Month: December 2015

Fear Advisedly

 

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”
— Jack Canfied

 

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

 

It’s amazing how much of a commodity fear can be. It’s an easy place to go to when things are uncertain and we live in pretty uncertain times. Tho as I typed that it occurred to me that there are not too many times in history when that cannot be said. Expose yourself to any media these days and you can see people willing to nurture and direct your fear. They will tell you who and what to fear and why. The current presidential election will most likely be won by the person who can best marshall the fear of the general public and direct it at the same time as they suggest that they have the best methods of conquering the very fear that they nurture.

Be weary of those who seek to direct your fear. Fear too often can turn off our critical thinking capacity and when we fear as a group, we can all too easily become ruled by a mob mentality as everyone seeks to either fight or flee. A mob is too easily controlled by those who wish to manipulate others for their own advantage. There is a lot of that going around these days.

Fear is a natural and primal reaction to the unknown. It is also natural to fear something that has the ability to either injure or kill us. It is not the only reaction tho. It is possible to face something dangerous with respect rather than fear. Most people get over their fear of other people driving on the road or of flying in planes. Both are inherently dangerous yet both are in most cases survived. Knowing that we are taking a risk can teach us to act responsibly and mindfully obeying the rules of the road to avoid an accident. We can use our fear as a wise advisor rather than the monster whom we must fight or flee.

Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

EntrancewayEntranceway by G A Rosenberg

 

Warrior Spirit HelmWarrior Spirit Helm by G A Rosenberg

 

I Offer My Confusion

 

“In my experience, everyone will say they want to discover the Truth, right up until they realize that the Truth will rob them of their deepest held ideas, beliefs, hopes, and dreams. The freedom of enlightenment means much more than the experience of love and peace. It means discovering a Truth that will turn your view of self and life upside-down. For one who is truly ready, this will be unimaginably liberating. But for one who is still clinging in any way, this will be extremely challenging indeed. How does one know if they are ready? One is ready when they are willing to be absolutely consumed, when they are willing to be fuel for a fire without end.”
— Adyashanti

 

Once again I offer you my authentic confusion. I’ve been somewhat obsessively watching the news from the U.S. and I feel dismay, anger and frustration. I am not surprised that Donald Trump revealed himself to be a bigot who would take the United States down a draconian path but that so many people would read and hear his ideas about immigration and not only find them reasonable but agree with them? Wow! A victory has been won for fear, uncertainty and doubt.
For those of us that fear the other, the internet must come as an cultural shock. Constantly we are bombarded with people who follow different religious beliefs and or lifestyles. If I lived happily in a rural area and never wished to travel and interact with different demographics I would find it difficult to be online at all. If I believed that my way of life was the only ‘correct’ one I would find myself beaten down by the realization that so many others had ‘gotten it wrong’.
Instead I have always had this intense need to understand others and try to see life from their point of view. I don’t believe that there is a wrong way except perhaps to limit myself to one viewpoint at a time.
Yet I don’t have answers and I keep discovering more questions and paradoxes as I go. I might find it comforting to stick to one point of view and eschew all others and the people who hold them. Yet that would not be being my authentic self.
Blessings, G

 

Click on image to see full-sized:

 

Shaping StarsShaping Stars by G A Rosenberg

 

VigilVigil by G A Rosenberg

 

Night Phoenix AbstractNight Phoenix Abstract by G A Rosenberg

 

Expressing Ourselves

 

” No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit. ”
-Ansel Adams

 

Create with me
a reality based on our dreams
A many faceted gem that exists
at the touch of our souls.
We’ll shape the pieces anew
and watch them form
I’ll manifest the you that you wish
as I become the me I envision
It doesn’t matter who we are
as long as we are true
to our self to our dreams
and to the expression of our wills.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

ObservationObservation by G A Rosenberg

 

Pattern AwakeningPattern Awakening by G A Rosenberg

 

Paradoxed and Paradoctored

 

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.
I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.
I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.
I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.
I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.
I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.
I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.
I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.
I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too.
I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.
I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

 

To embrace paradox is to further understanding. Light is a particle and a wave. God is one and many. The truth is silent and rather loud and can be understood but never fully. It is possible to love fully and dissolve into a greater whole while maintaining individuality. It is possible to know it all but understand nothing. Eventually if you follow any question far enough back you reach paradox. It is ok to contain both, to contain all.
Blessings, G

 

Click on image to see full-sized:

 

Abstract DreamscapeAbstract Dreamscape by G A Rosenberg

 

Love and WisdomLove and Wisdom by G A Rosenberg

 

Equanimity

 

“If you think that people should be nice to one another, then by all means be nice. But when you project that belief onto the people and the world around you as if it were an objective reality, or worse still, as if it were their job to be nice to you, you put yourself at odds with what is, and suffering will surely follow.”
— Adyashanti

 

So much of my frustration in life comes from expectations. I expect people to act a certain way and when they don’t I feel cheated. Sometimes it is an anticipation towards what I believe is going to happen. As much as I may want it to, life does not always answer the call. Usually that turns out to be a good thing. Life and other people have the endless capacity to surprise in pleasant way. It also has an equal capacity to disappoint. The more I can face both with equanimity the more I find myself at peace.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Creature that Stills the StormSpirit That Stills the Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

Crawling Through BlueCrawling Through the Blue by G A Rosenberg

 

Pattern Lost in the RainPattern Lost in the Rain by G A Rosenberg

 

Worshipping at the Altar of Our Past Wounds

 

“The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them.”
— P.D.Ouspensky

 

Sometimes we become our wounds. We identify ourselves as survivors of abuse or survivors of depression and then see everything through that lens. Some things are very difficult to let go and I am not suggesting that abuse is not dramatic. However when we feel the need decades later to bring it up in every conversation (and I have done this with past hurts of my own) than we have grown too attached to the memory and the reactions that people have to them. Is this due to a desire to heal or is it due to some kind of benefit that we derive from the reaction that other people have to our plight? Is it possible we identify so much with our anger or depression that fear that letting go of the past will fundamentally damage our very structure?
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Last RitesLast Rites by G A Rosenberg

 

Locked into the patternLocked Into the Pattern by G A Rosenberg