I see women distraught over a few wrinkles, painfully hiding a few streaks of grey hair. Dyeing hair into a desirable color, making the belly taut, lifting the breasts and the face are smart ways of looking younger...it isn't wrong at all...but desperately clinging to what's passing can create much misery and carried on too far should raise a few questions : what is the motive - fooling others? And the next- am I fooling myself?
I sometimes wonder who has given these foolish guidelines to beauty . Some maniac who who got up in the morning and dreamed that there shall be no noon and no sun-set?And found no beauty in the mellowness and the ripening. The crazy mind.
Is the grey hair not beautiful? And what's wrong with a few wrinkles?
Aging beautifully and gracefully is all about acceptance and not fighting against the wisdom of Nature. Physical degeneration is a natural proce
ss which comes over the years and brings along with it such grace, such wisdom, such depth and the beauty of peace. They all come hand in hand with age if the youth is lived fearlessly and with totality. All ideas about liberation loose their meaning if we fail to liberate ourselves from our mere understanding of ourselves as gross bodies no matter how beautiful.
And we are not merely bodies. We are something far greater, something much beyond this corporal.
Let us accept our bodies and our minds as they are with totality so that we can come face to face with our souls.
Comments
You asked why I don't write in print. Well, I hope that one day I will. Perhaps my blog will be the catalyst?
Keep up the good blogging...
P.S. Thank you for writing the rather long post of mine,, well I can tell you this, it is a mix between real and fiction, But for sure true love exists, and I hope your heart gets blessed with the feeling..
very well written .no guidelines can ever describe or xplore the beauty
"What do you see nurse,
What do you see?
What are you thinking
When you look at me?
A crabby old woman,
Not very wise,
Uncertain of habit
With far away eyes.
Who dribbles her food
And makes no reply;
Then you say in a loud voice,
"I do wish you'd try."
Who seems not to notice
The things that you do,
And forever is losing
A stocking or shoe.
Unresisting or not,
Lets you do as you will;
With bathing or feeding,
The long day to fill.
Is that what you're thinking,
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes nurse,
You're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am,
As I sit here so still,
As I move at your bidding,
As I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of ten ...
With a father and mother,
And brothers and sisters
Who love one another.
A girl of sixteen,
With wings on her feet;
Dreaming that soon,
A lover she'll meet.
A bride soon at twenty ...
My heart gives a leap;
Remembering the vows
That I promised to keep.
At twenty-five,
I have young of my own,
Who need me to build
A secure and happy home.
A woman of thirty,
My young now grow fast,
Bound together with ties
That forever should last.
At forty, my young ones
Have grown up and gone;
But my man is beside me
To see I don't mourn.
At fifty, once more ...
Babies play 'round my knees;
Again we know children,
My loved ones and me.
Dark days are upon me,
My husband is dead ...
I look at the future,
I shudder with dread;
For my young are all rearing,
Young of their own,
And I think of the years
And the love I have known.
I am an old woman now,
Nature is cruel,
'Tis her jest to make old age
Look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles,
Grace and vigor depart,
There is now a stone
Where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass,
A young girl still dwells,
And now and again
My battered heart swells.
I remember the joys,
I remember the pain,
And I'm loving and living
Life over again.
I think of the years ...
All too few, gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact
That nothing can last.
So open your eyes nurses,
Open and see ...
Not a "Crabbit Old Woman,"
Look closer ... see "Me."
I've been enjoying reading your blog. I especially love the one about aging. I've always (well, since I reached my 30's) thought that birthdays should be a bigger deal the older we get (of course, ask me again when I'm 70). I look forward to getting older, to what's next. I love how looking at someone's face tells you where they've been.
Again, beautiful writing there. Thanks.
I will be back. :)
I am one of those women that worry too much about what I look like. Not sure where all of the insecurity comes from.
Michelle