Sinking and Rising

 

“The truth is always an abyss. One must — as in a swimming pool — dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again — laughing and fighting for breath — to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.”
— Franz Kafka

 

sinking deep and fast
lower in my morass than I’ve been
the surface is too much to bear
and I’ve been trying for far too long.
So I sink
into sorrow, into despair
all the things I’ve scoffed at
safe in books and memories
yet now in my swimming life
I’ve been tossed an anchor
and so go lower
yet as I sink, I shed mass
clothes, dreams, illusions
and reach a point of balance
a brighter clarity than
heretofore offered
I rise fast
buffeted by new understanding.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Peaceful SpacePeaceful Space by G A Rosenberg

 

The Egg containedThe Egg Contained by G A Rosenberg

 

Connections I

 

“Any fact becomes important when it’s connected to another.”
― Umberto Eco

 

Take any two thoughts or fancies lay them side by side and a curious alchemy takes place. Something new is born from the conflict and synthesis of the two ideas. In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter asked the question “How is a raven like a writing desk?” and imaginations were sparked for over 100 years (tho the only answer I could come up with is that they both are carriers of thought). How is peanut butter like leaves changing colours? What does the feeling of first love share with that of deepest despair? How do we reconcile the concept that most of us in the twentieth century feel so disconnected from each other yet so many spurn even the friendliest of greetings from strangers? How does Fire relate to the idea of the New Aeon? How are you like or different from the next stranger you encounter? How are you in relation to the universe? Consider the answers to these and look at some strange juxtapositions yourself and see how your mind expands.
Blessings G

 

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Approaching the HeartApproaching the Heart by G A Rosenberg

 

Raven's JourneyRaven’s Journey by G A Rosenberg

Connections I

 

“Any fact becomes important when it’s connected to another.”
― Umberto Eco

 

Take any two thoughts or fancies lay them side by side and a curious alchemy takes place. Something new is born from the conflict and synthesis of the two ideas. In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter asked the question “How is a raven like a writing desk?” and imaginations were sparked for over 100 years (tho the only answer I could come up with is that they both are carriers of thought). How is peanut butter like leaves changing colours? What does the feeling of first love share with that of deepest despair? How do we reconcile the concept that most of us in the twentieth century feel so disconnected from each other yet so many spurn even the friendliest of greetings from strangers? How does Fire relate to the idea of the New Aeon? How are you like or different from the next stranger you encounter? How are you in relation to the universe? Consider the answers to these and look at some strange juxtapositions yourself and see how your mind expands.
Blessings G

 

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Approaching the HeartApproaching the Heart by G A Rosenberg

 

Raven's JourneyRaven’s Journey by G A Rosenberg

Dangling Conversation (Part I)

 

“Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream”
― Jack Kerouac

 

What? A dream? All of it?
“Yes”
What about the bad parts?
“That’s part of the dream. You’re working out what you need to.”
You make it sound like its all my fault.
“I said nothing about fault. Merely that you have been able to give your true self exactly the experiences you need to balance and grow”
That sounds an awful lot like you are blaming the victims here. Are you saying that a child who is being abused or who lives in a war-torn land and suffers has chosen it.
“Haven’t you told me that you believe that we have existence beyond the physical? That you believe that we live many lives? Suffering exists here on this world. It would be better if it didn’t. Until the human race gets past its need to inflict suffering on others without realizing how truly everyone is connected. Suffering will happen. Perhaps to understand the concept some have incarnated both as sufferers and those who inflict suffering on others. If this is not your true self, if this life is just a dream then we can all live many rolls. Each time putting on the costume that will bring the most understanding. If each physical lifetime is just a moment in eternity and one aspect of your totality does suffering still hold the same meaning? ”
Still that kind of sucks. I hate knowing that people are in pain.
“You say that yet you constantly expose yourselves to the sight of the pain of others. Whether it be in pursuit of entertainment or of news, you bombard yourself with so many examples of so many kinds of misery, it becomes astonishing that you have any sensitivity towards it at all. Also, you show compassion for those in other lands, yet how often do you walk by someone homeless in your own town or city without stopping or even looking at them? It seems you become highly selective with your outrage. In truth tho, they too have chosen the dream that they live.”
er… I do what I can.
“You do what you wish to do and see what you wish to see. That is ok. You, like they are learning. It is why your spirit has picked the physical experience it has just as they have. I can guarantee if you look at the world you will find much to displease you. There are many who seek to make their own dream a nightmare for others. There are ways in which you do this also. One of the most interesting things about the human experience is the tunnel vision. The ability to point out the flaws in the world as a way to avoid working on one’s own life lessons”
You sound awfully judgemental.
“Yes we do. Perhaps its a lesson we both need to learn.”
Blessings, G

 

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Horus in Crystal SpaceHorus in Crystal Space by G A Rosenberg

 

Riding Through Caves (Vine)Riding Through Caves (Vine) by G A Rosenberg

 

Dreams of Co-Created Love

 

“Sometimes you wonder, in an interconnected universe, who’s dreaming who?”
― Grant Morrison

 

I dreamt you last night
a complement for my longing
someone enough like my differences
that we could speak for hours
and different enough from my likes
to keep the magick going.
You dreamt me
a shadow of your desire
reaching out into three D or more
a refuge for your heart
We awoke alone
the sheets thrown about
and the memory of sweet sour taste
in our mouth
waiting for the next time we dreamed together
yet who created who?
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

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Kephera Through the Underworld--DreamcycleKephera Through the Underworld–Dreamcycle by G A Rosenberg

 

ObverseObverse by G A Rosenberg

 

The Lives of Me

 

“I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.”
— Roger Zelazny

 

There was a boy who felt cut off from the other kids around him. That was ok. He found solace in books and comics. He had an amazing dream life with a continuing cast of characters including a winged lion and a talking cigarette ash. At nine years old he lied about his age and got a paper route. He could be seen trundling down the street with a red wagon filled with papers and his little miniature schnauzer at his side.
There was a teenager at odds with his parents, both sets of them in different states. He wrote depressing poetry abut alienation and lost love. Inspired by Jack Kerouac and Baba Ram Dass he left home with his best friend and hitch hiked and rode busses across the country to California where he joined a religious cult. For the first time in his life he started to believe in something even tho less than a year later, he realized it for the lie it was. Still he had had an experience he couldn’t forget where for a moment he felt connected to everyone and everything in the universe.
There was a young man in his twenties. He had started trying to reconnect with his parents by coming out to them after returning from a hitchhiking trip across country. He moved in with his lover in Boston only to discover that his friend was an alcoholic and ended the relationship after sending him to a place where he would ‘get help’. He was having trouble believing in much of anything yet still kept on with his tarot card readings both for himself and for friends.
I was all three of these and many others. I had different beliefs and different friends and different habits throughout. I can’t relate to some of them anymore yet when I look into the mirror of times past I see and know them all. I might have outgrown them yet I feel a great deal of affection for them. Without them I never would have come into being.
Blessings, G

 

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Projecting OutwardsProjecting Outwards by G A Rosenberg

 

Preparing For the JourneyPreparing For the Journey by G A Rosenberg

 

Soul’s Grey Evening

 

“I overcame myself, the sufferer;
I carried my own ashes to the mountains;
I invented a brighter flame for myself.
And behold, then this ghost fled from me.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

 

There are days when little of what we do seems worthwhile. Days where it feels like all our efforts whether for self-development or for love or for understanding has left us either back where we started or perhaps even further down than that. Our faults scream at us from our own heads, perhaps echoed by those around us and we despair. Oh it sounds poetic but feeling it is hellful and even if it doesn’t blossom into the soul’s dark night it can make for a pretty grey stormy evening that repeated too often leaves one with ashes in their mouth. It is in those times when we most need to keep humour and perspective even if they feel far away. Share our burdens with friends or even with the night sky and our personal deities and begin that climb again. It may be the labours of Sisyphus yet little seems more worthwhile than the journey. Eventually those grey ghosts leave and our spirits are lifted once more.
Blessings, G

 

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Ritual SpaceRitual Space by G A Rosenberg

 

Spider Gateway Through Reality StormSpider Gateway Through Reality Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

Enlightened-Who?

 

“It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.”
― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

 

What is enlightenment? Is it a place we reach and stay at? Is it a never-ending journey on which we occasionally receive glimpses during peak experiences that keep us moving along carrying water and chopping wood? Is there a point of absolute enlightenment or is it relative. I can definitely say that each day I understand things more clearly than I have before. I can also definitely say that each day I find more confusion and it is in this interplay of light and darkness that I find the most growth. I have also yet to meet anyone that I could neither learn from nor teach even if some of the lessons were less than pleasant ones. As far as I can tell that’s why we’re all here with each other.I don’t know if I’ll ever reach a point at which I’ve made it and can say “i am enlightened.” Yet looking at those who do say it that is possibly a good thing. At least I know I’ll have fun on the way.
Blessings, G

 

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Angel Over Hidden Water (Crocell)Angel Over Hidden Water (Crocell) by G A Rosenberg

 

Ringmaster of the Unearth CircusRingmaster of the Unearth Circus by G A Rosenberg