Month: February 2015

Invoking the Forces Within

 

“All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”
— Joseph Campbell

 

On the surface the above quote seems obvious. I mean by the fact that we can imagine deities and heavens and hells it means we contain the. Yet there are many layers to the statement. If we are indeed the universe in miniture, and the universe contains each of these forces than we contain each one also. We can personify and give name to each aspect of our being and the more we understand that aspect, the more we can understand the named force behind it and by invoking that force, we can invoke that aspect of ourselves. Thus if we want to call up our sexuality, we can invoke Pan or Dionysus or Babylon. If we wish to invoke our wisdom we can invoke Athena or any of the other names she is called in any of the pantheons. By invoking these forces, we can better understand them and better understand that aspect of our beings. In this way we can also balance out the parts of ourselves that we don’t utilize enough.
We can also use these inner representations of deity to better connect to those aspects of the universe and thus connect our internal life with external reality. By naming these aspects of ourselves and relating them to the world at large, we can gain greater understanding, appreciation and use of both.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Within ShadowsWithin Shadows by G A Rosenberg

 

SeereSeere (#70 in Goetia Series) by G A Rosenberg

 

Emotional Vocabulary

 

“I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can.”
— Jack Gilbert

 

Words are powerful symbols and yet so inadequate. We all throw around words like love and faith and democracy yet we use very different definitions of the words. Yet the internet runs on misunderstandings that abound from people not agreeing on vocabulary. The average argument on FaceBook or any other social media more than adequately backs this up. Yet there are feelings that we have that if there was ever a word for it then it has been lost to antiquity. Words that describe and impart levels of emotional pain and joy that bliss and despair don’t begin to cover. Words that describe unrecoverable lost love and words that speak of what its like to mourn someone who hasn’t physically left but still has vanished forever.
If only we could find a vocabulary of the soul to express these concepts. Maybe at least, we could agree on their definitions.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

ChoicesChoices by G A Rosenberg

 

Abstract RealmAbstract Realm by G A Rosenberg

 

Rambling on the Spiral Path

 

“The Way to the goal seems chaotic and interminable at first.
Only gradually do the signs increase that it is leading anywhere. The Way is not straight but appears to go round in circles. More accurate, knowledge has proved it to go in spirals.”

– C.G. Jung

 

Striving but not reaching
universal inertia slowing me down
it seems like I get so far
and find myself plucked back further
as another seemingly wrong direction
has ended with a circular trip
back to the crossroads.
It would be so easy to give in to frustration.
Yet perhaps I know a bit more each time I return
It might feel like I’m going in circles but
actually it is a spiral
Understanding has been gained from the journey
and I have to admit that even
the wrong turns have been kind of fun.
OK then its the spiral game
and its time to go around again.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Serpentine FireSerpentine Fire by G A Rosenberg

 

AndromaliusAndromalius (#72 in Goetia Series) by G A Rosenberg

 

Escape

 

“I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”
— Anaïs Nin

 

Escape into dreams
when waking feels rough
Consort with kings
and rescue princes
Dance with your demons in moonlight
comfort your shadow and make shadow birds
to accompany them in flight
Do unspeakable things
and drink deeply of Lethe’s waters to forget
saw through illusions
then when dreams become dull
escape back into waking life
another dream that beckons in morning light
where the symbols are subtler
and the words more veiled
escape, escape and return
until nothing is routine anymore.
— G A Rosenberg
 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

LongingLonging by G A Rosenberg

 

Looking InwardLooking Inward by G A Rosenberg

 

Bean Stalks and Rabbit Holes – A Consciousness Stream

 

“You just don’t want to push people into doing things that they really don’t want to do. I don’t think it’s going to produce much.”
— William Scott

 

I refuse to fear the unknown. I may ponder the unanswerable questions from different angles but I refuse to jump to paranoia. Too often I have found that basic human ignorance (I do not say stupidity because I have found too many ways in which I am stupid or at least ignorant. What is stupidity after all but ignorance we cling to unnecessarily?) accounts for much more of the problems that plague us than any kind of evil intent. I don’t mind confusion and I enjoy mystery and paradox but fear is way too itchy and I never seem to be able to wear it well. Certainty is another style that I can’t seem to pull off but then that could be seen as indulging in uncertainty which perhaps I do. I am a master at second guessing as there always seem to be more angles to look at and yes I have fun looking at them all. It might not make for fast decisions yet I have always enjoyed the kaleidoscopic crossroads view. Then again if little is certain than that makes for very many unknowns. Caves of reality that cry out to be explored. But then there are always bean stalks to climb and rabbit holes to jump down.
Ever notice something about those old fairy tale devices the bean stalk and the rabbit hole? They are lovely sexual metaphors. They are the yin and the yang and the one and the 0. Jack climbs his stalk and discovers giants while Alice falls down her hole and fights evil queens alongside Mad Hatters and Rabbits. Dorothy’s cyclone and the closet to Narnia have similar Freudian aspects to them. Says a lot for the power of sexual energy and the ways in which we explore both fantasy and existence.
So I will continue to explore and look at things my own peculiar way and through poetry art and rambles like this share my explorations with you.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Spin OutSpin Out by G A Rosenberg

 

Balanced in the StormBalanced in the Storm by G A Rosenberg

Balance of Joy and Sorrow

 

“Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
― Kahlil Gibran

 

Perhaps the perfect time to talk about sadness is when I’m not feeling particularly sad yet feeling attuned to the sadness of others. There does seem to be more than enough to go around. Yet joy and sorrow do have one of those weird conservation of energy relationships. They can’t be created or destroyed but they can be converted one to the other. I do know that the people I have met who feel sorrow the deepest are the ones who seem to have the greatest capacity for joy and vice versa. Yet when feeling joy, how much is sorrow in our minds and when feeling deep sorrow, that 2 Am grey ashes in the soul feeling, joy feels out of the question, something almost unattainable.Oddly enough about the only way to heal another’s sorrow seems to be a willingness to listen and shoulder some of it if only as a witness. By drawing off some of the sorrow, then perhaps joy can slowly reawaken.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Eyes of the StormEyes of the Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

Hounding My DreamsHounding My Dreams by G A Rosenberg

 

Beyond Time — A Rambling

 

“You should know now that nothing begins
Nor does it end.
Things are ever-present.”
-Grant Morrison

 

To see beyond the imposition of time is to see things complete as multi faceted gems that contain one’s entirety within them. Everything that we see as having happened or happening or will happen is there in one eternal moment in its perfection. There is nothing or no one that has ever existed for us that is not there for it is all part of that completeness and thus they exist and we can exist with them.
Of course we feel the constraints of time. It is after all a great way of organizing and experiencing things. I doubt anyone of us could handle our existence here without it tho on cold winter nights when we grow nostalgic, it helps to know that beyond the veil of time-space limitations, any person, place or thing continues as do we all.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 
Curiosity Curiosity by G A Rosenberg

 

VortexVortex by G A Rosenberg