“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
“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
“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ”
― C.G. Jung
Tuning in, turning on, tuning to, Are we ever striving towards perfect pitch and perfect tune? Is there not beauty in cacophony? Are we tuning to each other, the universe or both? Are we tuning to our own subconscious? What kind of harmonies go on beneath the surface in notes we may never hear until they become conscious? I heard your song the other day and wanted it to blend with mine. How do we agree which not to tune to? What is the universal note and how do we denote it? Does it sound like an Om spoken by every being simultaneously ?
“I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.”
― Jack Kerouac
“Stop this ride and let me climb off.” I tell this to the conductor who is also me. He gives me a weary look and slows things down. He knows how often I have asked this before only to demand things start up again as soon as it came to a complete stop. Do I know my own mind? Better than most but I need to know it from the outside to see if TARDIS-like it expands eternally internally. The ride pauses if not stops completely and I grit my resolve and leap off. I hit the ground or I would if I wasn’t suddenly falling through the clouds. How often I’ve watched them outside an airplane window wishing somehow I could walk in that solid-looking illusory kingdom. It
s colder and moisture than I expected and not nearly as solid when you fall rain like. The ground comes rushing up to me and I have always been terrifying of falling or is that landing? Just like the ride tho, I slow to a float just above ground level. I step down.
There is a fire there. I sit down by the fire and look out and the stars are spectacular. They shift patterns and colours and I find myself entranced. At first I avoid inner quietude by naming unknown constellations but slowly out there lost in immensity my breathing slows. I let thoughts cross my mind without chasing after them. People pop in and pop out but they don’t stay long and after all its only me. Slowly I find peace and resolve.
“My skin is kind of sort of brownish pinkish yellowish white. My eyes are greyish blueish green, but I’m told they look orange in the night. My hair is reddish blondish brown, but its silver when its wet, and all the colors I am inside have not been invented yet.”
― Shel Silverstein
Unlimited Potential
We may reach for stars that do not yet exist
or seek mountains yet to emerge from the sea.
We contain multitudes of possibilities
Some which have never expressed before.
What colours are your dreams?
What is their texture?
We each possess unspoken languages
with ideas unuttered
Do we reach for our shadows to create?
Do we seek someone to sew them on for us
or do we let them fly free.
Draw with your many-hued pen
and express
a new being never seen before.
Blessings, G
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot…”
― Robert A. Heinlein
It seems to me that there is a difference between intentional and unintentional rudeness. When people are rude intentionally most often they are trying to make a point. “I feel anger towards you and want you to know it.”, “I am afraid or uneasy and I don’t want you to know it” or “I find you ridiculous and / or self important and I want to show it.” Each of these three show a special consideration for the object of their rudeness. A fourth case of intentional rudeness would be “I am demonstrating our relative importance by showing I can be rude to you.” This also in its way demonstrates consideration. In each case it is a form of communication, perhaps dubious in execution but shows awareness of the other person.
Unintentional rudeness however is almost the opposite. It involves being so preoccupied with whatever one is doing that the other person does not even register. It could be as simple as a teenager texting on their cell phone to a clerk in a store, being so busy modelling or hoping for a particular type of customer to approach them that everyone else gets dismissed. This is the type of rudeness that I believe Mr. Heinlein referred to and is becoming more and more prevalent in our culture. We have lost touch with the niceties. Everything from inquiring about how the person you are talking to is doing to holding doors for another, even down to saying please and thank you. Since most of us are raised with these niceties drummed into us, it causes a certain amount of cognitive dissonance every time we avoid them. It definitely involves a loss of empathy and awareness that is crucial if we are ever to approach maintaining this world as a fit place to live.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Strange Shades of Opal by G A Rosenberg
Worlds Within Worlds, A Flower Grows by G A Rosenberg
“Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. (from ‘Instructions’)”
― Neil Gaiman
Trusting my story often means surfing through the plot twists… I’ve learned that no matter what happens that I am still alive and that anything that seems worse will often improve… if a plot twists ends up with me leaving the party (dying) than this may have to be rethought… Not every good deed goes unpunished and every bad turn becomes a teacher…especially if you see it as furthering the plot…perhaps that is the secret to perspective..see even the bad things that happen as part of the story…perhaps this may be an advisor as well. For every decision that comes our way ask yourself “Does this serve the story?” I’ve heard worse advice..and if you believe that this is only one of perhaps an infinite amount of stories we will experience, perhaps not even one of the better ones or perhaps the most sublime, perspective increases… either way enjoy the tale.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Her Spirit Within the Wolf Comforted Him by G A Rosenberg
“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”
― Vincent van Gogh
Normality is a comfortable walk? Perhaps for some, I have never found it so but then it seems it is a road I have oft missed. I stand estranged from most it seems, the Fool on the hill, the Joker in the deck, ever leaping and having thoughts that others don’t. Not necessarily clearer thoughts or better ones but different. Still they suit me and if I find that my thoughts and fancies keep me alone even when surrounded by loved ones well, that happens too. The more mainstream I have tried to be, the more I pave my road, the more flowers and weeds grow through. Perhaps paving in grape jelly is not the way to go? Seriously, or maybe frivolously I know that my road being its own that it probably is normal for me and others well enough have stuck with me that they must get some entertainment even if its just the strange colours.
Blessings, G
“See I’m Imagination. I’m Real, and I’m the best friend you ever had. Who do you think got you all this cool stuff?
The clothes you’re wearing, the room, the house, the city that you’re in. Everything in it started out in the human imagination”
— Alan Moore, Promethea
Through our imagination we create. Without the ability to imagine a finished result would we do anything volitionally? We imagine each step of the way the results of our actions and then decide our next actions on how well the results matched what we imagined and how we picture the result of our modifications. Our art and our speech are the expressions of our imagination. Everything we do and basically everything we allow ourselves to be. Ultimately we are all magicians using our will to express our imaginations.
Blessings, G
“An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. “Can they be brought together?” This is a practical question. We must get down to it. “I despise intelligence” really means: “I cannot bear my doubts.”
― Albert Camus
Every idea followed to its end will eventually lead to a paradox. I believe its possible that a symptom of various types of maturity is one’s ability to be comfortable with paradox. The witness watches it all. Our thoughts flow and chase each others’ tail and the witness sees. We cry because our own sense of personal injustice came into conflict with that of a loved one and the witness sees that too. We have so much knowledge at our finger tips and we spend so much time clinging to ideas and thoughts to the exclusion of others, trying to decide right and wrong rather than to try to integrate and learn from it all. Lewis Carroll had it right. Believe six impossible things before breakfast. But then ask. Why do I believe that these are impossible and does believing them affect how possible they are? Perhaps that would be a question best asked of your local clergyman tho the answer may be lacking. My thoughts tonight bounce around like a pinball tho occasionally the machine lights up.
Blessings, G
Give It a Spin by G A Rosenberg 
