“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.”
— Anna Quindlen
All of my life I have been an avid reader. I’d be the kid always walking around with the book in his hand. In class, I’d have a novel hidden under my school books and trusted to my memory to fill in the blanks in the lessons. So much that other people did and said puzzled me that I looked to the characters in books and how the writers handled their interactions to clarify the relationships in my own life and it helped. I read a lot of non-fiction and from those I gain knowledge but it is from fiction that I tend to get the most insight. From Spider Robinson’s Callahan stories I learned about the importance of empathy and sharing both joy and pain. From Frank Herbert’s Dune novels I learned about the many layers that communication happens on and how to handle it when overwhelmed by emotions. The litany against fear (http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Litany_Against_Fear) works with all emotions. From Charles DeLint’s stories I learned much about how to overcome past pain and the sheer wonder and magick that exists in our everyday life. From these and so many others I’ve learned so much that I’ve been able to apply and share with other people and I am grateful for the light that they have shone in my world.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Taurus by G A Rosenberg
Fractal Seeds in an Abstract Garden by G A Rosenberg
“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.”
— Agnès Varda
Last night I walked through your landscape. It was beautiful. Dark skies with the ocean’s strong current beneath them. Calm mountains majestic in the background and in the distance a wild forest that I long to visit. I long to swim with you in your ocean or perhaps to sail upon your waves in the moonlight. I will climb the mountains of your loneliness and visit you in your hermit’s layer. We will camp under the trees of your green forest and sing songs around the campfire.
Let’s go further. Let’s leave the first vista of your landscape behind and go beyond into the places you don’t show. It would be an eternity gladly spent and then we can explore mine as well until we find the places where they flow together.
Blessings, G
“It is not we who seek the Way, but the Way which seeks us. That is why you are faithful to it, even while you stand waiting, so long as you are prepared, and act the moment you are confronted by its demands.”
~ Dag Hammarskjöld
Along our paths, we all hit some bumps. Things happen in our life or our attitudes that make it difficult to continue forward. Perhaps we have become disenchanted with the school of thought we’ve been following. Perhaps we have been going through relationship ups and downs either with lovers or with friends. When that happens it is easy to give into despair or inertia. Instead tho, I have always believed that it is important to do the next thing. It’s ok if the road ahead isn’t clear, all we need to see is the next thing that needs doing and doing that. Eventually things will clarify and we will make that turn in our path and see the next section. Until then we just need to keep forging ahead.
Blessings, G
“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.”
— Hermann Hesse, Demian
The tide of my soul at low ebb
It seeks sustenance from mother ocean
as its sandy depths lay bare.
Soon it will come rushing back
Joys and passions renewed in the flow
as the waves compete with the sound
of rushing current
enough to drown even a man
rooted in his dreams.
In the dearth and fullness of dream
I seek wisdom from my inner void
from which the flood will come.
There are answers in the blood
A wildness and peace both in strife and balance
and a calling forth of direction
that I need heed
lest I drown in need
or go mad in sustainment
— G A Rosenberg
“Sometimes the most healing gift we can give someone is to just be a witness to the pain and chaos of their life experiences. Certainly we are incapable of explaining why the big mysteries come upon us as they do. There are times when offering explanations even adds to the confusion. Sometimes the wisest position to take is to let a friend pour out her sorrow and rage, her anger and fear – listen to the big scream – and not flinch. Just listen and let the shock waves run over you like the sounds of screaming children who will gradually calm down and fall asleep from exhaustion. Painful life passages are exhausting, especially when mixed with mystery. You don’t know when they will end – and you can even begin to believe they will never end. But they always come to an end. Screaming children always stop screaming – even the loudest ones. But you can begin to believe they can actually scream forever – and they can’t tell you why. It’s a mystery. You can only do your best to make sure nothing is seriously wrong and then make them as comfortable as possible. But imagine if you were not there… how traumatic would that be for that child? Or for a friend’ inner child that is absorbing the fear of a life transition? We are all standing in the Witness position of someone or something. It is a powerful place to stand.”
— Caroline Myss
To know someone is there. To know someone can see me pass through the fire. I can feel their wordless presence and it gives me strength. They might not know what it’s like. They may never feel this and I hope they don’t but they are there. There is an outside to this that they attest to and I know that I will find my way out of my pain and back to where they are. Even if they don’t understand. When I have passed through this may I be able to be a witness to the struggles of others so that they can know they are not alone.
Blessings, G
“… the world is a fabrication of the will. Art—always—requires visible unrealities … Let us admit what all idealists admit: the hallucinatory nature of the world. Let us do what few idealists have done: seek unrealities which confirm that nature.”
— ~ Jorge Luis Borges
Realities intersecting in hallucinatory ways
stories conflict as bubble truths touch
The truth lies in the crossroads
yet the trickster god holds sway there.
His sleight of hand confusing those
who wish to learn and
adding certainty to those who don’t
Artists fantasies intertwine between the two
interweaving different sets of facts
Sacred angels partying with bearded horned ladies
as dwarves and griffins dance
in technicolour
as the skeptical unicorn stares at bankers’ lusts.
“Our going forth to find the greater Self is by the path we know least; by losing ourselves until we find ourselves.”
— Austin Osman Spare- The Logomachy of Zos
I know what it is to feel lost. Either through not knowing the right step to take when all the choices look either deceptively good or deceptively bad or by being so flooded by contradictory information that I don’t know which way to turn. As I’ve written before, I have grown somewhat comfortable with not having all the answers and it would be vastly out of character if I was to act as if I did. Yet sometimes the questions feel more crucial. How do I help those I love to feel safe and happy? How can I help others when I don’t know which way to turn? What if after all this time discovering even a part of who I am, I find that that part is not workable in the life that I live? Sometimes it can feel pretty dark yet it is at those times that something astounding happens. I hear a voice inside my head saying “Shhhhhh, it’s not as important as you think and you will make it through.”. That voice, that inner clown mother that tells me I am taking things way too seriously and that the only way to get through anything is just flow through till I make it. If I start drowning, I just need to keep kicking. Either I’ll make it to the surface or I’ll drown trying and that will just be another beginning. Sometimes I don’t have to win, I just have to survive . It’s the giving up that will destroy me. If times are hard for awhile, that’s just what they’ll be. That practical somewhat hopeful side of me is one I haven’t seen for awhile and I’ve missed it. An old internal friend has returned and as long as I keep going will not disappear again.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Pan in the Techno Jungle by G A Rosenberg
Surrendering Her Passion For Memory by G A Rosenberg
“Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.”
— Blaise Pascal, Pensées
I, born ov the void
create my existence
beyond space, beyond time.
I seek the infinite
and reach with outstretched arms
to become both all that I am and
all that I am not.
Emerging from the void
I encompass the all.
— G A Rosenberg
We all contain the void. It manifests through the black hole of our imagination through which anything may emerge. What we can imagine, we can become. It may take many existences but as we gain in knowledge and imagination, we become more than we ever thought we could be.
Blessings, G
Taurus by G A Rosenberg 
Fractal Seeds in an Abstract Garden by G A Rosenberg 
