Life, Free of Hope, Free of Despair

 

“Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.”
— Isak Dinesen

 

Hope is easy. We all dream of what we may accomplish one day or what we would like to have in our lives that may not be there as yet. Yet hope is just a vision. We have to be willing to work to make the hopes happen or at least to provide space in our lives for their fulfilment. All too often we become so busy hoping for things to get better that we forget to do anything else.
When our hopes don’t become immediately gratified or when they get dashed too many times, it is all too easy to give way to despair. We fear that our dreams will never come true and that things will stay as they are without improvement. That too is an illusion for change is a constant and things (or at least how we feel about them) will improve and worsen in their cycle. Yet when despair has us by the neck it becomes all too easy to give up on life and spend our time wallowing in it.
If we could give up on both hope and despair then we can actually live our lives, doing what we can to improve them or other things that oft if they are interesting enough keep us too busy to either aimlessly hope or mindlessly despair. Who knows maybe without the emotional roller coaster that these two horses take us on, we can actually start making our dreams come true.
Blessings, G

 

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Manifesting ShadowsManifesting Shadows by G A Rosenberg

 

A New UnderstandingA New Understanding by G A Rosenberg

 

Finding An Old Internal Friend

 

“Our going forth to find the greater Self is by the path we know least; by losing ourselves until we find ourselves.”
— Austin Osman Spare- The Logomachy of Zos

 

I know what it is to feel lost. Either through not knowing the right step to take when all the choices look either deceptively good or deceptively bad or by being so flooded by contradictory information that I don’t know which way to turn. As I’ve written before, I have grown somewhat comfortable with not having all the answers and it would be vastly out of character if I was to act as if I did. Yet sometimes the questions feel more crucial. How do I help those I love to feel safe and happy? How can I help others when I don’t know which way to turn? What if after all this time discovering even a part of who I am, I find that that part is not workable in the life that I live? Sometimes it can feel pretty dark yet it is at those times that something astounding happens. I hear a voice inside my head saying “Shhhhhh, it’s not as important as you think and you will make it through.”. That voice, that inner clown mother that tells me I am taking things way too seriously and that the only way to get through anything is just flow through till I make it. If I start drowning, I just need to keep kicking. Either I’ll make it to the surface or I’ll drown trying and that will just be another beginning. Sometimes I don’t have to win, I just have to survive . It’s the giving up that will destroy me. If times are hard for awhile, that’s just what they’ll be. That practical somewhat hopeful side of me is one I haven’t seen for awhile and I’ve missed it. An old internal friend has returned and as long as I keep going will not disappear again.
Blessings, G

 

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Pan in the Techno JunglePan in the Techno Jungle by G A Rosenberg

 

Surrendering Her Passion For MemorySurrendering Her Passion For Memory by G A Rosenberg

 

Soul’s Grey Evening

 

“I overcame myself, the sufferer;
I carried my own ashes to the mountains;
I invented a brighter flame for myself.
And behold, then this ghost fled from me.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

 

There are days when little of what we do seems worthwhile. Days where it feels like all our efforts whether for self-development or for love or for understanding has left us either back where we started or perhaps even further down than that. Our faults scream at us from our own heads, perhaps echoed by those around us and we despair. Oh it sounds poetic but feeling it is hellful and even if it doesn’t blossom into the soul’s dark night it can make for a pretty grey stormy evening that repeated too often leaves one with ashes in their mouth. It is in those times when we most need to keep humour and perspective even if they feel far away. Share our burdens with friends or even with the night sky and our personal deities and begin that climb again. It may be the labours of Sisyphus yet little seems more worthwhile than the journey. Eventually those grey ghosts leave and our spirits are lifted once more.
Blessings, G

 

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Ritual SpaceRitual Space by G A Rosenberg

 

Spider Gateway Through Reality StormSpider Gateway Through Reality Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

I See you and You’re Beautiful

 

“If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

I reach out to the best that is in you for that is what I seek to nurture. You shine like the sun. You are compassionate and whole and with you I can speak my heart. You know my struggles for you have struggled to and we celebrate each other’s successes. You are limitless and beautiful. You face your shadow self without fear, dance with it and unite. As I see you this way, you become it. Is that the secret? Shall I treat myself as if I am what I am capable of and so enable myself further along the path? It is worth a try. Imagine what a transformative experience it could be if we all were to try this for one day and then let it continue as it would.
Blessings, G

 

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Dreamscape XVIIIDreamscape XVIII by G A Rosenberg

 

Random Order With Glimpses of BeautyRandom Order With Glimpses of Beauty by G A Rosenberg

Road Reflection

 

“But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?”
― Jack Kerouac

 

Tales of the road continue. Leaving behind the Athabasca river, we’ve moved on to the city streets of Edmonton, Alberta. My thoughts and emotions have taken on a bit of concreteness as well. It is a strange mixture of gratitude for the journey and all that I’ve seen (both life journey and the subset of this trip) and feelings of unfulfilment and frustration with where I am at right now. These things stay transitory for I never despair of life’s ability to surprise in some pretty amazing ways. I am hoping that my travels this month and the accompanying inner journey will help me to resolve a bit and perhaps map out a bit of the next period of my life. It feels as if in someways I have reached a standstill and need to find ways to push myself forward into a new cycle. I know it will come it always does.
Blessings, G

 

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Echoes of AUMEchoes of Aum by G A Rosenberg

 

Athabasca RiverAthabasca River

 

Surviving

 

“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.”
― Charles Bukowski

 

Time after Time I have found myself in the muck of life having to deal with situations that in one way or another I set myself up. Call it lessons or call it carelessness or lack of mindfulness or perhaps at times just circumstance. I find myself neck deep in it and treading water. I sometimes wonder how will I get through this. I meditate and I pray and agonize. Tho time and time again, the answer that comes back tends to be the same. In my life I have survived many such lessons. If I survived that than I can get through this. Sure enough I get through it.
We are by nature survivors. If you don’t believe that this is true than ask yourself this? If you’re not a survivor, how did you ever make it this far? This should quiet those particular shadow voices long enough to do what you have to do. We are all infinitely strong if only we let ourselves be. We have all made it to this point in our lives no matter what we have had to live through. We all have roadblocks but rarely are there insurmountable obstacles.
Blessings, G

 

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Forest at Night

Forest At Night by G A Rosenberg

 

Expansion2Expansion 2 by G A Rosenberg

Breaking the Past

 

“Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers. Even his idea of his limitations is based on experience of the past, and every step in his progress extends his empire. There is, therefore, no reason to assign theoretical limits to what he may be, or to what he may do.”
— Aleister Crowley

 

Are we our past mistakes or our past limits? Because in the past we were unable to accomplish something does that mean we are unable to do it now or is it possible that we can use past defeats and learn from them and accomplish more than we ever dreamed possible? Each day we recreate ourselves anew and that means another chance to do something that we have never done before. Oh I don’t mean that we repeat past attempts in the same way. It is a truism that doing the same thing in exactly the same way and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Using the past as a teacher, looking within to see where things went wrong even if it was with our resolve can spur us on to achieving new heights and ever expand our awareness. I can’t imagine anything more hopeful than that.
Blessings, G

 

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Guardian ExplorerGuardian Explorer by G A Rosenberg

 

Flame FlowerFlame Flower by G A Rosenberg

For Us All

 

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
― Paulo Coelho

 

For you
I will become better
My words chosen with more care
My actions will flow with my words
I will be kinder more meditative
and strive to love the other
in everyone I see.
For myself
I will become fulfilled
I will find my purpose
and seek my will
My being will flow with the all
I will be truer more honest
and strive to live the truth
that I have yet to learn,
For the All
I will become integral
I will find the patterns
and seek the divine
in everything I see.
I will be compassionate more hopeful
and strive to teach the heart
that beats in each of us
— G A Rosenberg

 

blessings, G

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Black Lotus in the StormBlack Lotus in the Storm by G A Rosenberg

 

Wired StarsWired Stars by G A Rosenberg

In Winter, Summer

 

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus

 

Funny how hope and despair go together so well. Tthe times when I was most fullest in the dark, when storm clouds gathered around my head almost visibly and I couldn’t see the way out, would not have felt nearly as bad if I couldn’t realize the absence of any sun or happiness. Perhaps just as we have our shadow selves, our lives do too and these dark nights are the shadow of our lives. Perhaps like Camus suggests they are part of the regular cycles which makes much sense when you think about it. During those happy moments when everything feels right and the universe clicks, there is that in us which realizes that the dark times are far as possible. We all integrate winter and summer most times living in an integrated Spring or Autumn time…
Blessings, G

 

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Returning From a DreamReturning From a Dream by G A Rosenberg

 

Scarlet PriestessScarlet Priestess by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 26 2013

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
– Henry David Thoreau

 

When I was younger I would often go into a state that I called ‘the dark’. During those periods, nothing seemed to make a whole lot of sense and I felt alone and friendless and nothing seemed quite worthwhile. More than anything else I felt lost. This state came about more often than not at the end of one of my ‘adventures’ where I tried to twist my life and my experience into a new shape or religion or belief structure only to find out that it wasn’t the answer. I would despair of ever finding the answer.
Eventually I learned that there was not an external answer in the way that I had thought. The reason why no one else’s path worked for me was that I am on my own path. This does not mean that truth does not exist nor that I always walk alone. Merely that my way consisted of learning as much as I could about as many paths and lifestyles and beliefs as possible and that it all led to formulating my understanding. This has been an ongoing process and one that I feel fairly sure will be unending. After all, the elephant has a lot of parts. More and more this realization has led to larger and larger periods of self-discovery. I am mapping myself as I go.
Blessings, G

 

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Indigo Bubble
Indigo Bubble by G A Rosenberg

 

TunnelAt the End of the Tunnel by G A Rosenberg