THE NEWS OF NIKO SONNBERGER
This is a blog of updates of filmmaker, photographer & poet: Niko Sonnberger.
www.nikosonnberger.com
Permalink
Published photos…
A few of my my photos have been published in the winter issue of Adirondack Review:
Permalink
VIOLET HOUR
“This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow again and the valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of a forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn. “
Permalink
MY WEEKEND SKYDIVE PERIL
I went skydiving at 13,000 feet this Sunday. I seldom feel the need to “blog” any certain experiences, but this is something I want to make clear: it is by far the most incredible trial that awaits anyone. The abject horror, the adreline, oh and drooling out of your mouth hole because you are falling at 120 miles an hour. It is the closest thing I have felt to true magic…and death. “It’s like cutting your own throat and seeing if you can get to the doctor in time”.
I felt incredibly sick to my stomach before we got onto the plane. My instructor told me that many people have puked on him on the way down. Excellent. A bunch of us got crammed into the tiniest plane and we were at our altitude in less than ten minutes. At this moment, everything shuts off; your need to pee, to itch your back, for someone to say it will be okay. I got strapped to my instructor and he asked me if I was OK. Fake thumbs up, of course I’m not okay, I am plummeting to my death.
Once you get to the edge of the plane, you are instructed to arch your back and legs on to your instructor, so everyone looks like a kitten being carried by their mommy cat. Once you jump, it doesn’t feel like reality. You know that feeling when you are just about to fall asleep and you twitch because you think you are falling? That’s skydiving. But you don’t wake up.
I don’t remember the entire jump. It’s said that your brain, by default, blocks out moments of sheer horror. And I was a human firework. I rather not describe the actual fall, because no words will do it justice. I also recall swearing at my instructor, “fucking mother fuck titty fuck” and his response “yeah, wooooh, sooo much fun!”. We glided, did a few tricks and landed. The first reaction after that was: can i do that again right now? Not tomorrow, now.
As hackneyed as this sounds, once you fall out of the sky, anything on earth is possible. Mentally, something dormant inside of you ignites. It is the most personal & cathartic adventure that scares you so hard, nothing else seems so terrifying afterwards. No one goes skydiving and says “i regret this risk, and I am more of a pussy now than I ever was”.
