Tag: Joseph Campbell

Quote of the Day – February 19 2013

“The cave you fear to enter
holds the treasure you seek.
Fear of the unknown is our greatest fear.
Many of us would enter a tiger’s lair
before we would enter a dark cave.
While caution is a useful instinct, we lose
many opportunities and much of the
adventure of life if we fail to support
the curious explorer within us.”

— Joseph Campbell

 

Fear tends to show us the areas in which we most need to grow. I remember conversations that I’ve had about how I relate to people and how uncomfortable I became having them. I discovered that I have a fear of being viewed as the bad guy and this was often because I lack the confidence of my convictions and even when something seemed off to me I refused to say it. I have become much better of late at speaking my truth even when I might offend someone I’m speaking to. Getting there meant having to look at it and see how being agreeable rather than honest was a survival trait I grew up with. I know tho that I have still other inner caves I have yet to enter tho am getting more and more into the whole psychic spelunking thing.
What inner caves seen dangerous to you?
Blessings, G

 

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Country NightCountry Night by G A Rosenberg

 

HiveHive Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 13 2013

“We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”
— Joseph Campbell

 

What is that rapture? What does it mean to have inner life? It means questions for sure and answers that lead off into more questions? It means witnessing the behaviour of the self and that of others, not withholding judgement for we all judge but watching that judgement as well, knowing that it can be faulty. It means honesty and a struggle to be honest even if that honesty may cause pain. That one I get stuck on often. But how can we have integrity without honesty and what does our response to the outside world matter if our inner life contains too many lies?
Blessings, G

 

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Storm FlightStorm FLight by G A Rosenberg

 

Ripple
Ripple Orb by G A Rosenbeg

 

Quote of the Day – January 28 2013

“Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.”
― Joseph Campbell

 

So it seems I won’t be talking about heroes tonight as much as what it means to state your intention in such a way that it can be heard by both our internal gods and the universe. Magicians write their intentions out as sigils and burn them thus planting a seed that will be watered by the force of their passion and how close it is in harmony with their inner beings. Others just put it forth in meditation.
I wanted to understand as many viewpoints as possible and wrote it. I built the intention and they came and shared with me their views. I listened and asked questions and came to understand with my heart their mythos and how it connected us. I opened myself and sometimes I saw with a clarity that I never believed I possessed.
I wanted to write and make art where I had very rarely drawn a straight line. I wrote poetry and wanted to illustrate what I wrote. Now three years and a couple of thousand pictures later, I find my art in demand..
Now I set forth an intention for self-honesty and inner harmony. Well, the universe has always been better to me than I ever would have asked. I am grateful.
Blessings, G

 

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Boat Race
Boat Race by G A Rosenberg

 

Alien Ink Blot
Alien Ink Blot by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 23 2012

“Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.”
― Joseph Campbell

Invoke o man the deity
that speaks your souls desire
Invoke with passion
and with sound
Invoke with song
and with colour
Draw Sigils in the air
and on the ground
in water
Ignite your sign with fire
Use perfume pleasing to god or goddess
and know their presence
Worship with open mind and soul
and see purpose fulfilled
— G A Rosenberg

 

Repeat as needed for as many different aspects of the universe you wish to know and to integrate within. The hardest part I always find for myself becomes the channeling of intent tho I become better at it.
If you have difficulty believing in the efficacy of such a practice, try it. If the idea of invoking a deity offends you, try invoking an emotion, a feeling or perhaps a saint or angel, astrological sign or tarot card, whichever speaks to you. At the very least it may lead you to effective meditation and powerful prayer.
Blessings, G

 

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Knight of Swords by G A Rosenberg

Green Vortex by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 11 2012

“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure ”
― Joseph Campbell

Funny, the first part of the heroic journey that Joseph Campbell described better than almost anyone else is the refusal of the adventure. Almost every great quest  (Star Wars, Alice, the Wizard of OZ, Aladin etc) started with the hero refusing the reality of what they were experiencing and saying no to the quest. Of course in all of the above cases, reality comes back too strongly to be denied and the no becomes a more heartfelt yes. As belief and confidence in oneself grows, it becomes more and more heartfelt… What would happen if we had that confidence in the first place? What would happen if we acted as if we did? As a friend and I used to say every night before we went out “Here’s to adventure” Here’s to knowing that we will win through and experiencing what we have to experience.  Here’s to being open to whatever comes..What a long strange trip its been and it continues
Blessings, G

 

 

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Echoes of a Distant Shore by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – September 13 2012

“When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die”
― Joseph Campbell

 

Interesting thoughts on Empathy and Challenge from a friend that I wanted to share tonight:

Empathy.
Well…
what comes BEFORE empathy?

Tragedy.

Often.
Loss.
And – more importantly –
the inability to ignore the situation.

This is an advanced lesson.
For those who VALUE empathy.
For those who don’t give a shit about empathy…
A more INSPIRING lesson is often suited.
For the … cynical.
But for the optimiists
this is the lesson they really need to learn.

The cynics have been through that

now they got to start seeing it differently
Ah
let me put this another way –

“A warrior regards everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man sees everything as either a blessing or a curse.”

Those who feel cursed need to feel love.
Those who feel blessing, need to feel disaster.
This is the CATALYST form.
For speeding up the process.
The way of Tantra.
as I was taught.

Until they begin to see
both blessings
and curses
as challenges.”

— Vajra Krishna

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Astro Room With a View by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – July 30 2012

““People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances without own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

 

I love reading Joseph Campbell’s writing. Well anything just about that involves comparative myth and legends and how our beliefs and our beings shape each other. Tonight I received a fantastic compliment on my art where the writer remarked that many of my pictures tell complete stories. Well, I do get influenced a lot by myths and much of the time (in my non mandala geometrical patterny type pictures) I try to make a picture iconic. Do that enough and people will fill in the blanks of the story deriving myths from it. One of the best feelings I get is when someone tells me what one of my pictures symbolizes and they describe something far different from my intentions when I was working on the picture. They tell me what it symbolizes to them so of course I tell them they are right, that is exactly what my picture means. For them it is the truth.
Blessings, G

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Energizing by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – June 18 2012

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”
― Joseph Campbell

 

 

Sometimes tho rarely I believe I travel in a straight line. My time on the physical journeyed from birth to death with some brightly lit highlights along the way. Other times when I think of emotional patterns or areas of concern my life takes a spiral shape with certain things being revisited with hopefully a greater grasp on them each time. Oh circular patterns fit in also.

 

 

There are times I have felt as if I’ve lost all rhyme and rhythm with certain points of trauma calling me back and calling me back sticking to my soul like fresh tar that the more I resist the more I’m stuck. More and more often now tho I see a fractal pattern to my life, motifs get repeated like musical hooks played by different instruments at different times and in different keys, providing either dissonance or harmony as needed.

 

 

As Joseph Campbell said tho, we cannot really see the path ahead of us. Who knows looking back thirty years from now, how it will look. Still the journey has been pretty strange and wonderful so far and whatever comes I am open and ready.
Blessings, G

 

 

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Multi-Dimensional Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Journey on a DNA Landscape by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – April 27 2012

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. ”
–Joseph Campbell

And some lessons we just have to repeat over and over until we can fully appreciate the wisdom gift they have for us. I call it rabbit hole time in my mind. An idea or someone with a unique point of view I can learn from comes along and I have to jump submerging myself into another reality until it crashes into my reality tunnel or it no longer fits. Oh nothing’s wrong with it in principle, it’s the total leap into the abyss that can be problematic. Yet without leaping how do we fly? Without fully embracing another reality how do we integrate it?
Besides, vacationing in someone else’s reality tunnel can be amazingly refreshing. I’d say couch surfing has nothing on it as a matter of fact. Integrating new realities can be tricky however. Our belief systems do tend to have strong defence systems.
Blessings, G

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Battle Dance by G A Rosenberg

LT6 by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 22 2012

“What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else. ”
— Joseph Campbell

Back from an amazing holiday that enhanced my life in very many ways. I travelled with my partner and our son and yet it was evident from the beginning that each one of us was experiencing a ‘different’ holiday. I have accepted for a long time how different we find our worlds to be from each other (not just with my family but in each of us) We all enter into each day with different expectations, different hopes and different intentions and that colours every thing that we do. Who we are definitely colours what we see.
Yet knowing that enhances rather than diminishes harmony. I have seen so many people torn apart because they believe that their experience is identical to that of those around them. They become puzzled when they hear what the other person saw and heard. In many cases we feel threatened because if our experience is different does that mean the way we saw heard and felt it was wrong? If we go into things with the expectation that they will be unique for each of us, it gives us that much to share at the end of things.
Blessings,
G

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Goddess Night by G A Rosenberg