“She knew this music–knew it down to the very core of her being–but she had never heard it before. Unfamiliar, it had still always been there inside her, waiting to be woken. It grew from the core of mystery that gives a secret its special delight, religion its awe. It demanded to be accepted by simple faith, not dissected or questioned, and at the same time, it begged to be doubted and probed.”
― Charles de Lint
I’ve heard it said that there are people who march to the beat of their own drum. They tend to be people who can interact with crowds be in them but not of them because their own music drowns out the group rhythm. When I listen closely I can hear my music. I first heard it at a young age. It’s staccato rhythms didn’t seem to mix in well with the marching beat of the school system. I often felt like a badly tuned instrument. Still I liked my interior music more. It suited me and I spent nights improvising and rifting around it. As I’ve grown older, as I come across each new concept, I sound it out against the music I hear inside. Does it fit? Is it better, more vital somehow? At times even when the answer to both of those questions was no I still made a choice to follow the newer rhythm usually because of attractions like sex or money or some other form of life drug. I usually learned at some point thereafter that my own rhythm suited me better. I wouldn’t call those missteps mistakes. They gave me some of my more entertaining life stories yet still more often than not that inner tune leads me true and I have learned to rely on it.
Blessings, G
“Real transformation requires real honesty. If you want to move forward — get real with yourself.”
― Bryant McGill
Final midnight’s call
and I reach up to tear
the mask from my face
revealing myself to all.
Yet underneath puzzled
I find another mask
I keep peeling away
layer after layer
as the crowd laughs
their masks firmly in place.
each layer still hiding
each face a shadow of the truth.
Where in this pile of facades
is my real face?
How far down does it go?
I reach what I know is the last mask
Now we’ll see what’s real
Behind it there is all and
there is naught.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― e e cummings</h3?
…And the bar keeps moving. So many of us seek to become who we are yet that being has no fixed address. I discovered that what I need to do even more is strip away who I am not so that the being who I am can shine through. I’m working on it. So much is a combination of social conditioning and ways that I’ve developed to avoid who I feared I was. It has helped to strip away a lot of the fear and slowly become who I am becoming…
A rather brief article tonight as I seem to be finally purging myself of the cold / flu that has invaded my system this last week. Lots of sniffling tho feeling rather well in most ways.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Inner Workings by G A Rosenberg
Back on the Cosmic Merry Go Round by G A Rosenberg
“Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it.”
— G.I. Gurdjieff
Eyes Towards the Infinite
Yet hopelessly distracted
I seek to paint myself comprehension,
filling in spirit colours
that my eyes cannot yet see
I fear that I find myself in corners
staring out as the worm moves towards its tail
mouth open towards a complete loop
while mine has barely begun.
Still slow progress is made
and understanding grows
one day I too will know
my infinite self.
— G A Rosenberg
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
― Rumi
What is your story? What is the myth you will pass on to your children and grandchildren? How did it begin? What have you been striving for? What hardships did you face on the road and how did you overcome them? In what ways were you tested and how did you do? What was your motivation? What kind of story is it? Can you put it to music?
We are our stories yet we constantly recreate them both our past and our present. We cannot follow another’s trail tho we can try to ape it and thus do ourselves and them a grave injustice? We are the heroes and our stories are unique? By telling them, we add to the world’s story. Weaving new myths that may just stand the test of time.
Blessings, G
“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.”
― Philip K. Dick
“There exists, for everyone, a sentence – a series of words – that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you’re lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first.”
― Philip K. Dick
It all comes down to words doesn’t it? “In the beginning was the word…”The word is spoken or writ and reality forms around it..Words of power..words of control…and we and the universe manifests the words in form and actions.A picture may be worth a thousand words yet it is the words that come to mind . We move beyond words into silence which is broken by a new word that comes even from the deepest of meditations. What’s the word? What will the word be today?
Say the magic word…I have been sentenced twice according to Dick… and yes one tore me apart and the other healed or came close to it…It’s only words yet they have power…or maybe I am just having one of my spells. If you can discover the words that can destroy or heal before they are used on you than you have a powerful talisman indeed tho there is always the next sentence…
Blessings, G
“A ‘mistake’ is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.”
― John Cage
Imagine a world where everything we have done has led us here. Our so called mistakes and triumphs and how we have dealt with them have shaped us and moulded us into the beings we are now just as our present thoughts and actions shape our future beings. Can we look at a moment and say ‘this is good’ or ‘this is bad’? Where does that get us? It is in this moment that we can remake ourselves. Everything that came before is just raw material and is all part of the mix. We now return you to your regularly scheduled journey which is as always in progress.
Blessings, G
“In my opinion to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing. Nobody is interested in following a man who, with his eyes fixed on the ground, spends his life looking for the pocketbook that fortune should put in “his path. The one who finds something … , even if his intention were not to search for it, at least arouses our curiosity, if not our admiration … .
When I paint, my object is to show what I have found and not what I am looking for.”
–Pablo Picasso
Many times when I start on a picture, I start by throwing patterns up on the screen, either royalty-fractals or mixtures of gradients or just splashes of colour. I play around putting various filter and light effects on the pieces and just play, rather like a child finger-painting. Occasionally something will happen in this random picture and an image will turn up. I don’t look for it tho am open to whatever develops. When the image comes along, (this happened in the Wrath picture earlier this week) I start enhancing it, either combining it with a reference or enlarging that part while shrinking other parts, muting out the background and bringing the found image to the foreground. I then continue on, certain that the picture has revealed to me what it wishes to be. It feels totally natural rather like how I have heard sculptures talk about the block of marble containing a particular statue inside and they just bring it out. I love creating this ‘found’ art fully as much if not more than the pictures I set out intentionally to create.
Blessings, G
A Chaotic Mirror by G A Rosenberg 
