Such Stuff That Dreams Are Made On

Reaching the threshold of seven decades is daunting.

I had imagined this post to be full of self deprecating humor about crumbling teeth,

sinus pain, and VANITY ~~ there’s still time for that.

Caught in Goya’s Saturn grip, a dismembering is taking place.

A breaking down has to occur.

The alchemy of returning to my own prima materia–

the raw stuff of which I am made.

These are natural laws we are all subject to, and aging is one of them.

Beyond cliches about wisdom and other self soothing aphorisms, is the truth of mortality.

And the paradox of death and rebirth.

From this suspended place in time, I find myself viewing my fellow travelers and humanity from a soft lens.

How precious and vulnerable we are!

“Our revels now are ended.

These our actors, as I foretold you were all thin spirits, and are melted into air, thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud capp’d towr’s , the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temple, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which inherit, shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind.

We are such stuff that dreams are made on;

And our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

Prospero, The Tempest, William Shakespeare, Act IV, Scene 1

All art credit goes to Odilon Redon.