Month: October 2013

Born Enough

 

“we can never be born enough.”
― ee Cummings

 

It’s E E Cummings birthday and he wrote so much mind blowing poetry that influenced me over the years that finding just the right quote by him for the blog tonight was a bit of a chore. It was tempting to use ““most people are perfectly afraid of silence”
and nothing else in the entry but that felt like cheating somehow. Instead I used this quote about being born enough. I’ve written about this before about each moment bringing us the chance to recreate ourselves anew and each moment being a new birth. It is the ultimate in taking responsibility and might not be for all. However the alternative. “Oh that was enough birth for me. I will never need anything new or different in my life again.” I couldn’t imagine saying that at 90 or 100 never mind now. With each moment a rebirth and with each day a new beginning.
Blessings, G

 

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Fractal HarliquinadeFractal Harlequinade by G A Rosenberg

 

No Ordinary MomentsNo Ordinary Moments by G A Rosenberg

 

For those who have been asking me for the opportunity to buy prints of my work.. Please go to http://wakingspirals.deviantart.com . There are Prints, postcards, mousepads and mugs all available. If there is a picture of mine that you have liked that you don’t see there, let me know and it will be made available right away. Thank you, G

Listening….

 

“It’s not at all hard to understand a person; it’s only hard to listen without bias.”
― Criss Jami

 

How do I shut myself off enough to hear you? How do I stop pushing to be near you? I am me so loudly at times, how do I tune it down so I can amplify your voice in my ears? How can I dry not judge your tears? How can I sit with you in pain without feeling the cause? or the because…when the only way i can hear the because is to listen not with my ears but with my heart, to feel your energy, as it is presented not as how I would have it be… I cannot use your pain to make my rhyme or waste my time I need to sit with you as I need to sit with myself. Perhaps something I need to learn how to do better as well.
Blessings, G

 

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Sword MaidensSword Maidens by G A Rosenberg

 

Plasma FlowPlasma Flow by G A Rosenberg

Know the Rules

 

“The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules—but you have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are not in a position to transcend them.”
― Aleister Crowley

 

In my junior year of high school I learned that once I understood how a system worked then I could get away with a lot more. The prep school I attended had scheduling rules for everything and everyone knew where they had to be at any given time. Because I showed myself to be skilled mathematically they wanted to ease me into the more advanced class so they gave me a choice. I could go to the easier class third period and have a study period right after or I could go to the advanced class fourth period and have a study period first. I chose to tell the third period Math teacher I was going to the fourth period Math and the fourth period teacher I was going to third and gave myself two study halls. That worked well for three months. I hadn’t come up with a contingency plan for what happened when the time came to turn in my grades and they talked with each other. After my suspension I still ended up with an A in Math for the year.
In any system the better we know the rules and more importantly their reason for existing in the first place, the easier it is to shape them for our benefit. In the tarot, once you learn the meanings of the cards and how they balance each other out, you can break away from the established meanings and see the complete reading as a gestalt of forces balancing each other out. This doesn’t work quite as well until you learn meanings and placements of the cards.
When dealing with people you have to learn the niceties of manners and social protocols of whatever social group you find yourself in before you can play fast and loose. Then if you do it in the right way, you are a hero. If you do it awkwardly you end up the buffoon. In my life I have done both.
Within ourselves, we have our own set of rules and occasionally we come across one we didn’t know we had, usually when someone we know and trusted inadvertently breaks it. The better we know ourselves, the better we can learn how to handle it when our rules get stepped on and the better able we are to edit the rule book.
Blessings, G

 

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Staring at the Ceiling MandalaStaring at the Ceiling by G A Rosenberg

 

CrowlymasCrowleymas by G A Rosenberg

Drunk on Beauty

 
<h3“One should always be drunk. That's all that matters…But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”
― Charles Baudelaire

 

So drunk on tonight’s sunset that I can barely order my fingers on the keys. I’m intoxicated on beauty and old song lyrics and the feel of another on my skin. I stagger through the good feeling of doing the right thing. I may not be able to walk a straight line but my heart and compassion remain intact. So drunk without alcohol but on the lessons that the moon whispers and I the poet strain to hear.
Blessings, G

 

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Bound by PreconceptionsBound by Preconceptions by G A Rosenberg

 

Patterned GhostsPatterned Ghosts By G A Rosenberg

Happiness On the Menu

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

 

I have met many people who deserve happiness and by and large I agree with them. However quite often these people feel act as if they are in a fancy menu and it is someone’s job to bring them happiness, exactly the way they want it. I guess I see my life as more of a buffet. Happiness is always on the menu but we need to get out of our seats and go up and choose it. There are other things on the menu as well, guilt, doubt, regret, sorrow. Too often we become so enticed by either the smell wafting up from those dishes or by the bright colours and containers that they are served in that we choose those things instead. All the time we do so we insist that what we want is happiness. When we find something else on our plate even when it is of our own choosing, we tend to blame the restaurant or perhaps the people we are dining with. Didn’t the choice we made look so good when it was on their plate?
Happiness is out there. It is not up to anyone or anything else to bring us happiness, we have to choose it. When we choose something else, that’s fine, after all variety is great every now and then but let’s take responsibility. We made the choice. After we’re finished we can always make room and grab some happiness afterwards. Perhaps with a nice bottle of delight. I hear it’s a good year for it.
Blessings, G

 

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Flowering GraceFlowering Grace by G A Rosenberg

 

Masked ConfusionMasked Guidance by G A Rosenberg

Staying Out of My Own Way — A Thought Stream

 

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”
― Ray Bradbury

 

I know if I shut up the words will come yet inside the yammering continues…so the field goes fallow and the beauty..may be there but it will show like a harlot’s illusion. Instead if i open to the beauty and type who knows what inner meaning may be expressed. I may show you my pain in all its glory, that radiating star that both colours and poisons but slowly heals through exposure to the air. I may show you inspiration, the candle lit from above that bypasses pain and encompasses it showing how to use it. Perhaps I will show you relationship, how we connect ourselves to ourselves and then to others.. or perhaps just a simple rhyme, beautiful in its simplicity. The two are not exclusive.
Blessings, G

 

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Of Shadow and Light Of Shadow and Light by G A Rosenberg

 

Volcanic MandalaVolcanic Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Self-Reckoning

 

“I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.”
― Hermann Hesse

 

Living with yourself can often be the hardest trick. Our perceptions coloured by unreason, with hues it takes sometimes years to perceive, shortchanging ourselves and others. We want to love and be loved and indeed belong to love yet we fight it because of feeling unworthy or unable to respond. If we can just silence ourselves long enough to hear and perceive the hues coming in, those actors on the stage of our being that speak out the preprogrammed lines based on rage, guilt and sorrow, then we can use that rainbow rather than it using us, silence those actors and feel and become that love.
Blessings, G

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Satyr's GladeSatyr’s Glade by G A Rosenberg

 

Scyer's FlameScryer’s Flame by G A Rosenberg

Sightseeing

 

“«Who are the true philosophers you have in mind?» he asked.

«Sightseers of the truth,» I answered.

«That must be right, but what exactly does it mean?» he asked.”
― Plato, The Republic

 

When you go sightseeing what do you look at? Do you look at everything in the guidebook that you clutch like the bible (or perhaps the modern equivalent of the browser on your iPhone? Do you look at the obvious sites, the ones that ‘everyone’ goes to? Perhaps you are adventurous, talking to the people who live in whatever area you are exploring, listening to their word of mouth tales of the hidden treasure, the sites that few see that somehow feel so much more memorable than the standard museums, castles and monuments. Perhaps, if you are like me, you prefer to wander,hang out with the natives and see what only they see.
It seems that when we go exploring reality the same choices present themselves. There are the truths that exist in all the holy books and many choose to just acknowledge those. Then there are those who read more and deeper, looking for the meanings behind the truths, perhaps to discover a bit of what’s hidden beneath the surface. There are other paths as well. Talking to people and discovering the personal takes that only they know, meditating, exploring within and discovering our own connection to truth as well.
Just as in sightseeing, I believe in doing it all, reading, meditating, praying, compassionately knowing people and integrating the experience . Of course sometimes the large monuments are cool as well.
Blessings, G

 

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Flames of CreationFlames of Creation by G A Rosenberg

 

Texture - Color PlayTexture Colour Play by G A Rosenberg