In Winter, Summer

 

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus

 

Funny how hope and despair go together so well. Tthe times when I was most fullest in the dark, when storm clouds gathered around my head almost visibly and I couldn’t see the way out, would not have felt nearly as bad if I couldn’t realize the absence of any sun or happiness. Perhaps just as we have our shadow selves, our lives do too and these dark nights are the shadow of our lives. Perhaps like Camus suggests they are part of the regular cycles which makes much sense when you think about it. During those happy moments when everything feels right and the universe clicks, there is that in us which realizes that the dark times are far as possible. We all integrate winter and summer most times living in an integrated Spring or Autumn time…
Blessings, G

 

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Returning From a DreamReturning From a Dream by G A Rosenberg

 

Scarlet PriestessScarlet Priestess by G A Rosenberg

Random Thoughts, Images and a Bit of Card Play

“People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn’t, for the most part’ on the contrary, it’s a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.”
― Aleister Crowley

 

When strangeness beckons
I continue on my way
My purpose is strong.

 

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IntentIntent by G A Rosenberg

 

I was asked by a friend tonight about the difference between the Chariot trump and the Temperance trump in the tarot.

The Chariot in the Tarot refers to control of the externals among other things where Temperance is more of a matter of Balance
so if you want it in nice simple terms Control vs Balance
THo if you place the cards in the manner of contemplation suggested by both Pollack and DuQuette of 3 rows of Seven underneath the Fool then what you end up with is that Temperance is a higher octave of The Chariot

if you think of the first row as conscious
the second as subconscious
the third as superconscious (just one of many different ways to contemplate the cards) then the Chariot reflects external conscious balance and control while Temperance would mean that balance on an internal level (the qualities of oneself vs the qualities of one’s life) if you would
To put it in simple terms… what is the chariot driver doing on the card? What is the Temperance Angel doing? There is a vital difference there
The next octave up would be the World or the Universe
so Control, Balance, Integration
Taking the three cards right before those three, The Lovers Death and Judgement yield further insight.
Consider for short hand meanings in this context,Love, Death and Resurrection
or if you will, Recognition, Transformation, Resurrection
ok
if you want more of an explanation… then Lovers is the first recognition of one’s shadow or other… Death is the ego death when we realize that we can’t exist without our shadow and Judgement is the call to integration that is realized in the World
if you want to storyline it a bit because its rather cool… then in the Lovers we recognize the other, our first instinct is to control it The Chariot
after we’ve gone through the stages of the second row… we realize that we need to transform which leads to us starting to experience different parts of our shadow… (Temperance)
after we’ve gone through Chapel Perlious then we are called (Judgement) tp integrate fully The World.

 

I realize that this blog entry is a bit more chaotic then most. Chalk it down to a combination of dancing with the flu,computer problems, a tarot conversation that helped me expand my own insight that I wanted to share and just because. As always, I hope some enjoyment was found in it.
Blessings, G

Porthole View onto A New UniversePortal View onto A New Universe by G A Rosenberg

All on the Hero’s Journey

 

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

 

Originally Written in 2009:

I’ve always enjoyed quest stories, stories in which the somewhat innocent naive protagonist through undertaking a series of adventures reaches a defined goal (returning home, finding his/her fortune, destroying the one ring etc) and comes out enlightened in some manner. Perhaps reading these stories becomes in some sense a form of religious ritual for me. I imagine myself in the shoes of the hero or heroine. I become Jack going up the beanstalk and escaping from the giant. I find myself, stuck to the tar baby like Br’er Rabbit begging Br’er Fox not to throw me into the briar patch. I can see myself as Aladdin, trapped in the cave rubbing the lamp to get it lit, Alice down the rabbit hole and Luke Skywalker taking that last desperate shot to destroy the Death Star. Their journeys too I have undertaken within my imagination. It doesn’t appear to be restricted to words on paper. Movies and TV shows can also spark my imagination tho somehow it doesn’t feel as effective.

I go into Chapel Perilous, seeking the grail only to find I must encounter the darkness inside myself. I sit down with the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse to find that their word puzzles and inverted logic reshapes my mind into new insights. I take peyote with Carlos Castaneda and jump across the abyss. I fight their demons, both inner and outer (assuming for a moment that there exists a difference). If in facing their demons and perhaps by doing so discover and confront my down, can I claim a piece of the enlightenment at the end.

Since writing this I have danced with my darkness and cried with it… confronted and lied with it…felt numb and then enlivened and several points…I find that I am repeating many of the old lessons again , perhaps with more awareness or is that my illusion… I have seen the hero in the ordinary man and seen mundaneness in heroes. What better way to realize that we embody both and we can be so much more and are becoming so…We all exist on the hero’s journey, the grail quest whether we know it or not…
Blessings, G

 

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Goddess GazeGoddess Gaze by G A Rosenberg

 

CrossemissionsCrossemmission

Denying the Real… A Thought Stream

 

“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”
― Philip K. Dick

 

Hidden thoughts, hidden actions…the refusal to realize what is in front of us…we insist that 2 + 2 = 5, that we are better than we are, happier and more together and a string is pulled, and it all starts falling apart… that secret heart under the floorboards… the raven crying out nevermore… Poe understood reality denied … we all learn it in time… as we build up our house of cards… the way I feel when I am with him / her surely means they feel the same… its ok if I do it this once.. nobody saw me… its ok… but it never is , just our denial grows stronger as we add another brick…yet we can blast through these bricks… if we don’t the universe is kind enough to do it for us…tho it is a cruel kindness that leaves devastation in its wake..yet from the devastation we rise naked, vulnerable with denials and lies revealed…then we can choose how to clothe ourselves again…
Blessings, G

 

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Mandala with ShadesMandala Casting Shadows by G A Rosenberg

 

Vortex SpiralVortex Spiral by G A Rosenberg

Feeling With…

“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

 

I heard your pain
not a sob, not a scream
but a throbbing stomach clenching ball
It hurt yet I knew that to remove it
would be selfish
It would be to remove something from the
very heart of you
so I sat there
feeling it with you
Offering the solace
that you were not alone…

 

When I see someone hurting, the strongest temptation is to do something, anything that will take away their pain. In sympathy, it is so easy to say to someone “It’s alright and try to make it better somehow. That may work for pain that is merely physical but not so much when it comes to wounds of the heart or spirit. Some lessons can only be learned by going through it. It hurts to see someone hurting but can be a very selfish act to try to make them feel better without addressing what has caused the pain in the first place and what lesson they have attracted. Sometimes the best thing we can do instead is to let them know we are there hurting besides them…
Blessings, G

 

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Forest ConquestForest Conquest by G A Rosenberg

 

Aeriel view of a Spinning PeacockAerial View of a Spinning Peacock by G A Rosenberg

Clubbing with Inspiration

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
― Jack London

 

Am I to be a caveman artist
clubbing my muse unconscious at my feet
so I may have my way with her
dragging her off to my lair
to paint the stories on my wall?
No I will seek her in the woods
and by the water
in the moonlight
I will give her perfume
and sing the songs that she loved
I will compliment her beauty
and she will call my name
as she hands me her scroll.
We’ll dance and sleep
with sweet caress and kiss…
I will wake inspired
and create anew…
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Fractal SpaceFractal Space by G A Rosenberg

 

Heartfire2Heartfire by G A Rosenberg

What is my Process?

 

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”
― Oscar Wilde

 

At least once a month I get asked by someone how I create my pictures and what process I use. I usually explain that it is all done digitally in Photoshop with a combination of stock photos and some really great filters and some brushwork. I wonder if explaining even close to a step by step would be interesting but still people ask.
Tonight I’ll pull back the curtain a bit and do a kind of step by step of how the picture below was made.
I enjoy playing with fractals. At the very least a fractal can be played with and maneuvered into an eye pleasing mandala and occasionally I get some inspiration.
Tonight I started with the fractal creation program Chaotica HD and started playing with colour and pattern…When I ended up with something I liked, I pulled it into Photoshop and doubled it upon itself (Took one half and reversed it so that the result was symmetrical). I then played with colour a bit more.
At that point I knew this was not going to be a mandala but had no idea what it wanted to be. I copied the layer, took the layer and made it into a 3D ring and then angled it blending it with a screen. I then copied that layer several times, angling the rings in different ways and blending them together until I had the shadows of two rings each including the whole background.
What next?
I brought in a cat head and started blending it in before I stopped because that wasnt what it was… A face within the fractal, a woman?
I started looking through my collection of photos and found one of a woman on a cross. This seemed to fit somehow with the stormy nature of the fractal… I removed her from the background and played around with the colours a bit… Doubling the layer than inversing the colour then playing with different blend modes until she shone with that red blue combination and was just veiled enough that people may question whether it was a woman or a man.
I played around with the blending… and then wanted some more texture in the background. I have this great add-in Postworkshop 64 that adds all kinds of paint effects and I found one that worked, adding the texture and giving it much more of a windswept effect.
After that it was just a matter of listening to what needed to be in. The butterfly, the figure watching both needed to be there. At this point i was pretty open and engaging in dialogue with the picture… I knew a child needed to be in. The picture was about ongoing life not death and resurrection even the figure on the cross (and why it had to be a woman) was about sacrificing the self to the self akin to the Hanged Man in the tarot. I needed something to represent the child. Thinking in terms of Thelemic themes, it had to be Horus…and somewhat akin to the Aeon card in the Thoth tarot, i wanted him to convey the idea of silence (the finger held up). So I found an appropriate picture of a child and blended in the Hawk’s head…and added a slight corona. I then stylized in the symbol for the scarlet woman, Babylon on the woman.
I then liked the picture overall so added an oil painting filter over it… and blended that in with the bottom layer and the picture was finished.
Hmmm I don’t know that I’ll be asked this question again soon. Thanks for your patience in reading it.
Blessings, G

 

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At Play With PassionAt Play With Passion by G A Rosenberg

 

Somehow it BreathesSomehow it Breathes by G A Rosenberg

Lost?

“Yo can always take back the lost parts of yourself if you can find and recognize them.”
― Jonathan Carroll

 

If on some level,we embody the all or perhaps its more accurate to say the all embodies us then can anything truly be lost. We can spin the qualities and realities we have never laid claim to out of the void, find even the lost possibilities and claim them as our own. Thus we have the infinite. Everything that we ever were and could be again if we wished it and everything we have yet to be for a sum total of infinite potential. Yet most of the time we embody our self-defined limits, carefully defining our storied selves, even if the stories are painful ones. I have found this to be such a waste. What part of myself would I regain that I let slip away. Innocence has ever been the price for experience and yet innocence can be regained perhaps by opening ourselves to possibility.
Blessings, G

 

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Forming a New MatrixForming a New Matrix by G A Rosenberg

 

Star ShiningField Expansion Mandala by G A Rosenberg