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| Attribution Unknown |
I dreamed something about being at a bake sale type thing and being surprised that all of the food was free. You didn't have to pay anything. There were lots of sweet treats. I tried one and liked the center part which was a dark chocolate and nuts but didn't like what was around it much. There were so many things to try and taste.
The scene changes. I remember something about an actress sitting beside me and she is commenting about how she didn't realize how old she looked in the movie she just did. I had supposedly just watched this movie last night and told her that I thought she was beautiful. I explained that our bones, the structure of us mostly stays the same. The skin and the outer layers changes on all of us and there should be no shame in those changes as we get older. I thought about my own changes and having learned to come to terms with aging. I told her that I heard her sing and think she has a beautiful voice. But she sat fretting about her physical appearance, looking old and having a double chin in a shot in the movie.
In another scene, my partner is saying something snide to me about something of mine he had read. I was angry and spoke about his inability to communicate effectively and the only times he chooses to communicate about anything was to basically insult me. I think he then mentioned something I had just said to him that was rather pointed. I got even more angry and shouted, "Fuck you!" I then went to some pan that had trapped some bugs. Most of them were dead now except for the cockroach. I tried to recapture it but it started to fly away. I hoped it went outside and didn't stay inside where it might reproduce.
Oh yeah, I also remember seeing a date... January 22, 2022.
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| Photo byApel Photography |
The sweet treats at a "bake sale" that are actually free seems to be about what I do. Creating anything can be seen as cooking or baking. You are taking various ingredients, putting them all together and seeing what you come up with. For me it is words and the art I find and put together for the consumption of others. Obviously who I was dreaming from within was thinking they were "sweet treats" and it was surprising that I wasn't trying to cash in on it all.
I liked the center of one of the treats I tasted. Perhaps this references something I wrote and the meat (nuts) of it, the concept, lesson or idea was preferred and maybe not so much how I got to the lesson. Some may not like Sum 41 but can appreciate the lessons I learned and shared on this blog during my time in that community. That would be liking the center but not so much the outside of it.
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| Photo by Barry Cheesman |
This will be the meat of this blog post because there is a lot I want to say about it.
We spend so much of our lives focusing on our shells...the vehicle we drive to have a human experience. What many seem to fail to understand is that part of this obsession, especially when we are young, is a biological impulse telling us to reproduce.
All throughout nature we can see this in action with competition to win a mate to procreate and pass their DNA on. Passing our DNA on ensures our immortality in a sense. We live on genetically in our offspring.
This single biological impulse and instinct is the source of so much self-inflicted misery due to needing to be attractive enough to win over the mate of our choice. So we compare ourselves with each other, diet, workout, buy the right clothes, do our hair, wear a pound of makeup, wear false eyelashes, get surgery for bigger breasts or a smaller nose...all to win a mate and procreate.
It is seriously fucked up but it is a ritual that seems generally accepted and encouraged by mass media, peers and social media.
So we go through the motions of what we were taught and eventually end up married, divorced or whatever but well past the age of really actually having the biological impulse to reproduce, except we still end up thinking we need to play the same game of needing to look a certain way. God forbid you actually.....*gasp*.... get older and look your age. God forbid you stop giving a flying fuck what anyone thinks about your exterior.... especially if you happen to be in the entertainment industry.
We spend so much time puffing up our chests and feathers when we are young that many of us forget to cultivate who we are internally too, so when you get to middle age status you have a crisis because you aren't emotionally prepared for the exterior changes because you never took time to develop the character that is you.
The way it has shown up in dreams for me is the furniture in the house is what we have inside of us and have cultivated within. Recently I dreamed of an old house that was basically falling apart but the furniture inside was solid wood and would last for a very long time. It was big and sturdy. It could be saved and moved to a new house when it was time.
It is the same with us. What we fill our fleshy houses with is more important than the actual house itself. All houses crumble eventually. What is of value is what is inside that you can take with you when your fleshy home "gives up the ghost".
You can choose to furnish your house with IKEA furniture that looks great temporarily, or you can set out to carve the tree that is you and build something solid and valuable that can be taken with you when you transition to the next level. Chances are pretty good if you spent your whole life focusing on the outside and what is inside is total shit, you will have to come back to the same level of Earth life until you get it right and have something worth taking with you to the next level.
Aging is this beautiful opportunity to just not give as much of a fuck about the external. Who fucking cares about those wrinkles or the double chin? Who fucking cares that someone doesn't think you are as attractive?
Know thy self.
When we start to have a relationship with self, we start to comb through all that is us. We sift through, letting go of what doesn't serve us and appreciate who we are, who we become on the journey as a result of the growth. The journey back to self is about self love and acceptance. We understand that self isn't the body but we can give love and gratitude to the body regardless of the size, shape and appearance.
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| Attribution Unknown |
By loving ourselves completely as we are, we can also love others and look beyond the outer shell for the real treasures inside. An oyster doesn't look like much on the outside, but what they are capable of producing is considered of high value...pearls. An amethyst cave just looks like a rock before it is split open to reveal the beauty inside.
Poor Keanu Reeves has been told for many years that he appears to be immortal because he doesn't seem to age. Either those people need glasses or they go through life with perpetual brown noses. Keanu has definitely aged and is not at all the same pretty faced boy he once was. The cigarettes have helped him age more. Without a beard to hide behind, it is super obvious that he looks his age. Why is that a bad thing? I absolutely adore this aged version of him because there is so much more experience and wisdom behind his eyes now. Now we can finally stop focusing on his looks and start looking at his abilities, talent, skills and wisdom gained from 54 years of life. He has so much internally to offer the world yet we have barely scratched the surface. Of course that also requires him to turn himself inside out, become open and vulnerable and show us who he really is inside.
The actors I love and respect the most are the ones who opt to age normally. They don't try to hide it. They choose not go under the knife, do Botox, laser resurfacing, collagen, etc. They choose to experience the changes, the differences and accept them as they come. I love people like Toni Collette and Parker Posey who have embraced the aging process which is basically telling Hollywood standards to go fuck themselves.
If we never aged, would we really ever take the time to go within and change internally? We lose our hair, our good looks, our pride, our bloated ego, and start to have to actually explore each other to discover who we are internally to determine if we think someone is attractive to us or not. With this in mind, a wise person would do the work required to become attractive to themselves internally.
When we have reached a level where we look in the mirror and think, "I am fucking amazing and it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks," we have reached a truly beautiful place where the light that grows inside starts to leak out of the wrinkles in our skin. Others will feel our light, our energy and know the truth of our beauty.
I fucking hate selfies, but I am going to post some for this blog post as a way to embrace the changes I have made both externally and internally at the age of 50. They will appear at the very end. I am fatter than I have ever been at 230 lbs. My hormones are changing which is causing my hair to gray and more and more whiskers keep growing on my chin. I have blood vessels that are visible and make me have a red appearance on my face constantly. I haven't owned makeup in years so don't try to cover it. I also have pre-cancer spots on my face that looks like acne at tmes. My neck skin is sagging and looks old. At some angles I have double...even triple chins.
And guess what?
I'm fucking amazing!
If you were to try to create a hyperreal sculpture of me and all of my flaws, it would be far more challenging than that of someone considered "perfect".
Aging is an opportunity....embrace it!
I Am Not This Body
Red lips, long flowing hair
They see a pretty face
But not the soul I bare
I am not this body
Dirty clothes, missing teeth
They pretend I don't exist
They can't see the soul beneath
I am not this body
Dried up limbs, wrinkled skin
Old and often forgotten
Timeless is the soul within
I am not this body
Overweight and out of breath
Lifestyle assumptions are made
They can't see the beauty and soul depth
I am not this body
This flesh, the blood and bones
A skin suit we put on like clothes
We step inside and gasp and groan
I am not this body
How could we forget what is true
We are light, color and sound
These roles we play are not me or you
I am not this body
Written October 12, 2014
By Oktobre Taylor
Different shades of me...
Now don't expect another selfie for 20 years. 😁
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