Ram Dass - Waking Spirals

Transform Daily

“Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation.
Use it!”
— Ram Dass

Travelling this road of becoming
accompanied by the spirits of change
No constants, no restraints
except that we cannot remain in place
Let the spirits guide the way
the shadows show the wyrd
and the spiders weave each strand in place
We break all conventions
as we shift and shine
brilliant and serpentine
evolving, becoming anew
— G A Rosenberg

Blessings, G

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On a Surreal Path by G A Rosenberg

Pieces Coming Together As They Unfold by G A Rosenberg

My Shadowed Face by G A Rosenberg

Please…

“Information is just bits of knowledge.
Knowledge is putting them together.
Wisdom is transcending them.”
— Ram Dass

Please let me be wise and not know it.
For in the knowing I may give up
what has brought me there.
Let me know the pain within
and transcend it
so that I can show others how to do it for themselves
Please Show me how to embrace this planet
and those who dwell here.
For what use are facts and figures?
what use is knowing
if one cannot grant solace?
— G A Rosenberg

Blessings, G

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Will The Cave Hold That Which You Seek? by G A Rosenberg

Scaled Down Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Compassion For the Trees Among Us

“When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You’re too this, or I’m too this.’ That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
— Ram Dass

Accepting bugs in nature
we just let them be
Storm clouds we can see
we seldom criticize flowers
for not being the best
we put them with the rest
organic fruit misshapened
we eat it with the rest
it never fails our test
yet why with people
do we notice every flaw
subject them to our law?

Birds and Butterflies
we love them in their flight
not one is not alright
We never look at rainbows
and criticize their glow
we tend to let them go.
yet when dealing with each other
we scrutinize each word
let nothing go unheard
Even with ourselves
we criticize, denounce
on every blemish pounce

Why can’t we accept
whoever’s in our path
with hug or a laugh
Imagine a world
where every voice is heard
not one decried absurd
rearrange our thoughts
compassion in action
will yield satisfaction.
— G A Rosenberg

A little Sunday night doggerel because I find Ram Dass’s quote to be quite profound.
Blessings, G

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Summoning by G A Rosenberg

Firing Off in All Directions by G A Rosenberg

Step Back

“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”
― Ram Dass

Stepping back
Step back from my body
I witness the pain
witness the discomfort
and the pleasure
from this vantage
they are one and the same
sensations across the skin
Step back from emotion
love, sorrow, rage
again one and the same
weather patterns across a landscape
so much bigger and smaller than myself
Step back from my thoughts
that ever shifting pattern
given colour by my feelings
beliefs, whims, notions, insights
I step back and watch the play unfold
at once player and audience
improving wildly yet knowing
it is but pantomime
the witness sees all
knowing this life
to be but one act
in an eternal storyline….
— G A Rosenberg

Blessings, G

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Shadows Amidst the Flames by G A Rosenberg

Shooting Star by G A Rosenberg

Techniques of Art and Study

“People ask, ‘How do I go on with my studies, if I believe this, what do I do next?’ You BE next. You’re doing it right now. There’s no next. It’s right now. Right now. Everything you’re doing is a vehicle to wake up.”

– Ram Dass

Lately I’ve been looking at my art with a bit more of a critical eye. Which ones are in the top two to five percent that will become portfolio pieces (and signed prints)? Which ones have I done to learn a technique or scratch an itch that may one day be better? Which ones have I done to fill a page or because I know that people like it when I play in that way? Even more important, which images still live in me whispering and speaking, which are the true images that have either come through clearly or that I worked on with clear intention and so they breathe in unique ways? Each of these pictures have something going for it, else they end up discarded and unseen (or recycled when I have a better understanding of what it wants to be and that happens too, sometimes months later. I love what I do and I love the opportunity to share it with you.
Blessings, G

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Autopilot by G A Rosenberg

Flights of Fancy by G A Rosenberg

Worthy

“Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.”
― Ram Dass

For too long I considered myself unworthy. I felt I was unworthy of the family I was born into. I felt I was unworthy of the intelligence I had and the job I had. I have been given so much without putting that much effort into it that it was easy to feel that way. Some people may see that as a goad to do more, be more, become more. I found it to be a weight that all too nearly collapsed me. My drive wasn’t to accomplish, my drive was to understand. I wanted to learn more and not so much academic subjects. I chafed at that during my years at University all too much and found that I was missing my classes to help friends with theirs that I considered more interesting at the time. In my mathematics and computer courses I was more results driven than method driven which frustrated the teacher’s and ultimately added to my feelings of unworthiness. Each prescribed path I tried turned out to be another round hole to fit my square edges into. I kept looking to find an authority, some one who would tell me how to do it only to realize that I was ultimately looking for another authority to rebel against. Also another chance to prove to myself my own unworthiness.

At some point that changed. I stopped trying to follow any path but my own. On our own path, nobody is unworthy. By following my own path I could show others how to do the same. By following my own path, I have come to realize that the only person who could possibly say whether or not the things I’ve done hold value is myself. If I can live my life and communicate to others that that is our main goal in life, to live it and follow wherever our path leads than worthiness stops being a question. On my own path there is only worthiness.
Blessings, G

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Puppet Show by G A Rosenberg

Iceberg Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Where My Work Lies…

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion–and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies.”
― Ram Dass

Lately I’ve been hearing people talking a lot about what resonates with them and what doesn’t. Quite often they say it in the context of dismissing or not engaging with anything that doesn’t resonate with them. Not everything is going to click with everyone and that’s understandable. I am puzzled that I don’t hear people asking themselves WHY something doesn’t resonate.

Usually when I have a knee jerk reaction to something especially one of revulsion, it is because it is hitting either some kind of trigger for me or it’s hitting me in a blind spot. Case in point, when people talk about certain issues with families, I tend to turn it into a joke because it rings too close to the truth. If somebody presses it, I will change the topic of conversation. I could have said the topic didn’t resonate with me but I was in fact avoiding a truth about how I relate to my family. Once I started asking why or more properly what might be causing this reaction I opened myself up to a valuable lesson. At the very least, using my reactions as a basis for self-inquiry rather than avoidance has made me a lot more compassionate and to have a lot more confidence in and knowledge of myself.
Blessings, G

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Star Hawk by G A Rosenberg

Flame Mist by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 6 2013

“Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.”
― Ram Dass

How hard is it to escape daily drama? At times it seems near impossible. I have spoken a lot about how foolish it seems to try to escape anything. We tend to bring it all with us especially the drama. Being able to watch it tho, stepping outside the situation we are caught up in and perceive it as a member of the audience, relating from that impartial witness element becomes priceless. Sometimes I believe we go through our teenage years and our kids as a means of teaching us exactly this lesson. I needed this reminder tonight and so I share it with you.
Blessings, G

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Representation by G A Rosenberg

Lotus Reflection by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 8 2013

“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”
― Ram Dass

There is part of our awareness that is called in Eastern philosophy Turiya, that Ken Wilber refers to as the witness. It is the part of ourselves that watches everything unfold in our consciousness without judgement, not acting but watching emotions, thoughts and actions that flow by. Whenever I get caught up in the day to day, forgetting in the words of Richard Bach, that what is going on around me “is not reality” I try hard to imagine how this witness sees what is going on and it tends to calm me down pretty quickly. It definitely tends to help with the raising of a fourteen year old and helps even more in dealings with others in general I find. Oh I still find myself prone to irritation and frustration but relating to the witness it just becomes part of the ever present flow of being.
Blessings, G

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Locked On by GA Rosenberg

Mathemagickal by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – September 24 2012

“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”
― Ram Dass

I see this in others so it reflects back to myself. I fall into this role of I. Not how I am but how I wish to be seen. That changes day by day and person by person, after all few of us are the same with friends as we are with family as we are with strangers. We have our social masks, our seductive masks, our polite and open masks. Some days I get so tired from taking off masks that I forget what my real face looks like at all.
Little by little I have been dropping the masks a bit. Letting my true face breathe. It’s a bit easier when I’m alone but around others it happens more and more naturally..I wonder at times if it is possible to walk around mask less in today’s world. Heck 2000 years ago it could get you crucified or outcast..
People would rather see someone walking around without clothes than without a social identity. After all someone without a mask makes us all that much aware of our own..
Blessings, G

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Spirits in Flight by G A Rosenberg

Rose Cross Mandala by G A Rosenberg