Fly me to the Moon
(CAUTION: lofty thoughts ahead!)

Contact Information

Forever Flying, L.L.C.
Decatur Commons
1605-D6A Beltline Rd, SW
Decatur, AL 35601-5597

Link to Directions

Phone: (256) 308-0988
Fax: (256) 308-0658
Email: info@foreverflying.com

Store Hours: Monday-Saturday / 10am-6pm CST
Manager: Shawn E. Donahoo

Feel welcome to email me (info@foreverflying.com) with questions or comments.

Reflections on Kiting

1/5/99:
Kites teach us that only by facing into the wind can we ever hope to attain the heights to which we were meant to soar. No progress was ever made by only facing the past. Although reflecting upon previous events can teach us much about what we might avoid in the future (kites will sometimes turn and fly downwind when wind speed diminishes), we must also direct our vision forward to succeed in our endeavors.
-Shawn E. Donahoo (Decatur, AL)

1/5/99:
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that string..." (doowap doowap doowap-doowap...)
-unknown

1/12/99:
"Forever Flying
I see thee rise
On wings of song
Into the skies."
-Shawn E. Donahoo (Decatur, AL)

1/15/99:
"Life is easier when you are pulling the strings."
-Richard R. Choate (Decatur, AL)

1/26/99:
"The more you run, the more ground you lose."
-Shawn E. Donahoo (Decatur, AL)

1/14/99:
"Kites are God's gift to you. What you do with them is your gift back to God."
-Ron Warren (Huntsville, AL)

3/10/99:
"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save."
-Will Rodgers

3/23/99:
"Each friend represents a world in us.
A world possibly not born until they arrive.
And it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
-Anais Nin

4/7/99:
"My soul on the wind does fly, exhaulted
Lifted up, cradled there
To kiss the clouds, and dare the sun
To sing out loud in the company of angels
And await the touch of the Goddess.
-Robbi Hodson

5/8/99:
Link to "Instructions for Life" page.

5/11/99:
"We are so accustomed to wearing a disguise before others that eventually we are unable to recognize ourselves."
- La Rochefoucauld

 5/24/99:
"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them to the impossible."
- Arthur Clarke

 5/25/99:
"To fall is human. To fly is divine!"
- Shawn E. Donahoo

 5/25/99:
"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Madame Swetchine

 5/26/99:
"People are at their most mindful when they are at play. If we find ways of enjoying our work - blurring the lines between work and play - the gains will be greater."
- Ellen Langer

5/27/99:
"Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength."
- Ralph W. Sockman

6/1/99:
"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis."
- Margaret Bonnano

6/4/99:
"If you have the same ideas as everybody else but have them one week earlier than everyone else then you will be hailed as a visionary, but if you have them five years earlier you will be named a lunatic."
- Barry Jones

6/7/99:
"The quality of life depends upon what society gives to individuals and equally what those individuals give back."
- Bernie Slepkov

6/8/99:
"We all yearn to fly. We are creatures of longing. We do not need to... (physically fly) ...to be airborne. What I call the aerial instinct--the drive to transcend our present condition--is the defining characteristic of a human being. We are restless animals, eternal travelers who are forever in the process of becoming. Consciousness itself is a flight from the here and now to the beyond. Our reach always exceeds our grasp, which is what heaven is for..."
- Sam Keen (from "Learning to Fly")

6/8/99:
"Everyone has experienced "deep play." It's a state of transcendence you reach when you're completely engaged in what you're doing. You could be flying a kite or cooking dinner--but nothing on earth can distract you from the joy of the task at hand. For humans, play is a refuge from ordinary life, a sanctuary of the mind, where one is exempt from life's customs, methods, and decrees... Play as sheer physical joy...like poetry...has a way of lifting a feeling or idea out of its routine so that it can be appreciated with fresh eyes."
- Diane Ackerman (from "Deep Play")

 6/14/99:
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 6/22/99:
"Happiness is a butterfly. When pursued, it is always beyond your grasp, but if you will sit down quietly, it may alight upon you."
- N. Hawthorne

 7/12/99:
"For me the joy of kiting lies in that fine sense of extension, in the fact that you have, almost literally, a hand reaching into the sky."
- Wyatt Brummitt (circa 1984)

7/14/99:
"...the moment of passage from disturbance into harmony is that of intensest life."
- John Dewey

3/4/00:
"Sometimes people come into your life and you
know right away that they were meant to be there.
They serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or
help figure out who you are or who you want to become.

You never know who these people may be; your
roommate, neighbor, professor, long lost friend,
lover or even a complete stranger who, when you
lock eyes with theirs, you know that very moment
that they will affect your life in some profound way.

Sometimes things happen to you and at the time they
may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection
you realize that without overcoming those obstacles
you would have never realized your potential, strength,
willpower or heart.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by
chance or by means of good or bad luck. Illness, injury,
love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity
all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these
small tests, if they be events, illnesses or relationships,
life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to
nowhere. Safe and comfortable, But dull and utterly pointless.

The people you meet who affect your life and the successes
and downfalls you experience, they are the ones who create
who you are. Even the bad experiences can be learned from
those lessons are the hardest and probably the most important
ones.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart,
forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust
and the importance of being cautious about to whom you
open your heart.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not
only because they love you, but because they are teaching
you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you
would have neverseen or felt without them.

Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take
from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never
be able to experience it again.

Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually
listen. Let yourself fall in love. Break free and set your sights
high. Hold your head up because you have every right to.

Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself,
for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either.

You can make of your life anything you wish.

Create your own life and then go out and live it.

7/13/00:
"In every boomerang there is a perfect throw. Your life is to practice until you find that throw and become one with that boomerang!"

9/29/00:
HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS

"To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others:
To leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child,
a redeemed social condition, or a job well done;
To know that even one other life has breathed because you lived.

-- This is to have succeeded."

11/1/00:
"When you're into boomerangs, it transports you into an interim world,
where world problems and stresses of normal life do not exist. How long
you stay in this world, and what you get out of the experience is up to
you. Make the best of it!"

11/1/00:
"The act of throwing boomerangs alone inspires thought, and
a hint that we're dwellers of the sky more so than of the earth.
Only our feet touch the ground."

1/30/01:
"Far Better It Is
To Dare Mighty Things
To Win Glorious Triumphs
Even Though Checkered With Failure
Than To Live In That Grey Twilight
That Knows Neither Victory Nor Defeat."

2/22/01:
" Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly."

5/4/01:
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk
the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you
have been, and there you will always long to return."

5/28/01:
"everything changes, but nothing is truly lost"

6/9/01:
"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed off--wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

6/10/01:
"It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky.
Behind me and before me is God, and I have no fears."

6/11/01:
"Unlike the boundaries of the sea by the shorelines, the "ocean of air" laps at the boarder of every state, city, town and home throughout the world."

6/12/01:
"The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air."

6/13/01:
"He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind."

6/14/01:
"To fly a kite is to hold God's Hand."

6/15/01:
"Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes."

- Charles A. Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values

6/16/01:
"We who fly do so for the love of flying. We are alive in the air with this miracle that lies in our hands and beneath our feet."

8/6/01:
"Let me explain a couple of things. Time is short. That's the first thing.
For the weasel, Time is a weasel. For the hero, Time is heroic. For the
whore, Time is just another trick. If you're gentle, your Time is gentle.
If you're in a hurry, Time flies. Time is a servant, if you are its master.
Time is your god, if you are its dog. We are the creators of Time, the
victims of Time, and the killers of Time. Time is timeless. That's the
second thing. You are the clock, Cassiel."

8/7/01 ("High-ku"):
Deep in the blue sky
Kites and clouds float quietly
As night approaches.

9/11/01 (WTC/Pentagon Terrorist Attack):

"ONE" (... A TIMELY POEM)

As the soot and dirt and ash rained down,
We became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of
the burning building We became one class.
As we lit candles of waiting and hope,
We became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought
their way into the inferno, We became one gender.
As we fell to our knees in prayer for strength,
We became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement,
We spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long,
We became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss,
We became one family.
As we cried tears of grief and loss,
We became one soul.
As we retell with pride of the sacrifice of heroes,
We become one people.

We are
One color
One class
One generation
One gender
One faith
One language
One body
One family
One soul
One people
We are The Power of One.

- Cheryl Sawyer © 9/11/01
(Cheryl Sawyer is a professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake)

10/19/01:
"Those who know God most perfectly perceive most clearly that He is perfectly incomprehensible."

- St. John of The Cross

10/27/01:
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

- Ghandi

11/26/01:
"A man’s intellect is stored powder; it cannot touch itself off; the fire must come from the outside. "

- Mark Twain

12/14/01:

River of Souls

In the flow of wake and sleep
I contemplate the Mysteries of The Deep.
Both, at once, alive and dead
Our lives, a string on which we thread
Each moment, from Eternity fed.

Caught between Heaven and Earth
Our memories forgotten beyond our birth.
Our conscious minds are dulled by hate
Which only Love can liberate.
Suspended between the earth and sky
Blessed and cursed to forever fly...

- Shawn E. Donahoo (Decatur, AL)

1/26/02 (Haiku):

White clouds, azure sky
Wind caressing softly by
A single kite flies.

- Shawn E. Donahoo (Decatur, AL)

1/29/02 (Haiku):

Each kite, beyond words,
Perfect in every aspect,
Spiritual flight.

- Shawn E. Donahoo (Decatur, AL)

2/11/02:

Kites

Wind chimes are ringing
Like the Sirens deadly singing.
Trying to coax me out
Into a wind cool and stout.

Out I go taking a kite
Putting it together ready for flight.
Tie the lines to the kite, and then unwind
Check trees and grass for good signs.

A step back to stand the kite up
Nothing now will be able to interrupt.
A sharp tug gets the kite aloft
The padded straps nice and soft.

Feel the power as the lines pull taught
Pull on one, flying in the direction sought.
Hear again the Sirens sing,
As the wind whips around the strings.

Feel the freedom just let go.
Spread the word let others know.
The power is free so grab a kite,
Go to a field and take flight!

- Steven Hewett (Churchill, TN)

7/11/02:
"And so it was that in the seventh month, on the eleventh day, the brown-clad man did verily arrive bearing a long parcel. And taking the parcel, the novice Dow did repair to the Holy Kite Field, where he did verily unleash the Holy Fanatic. Fearful and beautiful it was to behold, being all of Blue, Purple, and Teal, and bearing the Blessed Mylar on its Carbon limbs. And taking up the Lines of Contro! l, the novice Dow did give a mighty heave and did launch the Holy Fanatic into the heavens. Glorious was the sky and Fearsome was the Holy Fanatic in it, being such that it rivaled the sun. And thence did the novice Dow smite the earth with the Holy Fanatic. He smote it not four or five times, but forty or fifty times did he smite it, and great was the wailing of the earth in its agony.

When evening came, the novice Dow, triumphant from his battle, did roll up the Lines of Control and did place the Holy Fanatic in the Blessed Prism Bag and did return home from whence he came, having smitten the earth into submission.
And there was evening, and there was morning, a good day."

- Dow Mathis (Kerrville, TX)

7/25/03:
(TFTD)Thought for the day:
Today is
the yesterday
of tomorrow
that you'll think more of in the past than in the present

- Daren Connell (St. Augustine, FL)

4/1/04:
"The true reflection of who I am is best exemplified in that "moment of truth" when my spirit blends with that of another.
Not as two ships in the night. But as two rivers that become one."

- Bob Perks (Link to www.bobperks.com)

4/5/04:
Everyone thinks of changing the world,
but no one thinks of changing himself.

-Bobbie Dubois (Dearborn, MI)

4/6/04:
I Wish You Enough! (copyright 2001 by Bob Perks)
"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Goodbye."

-Bob Perks (Link to www.bobperks.com)

2/8/05:
"Every choice human being strives instinctively for a citadel and a secrecy where he is freed. . . .
Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is continually growing..."

-Nietzsche

2/24/05:
"Love like you've never been hurt,
work like you don't need the money,
and dance like nobody's watching.

-Ree Varcoe (New Zealand)

6/7/05:
"The things that come to those who wait may be the things that were left by those who got there first."

- Steven Tyler

8/12/06:
"The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

- Frederick Buechner

1/4/07:
"Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.
- Norman Vincent Pearle

"It is what you learn after you know it all... that counts..."
- John Wooden

"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what others say you cannot do."
- Walter Bagehot

"It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that seperates one person from another."
- Nelson Mandela

"The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become."
- Harold Taylor

"Whether you think you can, or think you can't... you're right."
- Henry Ford

7/26/07:
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”

- Eleanor Roosevelt

9/24/07:
" Attitude has its roots in words and it fruits in actions. It is the library of your past, the speaker of your present and the prophet of your future. "
(thankfully we have a new start every morning!)

- C. Thomas Anderson
Note: Kimberly Layson who owns Hope’s Chest in Tuscaloosa shared this with me. She added the “new start every morning” part.

10/26/07:
"We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”

- George Bernard Shaw

4/14/08:
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

- Albert Einstein

The Philosopher’s Kite

Philosophy. Art. Kites. Flight. Essays & Stories

By Tal Streeter

Published by Twelve-Second Press, New York.

ISBN 0-9724290-0-X

Back cover copy:

The Philosopher’s Kite, Essays and Stories is a highly personal work embracing the author’s passion for
the sky and things that fly.

Streeter takes his readers with him on journeys to Indonesia in search of the world’s first kite, to
Afghanistan where kites are reported to fly at heights of nearly three miles, to a seminal kite/kite artist
symposium in Spain, to observe a courtyard in the sacred temples of Khajuraho, India with his
ten-year-old daughter, back home in the United States, where he reaches out to a survivor of the
Hiroshima atomic bomb explosion and still closer to home, accompanied by the family cat, observes the
fall leaves in his own backyard.

The short pieces of fiction in this collection provide glimpses of the sky occupying the spaces of his heart
and his imagination.

From the very beginning of his career as an artist, Tal Streeter’s imagination has been stirred by the sky.
Over the years, the sky became home for his large-scale sculpture and kites, as well as his writing. He is
best known in the United States as "the kite man" and the creator of a large-scale sculpture, the
70-foot-high, steel, zigzagging red line, Endless Column, first installed in New York City next to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1971, later one of the first acquisitions for the permanent collection of the
Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York. A former Fellow, Center for Advanced Visual Studies,
M.I.T. and Professor Emeritus, State University of New York/Purchase, Streeter has traveled the world over,
searching out kite lore. He is the first fine artist to give himself wholeheartedly to the making, flying and
exhibition of kites in museums and art galleries, championing this medium as an art form.

With an introduction by sky artist, Otto Piene, Photographs, an extensive bibliography and web sites.

Praise for his earlier book, A Kite Journey Through India: New York Times Book Review, David Willis
McCullough,"…by pursuing a small subject he knows very well, Streeter illuminates an entire society."

"Kites, Streeter says, "provide us with pleasures of the most exulted sort. There is nothing quite like the
feeling projected down along the flying line from a kite flying overhead in the sky. The physical tug of the
kite, alive in the wind, joins the mind with the clouds in the vast sea of the sky. The thin flying line
connects not just our hands but our souls to the infinity of space and distant galaxies. Call it whatever you
like, but for me, the kite smile is a reflection of one of the highest planes of pure joy and peace of mind
attainable: one of the rarest of bonhomies I have experienced in my lifetime."

"A philosophy of the kite is one, surely, worth pursuing," Streeter points out. "We are creatures of the sky.
The sky does, begin at our feet!"Tal Streeter, artist/sculptor, author, teacher (founder, Sculpture/IIID
Media Area, Professor Emeritus, State University of New York-Purchase and Fellow, Center for Advanced
Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has traveled the world over searching out kite lore,
photographing and writing articles, books and stories inspired by this realm of sky art. He was the first
fine artist to give himself whole-heartedly to the making, flying and exhibition of kites in museums and
art galleries, championing the medium of kites as an art form.

He is presently working on a number of books and continues to make and exhibit sculpture and kites.

Table of Contents
Appreciation. 9 Backyard Right Stuff. Introduction. 11 Ors and Perhapses Otto Piene. 15 The Philosopher’s
Stone. Part One: The Passage From Heavy To Light 19 The Tank Factory & The Tatami Mats New York
City/Shizuoka, Japan. 35 The Playground & The Royal Stream. 41 The Kite Smile. 45 The Sky Begins At
Our Feet Portfolio: Kites & Monuments . Part Two: Becoming Light A 63 A Man’s Pants Falling Off
Millbrook, New York. 73 The Moon Orchid Leaf Kite Sumatra, Indonesia. 89 Rocks Hanging Down From
Strings Kabul, Afghanistan. 99 Memento Mori & Resurrection Richmond, California. 107 The Woman Who
Found a Cobra In A Box Fundacio Pilar i Joan Miró Palma de Mallorca, Spain. 119 A Golden Necklace At
Twilight Khajuraho, India.125 Play Time Manhattan, Kansas. 129 Einstein's Kite Princeton, New Jersey. 133
Sky Scars Hiroshima, Japan. 139 The Woman Who Calls Me "Sweet". 143 Hopping, Skipping, Jumping...&
Imagination. 149 The Future of Flight & Kites In Deep Space Addendum. 153 Diogenes’ Searchlight. 157
The Sky Art Manifesto. The Mallorca Art Volant, Kite Manifesto, Miró’s Hoop. Looking Up. 162 Chapter
Notes & References Foundation Reading, Web Sites; Sky Art, Kites, Festivals And All, World-Wide To Outer
Space. 187 About The Author. 188 Twelve-Second Press Colophon.

Appreciation, BackyardRightStuff
For all the individuals whose presumptions of fun, adventure and skill are attendant on sending things out
into the sky.For the variety and the sheer fun that follows from this age-old desire to join our earth's
resplendently plumaged, fine-feathered friends, whose beauty in form and flight have inspired the art and
machinery of our flying machines down through the centuries.For the traditional and contemporary kite
makers who have enriched the spirits of citizens ‘round the world.For the developers and enthusiasts of
modern-day soft-wing vehicles, adventurous men & women, paraglider and hang glider pilots, hot-air
balloonists, parachutists, kite-born buggy and wind surfers.For the children who care for kites and balloons
and bugs and just about everything that flies.For the more informal, off-hand, outrageous, eccentric
skyway men and women, young and old, not too worried about anything other than having a good time,
Larry Walters, a typical example: Larry, 33-years-old, a truck driver, one weekend in July 1982—sitting in
his backyard in San Pedro, California, hot, bored, looking for something better than beer to perk up his
day—attached forty-two helium-filled weather balloons to his aluminum and nylon webbing lawn chair,
taking off "into the wild blue yonder," and, lived to tell the tale of this backyard, right stuff adventure.

Link to Ancient Fountain Music / Poems & Meditations

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Last Updated 4/14/2008