Developing Our Wings

 

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

 

OK. We’ve left our comfort zone. What do we do now? Well, to start off with, look around. What does what we’re doing look like? We’ve never done it before, never been to this place so we have no map. Let’s make one as we go along so that we can either find our way back or to describe to others what we see. It’s amazing how much more real something becomes when we describe it to others.

Since what we are mapping is a new experience, a new headspace and we experience these things through our senses that is what our map is made from. What am I looking at? What sound am I hearing? What am I feeling? What thoughts does it engender in me? Making maps, experiencing new things is fun. If it doesn’t feel like fun it is usually because you are too busy trying to locate yourself on an old map and forgetting the wonder you had as a child when you were experiencing something for the first time.

Blessings, G

 

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Near Noon at the Sepia BeachNear Noon at the Sepia Beach by G A Rosenberg

 

 

ObserverObserver by G A Rosenberg

The End of the Known

 

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

Where on your map of reality does it say “Here there be Dragons?” What mental guardians do you place to guard your comfort zone so that you avoid straying out of it?
Far too often I use what people think of me or will think of me to keep myself in my place of avoiding risk, of avoiding growth. This remains true despite the fact that time and time again I have demonstrated to myself that I can take risks without risking the ill feelings of others.

It has become a truism that only outside of our comfort zone do we grow with any form of rapidity. Yet we place these fearsome playful pets there anyway. Why? When did trying new things become frightening? As kids we love to explore and many of us lose that somehow. Is it that as we get older we have so much more to lose? Not only in a material sense but in a personal story sense. “I have told myself that this is how things are for years, if I start believing they are another way, then how will I ever be sure about anything?” BINGO!!!! The truth is when it comes right down to it, that we can never be 100% sure tho by a combination of examining new ideas and comparing our old ones against it as well as employing a bit of sense and the wisdom of discernment we may evolve truer understandings of the nature of reality. Of course to do that we have to be willing to open our minds to possibility and yes vanquish some dragons along the way.
Blessings, G

 

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ApproachingApproaching by G A Rosenberg

 

Sun WebSun Web by G A Rosenberg

Loyal Books

 

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway

 

Today I went to one of my favourite old bookstores. It’s Eclipse books in Bellingham, Washington. Two full floors of bookshelves from floor to ceiling filled with books. Then there are the books that don’t fit on the shelves so they are stacked neatly on the floor, all over the floor of the store. It reminds me a bit of most of the old apartments I had as a young adult.

I’ve always loved reading. At a time in my life when I was less than socially adept, books comprised most of the friendships I had. There are still fictional characters I have late night conversations with, their viewpoints coming in surprisingly handy.
One of the coolest things about Eclipse books is that I find books there that I don’t seem to find in any other used book stores anywhere. Books I haven’t seen in years. They and several more common ones comprise, well if they were music, I would call it a soundtrack to my life so let’s call it a backdrop.

There were the first three books that along with a class I took, gave me my start at reading the tarot when I was 18: Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack, Tarot a handbook for the Apprentice by Eileen Connolly and The Book of Thoth by Alister Crowley. There were also several other tarot books I’ve read over the years since. There were the Carlos Castaneda books which recounted his apprenticeship with the Nagual Sorcerer Don Juan that was the jumping off points for my studies about the same time into Theosophy,the Kaballa, witchcraft, Ceremonial Magick and quite a few other areas.

Over in Fiction, there was On the Road by Jack Kerouac, a book that captured my heart and my imagination even earlier and which no doubt led to some later cross-country hitchhiking trips I was to undertake, The World According to Garp and the Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving which made me feel with their outlandish so true to life characters that my life wasn’t quite so strange after all or if it was I was not alone. Still I Persist in Wondering by Edgar Pangborn, one of the finest short story collections I have ever read and one of the most heart stretching and heart wrenching. Lots of other Science Fiction that I also loved, Asimov, Ellison, Spider Robinson, Roger Zelazney, Ursula Le Guin, Robert Heinlein filled the walls looking down on me as if to say, “Where have you been? It’s great to see you back, would you like so spend some time?”

Walking back up the stairs, I found a few old self-help books buried in my memory and displayed, among them Ira Progoff’s In a Journal Workshop, an amazing book for organizing one’s inner life through writing and journalling.
Sometimes the best thing about seeing old friends is the realization of how much you’ve grown since the last time you saw each other. What’s even more fun is realizing there is still more things to discover with them beyond the sharing of memories.
Blessings, G

 

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MarkedMarked by G A Rosenberg

 

MaelstromMaelstrom by G A Rosenberg

Make Something Beautiful

” If no matter what is given to you, you can make something beautiful out of it, that is intelligence.”
— Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

 

Funny, I read this quote and I knew it was what I wanted to write about or at least what I wanted to share for tonight. Yet it starts a whole string of quotes off in my head and its tempting to just list the words of others to show why I am moved by this one but I feel I want to tackle this one. I have seen people who have been given so much yet their lives were ugly things, lacking in either appreciation or integrity. I have seen people with almost nothing, beautiful in their pain and this beauty so truthful it made me weep.
So in this I definitely see beauty as being a function of integrity.

What about intelligence as Sadhguru says? Fostered by archaic systems of education many of us tend to have very fixed, very limited ideas of what intelligence is. To me, it goes beyond tests of IQ or the ability to do complex maths or be able to analyze a block of text tho all of those things may be a part of it. To me, its a matter of aesthetics.

It’s one thing to know that a squared plus b squared = c squared, its quite another to have an appreciation for how this relationship works in our physical universe and another to be able to create using this principle. This expression of mathematical understanding to create is beautiful as is any form of pure self-expression. Perhaps integral sext-expression is the link between beauty and intelligence. I find that concept pleasing.
Blessings, G

 

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Shooting FlameShooting Flame by G A Rosenberg

 

Spiralling FountainSpiralling Fountain by G A Rosenberg

Unfold Your Own Myth

 

“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
― Rumi

 

“This always happens to me. I have everything going my way and then bam… the universe laughs at me and my life falls apart”
“I can’t win for losing”
“Life’s a bitch”
No, No, No, No. NO NO NO!!!!!!
Are these the stories we want to tell ourselves? Really? We can do better than that?
“My life keeps getting better all the time”
“No matter how bad things feel, I know I have these things that make me happy”
“I feel grateful for being alive in a world with those flowers or eyes and a smile like that girl / man had.”
Do the above sound overly syrupy or sentimental to you? I can see how but seriously no matter how bad things have gotten for me, pretty consistently the difference between happiness and anger and despair has come down to a choice.
Try it, if you feel like things have been rough for you lately, ask yourself these questions at the end of each day. What was the most beautiful thing I saw today? What made me laugh? If nothing else what am I thankful for? What is the highest outcome I could hope for tomorrow? Keep asking yourself those questions and watch your life start to change.
blessings, G

 

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EmotiveEmotive by G A Rosenberg

 

ReleaseRelease by G A Rosenberg

Where My Work Lies…

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion–and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies.”
― Ram Dass

 

Lately I’ve been hearing people talking a lot about what resonates with them and what doesn’t. Quite often they say it in the context of dismissing or not engaging with anything that doesn’t resonate with them. Not everything is going to click with everyone and that’s understandable. I am puzzled that I don’t hear people asking themselves WHY something doesn’t resonate.

Usually when I have a knee jerk reaction to something especially one of revulsion, it is because it is hitting either some kind of trigger for me or it’s hitting me in a blind spot. Case in point, when people talk about certain issues with families, I tend to turn it into a joke because it rings too close to the truth. If somebody presses it, I will change the topic of conversation. I could have said the topic didn’t resonate with me but I was in fact avoiding a truth about how I relate to my family. Once I started asking why or more properly what might be causing this reaction I opened myself up to a valuable lesson. At the very least, using my reactions as a basis for self-inquiry rather than avoidance has made me a lot more compassionate and to have a lot more confidence in and knowledge of myself.
Blessings, G

 

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Star HawkStar Hawk by G A Rosenberg

 

Flame mistFlame Mist by G A Rosenberg