Responding to Need

“The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.”
― Philip K. Dick

 

There is a gift in being able to be there for others. Part of it may be an ego thing. It feels good to help. The trick sometimes is in knowing how to help. An alcoholic may appreciate money for booze when he has none but are you giving him what he needs or are you increasing his dependency? We give true help when what we do empowers another rather than makes them weaker. It seems so often that its easy to give a quick fix. Heck it takes less time than actually helping a person work through their problems. So often tho, we could help so much more by not opening our wallet but opening our hearts and our ears and learning what will truly benefit another. Perhaps it is a job offer, perhaps it is just a sounding board and sometimes it is knowing when not to help so that another can find their own way out.
I have helped in the wrong ways. I have learned that generosity with money all too often can foster dependency and resentment. I want to strengthen others with my help not weaken them. I hope to be strengthened by others in return.
Blessings, G

 

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BroadcastingBroadcasting by G A Rosenberg

 

Weaving Outside of the FrameOutside of the Frame by G A Rosenberg

Beautiful to Watch Them Grow

 

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

A youth in rebellion runs
racing with the night
and my heart races as well
at the sheer beauty
and the courage to experience self
if only in the negation
of what he’s known before
I watch torn between
the wish to be the sail
that enables his ship to catch the wind
and the need at times to be the anchor
When my own ship sailed
and I went racing off
it is those anchor moments
I cursed and later treasured
and those sail moments
to know that they believed
that I accepted gracelessly at the time
but now help me be.
He runs now by day and night
in full impulsive glory
Even rudderless he’ll make it through
May he shine among the stars.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Saluting MarsSaluting Mars by G A Rosenberg

 

ShapingShaping by G A Rosenberg

Beautiful to Watch Them Grow

 

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

A youth in rebellion runs
racing with the night
and my heart races as well
at the sheer beauty
and the courage to experience self
if only in the negation
of what he’s known before
I watch torn between
the wish to be the sail
that enables his ship to catch the wind
and the need at times to be the anchor
When my own ship sailed
and I went racing off
it is those anchor moments
I cursed and later treasured
and those sail moments
to know that they believed
that I accepted gracelessly at the time
but now help me be.
He runs now by day and night
in full impulsive glory
Even rudderless he’ll make it through
May he shine among the stars.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Saluting MarsSaluting Mars by G A Rosenberg

 

ShapingShaping by G A Rosenberg

The Heart of Blame

 

“Once you create a self-justifying storyline, your emotional entrapment within it quadruples.”
― Pema Chodron

 

Funny (or tragic depending how you look at it) the ways we find to justify our lives. Somehow in the last ten years or so, it became the in thing to validate our emotions, usually by attributing their cause to another person.
“I feel hurt because of what you said…or did…or were.”
“It’s my family, they never gave me credit or told me I was pretty and that’s why I always felt so worthless.”
We blame and blame and blame and what we do is get ourselves mired in the mud of our dysfunction.
Yeah I’m guilty of it too. Until one day it hit me that at a certain point in life (I arbitrarily picked 30 tho I believe that it can happen much earlier) you have to say. Yes these factors in my upbringing or my life or my relationship have created these buttons in me but now it is up to me to deal with them. If they remain now, its on me. Since then I have steadily (with periods of slagging off) been working on learning myself and deciding what I want to manifest. Is it easier than it sounds? Not particularly tho it seems that I have lots more energy now that I’ve stopped finding people to blame.
Not only that but once we take on the responsibility of who we are, the easier it becomes to feel compassion towards those in our past. It is an indescribable feeling when you can feel the heart of someone whom you once saw only as a villain, to understand that they were playing out their own scripts and acting from their own pain.
Blessings, G

 

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ZonedZoned by G A Rosenberg

 

Hidden DepthsHidden Depths by G A Rosenberg

There Be Dragons!

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

 

I tend to be cautious about denial. It doesn’t matter whether it is denial of someone’s insight into myself or denial of an aspect of reality that I don’t necessarily endorse. After all to avow that something does not exist takes a certain amount of arrogance. Have you truly experienced so much of reality that you can say that something conclusively does not exist? The very fact that we can conceive a concept and hold it in our minds gives it a form of de facto existence if only in the realm of ideas. From there to physically experiencing it is a short hop. Let’s bring it down to the personal. Do I truly know myself so well that I can state categorically that there is some quality perceived by others that I contain not a whit of? It seems unlikely at best and I’ve been working at knowing and understanding myself for quite awhile. The mapmaker is still staying pretty busy on that one. Therefore while I may find some things highly unlikely I will rarely if ever be willing to say that something does not exist, whether within or without.
Blessings, G

 

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Time AskewTime Askew by G A Rosenberg

 

Crystalized MandalaCrystalized by G A Rosenberg

Full-Court, Half-Court, Quarter-Court Shoot

“Your head’s like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune’s all we are.”
― Grant Morrison

 

When I was in my senior year of high school the first video games came out. I remember an early one in the student union at the University next door where my friends and I would hang out, eat snacks and study. This was a basketball game with an introductory loop like many of them had. It showed a basketball player shooting a basket at full-court, then the player would move to half-court and shoot at the basket again then to quarter-court and once again shoot. Then the sequence would begin again and run through until someone put a quarter into play.
I would watch this sequence over and over again and being of a somewhat unusual turn of mind I would try to imagine what existence was like for this tiny pixelated player. Was he bored with his endeavour? What was he thinking? On some level perhaps I could identify with him, playing out a life script that at times seemed to have as much meaning as full-court shoot, half-court shoot, quarter-court shoot and repeat. I resolved at that point that I would choose my script and change it as many times as I could. Even then I wished my life to be intentional, to have meaning.
I have learned in my life perhaps due to the lesson of that video-game basketball player to seek to recognize the patterns that I fall into and understand them and break them. Oh they still come up but one by one they are slowly evolving. As are we all
Blessings, G

 

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Remembering HomeRemembering Home by G A Rosenberg

 

Golden Apex MandalaGolden Apex by G A Rosenberg

A Shadowed Word Walk

“I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole”
— Carl G. Jung

 

Casting shadows
Auditioning everything
that I’ve discarded
so it can play its part.
If I deny it
it clings to me
If I claim it
it sings to me
that I / Not I
the parts I defy
yet at night
I know they’re there
my fear
that people will know
what I contain
it throws my meter off
Acceptance rises
and so must I
and make a plan
and make a stand
and face
what I cannot erase
that hidden self
for as I’ve been casting my shadow
it has been casting me…
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Give It A SpinGive It a Spin by G A Rosenberg

 

Cosmic TimepieceCosmic Timepiece by G A Rosenberg

Crashed

 

“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.”
― Kahlil Gibran

 

Things have gotten hectic lately with what feels like too many things coming in to sort through. As is often the case this manifested in the physical when I jumped up to answer the door and my foot caught in the chord connecting my external hard drive, the one containing all my art, to the computer. It crashed to the floor and then internally crashed. Luckily last month I backed up everything I had done up to then so relatively was lost. Still, it will take time to grab everything and restore them off of the backups which means that there will be loss. But then that’s often the problem when we have too many plates spinning at once, eventually something will crash. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It gives perspective on what’s important, what’s necessary and where the priorities lie. Most of us have too much ‘data’ and too many ‘files open’ at once and need a purge every now and then.
Blessings, G

 

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Valley of FlamesValley of Flames by G A Rosenberg

 

BurstBurst by G A Rosenberg

Ch-Ch-Changes

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

 

The world is in upheaval. Not only the external world but for many of us, it seems that changes are happening more rapidly. It takes boldness to surf through those changes instead of feeling thrown by them. It takes even more courage to welcome the changes that come with wonder. I’ve been fighting the changes in my life strongly. My son’s growing up. He has become a teenager with a teenager’s need to question authority and fight the inner battles that hormones bring. My parents are older with the attendant health issues that often come with that. My areas of focus tend to move around and sometimes they ricochet. More and more tho rather than standing against the wind and either being in denial or resistance of the changes, I am letting them buffet me towards new ways of being.
The Death trump in the Rider-waite tarot shows the figure of Death on a pale horse. Death of course does not represent literal Death as much as transformation and the card itself speaks of different approaches to transformation. The trampled King on the card believed that his power and wealth would save him from having to change and he got trampled. The Priest, next in line believes that the dogma that he adheres to is eternal and he is soon to suffer the same fate. The maiden sits in surrender to the horseman tho her face is turned away. She still resists the idea of change no matter how inevitable she finds it. The child hands Death a flower. In innocence, we face change with the same wonder that we face everything else. It is only when we become older, we lose that innocence. May we each return to it.
Blessings, G
 

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Abstracted Spirits in the stormAbstracted Spirits in the Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

ExpansionExpansion by G A Rosenberg

Random Thoughts of Reality, Pain and Love — Consciousness Stream

 

“I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.”
― Groucho Marx

 

Reality has its moments…the whole gamut of reactions, sad,mad, glad, joy around every corner but gut wrenching pain as well… not only feeling our pain but the pain of those we love and the more we open ourselves to love the more pain we feel… the more joy too and those moments, those special moments where everything makes sense and the universe fits together we need to hold onto particularly at the moments when we half convince ourselves that we are alone and want to turtle-like pull into our shells of pain… when we feel hurt by those who lash out with their own pain because hurting us gives them a way of externalizing it. It is a strange way of saying ‘I love you’..this projectile compassion…perhaps it is a step to the real thing…we can do it too.. project the love we feel onto them letting it spill outwards…being a mirror not of the injury but the health…
Blessings, G

 

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Biting ThroughChewing Through Adversity by G A Rosenberg

 

Gaia EmergingGaia Emergent by G A Rosenberg