Sharing Tales and Chapters

 

“There are no happy endings… There are no endings, happy or otherwise. We all have our own stories which are just part of the one Story that binds both this world and Faerie. Sometimes we step into each others stories – perhaps just for a few minutes, perhaps for years – and then we step out of them again. But all the while, the Story just goes on.”
― Charles de Lint

 

Sharing tales by the fire
and knowing that for awhile
we’ll travel together
Lovers, friends, strangers
exchanging gifts, words, experiences
sharing a bed, an adventure, a lifetime
or several.
We may part one day for awhile
yet in parting we leave the gift
of chapters in each other’s tales
on the unending road ahead.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Invoking HerInvoking Her by G A Rosenberg

 

Field TheoryField Theory by G A Rosenberg

 

Drawing the Moon

 

“The moon likes secrets. And secret things. She lets mysteries bleed into her shadows and leaves us to ask whether they originated from otherworlds, or from our own imaginations.”
— Charles de Lint

 

The moon runs through my veins
and gives me succour.
In the dark she draws me in
and enlivens me
We whispers in the night hours
She keeps my confidences
as I walk beneath her
In her fullness her tides draw me
and racede as she grows dark
She is ever changing yet constant
as her face becomes veiled
Each aspect entrances me
in new ways.
With Diana I hunt
my being for new depths
To Isis I ask for protection
Hecate draws my secret being
and plants the seed for change.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Power Within the WoodsPower Within the Woods by G A Rosenberg

 

Breaking From the ShellBreaking From the Shell by G A Rosenberg

 

Sweet Mystery

 

“Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?”
― Charles de Lint

 

It’s funny you know. So many people out there claiming to have the answers. Even if they don’t have the hubris (or the stupidity) to claim to know it all, they know the one true path to find out. They know what is to come and that it is coming soon. Just follow their methods and you can know too. Yet all or most of these ways are different. Either a little different or in some cases almost polar opposites. You pay your money and you take your choices.
Maybe tho, the right path for us to follow is whatever path we’re on. Studying what calls us and learning and living what and how we can. Maybe its ok not to know but to appreciate the mystery of life. Yes the world is changing and we need to change but isn’t change the constant? Perhaps there will be some cataclysm that is to come and we need to be ready or perish. If perishing is possible. Perhaps we are on the brink of the most positive transformation that the human race has yet to see. All of these possibilities and more are out there. Each of us will know as we get there and for me that is ok. Part of what has always kept me going is curiosity as to what can happen next. May we all grow in wonder and embrace the mystery.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Transformational SpaceTransformational Space by G A Rosenberg

 

Fractal Landscape With SkullsFractal Landscape With Skulls by G A Rosenberg

 

Walk Beneath the Secret Moon

 

“The moon likes secrets. And secret things. She lets mysteries bleed into her shadows and leaves us to ask whether they originated from otherworlds, or from our own imaginations.”
— Charles de Lint

 

The moon is waning now but still close to full. The clouds tonight held it shrouded, mysterious with its light spilling out from the bottom giving just enough illumination so that I could see the road while walking my dog. The shadows held sway and I wondered at the secrets that they held. Sounds and smells hold sway when you cannot trust your eyes and the imagination fills in the rest. I love walking beneath the shadowed moonlight for there within illusions I can recreate the world and make of it what I will. Come walk with me beneath the pale light and together we shall have an adventure.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Vision of a Crystal KingdomVision of a Crystal Kingdom by G A Rosenberg

 

Strange DepthsStrange Depths by G A Rosenberg

 

Where’s the Magic?

 

“While you live… you have a duty to life…. The fey wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them…. Otherwise they fade away.”
— Charles de Lint

 

Today in the grass
I didn’t see a butterfly
I was too busy talking
on the phone.
It flew on unseen
and I never knew what I missed.
The sun went down
Beautiful fire lit up the sky.
We walked on the beach
I was so focused on telling
you about my day
that the chill remained.
The crickets sang
and in the distance
a busker blew a soulful song
on her saxophone.
I was listening to club music
on my iPhone.
I wish there was magic in my world.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

DesolationDesolation by G A Rosenberg

 

Electrifying PresenceElectrifying Presence by G A Rosenberg

 

Just Stories?

 

“Just stories. You and me, everybody, we’re a set of stories and what those stories are is what makes us what we are.”
“It’s all those stories and how they braid together that tells us who and what and where we are”
— Charles de Lint

 

The stories that we tell ourselves about our lives are amazing. We write ourselves as heroes or victims and then go on living the roles that we have created. If the stories we tell of our lives are unhappy ones than we go on living unhappy lives. If the stories we tell are of fulfilment and joy than that is what we live. What happens tho if we change the story we tell? What if we take the unhappiest chapter of our life and reframe it as a valuable lesson learned that brought us joy? What happens if we take that one thing we always blamed ourselves for and change it so that while we accept the responsibility for our reactions, we accept that we were living according to who we were at the time and it wasn’t our fault.
When it comes right down to it, very little in our lives is our fault. It is our responsibility tho to deal with the consequences, to learn and then move on. This isn’t always easy. But if we change our tale, we can create a new story for ourselves and ultimately a much happier life.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Three Pillar ExerciseThree Pillar Exercise by G A Rosenberg

 

Buried SeedBuried Seed by G A Rosenberg

 

Travelling in Books

 

“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.”
— Anna Quindlen

 

All of my life I have been an avid reader. I’d be the kid always walking around with the book in his hand. In class, I’d have a novel hidden under my school books and trusted to my memory to fill in the blanks in the lessons. So much that other people did and said puzzled me that I looked to the characters in books and how the writers handled their interactions to clarify the relationships in my own life and it helped. I read a lot of non-fiction and from those I gain knowledge but it is from fiction that I tend to get the most insight. From Spider Robinson’s Callahan stories I learned about the importance of empathy and sharing both joy and pain. From Frank Herbert’s Dune novels I learned about the many layers that communication happens on and how to handle it when overwhelmed by emotions. The litany against fear (http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Litany_Against_Fear) works with all emotions. From Charles DeLint’s stories I learned much about how to overcome past pain and the sheer wonder and magick that exists in our everyday life. From these and so many others I’ve learned so much that I’ve been able to apply and share with other people and I am grateful for the light that they have shone in my world.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

TaurusTaurus by G A Rosenberg

 

Fractal Seeds In An Abstract GardenFractal Seeds in an Abstract Garden by G A Rosenberg

 

Primal Invocations

 

“There were two forests for every one you entered. There was the one you walked in, the physical echo, and then there was the one that was connected to all the other forests, with no consideration of distance, or time.

The forest primeval, remembered through the collective memory of every tree in the same way that people remembered myth- through the collective subconscious that Jung mapped, the shared mythic resonance that lay buried in every human mind. Legend and myth, all tangled in an alphabet of trees remembered, not always with understanding, but with wonder. With awe.”
― Charles de Lint, Spiritwalk

 

The way that Charles de Lint describes forests is the way that I talk about archetypes including the god and goddess archetypes in myth and ritual. For every one there is the archetype that we relate to in our head, with our personal association and the way we see the force and then there is the primal figure and symbol, that which is both inherent in its being and the collective view of everyone who contemplates the archetype. Thus when we invoke Pan or Isis or Legba or pray to Jesus or Jehovah, we are first connecting to our personal image of that deity and through that we reach the central figure. The more awareness of who we are invoking and how they are seen that we have and the clearer our vision than the closer we get to the root of that being. This is as true of places as it is for god forces and symbols.
BLessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Goddess VeiledThe Goddess Veiled by G A Rosenberg

 

UvallUvall by G A Rosenberg

 

Listen to Your Inner Music

 

“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

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

A Chaotic MirrorA Chaotic Mirror by G A Rosenberg

 

I Went Into a DreamI Went Into a Dream by G A Rosenberg

Birth of an Image

 

“Can you remember how you felt when you were communicating through your artwork? Not just the sense of completion, but the sense of rightness- the sense that you had brought to life something that could live beyond your sphere of being, that held in it far more potential than you ever realized you were imbuing in the work?”
― Charles de Lint

 

Clarity of transmission
the artist in synch with his instinct
creating
something that wasn’t there before
Colours and layers blending
lights added, lines removed
a palette of textures all drawn
No.. that isn’t right
Move back five steps
add the missing element and recombine
alter the hues so that its right
listening as the picture tells him
what it wants to be..
a collaborative effort
art creating itself through his hands..
The last touches are made.
One last stoke put in
A new piece has entered the world.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

The Show That Never EndsThe Show That Never Ends by G A Rosenberg

 

Iris Flower in a RainstormIris Flower in a Rainstorm by G A Rosenberg