The desire to escape the earth, its gravity, even for a moment, seems as universal as it is unreachable -- which may explain the growing popularity of trapeze workshops. But for Sam Keen, the trapeze is key to an understanding higher still, of how to overcome one's own fears. PNS correspondent Eve Pell writes a monthly column on sports for people over 60 years of age.

SONOMA, CA -- "Love It" says the sign on the gate above a curving driveway that leads down to a wooded glade where, suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, there is a full trapeze layout, complete with net.

Thirty feet up in the air, on a platform, stands an unlikely trio: two women and one man, all at least middle-aged.

At a word from a younger man standing on the ground, each woman, solidly anchored to safety ropes, swings a bit on the trapeze, then falls happily on command into the net, and climbs down.

Then, amazingly, the oldest of the three, a gray-haired, balding man in a shapeless red sweat-suit, does a surprising little butt-wiggle and strips to a pair of red shorts. He grabs the trapeze and arcs gracefully into space. At the far-out top of the swing, he turns sideways, grins, does a one-handed jig in mid-air, and swings smoothly back to a precise landing on the platform.

This slightly pudgy angel turns out to be Tony Steele, legendary circus star and the first man in the world to complete the triple and a half somersault. Steele shows people how to fly all weekend long as one class after another comes to this glade.

The flying school is the domain of Sam Keen -- professor, philosopher and author of 14 books -- who took up the trapeze six years ago, at age 61. With iron-gray hair, deep-set eyes beneath dark brows, slender body dressed in black shirt and tights, he is definitely The Man. A bright tattoo on his upper arm is "a Buddhist mandala of joy," he explains as he tapes his wrists. "This is for the flyers to grab onto. We're going to fly and play a little now."

Keen then moves over onto the "catching trapeze." Because the arc of the flyer's trapeze is longer than the arc of the catcher's, both aerialists' timing must be perfect if the catch is to succeed. Keen missed some and caught some, including a perfect "bird's nest" with Steele arched, holding his feet with his hands, and flying through the air into Keen's wrists.

As the class continued, flyers and spectators showed a tendency to go into old vaudeville routines. A young man asked Steele, "Aren't you a sexagenarian?" "I hope so!" he grinned, with another butt-wiggle.

A flyer proposed a half-turn and Keen assumed the upside-down catching position. But the flyer missed his leap and plunged awkwardly into the net.

"Don't worry," Tony Steele chimed in. "Any one you can walk away from is a good one."

Toward the end of the session, Keen was able to catch a young flyer doing a difficult trick called the cut-away half. This was a first, and Keen was thrilled. "We're getting into hard tricks now," he announced proudly, descending from his trapeze. "I've graduated from primary school."

In a recent book called "Learning to Fly," Keen traces his current passion for the trapeze from a childhood memory of a circus aerialist frozen in mid-flight. His book explores the symbolism conjured up by the body's seeming escape from gravity: liberation of the mind, emotional freedom, flight toward the divine. "I'm a philosopher, always looking for the meaning to find in this," he said. "How you deal with fear here is how you deal with it in other areas of your life."

Keen has used this concept to help people in trouble. In an Upward Bound program, he and his cohorts show groups of battered women and inner-city youth to how rise above difficult situations by confronting fears thirty feet in the air. Afterward, he says, in the glow that comes after conquering their initial terror, they learn about trust, cooperation and accomplishment.

"This is not an individual sport," he said. "It's not American. It's about creating beauty, not about competition." He delights in the community that has gathered around the trapeze school.

He does not, however, like to be asked how it feels to be a daring old man on the flying trapeze. "What am I going to do, consult my age chart before doing this?" he answered testily. "I love doing this. What I don't like is not being able to use my body that I love so much. I don't think of being old."

He did admit to some initial anxieties about the stress that flying puts on his body, but he consulted a practitioner of sports medicine and handles the physical strain without difficulty. He intends to continue learning new tricks and catches. His best moment so far?

"I have lots of best moments. Today I caught a cut-away half. I'll be pumped for a week."