“I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.”
— Neil Gaiman
I toss not coins but concepts into the well of my being. Sometimes I hear a click as they connect with pieces that came before. Other times I hear an echo as memories are stirred tho some are distant. Sometimes tho there is neither click nor echo but a silence. The tossed concept has reached an empty place and a lack has been revealed. Is it a lack in my being or a lack in my knowledge. The latter is easily remedies but the former itches at my very soul. I must feel around the spaces like a tongue exploring a loose tooth. The best way for me to do this is often to explore it in my art and my writing. Sometimes this leads unexpected dividends either in the knowledge it brings or in the exposure of my own ignorance. Other times tho it means that I have found a space where dragons dwell and I must explore it carefully.
Blessings, G
“Express yourself fearlessly. Grow and indulge shamelessly. Exist to the fullest of your potential. Those demanding you to repress your innate gifts, ask that you take the burden of their personal inadequacies, on behalf of their own insecurities. To consent to this dynamic is not an example of compassion, it is an example of dishonesty and self destruction.”
— Paul John Moscatello
What is the point of living unless we are expressing our true being? This does not mean that we disregard the feelings of others but that we realize true integrity in ourselves. The worst kind of emotional blackmail is when one person says to another “If you love me you wouldn’t act like that / think like that / believe that / do that thing” If it is a true expression of our being than they are basically telling us that there are parts of us that they cannot accept and if we truly loved them than we would be something other than who we are. If someone says that to you then it is clear that they don’t love the person you are, they love the person that they would have you be. If that’s not you then it is time to tell them as clearly and gently as possible that you won’t change even tho you do love them (if you do) and they need to either accept that or a new relationship needs to be established. Anything else is living half a life at best. The only person to change for is ourselves as we gain knowledge of who we are.
Blessings, G
“For I am I:ergo, the truth of myself; my own sphinx, conflict, chaos, vortex–asymmetric to all rhythms, oblique to all paths. I am the prism between black and white: mine own unison in duality.”
— Autsin Osman Spare
I spent today driving through the mountains of British Columbia with my family. I got caught up in thinking of mountains as metaphor. There is the slow climb up and then the drop down into the valley. Dual quests that bring us ever further. More so tho I try to relate to the mountain. That vital energy that lives within the solid rock that can burn so fiercely and ultimately sustains life on the surface of the mountain. So much lies within me. I feel the climbs and the descents and that ever present burning, yearning for life that produces all that I show on my surface. How can I be true to my mountain self? Another lesson to learn for mountains are ever patient enduring cycle after cycle, within and without.
Blessings, G
“A writer is a world trapped in a person.”
— Victor Hugo
What do you do to free the worlds trapped within you? How do you expose those inhabited spheres of light and darkness that never see the light of day? Too many of us live the lives we think we need to, going through the motions, feeling more and more numb inside. There is a teacher who loves to dance and yet few have seen her ever move a foot out of place. There is a stock investor who dreams of playing jazz guitar on the street busking. There is a young woman scraping to get by as a waitress who has the most beautiful paintings tucked away in a closet. These aren’t even the saddest stories. Even those of us lucky enough to express artistically keep the greatest part of ourselves trapped inside. Perhaps its out of fear of ridicule. Perhaps its because we are too busy trying to earn a living. Perhaps its because we feel our expressions to be too strange or not good enough.
Imagine what it would be like to free these worlds. Sometimes its just a matter of showing one other person one of yours. One other person can open the gateway to freedom for all the myriad trapped worlds. Let’s do it!! Pick a friend or if its easier a complete stranger and let them see your dream. Who knows perhaps that one person is all it takes to keep that dream alive.
It’s an easy thing to pay forward also. How many people can you get to reveal their dreams to you? How can you encourage them to keep their heart fire alive? To me this is a truly worthwhile endeavour.
Blessings, G
“There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.”
― Dejan Stojanovic
Nature is so easy to talk to
away from human ears
I can speak my heart
conveying in song and story
everything inside unfettered.
Much better tho
when in silence I listen
Everything speaks in its course
the wind whispers and roars
the ocean sings a song to the moon
while crickets provide rhythm
Birds screech and hoot and the leaves rustle
each advising me in their way
they harmonize in a way I’ve yet to learn.
As I hear the perfect expression of their being
I begin to act in kind.
— G A Rosenberg
“A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.”
― Gaston Bachelard
Growth
Dream to word to dream again
Containment, edit, reframe
shape, add water, dream bigger
write more…let the flow develop
Sentences to Paragraphs
the dream made word
the word made thought
and the thought expanded.
The page, having lost its virginity
opens willingly, its innocence taken
with any luck though its integrity maintained.
Still expansion and expansion, buildup and release
flow through until full expression occurs
and the full flower of page’s potential
becomes seen and shared.
“My skin is kind of sort of brownish pinkish yellowish white. My eyes are greyish blueish green, but I’m told they look orange in the night. My hair is reddish blondish brown, but its silver when its wet, and all the colors I am inside have not been invented yet.”
― Shel Silverstein
Unlimited Potential
We may reach for stars that do not yet exist
or seek mountains yet to emerge from the sea.
We contain multitudes of possibilities
Some which have never expressed before.
What colours are your dreams?
What is their texture?
We each possess unspoken languages
with ideas unuttered
Do we reach for our shadows to create?
Do we seek someone to sew them on for us
or do we let them fly free.
Draw with your many-hued pen
and express
a new being never seen before.
Blessings, G
“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
― Jim Morrison
Earlier today, I was challenged by a friend who remarked that I never talk about my own fears and that I stay emotionally safe and comfortable in most of my entries here. At first I reacted the way I normally react when challenged. “I don’t have time for this crap right now.” I didn’t send that reply because I have come to realize when I have that response, it normally means that something has hit home and I need to look at it. When I did a realization started dawning and I realized that I have a fear of expressing and probing some of my deeper emotions and what a block it has been.
When I was younger I used to lash out at people and I was intuitive enough to hone in on just what would cause them the most pain.. and would use it on them. It cost me friendships and hurt my relationships with my family… Very few people want to examine their pain. I learned all kinds of neat ways of avoiding feeling things as deeply because i couldn’t handle hurting people. I’ve learned other ways of distancing even while pretending to draw closer so that i don’t have to feel the intensity of their emotions as well.
Most of my closest relationships have been with people who have reinforced this emotional denial mostly by reacting strongly when they sensed disapproval or disagreement from me. It became easier to mask the emotion rather than express it.
In the past years, I have become a lot more open and expressive. If Pandora’s box hasn’t been thrown open, the lid has been raised and I’ve been looking deeper into it. I have found that I can express myself in a way that’s both open, realizing another’s weakness but healing, expressing it in a way that can be resolved. The journey continues.
Blessings, G
Where did my wild man self go?
The one with honest self-expression
who spoke as he felt
who lived as he wanted
who lived in space and didn’t need permission?
How can I find my green man?
How do I peel away this compromised being
this stunted role-player in city clothes
this family man, husband, seeker, LIAR
who has taken his place?
Do I need to seek my Walden
or find a mountaintop somewhere
or is it all choices?
I want to flow!!
I need to be whole!!
wild, unfettered and free.
I will be the green man
and embody life
and not give in.
Feel my righteous fury
and hear my laughter echoing through the woods.
— G A Rosenberg
“Love is luxury. It is abudance. It is having so much life that you don’t know what to do with it, so you share. It is having so many songs in your heart that you have to sing them-whether anybody listen or not is irrelevant.”
OSHO
I want to feel like that all the time
what’s stopping you?
well there’s…. hmmm … then there’s hmmmm.
I’ve heard you walking around. You’re always singing. You have more music in you than you have ever known what to do with. I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s not just you. We all have that music in us. Oh, so people tune it way down… and some ignore it but it’s always there. The more you learn to listen to the music of your heart, the more love you’re capable of showing. Oh you’ll show other things as well. Sometimes there’s a lot of pain to get through before the love flows openly. That’s where the music comes in. You don’t even have to sing to get it out, any form of self-expression will do, music just seems hard-wired into most of us. Pretty good deal too…
She Stands Between Realms by G A Rosenberg 
Sense of Being by G A Rosenberg 
Beseeching by G A Rosenberg 
