Tag: gifts

The Gift of Pain

 

“Pleasure blocks, but pain clears the way of inspiration. Tagore says: ‘When the string of the violin was being tuned it felt the pain of being stretched, but once it was tuned then it knew why it was stretched’. So it is with the human soul. While the soul goes through pain, torture and trouble it thinks that it would have been much better if it had gone through life without it. But once it reaches the culmination of it then, when it looks back, it begins to realize why all this was meant: it was only meant to tune the soul to a certain pitch.”
~Hazrat Inayat Khan

 

I felt the pain of loneliness
until I realized the gift of my own company
and learned connection to those I met along the way.
I felt the pain of hunger
until I knew how good food could taste.
I felt the pain of jealousy
until I realized my own worth

 

Everything that has hurt me
has brought me greater strength.
Every tear I shed
watered the ground I walked on
and nurtured life
Everything that laid me low
ultimately raised me up in truer ways
Every time my heart was sick
healing found its course.

 

Blessings, G </h4
 

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Acropolis ShadowAcropolis Shadow by G A Rosenberg

 

Opening of WaysOpening of Ways by G A Rosenberg

 

Open Questions

 

“Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.”
— Robert Anton Wilson

 

Are you letting your life flow? Are you remaining open to possibility? Do you accept every person as they are as a gift that the universe and or your higher self has given you? Can you shut off the inner voice that all too often is saying “yes but…” and turn it around to say “yes and…?” Do you reject dreams and hopes or do you encourage them? The intellect tends to discern and discriminate showing us the differences between things, breaking them down. Our intelligence operating at peak capacity accepts all and encourages us to bring it all together. How open can we be? How open can we afford to be which also begs the question how open can we refuse not to be?
Blessings, G

 

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TeacherTeacher by G A Rosenberg

 

Frosty CoronaFrosty Corona by G A Rosenberg

 

Gifts of the Past

 

“Often it is the gifts of our past that allow us to see our way into the future”
–Randall Wolfe

 

Sometimes when we find ourselves facing self-doubt or lack of confidence about the future we think of something from our past and it gives us the momentum to go forward again. It maybe something a beloved relative or friend told us. It may be a favourite song or story or toy that reminds us of a happier and more hopeful time allowing us to once again move forward. Just the memory whether it pops into our mind or has some sensual stimulus (the aroma of apples and cinnamon cooking or the feel of an old stuffed animal) can install in us the will to move forward.
Blessings, G

 

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Endlessly Falling
forgetting what brought me here
I wonder where I’ll land.

Journey DownJourney Down by G A Rosenberg

 

Firbird, renew me
burn my fears away
restoring my soul
making me whole

 

FirebirdFirebird by G A Rosenberg

 

Worlds and Stars I offered
yet she was not impressed
for she wanted my universe
and would take nothing less

 

In the end I settled
for giving her my heart
Not realizing it was
what she asked for from the start

Offered the WorldOffered the World by G A Rosenberg

Gifts

 

“The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.”
― O. Henry

 

A friend I considered wise once told me that the if something is truly a gift than it is something that inherently belongs to the person receiving it. In that way a true gift is more in the nature of returning something to its rightful owner, restoring a balance in a way.
If that’s so then the gift I would like to give to everyone reading this is the gift of your best self, the self that acts from your deepest purpose even when having fun. I give you the gifts of joy and bliss because those are ours inherently and of course I give you love in the deepest sense meant by the sanskrit word prem, which in effect is the love that connects all of our beings and which to my understanding is kind of the crazy glue that binds us all together.
Blessings, G

 

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solstice-with-the-triple-goddess-1 Greetings

Solstice With the Triple Goddess by G A Rosenberg

 

Making the RoundsMaking the Rounds by G A Rosenberg

 

Questing

“What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one? Perhaps that you’re searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don’t find the time for finding?”
― Hermann Hesse

 

It’s so romantic to imagine ourselves on a quest and so many things to quest for. We quest for love. We quest for truth. We quest for power. We quest for understanding. We might follow clues around like Hansel and Gretel following breadcrumbs until the trail comes to an end. We feel ourselves ennobled on the quest as if we are doing something important. Yet we abandon possible friends because we feel they don’t understand the importance of our undertaking. Perhaps one of these friends may have become something more but “sorry my dear I quest for love”. We abandon insights because they are not big enough or strong enough to match the Truth we seek. We surrender partial understanding or discard it because it is not the whole thing. We miss that partials can grow. While it is true that there is always more to find, why do we so often miss the gifts along the way?
Blessings, G

 

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Star ChambersStar Chambers by G A Rosenberg

 

Smokey Psychedlia2Smokey Psychedelia by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – July 22 2012

““I will follow my instincts, and be myself for good or ill.”
― John Muir

 

Internal Dialogue

 
“Tonight I add another blue sky piece to fit into the puzzle. ”
“What puzzle?”
“The puzzle of my understanding”
“Understanding of what?”
“Y’know life. the universe. everything”
“Ah that puzzle. OK what is it”
“The will to exceptionality
When each one of us (each being) is exceptional and has a purpose why do so many of us need to feel that we are ‘more special’ than anyone else?”
This goes beyond the personal to me (tho you wouldn’t believe how many people i have met who felt that they personally above all others were touched by God over the years)
it goes to the tribal, the ‘chosen’ people, Jehovah’s witnesses etc
all exceptional and all exclusive…
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this meme of late.
i get that we all need to feel recognized, valued like we have something unique to offer but why so often does that mean ‘I am special but all of you are not?’ It seems to be a symptom so i want to look at what the healthy model would be
it seems to look a lot like “we each have gifts unique to us that we share with each other’
This works on almost every level, individual, group, tribal, cultural, species, universal and yet why do so many people (and tribes) seem to feel that their gifts are diminished if they acknowledge those of others.
Aside from practicing it ourselves, how do we get to that healthy point?”
“I dunno, man”

 

To be continued (or should I say fit into place)….
Blessings, G

 

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Cave by G A Rosenberg

 

Indiglow by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – April 30 2012

““When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn’t make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. “It’s all right” we whisper, “I’m here, I love you.” and we lie: “I’ll never leave you.” For just a moment or two the darkness doesn’t seem so bad.”
― Neil Gaiman

OK. The above seems like an odd quote for the evening. Yet it seems somewhat apt. The rain is falling outside which will mean the dogs’ walks will be brief as neither share my affinity for walking in storms. On a dark rainy night, I think of times that friends have called me up or these days far more often messaged me needing to talk to be if not held physically, held cybernetically and told that “Yes, things would be OK, were OK as a matter of fact and that there was no knot that couldn’t be worked through. Easy enough to say and being optimistic by nature easy enough to believe. What an incredible gift to be able to be there for someone when I’m needed! I know far too well what its like to feel that taste of ashes in my mouth and that there were no answers and just knowing that another person was there helped.
I disagree with Mr. Gaiman’s quote in one way tho. I don’t believe that if we tell someone “I’ll never leave you” that its necessarily a lie. There have been many nights in the eternal now and many of them are still going on. The much-needed wisdom of friends and of strangers has stayed with me and I can feel the echo of their words in my mind therefore they have never left. If I have been of any use to anyone in that state, perhaps I am with them still.

This past week I have been working on being appreciative and grateful for the gifts that I feel every day. I have found this to be amazingly powerful and it’s additive. I keep finding more and more things to be grateful for. Perhaps one of the most important would be how grateful I’ve been to survive the rough times and to on occasion made a difference to others going through them.
Blessings,
G

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Touching by G A Rosenberg

Silver Spiral by G A Rosenberg

Renegotiating Reciprocity

This afternoon we had lunch with Norman and his wife Emma. Norman is among other things a family therapist. One of the things that came up in the conversation was the term Renegotiating Reciprocity. That term has spent the rest of the day kind of dancing around in my skull. It seems to have so many ramifications and defines so many things for me. After all what is our spiritual journey if not a constant renegotiation of reciprocity between ourself and the universe. As our capacity increases, so does our responsibility. We receive more and we give more, more light, more knowledge, more love. Also noteworthy is how we renegotiate reciprocity with ourselves and our own being. This is definitely contained in our relationship with the universe (from many viewpoints it may indeed be our relationship with our own being may BE our relationship with the universe.
The list goes on and on. The more awareness we have within any relationship (universe, being, deity, boyfriend, girlfriend, parent, child), the more the idea of reciprocity comes up.
It is not so much a duty or obligation to me as a necessity. The more I have been given, the more I need to give back, if not to the source of my gifts than to whomever I can. As my needs and my capacity change, than what i can and need to give out changes.