Saying Farewell to 2014

 

“Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.”
— Hermann Hesse

 

The hours are closing in on another calendar year. It’s been a year of art and growth and travel. I have had lots of time to reflect on relationships and how I relate to people and while much of it has been an awakening, it has been somewhat painful as well. I finished one major art project (The editing on the Tarot book is almost done, honest) and begun another one. I got to see Europe and I got to see the city I live in from the perspective of a tourist and found it all beautiful.
The next year will bring more of the same. I have some ideas of what I want to do career wise and marketing wise and my intent is to see it out. I wish to study more, meditate more, love more and spend more time in that still sanctuary inside of myself. May 2015 be a joyful, enlightening, enlivening, healthy and well-lived year for us all.
Blessings, G

 

To Follow is some of my favourite art pieces from this past year:

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Aspects of NeedAspects of Need by G A Rosenberg

 

Hidden LaddersHidden Ladders by G A Rosenberg

 

AUGNMN MadeBuffeted Om by G A Rosenberg

 

Immersed in his SurroundingsImmersed in His Surroundings by G A Rosenberg

 

Outside ViewThe View Outside by G A Rosenberg

 

Reaching Through to Make the Abstract RealReaching Through to Make the Abstract Real by G A Rosenberg

 

Field StudyField Study by G A Rosenberg

 

The Show That Never EndsThe Show that Never Ends by G A Rosenberg

 

TouchTouch by G A Rosenberg

 

Judgement -The AeonJudgement-The Aeon by G A Rosenberg

 

Time, Life, Death, The MaidenTime, Life, Death, The Maiden by G A Rosenberg

 

Befriending the Sun (Amon)Befriending the Sun (Amoun) by G A Rosenberg

 

Spirits Moving Over and Through the WatersSpirits Moving Over and Through the Waters by G A Rosenberg

 

Lord of the GladeLord of the Glade by G A Rosenberg

 

Casting Shadows

 

“Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow.

Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others. Instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations.

The same way old painters would sit in a tiny dark room and trace the image of what stood outside a tiny window, in the bright sunlight.

The camera obscura.

Not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

 

To see ourselves as others see us? How about to see ourselves as we are and to see others as they truly are with the shadows stripped away? What would it be like to be so clear in ourselves that we can look at another in full joy and awareness of them rather than as the distorted reflection of things we need to work out in ourselves? That self-clarity is what I work towards every day and what I try to invoke in myself for what is ritual for but developing self-knowledge of each aspect of our existence so that we can work it out without having to use another person as a guinea pig? My big push in this next year will be to gain as much of that clarity as I can both with myself and others and to cast the most minimal shade possible.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

At Peace Among Strange OmensAt Peace Among Strange Omens by G A Rosenberg

 

Shared VisionShared Vision by G A Rosenberg

 

Miscommunicating Confusion

 

“But how can I explain, how can I explain to you?
You will understand less after I have explained it.”
— T.S. Eliot

 

Communication between people is at best a tricky business at the best of times. When our emotions flare up it becomes near impossible. We hear things that the other person didn’t intend and what we intended to say gets garbled and comes out sideways. More sincere love may have been expressed with the words, “I hate you.” then were ever expressed with its corollary (I don’t say opposite because hate is a form of love not its opposite and that is the topic of a much longer blog entry). Yet still, how do we explain ourselves to others when we are working our feelings out for ourselves? Chances are what we’ll communicate is our own confusion and many of us are all too good at that.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Extradimensional MallardExtradimensional Mallard by G A Rosenberg

 

AndrealphusAndrealphus by G A Rosenberg

 

Dare in Your Garden

 

“Plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom.”
― Ken Kesey

 

Lose your fear of being different
Dance to your drummer’s beat
no matter how different and strange.
Live in the garden of your own design
and nourish the plants that no one has seen before
Let them grow wild and free
as your dreams dark and mysterious.
Be concerned only with the ways you conform
that are not you.
The things you are for others
that are not your true self.
Those are the weeds in your garden.
Roll naked in your tall grasses
and invite others to make love under your stars
Embrace your strange universe
in the knowledge it is singular
Feel the joy of who you are.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Lady PhoenixLady Phoenix by G A Rosenberg

 

Camouflaged SnakeskinCamouflaged Snakeskin by G A Rosenberg

 

In-Between Times, In-Between Places

 

“The crossroads is the place where all paths begin. Crossroads are primal places of passage, at which the axis that links the underworld with the upperworld intersects this transitionary world on which we walk. As with all areas of liminality, the crossroads is a place of physical and spiritual danger. here the wayfarer must decide on which direction he or she must take. The usual hard and fast distinction between the physical and the non-material worlds here appears less certain, and the chance of encountering something supernatural is more likely. in classical times, crossroads were sanctified with a herm, an image of Hermes, the god of traffic and trade. this mercurial deity, who indicates the right road and guides the traveler’s footsteps, was the generic of the particular spirit of each individual crossroads, places where magical changes can be enacted.”
— Nigel Pennick- The Eldritch World

 

I have always been a man of the crossroads. Like a spider in the centre of a web, I like looking at all the possible paths and seeing as far as I can down each of them. I wander a bit down each one before being pulled back to the centre. It is the in between spaces that I like the most. The best negotiations and trades can happen in the middle of different states of being as each one has something to contribute to the mixture. At dawn, you have night’s quiet mixed with the light of the coming day. At twilight, you have the shadows that stimulate the imagination as the day’s last works are completed.
You can find me wandering between the different periods of my life, past and possible future in my mind as my words and art seek to combine that which was and is and that which exists in a different realm.
Come to the centre of the web where the crossroads of myself and you meet and we can talk about how we can combine experience to become something greater than either was before we met.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Wandering PastWandering Through by G A Rosenberg

 

CimeiesCimeies by G A Rosenberg

 

You Understand…

 

“I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Madman

 

You understood my secret self
and took away my refuge.
No longer could I hide
behind the unknowable
I had to step out
and claim sanity’s burden
within your knowing smile.
There are those who revel
in being unknown
while they clamour
at fools’ innocence
Not knowing you cannot have it both ways
Your have made a window in my airless room
and my heart forgives you.

 

Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

No Rescue RequiredNo Rescue Required by G A Rosenberg

 

A Tree Remains in the ForestA Tree Remains in the Forest by G A Rosenberg

 

Drifting Thoughts on Some Eve….

 

“It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind.”
— H. P. Lovecraft “The Festival

 

I make no claims on this holiday nor does it make any on me. Oh there will be presents yet this day in my youth was what my friends did rather than light candles and eat chocolate coins. I’d see their trees and eat their cookies but felt an odd disconnect. We had a fire in our fireplace and no one was gonna brave that to put toys under a nonexistent tree.
For the past several years, I did the family thing. Tho my personal beliefs (long shed of menorah rituals as well tho some of mine still used candles) did not encompass this night, my partner did so I played the pretend game for the kids tho they seemed to worship the man in the red suit and I laughed at the dyslexic joke and I decorated trees and gave tribute to my kids and the spirit of familial warmth and material avarice.
Now the kids are about grown, well beyond beliefs in reindeer and the disconnect returns. I pay honour to the changing seasons and the annual balance and swing of light and dark. Yet this particular day I still feel a bit of a disconnect. it seems more construction and the motions that people go through not very joyous as much as a need for completeness. I tend to prefer a bit more authenticity in my rituals. I know that that is my responsibility to find it and I do yet that was days ago.
I will not force myself into joy or connection. I take joy in moments and not in dates and I wish everyone the joy of the moment. Still in the quiet echo of my thoughts, I let the day drift by observing but unobservant.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Playing the AnglesPlaying the Angles by G A Rosenberg

 

Aztec SunAztec Sun by G A Rosenberg

 

RepercussionsRepercussions by G A Rosenberg

 

Doing It.

 

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
— Leonardo da Vinci

 

Are we responsible to act on the truth that we know? Is it enough to just acquire knowledge and understanding for its own sake or do we need to do something with it? What good is any amount of knowledge if one does not do anything with it. It is rather like having a library of books one has never read or have access to millions of hours of computer time and use it to play video games and nothing else. This next year will be a quest to actualize my knowledge, to use it to help myself and others to reach new levels of being and fulfilment. It all begins with a decision each moment to live up to one’s potential. From experience, this is harder than it may appear but if I can make the decision to move forward a bit each day I will see how far this can go.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Lost in an Electric HazeLost in an Electric Haze by G A Rosenberg

 

GridWorkGrillwork by G A Rosenberg

Acceptance… A consciousness Stream

 

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
— Carl Jung

 

Accepting the facets that show and the ones that haven’t.
Accepting sanity and insanity and knowing that the distinction is perception
Accepting the shadow and the light and the interplay between the two
Accepting the aging physical, the loss or change of aesthetic
Accepting the thoughts and emotions that i call the dark when despair washes over and greyness covers everything.
Accepting all gods and demons and realizing there is another matter of perception
Accepting the family teaching and the cultural conditioning and the mad beast that rattles against the cage and the sheep that doesn’t
Accepting the all and the nothing
Accepting that all of this and so much more is myself…
Blessings, G

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

SigilSigil by G A Rosenberg

 

Constructing A ViewConstructing A View by G A Rosenberg