
I guess I shall let the demigoddesses be in their realm, and I remain in mine.
No matter what Dio howled, I see little reason to jump on the tiger or to be the star of the masquerade.
PS: There is still sailplane gliding, Kolomna is just a stone throw away from Moscow, besides with age I am finding meat a tad difficult to digest.
Comments