Rewriting the Past; Rewriting the Future

 

“You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it… fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf – your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in the flight from the real reality. That is the basic definition of Homo sapiens.”
— John Fowles

 

“You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don’t turn away from possible futures before you’re certain you don’t have anything to learn from them.
You’re always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.”
― Richard Bach

 

There is very little externally that we cannot change about ourselves. We can change our hair or eye colour. With lifts we can change our height. With a little bit of creative imagining we can and do change our past It’s all in how we choose to remember it. Many of us use our pasts to justify our present. We colour it in hues darker or lighter than they really were so we can say. “This is what has brought me here. This is why I do do things” Yet, we can by choosing to look at things in a different way use our pasts to bring us further than we have come before. We can remember the worst days that we ever had where people treated us badly or we can remember and focus on the best days of our lives and the times we were treated well and accept that as our birthright. We all already slant our pasts. Why not slant it in a way that works for us?
Blessings, G

 

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Harlequin in the MachineHarlequin in the Machine by G A Rosenberg

 

Exploding GemExploding Gems by G A Rosenberg

 

Within the JewelWithin the Jewel by G A Rosenberg

 

Fictional Creation Breaking Free

 

“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”
― Richard Bach

 

Am I a fictional creation?
A character written with sensation
transmitted through me by another
some ersatz father and mother
begotten as some mere expression
some aspect of creative repression
NO!!!! I shall break free and choose myself
Transcend my book, jump off my shelf
and live my life as I see fit
not serve another’s foolish writ
Self-created I shall thrive
By will I’ll live, self-deify
Grow evolve, re-manifest
until from being, I take my rest.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Heart's JourneyHeart’s Journey by G A Rosenberg

 

IllusionsIllusions by G A Rosenberg

 

Endless Questions

 

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
— Thích Nhất Hạnh

 

The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change.
— Richard Bach

 

I feel lost in a web of introspection tonight. I look at and question my motivations. Why am I so obsessed with making art of late? What in me needs to be expressed? Is it an addiction to the comments and feedback or is it something deeper? Where is my spiritual centre these days? Where am I going with what I am doing? The endless stream of questions continue. If this is who I am right now I can embrace it until something else calls to me. I shall remain open to whatever comes but I will continue questioning. Perhaps in the journey to find the answers and my openness along the way I will learn more than if I had a specific goal in sight. That is a goal beyond gaining ever greater understanding. Tho sometimes it feels as if paradoxically the plot thickens and I’ve lost the plot at the same time. Time will tell of course. It always does. What is time tho than another word for change?
Blessings, G

 

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Succulent LifeSucculent Life by G A Rosenberg

 

Eye in the StormEye in the Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

Principles of Interaction — Intent

 

“If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.”
― Richard Bach

 

No one else determines my happiness or sadness.
I am responsible for what I feel and when.
I will not blame anyone else for what I am feeling. I will not surrender my power in that way.
If I react badly to something another person does, that is my responsibility and a gift for it shows me my shadow.
If someone reacts badly to me and they communicate it, it does not mean I have to change. It is my choice. That does not mean I won’t modify my behaviour just that I don’t have to.
No one has to change for me.
I will be open to learning from all.
Since kindness and love brings me and others joy, I will be kind and loving as often as I can.
Curiosity is better than anger always.
Open communication is better than silence.
From time to time I will screw up these practices. I will not beat myself up.

 

Blessings, G

 

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Opening Night of The Theatre of the RoseOpening Night at the Theatre of the Rose by G A Rosenberg

 

Halucinatory Test PatternHallucinatory Test Pattern by G A Rosenberg

 

Living As Our Purpose

 

“Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny–he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally–you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.”
― Osho

 

Why am I here? What can I contribute that none else can? What is the me-ness of me that I embody and how can I best fulfill that? Osho’s quote reminds me of many others all of which boil down to finding and being who we are. Is this something that takes effort or does it just happen? What part of ourselves do we wish to be? My suspicion is that the more of ourselves we express, the more we have fulfilled our purpose. Tho ultimately I like Richard Bach’s take on it. “Here is a test to find out if your mission on earth is finished, if you’re alive it’s not.” Our lives do have meaning and we all matter. This is one of the concepts that keep me going.
Blessings, G

 

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AA040780Missing It For the World by G A Rosenberg

 

Lapis MandalaLapis Mandala by G A Rosenberg

What are the Rules? A Consciousness Stream

 

“If Life is just a game…

What are the rules?”
— Vajra Krishna

 

Kindergarden rules yet most adults lose the simplicity. Kindness works but when it doesn’t learn to accept and deal with it and others according to our truest natures (the law of Thelema)…. oh yeah discovering those natures would be high on the list. As would most of what Richard Bach put in the Messiah’s Handbook in the book Illusions (http://jungian.info/library.cfm?idsLibrary=14) and what Johnny Depp said about confusion (“I cultivate confusion because I like what it does to my face”). Above all first use the fear and then lose the fear. It may be a friend but it all too easily overstays its welcome.. Remember that the people in our lives are there because we drew them (and the image i get is at least two meanings of draw both with a pen and with a deck of cards), They are here to both teach and learn from as we are to them. Did I mention be kind? If so rewind and here it again. Not only be kind to others but save kindness for ourselves. Let’s add the law of Callahan’s as stated by Spider Robinson (“Shared joy is increased, shared pain is lessened and thus we refute entropy). Oh yeah and most of all, the game is kind of like Special Olympics, everybody wins tho it may be a very long blink of an eye game.
Blessings, G

 

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Stop and Smell the FlowersStop and Smell the Flowers by G A Rosenberg

 

Shapes that pass in the nightTravelling Towards Escher Land by G A Rosenberg

Butterfly’s New Dawn

You people always hold onto old identities, old faces and masks, long after they’ve served their purpose. But you’ve got to learn to throw things away eventually.”
― Neil Gaiman

 

In the process of becoming, we often have to sacrifice a part of who we are to who we can be. Richard Bach talked about ‘ the butterfly being the end of the world for the caterpillar.’ This sacrifice may seem painful but in reality it is a natural occurrence. The more we try to hold on to our old selves, the more difficult the transformation will become and the more inevitable the change. Oh we may not become what we originally set out to, we may become that person who refuses to change but that was not who we were in the first place and while we may collect irony points, we just delay our full realization.
I will make the sacrifice gladly and will attempt to do it without fear. If I have to choose who’s bitch I will be I’d much rather it be the present and the future’s rather then the past.
Blessings, G

 

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The True HeartThe True Heart by G A Rosenberg

 

InterwovenInterwoven by G A Rosenberg

The Doors of Righteousness and Wrongeousness — A Thought Stream

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.”
― Tony Schwartz

 

“Everything in this book may be wrong”
— Richard Bach

 

Save me from answers or people with same.
If I seek the truth I have no time for answers.
When people have them they seek to use them
to prove others wrong
rather than as the gateways to possibility
each answer covers at least two doors
one that goes to If … then
the other to if not…then
both are valid routes to Truth
(note the large T there folks it matters even if some believe its existence to be as legendary as a unicorn)
until they are imagined not
each determines many new roads…
when you block the doors  of another’s beliefs
you block off their routes and possibilities
hard to imagine a worse theft than that…
Better to understand the doors we choose
and why we choose one and not another
for understanding our choices
matter more than proving another wrong.
Blessings, G

 

 

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Storm CallStorm Call by G A Rosenberg

 

Centre SunCentre Sun by G A Rosenberg

Real Characters

“If you will practice being fictional for awhile, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats”
— Richard Bach

 

There are times when I lie awake at night and have conversations in my head with characters from books. Malachi in Edgar Pangborn’s Still I Persist in Wondering, never bored and asking the question Why do we love when we know it will end up hurting us. Sometimes in my mind I find myself trading bad puns with the denizens of the Callahan stories by Spider Robinson and sometimes I find myself sharing some of the rougher problems I’ve had with them and thereby lessening the pain. When my mother passed away I found myself receiving solace from the personification of Death as written by Neil Gaiman. THere are so many characters I’ve read over the years that they have taken on a life of their own at least in my mind.
Does that seem far fetched? Do you have friends who you’ve only spoken to on the internet? How about casual acquaintances and distant relatives who most of what you know about each other is myth that you’ve used to fill in the blanks. How real are they to you? How real is the clerk at your local grocery store whom you smile and joke with? Do you even know their name?
At best, the amount of matter we give to a person or thing in our lives whether fictional or corporeal varies based on our mindfulness and our interest. Yes I have loved fictional characters and given them more life than I have the casual strangers I meet each day. Doing this has allowed me to have more appreciation for other beings in general and a keener appreciation for the real.
Blessings, G

 

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Dream Journey MandalaDream Journey Mandala by G A Rosenberg

 

Exploding MazeExploding Maze by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 15 2013

“You’re always free to change your mind
and choose a different future, or a different past.”
— Richard Bach

 

How can we change our pasts? Isn’t what happened incontrovertible?  Perhaps so but then even if I can’t change the events that happened, I can still change how I view them. Did I get taken advantage of by people or did I seek out people who would teach me certain lessons in exactly the way that I needed to learn them? So many times when I think of my past, particularly situations that turned out to be either dangerous or damaging or a combination of both, I realized very early on perhaps even before I entered into them, the possibilities of where they may lead. Part of me knew the adventure would be worth it. Looking back now from the perspective of the present, I believe that I was right. I choose not the path where I am time’s victim but the one where I am time’s student. Over and over I choose the path of learning even when the lessons were painful and so become empowered rather than weakened. What of the future? The future I choose each instance.
Blessings, G

 

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Bringing the StormBringing the Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

Expansion4
Expansion 4 by G A Rosenberg