Unbecoming

You cannot grow because you have decided you have stopped growing. You haven’t grown in ages and you’ve lost the knack. ‘Twas a time you used to believe six impossible things before breakfast if I’m not mistaken. ~ The Hatter, Unbirthday 

What do Instagram, operas, tattoos, and Taylor Swift all have in common? The art of storytelling. I just finished reading a book called The Storytelling Animal. With topics like why the idea of story shapes our lives, how fictional stories promote pro-social behavior, and what our night time dreams are made of, I was captivated from spark to finish…

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…Stories. They have rhythm and flow. They tell tales of travels, transformations, and twists in time. They tug at the heart strings and connect us. They help us align with wisdom, and they are proof of our humanity. While I am quite fond of all forms of storytelling, books remain my favorite vessel by which stories travel. I think of books as mental worlds of art swirling within the realm of the metaphysical. I saw a meme once that said: Have you ever realized how surreal reading a book actually is? You stare at marked slices of tree for hours hallucinating vividly. What’s more artistic than that?!

One of the books I’m currently adventuring through is an Alice in Wonderland twisted tale called Unbirthday. (Ah yes, Alice and her land full of wonder frequently fall into my writings…here we go again.) Ingesting stories often inspires a highly creative dream state within my own Wonderland. Have you ever had a dream so vivid and magical you can remember it years later? I don’t think I could ever forget this one. But goodness knows time has a way of unremembering the details of memories, so I’ll write it out just in case…

My eyes were wide shut as I traveled through a labyrinth of AI art, which was creating more AI art. The art had become the artist. Beauty and the Beast characters were morphing into more artistic versions of themselves. It was full of beautiful details in the becoming. Of course I think dreams in general are highly creative, but this was the first time I can recall dreaming within the creative process of art. Wild.

This was also an Inception style dream…you know, where you keep going deeper within layers of your dream story. You finally reach a point of pure chaos, or perhaps your body is simply trying to wake up, so the dream verges on collapse. But I couldn’t just wake up immediately. Dancers dressed in black and white attire and imitating the moves of the King of Pop danced me back through the dream layers. Experiencing a magical maze of AI art uncreating itself, I marveled how there could be even more beauty to behold because of the undoing.

Arriving at the gate of the labyrinth which I was quickly getting unlost in, I stood at the threshold dividing Wonderland from reality. “Is this all real now?” My question was met with, “No, we’re starting another dream now.” The words tried to pull me back in. “We are?!” I suddenly woke up with one word on my mind. Unbecoming. (Like “undoing” or “uncreating.”) It was an “ah aha!” moment. Buckle up now, we’re taking a glow-in-the-dark rollercoaster ride unforward through the mind…

Art. Do you ever wander through an art museum and feel captivated by the creativity of an artist? They have managed to manifest their magical thinking into an incredible work which now hangs in a gallery for countless people to be enraptured by. But imagine for a moment an artist undoing their work of art. Is there beauty and creativity in uncreating something? Typically, we think of art as what the project is becoming, but what if there is art in the process of unbecoming? Could we call that reverse art?

Imagine creating something beautiful, but something ugly takes over it. But then…within time…there is beauty again. I think this is what we’re continually doing in life. Fighting against the ugliness that tries to take over the beautiful story we’re telling. Maybe the picture perfect vision that’s framed and hanging on the wall of our mind isn’t what is most beautiful about life. Maybe the resilience it takes to get through the mess is the real art. Have you ever heard hope singing to you? Come back with clearer eyes and start over again. Learning doesn’t happen within perfect scenarios. Art and life are sparked in the space between the unbecoming and the question marks.

In Unbirthday, Alice returns to Wonderland eleven years after her initial visit. Since Her Majesty the Queen of Hearts has been out painting the town red, Alice longs to help her old Wonderlandian friends…but there’s just one problem. She’s a grown-up now and has forgotten her childhood imagination. The Hatter’s challenge? Unlearn and unremember what the real world taught her after she left Wonderland.

Unlike Alice’s story, we cannot forget about being adults and just live in a world of roses and rainbows. But we can live with intention and imagination. Each new day calls out to us. What are you going to create? What’s going to become of the story you’re writing with your life? In the simpler words of the blue caterpillar…

“Who. Are. You?”

Reflecting on some random beautiful things that unbecame what they once were:

An empty cup from a tropical dragon passion smoothie…

Purpose after the release of a meaningful season…

The mystical purposes of Stonehenge…

An aesthetically pleasing vinyl record that’s done spinning…

Past relationships fading due to time and space…

The last pose of a yoga class on a peaceful rainy Saturday…

A butterfly unbecoming a caterpillar...

Practicing restoration of this art endeavor called life…we too are all in the process of unbecoming…and transforming into something new.

The unwinding clock. CLOSE YOUR EYES for a moment and imagine that our glow-in-the-dark rollercoaster ride going unforward through the mind is now…moving…in…s l o w – m o t i o n. And all the neon lights have gone out…

Death is an unbecoming. It’s portrayed as ugly and ominous. Could there ever be any beauty in it? They say when we reach the edge of our existence that it’s a flash of our whole life within our mind’s eye. Imagine an unbecoming of all we once became. Embracing the beauty of the magical moments, making peace with the past ugly moments in our story, having grace for our own shortcomings…and then letting it all go. Physical death is the reality of living as we know it on this spinning planet. As we are becoming newer versions of ourselves year after year, we inch ever closer to unbecoming our physical selves. But we are here now, and we get to learn, to love, and to create. We get to make a difference…to make good, if we so choose. What an opportunity. Will we be proud of who we’ve become along the way before we rest in our final shavasana and cross over into what the Hatter would most likely call The Divine Unknown?

The perpetual ticking clock. Do you ever wish away a day or long to reach a goal and then feel sad when it’s over? Ironically as I’m writing this blog about art being a journey, I find myself impatient to reach the end to see what has become of writing these thoughts. If I write to be happy with the end result, why am I sad when it’s over? I had made many notes for this blog so I felt lost in the labyrinth of thought. Which really is exactly where I long to be. I realize that sounds paradoxical, since I’m passionate about precision when stitching my thoughts together. But art isn’t merely the finished product, as productivity isn’t checking tasks off of a to-do list. It’s the journey of the creativity…the effort that was involved. How it was becoming something was the actual art. This is a much needed reminder to me to stay in the present moment and enjoy it while it lasts, so I can gaze through the looking glass of gratitude when it’s over. The ending of a moment can be just as fulfilling as the initial spark. What a gift. ~

This rollercoaster ride together has reached the unbeginning of my waking thoughts at 6:00 on a Friday morning. What a dream! I’ll never hear the word unbecoming the same again. My mind is energized, but my body isn’t ready to unrest. The birds are singing outside my window as my puppy breathes a sigh of contentment. The sun is creating a pretty pinkish orange illumination against the blinds. Perhaps Glinda the Good is outside in her pink bubble, here to awaken the land with some good news? Actually it’s really more orange now, so it’s probably just the sun. Time to get up and actually live in the state of existence we currently believe to be reality. And yet…sometimes I wonder. Who am I kidding? I always wonder…

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Afterthoughts ~ I thought of a line from a song after finishing this writing, and decided to read through the lyrics. It seems like a mantra for my current focus, so I’m sharing it here. I hope it unburdens your spirit. Have a beautiful day, and I hope you stretch your imagination and find something impossible to believe in before breakfast. And just like that, we have reached…

The Unending

*The featured images were created with AI. Make an abstract painting with midnight blue sky, pink moon, orange sun, yoga, Alice in Wonderland. 🙂