Frequent Circus Flyer
Sam Keen *62 uses trapeze artistry to help others overcome fear

Hup!"

That's the cue. Sixty-seven-year-old Sam Keen *62, swinging upside-down and backwards on a trapeze far above the ground, arcs upward and grabs the wrists of the frightened young woman swinging toward him. The timing is perfect. Miraculously, and to the cheers of the onlookers below, the aerial rendezvous is a success.

Keen always suspected he was destined for another kind of life, one different from his role as professor, philosopher, and author of 13 books. "I have a completely unverifiable feeling that something in my DNA has destined me to become a butterfly," he quips.

He's on his way to proving this thesis. Six years ago, after his Fire in the Belly had made him a national bestselling author and a leader in the men's movement, Keen fulfilled a lifelong yen for the circus-specifically, for the trapeze, "the crown jewel of circus arts." Or "flying," as he more frequently terms it.

His recent book, Learning to Fly: Trapeze-Reflections on Fear, Trust, and the Joy of Letting Go (Broadway Books, 1999) "is not about the trapeze, it's about soaring," he says. It describes the joys, thrills, perils-and yes, the panic-of floating through the air with the greatest of ease.

The panic is part of the point: "Up here, you get a chance to test your courage and your fear," he says, adding that "connoisseurs of fear" learn to use fear as a delicate psychological barometer, informing them when to push forward and when to ease up. They learn not to be afraid of their fear.

Keen's hobby became a passion. Now he has "a standard-size circus rig" on his 60-acre ranch. Keen uses flying as therapy (and charity) to help people confront their fears and their lives. As a result, Eritrean children, Hispanic gangs, drug addicts, abused women, and others discover the joy of flying nestled among the idyllic vineyards and cliffs in California's picturesque wine country.

"We hope to infect them with joy. We hope to infect them with our passion," says Keen.

The proportions are deceiving from the ground: the long vertical length of net-70 feet of it-makes the vertical 32-foot ladder leading to the platform and trapeze look-well, manageable. But it's the equivalent of leaping from the roof of a three-story building.

"Sometimes you have to wrestle people to the ground to get them to try it," says Keen. (A formidable prospect indeed: Keen was on Princeton's wrestling team.)

It may appear to be a far cry from Keen's work at Princeton, where he took a Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion, and Harvard Divinity School, where he earned a bachelor's and master's degree and studied with theologian Paul Tillich.

But Keen says the move is not as far-flung as it might appear-for him, the trapeze is a spiritual discipline, the equivalent of daily prayer or meditation to cleanse the doors of perception.

Or, more metaphorically, "There's nothing like the prospect of getting shot in the morning to clear your mind," he says.

-Cynthia Haven

Cynthia Haven is a freelance writer living in California.