“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender come sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”
― Shel Silverstein
What tales shale we share tonight? Hitchhiking tales from the road? A story about raising children? Improbable stories of things that may have happened to beings that may have existed, or possibly only in my mind? Come in and tell me about your dream life, the one you would live if everything you wanted came true or perhaps your favourite nightmare creature that you carry around with you whenever your sleep has gotten too deep? I live for your tales and your dreams and I wish to give you this power, to dream stronger and to make the dream come true. After all, didn’t most of us get our start in dreams?
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
“Without inspiration, we’re all like a box of matches that will never be lit.”
― David Archuleta
What inspires you? I find myself inspired by so many things. Oh not all the time and luckily not all at once (a book of matches that gets lit all at once isn’t of use for very long). I get inspired by new ideas and by spirit. I get inspired by nature, by books and by music. Meditation brings inspiration as does art… Luckily this book of matches seems infinite and self renewing.. Working on this blog provides its own inspiration…as do all of you. Perhaps I become inspired easily, I travel among the winds buffeted by the different things I encounter each day. Not all inspiration is happy but all of it is worthwhile.
Blessings, G
Click on image to see full-size
The Universe Next Door? by G A Rosenberg
Factory of the Infinite Sun by G A Rosenberg
Factory of the Infinite Sun- A Closer Look by G A Rosenberg
“It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.”
― Charles Williams
Last night, with the completion of the Strength trump I finished my first attempt at illustrating a tarot deck. I started this project thirty-nine months ago in the hope of illustrating the set of haikus I had done the previous summer. Along the way, I’ve learned lots of very cool photos-shop tricks, created a lot of art (and have even sold some of it!!!) and had quite a good time. Now I present all seventy-eight (the picture below links to the gallery… click on any of the pictures to see full-size. Thanks to my family and so many of my friends here and on facebook who have encouraged this project.
Over the next month or so, I intend to put finishing touches on several of the cards, redo a few of them and write both prose and poetry about the cards. My end goal is still to publish the set in both deck and book form.
As ever I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Blessings, G
“We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t, our soul dies, and agape cannot reach it.”
― Paulo Coelho
Sometimes dreams can bring up things that we never imagined. We see ourselves in a way that we never have before and new potentials arise. Other times our pasts enter into the fray and we see scenes that we revisit and gain a whole new understanding. Sometimes we’re given a vision and we wake up knowing that we have to see it through. It could be something as mundane as asking a certain person out or going to see a movie. Other times it can be something life altering where a new goal arises…that we feel compelled to see through. I’ve been lucky in that i have followed those dreams into heartbreak, into madness and occasionally into love. The most important things I’ve learned about dreams is to never run away from them…
Blessings, G
“We tend to disempower ourselves. We tend to believe that we don’t matter. And in the act of taking that idea to ourselves we give everything away to somebody else, to something else.”
– Terence McKenna
Today a friend of mine posted a video on FB entitled “An Incredible Act of Love” This video shows an actor pretending to have a flat tire and a good Samaritan stopping to help out. The guy helping refuses to accept money and the camera crew watching this became flabbergasted. This depressed my friend who posted it bemoaning the state of humanity that has brought us the point where a basic good deed that almost any one of the people reading this would do was seen as “An Incredible Act” My friend really wanted me and a few other people to offer our take on it. After pondering it for a bit, this was what i wrote..
“Well a couple of things come up.. I think that the person who titled it has an extremely negative viewpoint of humanity. I also believe that we have been trained by the media to have the most suspicious negative view of our fellow humans possible and that feeding into it, spreading this view increases the damage.
Humanity has achieved much in its history. We touch on the divine. Shakespeare said
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!”
and its true in potential we hold so much that we have yet to realize tho its happening slowly and hopefully we will make a huge leap before we close down this shop in our immaturity.
We do more by building each other than giving into despair
I don’t mean not to be real. There are immature selfish dark agendas out there but kindness DOES exist and SO much potential. Which do we want to build on
In my experience any day you can look and find at least one example of someone going out of their way for another person. It’s there but never quite as ‘flashy’, ‘cool’ or ‘remarkable’ as someone being truly shitty to each other…
Again the media plays into it… think of the news each night showing one feelgood story amidst as many stories of tragedy as they can…and then acting as if that is the ratio in the world…
I admit that thanks to media there are more people that is easier for many of us to describe ten ways of emotionally or physically torturing another being than people who can instruct you in giving a really awesome back rub.. I know which one of those is the most useful… and I believe its catching on… This is definitely a situation where if we’re not part of the solution we are increasing the problem… Sorry about the soap box but this is where ‘Be the change you want to see comes in’ for me. I would rather inspire people by being this person who will help. It may just be contagious.
Why I always recommend not only committing random acts of senseless kindness but acknowledging those of others in an everyday sense…
I’m fixing to be a full out rapturist”
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
I pretend to understand. To do this well, I have to listen with involvement to what those around me say. I have to ask the next question and show my involvement. I have to actually put myself into another’s shoes, psyche so that I am not caught up in not understanding. I need to be open to their dreams and their pain and their joy and to see the world from their viewpoint. I have found it impossible once I do those things to not care. In pretending to understand and be understanding, I get caught and perhaps at least a little bit, I do.
Blessings, G
“Not every puzzle is intended to be solved. Some are in place to test your limits. Others are, in fact, not puzzles at all…”
― Vera Nazarian,
What puzzles you? What gets in your head and makes your brain itch? Is it really a question or do we simply like to indulge ourselves in asking questions to which we already know the answers? If we only took the time to listen to ourselves, I have found that it is truly incredible how much we really know? Try an experiment sometime. Hold a question in your mind and go for a walk. I have found it surprising how often I have the answer by the end of my walk. All it took was being open to finding it. Of course, sometimes we just like an easy challenge. I know I do.
Blessings, G
