Tag: fear

The Caterpillar’s Five Percent

“Most of us are only willing to call 5% of our present information into question any one point.”
― Ken Wilber

 

Think of everything you presently know to be true. Now think of all the things you once believed at any point in your life that you no longer believe. Does this raise more questions? Most of what we know from experience we know to be only partial truths yet how much of your reality can you bring into question? How much do our beliefs shape who we are?If I am as I believe myself to be and yet I know my beliefs are only partial than how much am I willing to surrender? How can we come to a greater understanding if we are unwilling to let go of most of our present ‘knowledge’? If a caterpillar is willing to sacrifice it all to become a butterfly can we do any less? What if our beliefs are shaped around the need to surrender our beliefs? How much are we willing to sacrifice to become something more?
Blessings, G

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Forestal SceneForestal Scene by G A Rosenberg

 

Textured WebsTextured Webs by G A Rosenberg

The Fear of Depths

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
― Jim Morrison

 

Earlier today, I was challenged by a friend who remarked that I never talk about my own fears and that I stay emotionally safe and comfortable in most of my entries here. At first I reacted the way I normally react when challenged. “I don’t have time for this crap right now.” I didn’t send that reply because I have come to realize when I have that response, it normally means that something has hit home and I need to look at it. When I did a realization started dawning and I realized that I have a fear of expressing and probing some of my deeper emotions and what a block it has been.
When I was younger I used to lash out at people and I was intuitive enough to hone in on just what would cause them the most pain.. and would use it on them. It cost me friendships and hurt my relationships with my family… Very few people want to examine their pain. I learned all kinds of neat ways of avoiding feeling things as deeply because i couldn’t handle hurting people. I’ve learned other ways of distancing even while pretending to draw closer so that i don’t have to feel the intensity of their emotions as well.
Most of my closest relationships have been with people who have reinforced this emotional denial mostly by reacting strongly when they sensed disapproval or disagreement from me. It became easier to mask the emotion rather than express it.
In the past years, I have become a lot more open and expressive. If Pandora’s box hasn’t been thrown open, the lid has been raised and I’ve been looking deeper into it. I have found that I can express myself in a way that’s both open, realizing another’s weakness but healing, expressing it in a way that can be resolved. The journey continues.
Blessings, G

 

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Trappings of LoveTrappings of Love by G A Rosenberg

 

Floating Ruby and AmethystFloating Ruby and Amethyst by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 19 2013

“The cave you fear to enter
holds the treasure you seek.
Fear of the unknown is our greatest fear.
Many of us would enter a tiger’s lair
before we would enter a dark cave.
While caution is a useful instinct, we lose
many opportunities and much of the
adventure of life if we fail to support
the curious explorer within us.”

— Joseph Campbell

 

Fear tends to show us the areas in which we most need to grow. I remember conversations that I’ve had about how I relate to people and how uncomfortable I became having them. I discovered that I have a fear of being viewed as the bad guy and this was often because I lack the confidence of my convictions and even when something seemed off to me I refused to say it. I have become much better of late at speaking my truth even when I might offend someone I’m speaking to. Getting there meant having to look at it and see how being agreeable rather than honest was a survival trait I grew up with. I know tho that I have still other inner caves I have yet to enter tho am getting more and more into the whole psychic spelunking thing.
What inner caves seen dangerous to you?
Blessings, G

 

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Country NightCountry Night by G A Rosenberg

 

HiveHive Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day — September 6 2012

“I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
— T S Eliot

Tonight I found a lesson in breaking the fourth wall. I was talking to some friends in one FB group or another while listening to music and playing with art. One friend was talking about his enlightenment in a manner that some do as if they have moved beyond earthly thoughts and patterns and was somehow above it all. This tends to irk some and inspire others. I tend to feel a kind of bemusement at it. I feel that even in hard times when the path feels its hardest, I would still much rather feel like I have a far way to go than that I have arrived at a stopping point. What would be the purpose and where the fun in that? Which basically was the question I asked my friend. What do you do for fun? There was a long pause and then he started talking about his love of photography and we talked about capturing the moment that doesn’t come again and the conversation became to me a lot more interesting.

I realized that I had gotten my friend to break the fourth wall. In stage, television and movies where sets are three walls the two sides and back, the fourth wall is that invisible wall which separates the actors and the characters they play from the audience. The audience watches its window into the world of the play and sustains the belief that these are not actors playing characters but events unfolding. Likewise, the actors and the characters usually pretend that the audience is a non existent one. However, in some plays the actor or the character he plays breaks the fourth wall and for a moment breaks character and speaks directly to the audience. Groucho did it in a few of the Marx Brothers movies, George Burns did it all the time in his show. For just a moment, my friend had broken the fourth wall, dropped the character of enlightened master and spoke as an excited human. At that moment, he became so much easier to relate to.

It got me thinking. Who is behind our fourth wall? Does the universe (God) consciously watch and feel its parts acting out its myriad dramas? How about the part of our unconscious that Ken Wilber calls the witness, that part below the surface that dispassionately watches all the events of our life. The more we identify with our witness and the less with all the drama, the farther we have come. We connect the most with the universe when we pray and the most with the witness when we meditate. In this way prayer and meditation would be the two methods by which we break down the fourth wall and come down from the state.
Blessings, G

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Paths to and From the Centre by G A Rosenberg

 

Red Gray Waking Spiral by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day -August 18 2012

“Tell your heart that your fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And hat no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity ”
–Paulo Coelho

 

The strange loops that webcam find ourselves caught up in fascinate me.We go out of our way to avoid discomfort and suffering and in doing so we suffer more than we ever could have thought. What is it that we fear so much?
When we dream our lives big, any setback we have will appear smaller by comparison. It is only when we fear failure and shrink our dreams that our perceived setbacks grow in size.
May we all become fearless dreamers!
Blessings, G

 

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Intricate by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 8 2012

‎”I acknowledge the privilege of being alive
In a human body at this moment,
Endowed with senses, memories, emotions, thoughts,
And the space of mind in its wisdom aspect.

It is the prayer of my innermost being
To realize my supreme identity
In the liberated play of consciousness,
The Vast Expanse.
Now is the moment,
Here is the place of Liberation.”
–Alex Grey from The Vast Expanse

Since there is not much I can add to the above quote, I will go a bit stream of consciousness and ramble on for a bit. Lately I have been contemplating and discussing with friends a bit what blocks me from going as deep as I can with my writing. Why can I hit a certain level of honesty and sharing and then I veer away sharply? I’ve been circling around this question for awhile and am starting to pinpoint some answers.

Part of it is fear and yes I still have areas of fear that I have not fully integrated yet–I emulate courageousness well and then I stop at the point it touches. my life. Still I have reached new levels of self-honesty. When I tell a story from my past, I might suddenly gain greater insight into what its all about. Having that insight changes my story and thus changes my past. When my past changes, how do I maintain my present. That sounds melodramatic but still feels true, like the glass edges of a wound rubbing

Part of the issue feels like one of safety. This blog is a safe place in which I can speak or so I tell myself. But then i find different levels of safety, at times putting a condom of sorts over my exposed language. It is a prayer of my innermost being to express itself as I express as a human being in this most exciting of times. May it be so.
Blessings, G

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Audience by G A Rosenberg

Undersea Cross by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 10 2011

Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation.
–Robert Anton Wilson

I’ve bee contemplating arrogance the last few days, my own as well as that of others. We feel ourselves subjected to intolerance and yet we limit the points of views that we can hear never mind accept as valid. We claim to be without fear which to me sounds a whole lot like being without the colour cyan or the note fa (arbitrary picks on my part, I make no correlation between fear and cyan nor fear and fa) Not that I believe that we should ever let fear rule us, but see it as a teacher, one with particularly harsh lessons at times. By understanding our fear, we gain a better understanding of ourselves and our universe. I said all this to someone and immediately came to a realization. For years I have bragged about how I never feel boredom. What arrogance, Sure when i get impatient or have to do something I might not feel like doing, I feel time go to a crawl and things can become tedious. Yes, that sounds like boredom to me also. Oh it seldom lasts long and in the universe inside my mind I can go exploring or revisiting points of interest and then once again I fly free. But saying I NEVER experience boredom? That word never and its brother always share a particular cognitive dissonance in my head. They seem so absolute. More on that another time. Namaste
— G A Rosenberg

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Colour Play on Crumpled Paper by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – October 31 2011

“A Warrior never gives in to fear when he is searching for what he needs. Without love, he is nothing”
–Paulo Coelho

I’ve been contemplating what it means to be a warrior a bit lately. I present now some of the conclusions I’ve come to..
Does being a warrior mean knowing how to fight in a physical sense?
Only in the sense that part of a warrior means being prepared physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually for whatever may come.
Does it mean being warlike and aggressive?
It means standing up for yourself and whatever has become important whether it be ideals, archetypes or people.
Most importantly, it means standing up to fear, using it and rising above it. Even if what you fear lies within yourself…
–g a rosenberg

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Light Warrior by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – August 4 2011

“In order to be able to make it, you have to put aside the fear of failing and the desire of succeeding. You have to do these things completely and purely without fear, without desire. Because things that we do without lust of result are the purest actions we shall ever take.”
–Alan Moore

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Mindscape by G A Rosenberg

Happy Thoughts by G A Rosenberg