“When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You’re too this, or I’m too this.’ That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
— Ram Dass
Accepting bugs in nature
we just let them be
Storm clouds we can see
we seldom criticize flowers
for not being the best
we put them with the rest
organic fruit misshapened
we eat it with the rest
it never fails our test
yet why with people
do we notice every flaw
subject them to our law?
Birds and Butterflies
we love them in their flight
not one is not alright
We never look at rainbows
and criticize their glow
we tend to let them go.
yet when dealing with each other
we scrutinize each word
let nothing go unheard
Even with ourselves
we criticize, denounce
on every blemish pounce
Why can’t we accept
whoever’s in our path
with hug or a laugh
Imagine a world
where every voice is heard
not one decried absurd
rearrange our thoughts
compassion in action
will yield satisfaction.
— G A Rosenberg
A little Sunday night doggerel because I find Ram Dass’s quote to be quite profound.
Blessings, G
“Every Choice eventually leads to wisdom”
— Dan Millman
One of the most difficult aspects about having teenage kids is the knowledge that they are at a point in their lives where their choices are their own and not all of them will be the ones that we would chose. At a certain point the training wheels are off and while we can help to guide, we can no longer direct. Sometimes knowing when our roles change can be difficult.
With my son I try to look back at my own teenage years. I did some amazingly screwed-up things and yet here I am. Each mistake brought me a bit closer to where I am today and gave me a bit more self-knowledge and understanding. . Some of them I had to repeat multiple times yet I like the life I have now so somehow all the ways that I learned to do it wrong have brought me to a place where I get it a bit more right everyday. I hope my son’s life will flow smoother than mine did at times and when it does I’ll celebrate and when it doesn’t I’ll be present. Our presence, our compassion and our love are the best gifts we can give to our kids. In this, I learned from the best.
Blessings, G
“Why is patience so important?”
“Because it makes us pay attention.”
― Paulo Coelho
Patience streams
through ebb and flow
I float in my inner tube
with no place to be
and no ready destination in site
Sometimes I build up speed
as the current takes me
other times i get caught up too close too shore
and come to a standstill
until I find a way to push off again
Still I am conscious
of the tube, of the water and of the sun streaming
as it takes me at an unhurried pace
towards its end…
— G A Rosenberg
“A writer is a world trapped in a person.”
— Victor Hugo
What do you do to free the worlds trapped within you? How do you expose those inhabited spheres of light and darkness that never see the light of day? Too many of us live the lives we think we need to, going through the motions, feeling more and more numb inside. There is a teacher who loves to dance and yet few have seen her ever move a foot out of place. There is a stock investor who dreams of playing jazz guitar on the street busking. There is a young woman scraping to get by as a waitress who has the most beautiful paintings tucked away in a closet. These aren’t even the saddest stories. Even those of us lucky enough to express artistically keep the greatest part of ourselves trapped inside. Perhaps its out of fear of ridicule. Perhaps its because we are too busy trying to earn a living. Perhaps its because we feel our expressions to be too strange or not good enough.
Imagine what it would be like to free these worlds. Sometimes its just a matter of showing one other person one of yours. One other person can open the gateway to freedom for all the myriad trapped worlds. Let’s do it!! Pick a friend or if its easier a complete stranger and let them see your dream. Who knows perhaps that one person is all it takes to keep that dream alive.
It’s an easy thing to pay forward also. How many people can you get to reveal their dreams to you? How can you encourage them to keep their heart fire alive? To me this is a truly worthwhile endeavour.
Blessings, G
It’s never enough just to tell people about some new insight. Rather, you have to get them to experience it in a way that evokes its power and possibility. Instead of pouring knowledge into people’s heads, you need to help them grind a new set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way.”
— John Seely Brown, Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation
I love to share new insights with people. Most of the times when I reach a new understanding, it has been a hard won moment of clarity in a sea of questions. When people come to me and start telling me about some new understanding however, often my first impulse is to test the insight against everything I’ve heard, everything I’ve learned and everything I’ve intuited over the last several decades. The people who I have learned the most from never came to tell me their insights. They handed me the pieces and watched as I struggled to figure out what to do with them. Most often, I would feel like the neanderthals at the beginning of the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I would ram the pieces into each other, try playing with them. I would see how far I could throw them and see how they tasted. Only when about to give up in frustration, would they all fall into place and I could call the insight my own. Quite often this would spark off several more insights.
Its all too easy to criticize each other’s perceptions. How cool is it tho when we can put ourselves into each other’s heads enough to grock the ideas ourselves and use each other as springboards towards greater understanding.
Blessings, G
“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
I want to reach deeper
into the hidden caverns of myth and story.
I want to use the buried imagery
to paint mind pictures
that will echo in your deepest memories.
Too long on automatic pilot
skimming the surface, facile myths
and children’s tales oft captured before
but the snake’s energy lies within me
wanting to spring up
but only if I meet it half way.
The currents may drag me under
but if my intent’s direction is set
I’ll find my way back to the surface
with treasure in my being
to share and set you off on your own voyage….
“There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.”
— Plato
I didn’t know who she was but she released the animal inside of me. Not in the way that you might think tho my memories are hazy. Since I’ve met her tho every single dark thought I have expresses itself. I have discovered a wildness in me and have become almost feral. I can reign in my actions but the desires are there. Never have I felt so out of control. Never have I felt so free. I have greater knowledge of myself than ever before. At times I am almost grateful for this. Few people have had this upfront a view of the beast that they contain. I accept this wild man this beast so that one day I can transcend it or so I hope. Until then I tread on a narrow edge. The jury is still out on which way I’ll fall off.
— Part of a note found in an alley
Summoning by G A Rosenberg 
