“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”
— Anaïs Nin
Riding the Change Wave
until I settle down
knowing that the next thing
won’t be the last I’ve found
content to know
that none of this will last
this is but a moment
and its heading for the past
the people you know
become those you’ve known
and the town never stays the same
Your hair will be different
your identity fades
you might not even keep your name
Riding the Change wave
it will come round again
nothing’s too stable
we lose a few and then we win
but I do know that that’s how
I choose to live
changing from day to day
giving what I have to give
— G A Rosenberg
“At midnight I had always been metamorphosed into a solitary, estranged wanderer.”
— Anaïs Nin
At midnight the mask comes off and I stand so naked that I am unseen. Unseen by the expectations of the day people I can be more truly myself and get lost in my shadows for hours with no fear of expectation. The freedom is welcomed even if it is a solitary pursuit for any companion in my wanderings will project a mask on even the most naked of faces comprised of who they have known me to be and even more odious who they wished me to be that I were not. In the morning world, I wake to my day life and the layers and layers of motley and machier form upon me but the night’s wind never wholly disappears.
“Why do people have confidence in their little conscious world, and such fear of the much deeper and larger one below consciousness?”
— Anaïs Nin
I once looked for mirrors. Shallow reflections of the surface part of me that might show me who I am. Nowadays I look for bodies of water that I may sit and feel myself delve below the surface. I have grown tired of iceberg consciousness. I wish to know the ninety percent that lies hidden beneath. Let me sink deep and explore. There are new countries waiting to be seen.
Blessings, G
“Don’t wait for it,’ I said. ‘Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. Create. And then the love will come to you, then it comes to you. It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened up to me.’”
— Anais Nin
Create a world for you and me
use all the tools at your command
Sing us a vision of the land
and draw us in with crayon
I’ll dramatize our situation
and we’ll share each scene
sharing the best lines
as we walk beneath the stars
We’ll dance a ballad
that only lovers may interpret
a pas de deux awakening feelings
leading to passion
We’ll create this dream together
using all of our arts
and then live there
in the universe we made
— G A Rosenberg
“We do not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art – we go there to restore our shattered selves into whole ones.”
— Anaïs Nin
I look at a painting of a boy running into the waters. Behind him is a half-finished sand castle and a bemused father.The sky is that unreal shade of blue that memory gives all sunny days. The next painting shows the same boy a few years later. He is seated in the back seat of the car and he has a sarcastic smirk on his face. He is styling with his clothes and his hair yet he doesn’t want his friends to see him with his parents. It would be uncool. The next painting shows a teenager, suitcase in hand slamming the door. He is angry and there is a finality in his expression. Through the window of the door, you can see his parents distraught faces. The next painting shows a wedding and the teenager now in his twenties is smiling tho his eyes and his smile are only for his beloved. The last picture echoes the first tho the bemused father in this case was the boy in the first as he watches his daughter run towards the waves. Funny how from the middle picture one could never guess either the first two or the last two but the story continues in its cycle.
Blessings, G
“There is a fissure in my vision and madness will always rush through.”
― Anaïs Nin
Madness is not always such a bad thing. In a world where people are becoming busier and busier running on the hamster wheel trying to live up to the necessities of job, family and social lives. So many of us keep trying to do more and more while holding accountability for less and less including their own peace of mind. It’s insane and those who refuse to keep running on the wheel and wish to be accountable for what they do and who they are are considered mad. Especially if we want to schedule less and do less in order to make this so. As the King of Siam said “It is a puzzlement.” The world won’t end if we have less meetings. Life won’t stop if we miss one dinner or one engagement.
I would rather enjoy my madness at leisure than keep hurrying towards insanity.
Blessings, G
“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”
― Anaïs Nin
Children are amazing. No matter how many questions you answer for them they still have another. Why? How? How does this work? Why do people do that? Why do people believe that?It’s great to explain things to kids to show them new ideas and watch them roll them around in their mind trying to see if they have a candy coated centre or if they make sense at all? Then something happens to them. Fear sets in that not knowing the answers will make them look foolish or thinking differently about things that other people accept will make them stand out. If these differences aren’t encouraged, then our wonderful inquisitive kids will try their best to blend in with the masses and lose that sense of wonder and mystery. Some of us may feel that we have lost it and don’t know how to get it back. A good way is to ask the questions we gave up asking long ago. Why do people act like that? How does that work? What is my reason for believing this? The more questions we ask, the more we wonder.
Blessings, G
“How can I accept a limited definable self, when I feel, in me, all possibilities?”
— Anaïs Nin
Open the byways and alleys of me
Show me the infinite
Unblock the paths
that I have yet to tread
and bring me awareness
not to be someone else
but to be me in fullness
For how can I know anything
more than I know myself?
If I truly am more than I have known
let me see it
Limitless potential
let me be it.
O scribe who stands at the crossroads
show me the way through
— G A Rosenberg
“We do not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art—we go there to restore our shattered selves into whole ones.”
— Anaïs Nin
What are your tools for self-discovery? My five go-to tools in no particular order are philosophy (which for me include spirituality and theology), art, music, meditation and psychology. The more I expose myself to the thoughts and expressions of others the more understanding I have of who I am. When I see something that clicks for me, after a period of enjoyment, I reflect on why that song, that picture or sculpture or words touch me and I learn a bit more about myself. I learn even more from things that strike discord for there lies my shadow. Any reaction to art or idea is a mirror that I reflect in. Every thing I expose myself to goes into the well. Meditation shows me what lies beneath the surface of the well. Within each of us lies both multitudes and unity and everything we encounter becomes part of the discovery of ourselves.
Blessings, G
“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”
― Anaïs Nin
And what is born of artistic excess… sometimes gold and sometimes… random images in patterns that are hopefully pleasing to the eye….
Blessings, G
Face Everything and Rise by G A Rosenberg 
SpiderMarch by G A Rosenberg 
