Quote of the Day – November 20, 2012

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
― Rumi

For any one of us does life improve or is it just our understanding and awareness of it that does? As we grow older are we able to handle the sad points easier because we have had more experience and we know that the pendulum always keeps swinging or do we just become resigned. Entropy or cyclic growth, which outlook do we have and which seems more in synch with nature? More quests to go on.
Blessings, G

 

 

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Tarot – Knight of Cups by G A Rosenberg

 

Copper Lightning Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – September 8 2012

“One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.”
― Jack Kerouac

 

Today I found myself having a couple of conversations about kindness and compassion, what they mean and what they don’t mean. I’d like to share the questions that came up even more than any answers. Often questions seem more useful.

1) Is it kinder to point out someone’s blind spot so they may have the opportunity to grow or to act like it doesn’t exist?

2) How do we discern the difference between attacking an idea that someone has espoused and attacking the person? How do we realize that it is what we have said that has been challenged and that there was no personal attack at all?

3) What is self-development worth to us. Are we willing to sacrifice what we are for what we may become>

4) If you help a person to grow through extreme means and they thank you afterwards (retroactive consent) , have you violated the person they were?

5) How many of these questions have different answers based on the situation?

Just some food for thought.
Blessings, G

 

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She Holds Her Children Close by G A Rosenberg

 

Exploring Shapes on an An Exploded Ruby Abstract by G A Rosenberg

 

Quote of the Day – September 5 2012

“People only ask questions when they’re ready to hear the answers.”
― John Irving

If we accept that we only question the things that we’re ready to learn than perhaps it is time to ask. Why do so many cause themselves needless heartache and how can I help make it better? Why do some people believe that they are chosen by God and so are more deserving ? How do we cure them of their madness and heal the damage they have caused? How can I lose judgement but keep love? How can I overcome my own blindness? What is the next step and how can I find the courage to take it? What is utopia and how can I help build it?
I feel ready for these answers and so many more….
Blessings, G

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Bowed but Not Beaten by G A Rosenberg

Mandala in a Storm  by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – July 7 2012

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

When we make a choice to recreate ourselves, how do we do it? How do we identify ourselves? More specifically who do we identify ourselves with and how much of who we are do we allow to be submerged within the framework of this group or identification?
When i was seventeen and had a brief sojourn with a religious group, I tried to make myself over into a mold of a perfect member of the group. I would pray the way a member of the group was supposed to pray, eat what they ate, fundraise in the way they fundraised, sleep etc. I did my best (rather unsuccessfully) to subsume myself within the group. I believed or tried to make myself believe that being a member of this group made me better than everyone else. I put the cult’s interest above all others including my own.
Gradually I left the cult. I found too much cognitive dissonance creeping in and my own individuality started to emerge and I left. My mother had called it correctly when she pointed out that when I was there I wasn’t writing. “As soon as he starts writing poetry again, he’ll come home soon after.” Indeed I left within forty-eight hours of writing my first poem since i had come there. The lady knew here children.
What makes us need to define ourselves in terms of other people? What groups do we identify ourselves with? What happens when we start to feel that our group is so special either because of things people belonging to the group have done or because of the way our group was treated in the past that it deserves preferential treatment? What happens if we lose sight of the fact that our group is just one part of a greater whole, a collective of being?
I have lots of questions around this area these days and wish to explore it further.
Blessings, G

 

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Falling Towards the Light by G A Rosenberg

Eyeful Spirals by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – April 14 2012

“It’s partly true, too, but it isn’t all true. People always think something’s all true.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I dislike sloppy thinking. Especially when it goes on in my own head. It seems so easy to fall into patterns. Many women I know have acted in a certain way. You are a woman therefore I will interpret you as acting this way whether you are or not. Instead of woman, insert any kind of race, creed, culture or any or the other ridiculous ways that we use to differentiate each other. Jewish people like to argue. Irish people like to drink. Left handed people are more creative. Yes sometimes this is true, other times it is laughably ridiculous. What is it that causes us to need to categorize people so that we can predict their actions rather than see each person as an individual ever capable of surprising us? What makes us see certain countries or groups of people as evil to the extent that not only do we then see everything they do as evil but attribute ALL evil to them?
I wish to look at this a bit more. Until then…
Blessings, G

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Imagining by G A Rosenberg

Under Skies of Red by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 27 2012

“One must assume responsibility for being in a weird world,” he said. “We are in a weird world, you know.”
I nodded my head affirmatively.
“We’re not talking about the same thing,” he said. “For you the world is weird because if you’re not bored with it you’re at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”
–Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan

I’ve been thinking a lot about responsibility lately. Particularly our responsibility for living in this world. Responsibility and I tend to have been at odds more often than not. Oh I’ve always been willing to own up to it when I’ve fallen short of doing what I’m supposed to do but following though has been problematic in the past. That changed a lot when we adopted my son Zev. When you have other people counting on you, certain things just fall into place.

More and more often I’ve been thinking about my responsibility as someone who lives in this world. What are my responsibilities to my fellow beings on this planet?Or as a friend said to me recently, “How do you feel for everyone as your child?” So how do we do it? The word for feeling someone’s suffering and doing what you can to ease it is compassion. How do we raise the level of compassion in ourselves and then teach it to others? At this point I have to say that my answer is still, “I don’t know” I feel it has something to do with awareness and honesty

One of the assumptions I’ve always had has been that as soon as I know something I am responsible for it. This assumption has caused me to stop friends from telling me about the misdoings of others. It has also caused me to want to share my experiences and what I learn. Yet, if this is true and I allow myself knowledge of political misdoings and economic injustices that happen every day, where does my responsibility lie? Does it make a difference if I am a bit conflicted over just what can be done? It seems so often that even when I read of what’s going on, or join a march or boycott, I still don’t fully feel it. Part of me wonders about the effectiveness of these techniques. Part of me wonders how much I am letting myself feel my knowledge, feel the suffering of people more effected by these things than I am. Sometimes it feels like I have hung wallpaper over a hole in my being. How do I break through that wallpaper to find my heart? Again, finding answers still in progress. Blessings, G

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Burning Desire by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 23 2011

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
–John F. Kennedy

Yet the market seems to have closed and truth too often seems determined by the highest bidder. Really feeling random this evening so I may just go streaming my consciousness on this one folks.

  • People in general, when they either see an image of Hitler or hear mention of him attached to an argument lose the ability to speak or act rationally. It seems the fastest way to either ignite the argument beyond any ability of the rational to rein it in or end it.

  • I see so many interesting questions to debate and even more aspects of other questions that I find it hard to understand people who argue by insulting someone with an opposing point of view. Do  I have less attachment and thus less conviction to any question at hand or do I just enjoy having questions more than answers.

  • Still seeing how many licks it takes to get me to the centre of the Tootsie-Pop..Wow don’t know if that demonstrates my age or my attachment to the media

  • I have now seen photos of that pepper-spraying cop spraying every being from  Munch’s the scream to the Beatles on the Abbey Road album. I feel amusement but also concern. This police officer nonchalantly sprayed a number of non-violent students at the University of California in Davis point blank range in their faces. At the very least I feel he should lose his job if not be jailed for assault. Do I want to in any way think of that as being cute or amusing? I don’t believe I do.

  • Love and experiencing joy in simple things beats just about anything.

Namaste, GAR

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Lone Rose in a Blue Field by G A Rosenberg

Fire Om by G A Rosenberg