Quote of the Day – October 12 2012

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Grateful for both the good and the bad times. Both have their lessons to teach. Every relationship we are in will have both kinds of lessons as a new chemical interpersonal  alchemy happens. Two or more egos and spirits combining , always some rough areas and that’s where we learn the most.
What is each moment but a new relationship.  I suppose that is as good a definition of the word mindful as that I’ve ever heard. One’s relationship with each instance, each ever present now, feeling gratitude for each lesson learned and each challenge met.
Blessings, G

 

Click on image to see full size

 


What Else Is There to Teach Him? by G A Rosenberg

 

Aquamarine by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – October 8 2012

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

 

Thinking disjointed thoughts tonight so I might  ramble at you for awhile. As if that wasn’t always the case.  I’m thinking about paths and families , both those of choice and those of birth. After all, for most of us our paths start with our families…habits we learn and habits we earn and yet our paths are our own, at most ours run up alongside others for moments or decades. I can learn from almost anyone, even people i have negative encounters with… perhaps mainly them..its more difficult at times to see the challenge and lesson to be learned from the positive ones..i tend to be too busy basking in them and enjoying them…still the lessons are there. Would a life without challenge be anywhere near as worthwhile? Somehow I doubt it..
Here’s to challenges and gratitude. Here in Canada, it’s Thanksgiving Day, the day when many of us consciously feel the gratitude that the wise make a daily part of their lives. I feel gratitude towards everyone of you reading this and those who have befriended me over the course of my lifetime and for this amazing universe (good or bad, goodies or yikes I find it all amazing) that we all are part of.
Blessings, G

 

 

Click on image to see full-size

 

Campfire by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – July 17 2012

Quiet Woman at Restaurant: When it was over, all I could think about was how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. It was a time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, and I had been a part of that. It was a gift. Life was raging all around me and every moment was magical. I loved all the people, dealing with all the contradictory impulses – that’s what I loved the most, connecting with the people. Looking back, that’s all that really mattered. “

— from the movie Waking Life ( (One of the most brilliant consciousness-provoking films I’ve seen in recent years and somehow one that resonates with what my online life feels like of late, for which i am truly grateful)

What is a web but a pattern of connecting strands working its way outwards (or perhaps inwards from another perspective?) Spiders live in them, sleep in them and catch food in them. While that hasn’t proven true in a physical sense for me I have gained so much in terms of consciousness and thought from my interactions on the web that my being feels sustained. Never in my life would I have imagined feeling so close to so many people in many cases so far away. Maybe these connections, as in a spider’s web are fragile and transitory yet still i work hard to make sure that they are mutually beneficial. I am fortunate in my existence to have found so many worthwhile teachers. Thank you.
Blessings, G

Click on image to see full-sized
Strange Journey by G A Rosenberg

 

Leaving the Nest by G A Rosenberg

Deviancy — Art For Sale

OK, I’ve done it. After numerous requests of late for ways to purchase my art and after some difficulty with pay pal I have opened up a deviantART gallery at :

http://http://wakingspirals.deviantart.com/

I like certain things about Deviant Art and dislike others but in all probability would feel that way about almost any site I found. One of the things I dislike is that there is no way to sign it so for anyone reading this, if you purchase a print on Deviant Art and wish it signed, let me know and I will send you a signed print as well (Outside of Canada there may be a small fee for shipping / handling)
I want to thank all of you who have enjoyed my work and given me the inspiration and motivation to keep on producing .
Infinite gratitude and blessings. If there is any of my art that you may be interested in purchasing or think  I should add to the gallery, please let me know.

Quote of the Day – June 2 2012

“I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers.”
― Khalil Gibran

Amazing if I have learned these things then I have to ask myself what have I been teaching? Sanity? Wisdom? Patience?. Perhaps I need to keep asking myself this at any given time. What am I teaching by my words and actions. This gets driven home to me quite often when I notice my teenage son emulating behaviours of mine that I don’t even want to admit to. Bits of my shadow self that I still haven’t worked my way through.
Still gratitude of all of these things I find to be paramount. No matter how difficult my life may be, I feel grateful for the challenges that come my way even from those who have been less than kind, less than tolerant, and less than silent. Of course grateful for the good stuff too. Always that
Blessings, G

Click on image to see full-size

In My Sights by G A Rosenberg

Flame War by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 2 2012

“If you live in a past dream, you don’t enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is. There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive. Not enjoying what is happening right now is living in the past and being only half alive. This leads to self pity, suffering and tears.”
― Miguel Ruiz

There are points in our life that stick out, usually ones with strong emotion either strong pain or strong bliss. Either one of them can be traps. We relive when someone hurt us or sometimes even worse when we hurt someone else when we could have avoided it or possibly a sublime moment with someone loved that can never be repeated. Notice I don’t say it can’t be surpassed, merely that it can’t be repeated. We relive those memories (funny how they lose fidelity with repetition a lot like old cassette tapes) over and over either trying to find the sense, what we did right or what we did wrong. Somewhere along the way we find ourselves forgetting to live.
I remember breaking up with someone whose company I really enjoyed. We had a great time together. We could talk for hours and enjoyed many of the same things. Even the sex was good. That person could not live up to the intensity of a relationship I had before that was an exercise in self-destruction that had left me wounded. I hadn’t yet given myself permission to move on. Luckily I’ve since grown up quite a bit. Still tho, I work at living in the present. To be honest, I kind of prefer it this way.
Blessings, G

Click on images to see full-size

Deserted Highway by G A Rosenberg

Fractal Net by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 1 2012

I acknowledge the privilege of being alive in a human body at this moment, endowed with senses, memories, emotions, thoughts, and the space of mind in its wisdom aspect.”
–Alex Grey

Not only do I acknowledge the privilege but gratitude flows through me for my existence. I worry at the word wisdom tho much as a dog worries at a bone. Wisdom sure feels a lot easier when dealing with the situations of others and so much harder when dealing with my own emotional storms. Perhaps that is not the time to expect wisdom. As long as I can check in with myself and know that I’m ok. That’s the funny thing isn’t it? I have had days when it felt like emotional meltdowns were happening all over the place yet each time I checked in with myself I was OK. I mean I wasn’t in any present danger. There were no immediate threats to my existence so in that moment things were ok. Perhaps five minutes later I’d be worried about some large unexpected bills or something about the kids and dogs but even then I’d check in with myself and I’d be fine. Could that be all that most stress encompasses, things in the future or things in the past and in the present moment fine??? Hmmm pretty interesting reality check. Since I came to that realization, I’ve been a lot calmer. I just have to keep reminding myself to check in.
Blessings, G

Click on image to see full-size

Spirit Wolf by G A Rosenberg

Flowing Mandala 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

Click on images to see full-size

Touching by G A Rosenberg

Silver Spiral by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – April 29 2012

“Think of the future as a series of pictures of yourself. Each picture portrays a different you, much as an actor changes his guise with makeup and mannerism. Each of these future lives in the time ahead of us just as our neighbours live in the space around us. Each friendly “neighbour” calls to us, perhaps over the backyard fence or on the telephone and invites us over. We must choose whom to visit.”
–Fred Alan Wolf

Sometimes when looking for the right quote for the day I luck out. I usually look for something that either reflects the pictures I am putting up, something I really want to write about or something that just blows me away. In the case of tonight’s quote definitely the latter. I often play the game in my head where I go back in time and talk to a younger version of myself wondering what I might say. Usually rather than advice on what to do, its some version of “Hang in there, it may be messier than you think but it will also be wilder, happier and much more joyous.” Then again, while there are many things I would change in this world, most of them involving ending or lessening the suffering of others, there is very little in my life that I would change. Even the most disastrous pain filled times have taught me, some of them lessons I have yet to fully learn but others I have and I regret none of them. I have been blessed with a life that I am truly grateful to every deity for.
However what about my future possible selves? Which one of them i manifest tomorrow is totally up to the choices I make now. The question is who do I want to see looking back at me when I look over the fence? It gives me pause for sure.
Blessings, G

Click on images to see full size

Golden Wolf by G A Rosenberg

Star Storm by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – April 27 2011

“Every time we fix something that broken, whether it’s a car engine or a broken heart, that an act of magic. And what makes it magic is that we choose to create or help, just as we can choose to harm.”
― Charles de Lint

There’s so much out there that needs fixing. So much inside of us as well. At the same time, I’ve been noticing something more and more of late. So much of finding our way to health has to do with forgiving ourselves for being hurt in the first place. We forget that we’ve placed those lessons in our path because they were what we most needed to become the people we are. How could we comfort someone who’s life is hurting if we never felt hurt ourselves? How could we relate to lost love, lost chances and lost hope and help others to heal themselves through it if we had no basis to relate? Each of my scars mental or physical throughout this life and all others have been tickets to empathy and compassion so I am grateful for them.
Blessings G

Click on images to see full-size

Watching the Fractal Sunset by G A Rosenberg

Abstract B by G A Rosenberg