Once Upon a Time...

 In Hollywood.  The movies.  I love them.  I'm one of those types who likes to sit in the dark at the end of a film, watching the credits roll, enveloped by music, in my own mystical cocoon, while everyone else, most everyone else, files out of the theater as soon as possible, like little ants.  I like to stay.  I like to stay until the end, the very end.  And not just Marvel movies either, every movie.  But I don't.  I don't stay.  Because those I go with don't.  I follow them, like a little ant, and I miss out on the end.  Where is my voice?  Have I even thought about asking?  No. I guess not. That's why I like to go to movies by myself sometimes, so I can sit through the credits.  So, I can stay 'til the end. 

I like movies, but I'm not sure that I always get what they mean, the theme, so to speak.  I once worked with a gentleman in Dallas who had a brain injury, probably from recreational drug use in his teens and the drug induced zombielike state he was kept in at the halfway house where he resided for 30 years because his billionaire family and parents couldn't be troubled with "him".  They kept him there for 30 years.  It was the best they could do.  But when he had a near death experience while receiving surgery on his lung in the early 2000's, he had an awakening, so to speak.  He wanted to "live" he told me.  The Center for Brain Health, with a healthy donation from this man's family, wanted to see if they could and how much they could, rehabilitate this man's brain.  They hired me to be his "trainer".  

I think they hired the wrong person.  I was a great friend to this man, but I was a very horrible brain rehabilitator.  I didn't push him hard enough and I really felt, and this is how this relates to this story, I really felt that I couldn't get the right answers to some of the questions they were asking this man.  Like when we read a story about Hellen Keller, and they were asking him to explain the theme.  I sat kind of dumbfounded when every answer that he gave was not correct and I wasn't sure that I could come up with anything better.  They knew what they were looking for, but I, he, we didn't get it.  And I know that I am not dumb, I just didn't get the right answer regarding the theme.  And even though I think I might, I'm never quite sure if I do.

Like Fight Club, I could watch that movie 1000 times, but without the help of other people, without some translation, that movie would not resonate with me.  I wouldn't understand it. I could get it, the idea, with the help of others, and at one point I guess I did, and it WAS fascinating, but it's still beyond me to say what it is.  And Garden State.  It would have taken some sort of small miracle for me to succinctly state that the movie was about Meaninglessness, but because someone told me, I get it. I can see it. I can feel it.  I entirely understand the essence of it, but I could not say it.  I wouldn't be able to find the word, the one word that sums everything up.  I have too many words and they are everywhere, and they feel everything, all at once.  

Isn't that why we watch movies in the first place? To feel something?  It's like the motto of Life Magazine in Walter Mitty: To see the world, thing dangerous to come, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of LIFE.  To get beyond ME.  I know that's the other part of the reason I love to see movies.  To experience a few moments in the shoes of someone other, gain a better understanding of the world and how other's see it, to learn, to grow, to feel.  To escape. Anywhere. That's why I watch movies.

My rainy-day movie that I watched at home yesterday was Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood.  I will say again that I'm not sure I got the main theme of the movie, with Quentin Tarantino one (I) can never be too sure.  But I did get an idea.  I got the idea: What if we could rewrite history?  What if we could change our timeline?  Could one tiny decision, a different decision, change our entire future?  

In the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, (I watched it a few months ago) they propose the concept of multiple timelines in multiple universes and suggest that the "highest version of our self" is trying to merge all of these split, fractured parts of ourselves and our lives into one, highest, most healed version, so as to continue on in the most harmonious way possible.  That's my take on it anyway.  There is a lot of grossness to wade through in that movie, but I guess the same can be said of some of our lives, my life included.  

And why do we read?  Same sort of reasons that we watch movies, I suppose, except we get to work harder and create the images in our heads as we are reading instead of having them spoon-fed to us on a silver screen.  I read to better myself.  I read to gain a better understanding of others.  I read to grow a better understanding of our world.  It's been written about everywhere if you know how to look.  That part I have become really good at throughout the years, seeing.  I can see beyond the veil, so to speak, even if I don't get the god-damned theme.

And I read all kinds of books, not just the top 100, best seller lists of recommended reading.  I read, god-forbid, I read self-published books.  And I read everything with an open mind, an open heart and with pure intent.  What is real will be revealed, what is true will shine.  It "resonates", even though...well you know, the theme thing. 

Interestingly enough, I am getting to the part in James Gilliland's book, Becoming Gods, where he talks about the "actual" history of our planet.  The Sirians, the Orions, the Andromedins.  Anunnaki, Pleiadeans, Sumerians.  Atlantis, Lemuria, Mother Earth.  He says that our real history is not what we have been taught.  That there is so much that has been hidden and kept from us, all in an attempt to keep us, keep humanity small and subservient.  

Is all of what he says true?  I don't know and I'm not going to spell it all out here.  If you want to know more you can read the book, but I will ask, are we feeling fulfilled?  Are we where we are supposed to be?  Is it time to rewrite history?  Is it within our power to create the world that we want to live in?  Are we open to being healed from the past?  Are we open to being so much more, all that we were born to be?

And if I don't know the answers to all of these questions, I can always count on an epiphany in the goat yard to see me through.  It's difficult when we have to be everywhere, everything, all at once.  My "not" meditation today represented the quintessence of this truth. It was a perfect reminder that in order to transcend that heavy feeling of everything, everywhere all at once, all I have to do is let go.  just relax. stop being so hard on myself.  stop trying so hard. relax. you are working so hard all of the time.  just relax.  remember, don't be meditating here.  just relax.  just sit and enjoy the moment....ok

Then boom! My whole cerebral cortex lit up again and I knew I was exactly where I needed to be.  I was in that place where everything would be healed so I just sat there, being grateful, doing nothing except letting the energies move through me as they would, to reprogram, rewire, repair and heal anything that needed attention.  It is a slow process.  I know I will need to come here many times.  Just sitting.  Not doing anything myself.  Letting go.  I sit with it until it lets me go, then I arise.  I take what's new with me into the world.

I write.  I drink coffee.  I feed the goats.  I pet the dogs.  It's still rainy.  Maybe I'll read some more books.  

Later today, I think we are going to see the last matinee of Barbie. I've heard from multiple people that it's a good movie.  And today, who knows, maybe we can all stay through the credits, just for fun, Chris, my stepdaughter Jillayne and Me.  Maybe I will ask if that would be ok.  We'll see what happens.  I'm always looking.  I'm always seeking.  Now I'm asking.  We'll see.