“The interior of our skulls contains a portal to infinity.”
― Grant Morrison
Opening up the mind and imagining different lives. Not so much as an escape to my own but as an addition. Who knows? In living another existence if only for the space of moments or hours, I may learn compassion. What is it like to be a single mother of three in a rough area of New York City? What challenges do I face? What is it like to be twenty-three years old and wondering and fearing what the future may be? What is the life of a housecat or a fly or a planet or a God? Can I truly picture myself inside the life of another? How real can I make it? I entertain myself by traveling from life to life and I wonder who may find themselves traveling in mine? What is the continuity of existence? Have I imagined myself to be another being or am I imagining myself to be me a good deal of the time and if so can I imagine better? How good can I make this life? In an internal universe where we could be anything why limit our dreaming or our becoming?
Blessings, G
“Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
As I have written before, I am seldom bored. Not only is life too short but there are still so many things to contemplate, to read, to see, to do? In my mind I do them all. Perhaps that’s one of the secrets to overcoming boredom. If we learn to develop a life in the mind and outside of it. I love to meditate and still my thoughts and almost anything can become a mindful practice if you let it. Left unattended my mind descends into word play and terrible puns which I may inflict on people. I also like to let my imagination run free and see what kind of trouble it can get into. I also love contemplating some of the more difficult questions about humanity; many of which I discuss here on the blog. Plus there are the normal family, home life and work related things that need to be attended to. One day I may make time for boredom. Not yet tho not yet.
Blessings, G
Click on Images to see full-sized:
Little Red’s Night by G A Rosenberg
Stepping Outside the Night She Saw Nothing Unusual by G A Rosenberg
“Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
As I have written before, I am seldom bored. Not only is life too short but there are still so many things to contemplate, to read, to see, to do? In my mind I do them all. Perhaps that’s one of the secrets to overcoming boredom. If we learn to develop a life in the mind and outside of it. I love to meditate and still my thoughts and almost anything can become a mindful practice if you let it. Left unattended my mind descends into word play and terrible puns which I may inflict on people. I also like to let my imagination run free and see what kind of trouble it can get into. I also love contemplating some of the more difficult questions about humanity; many of which I discuss here on the blog. Plus there are the normal family, home life and work related things that need to be attended to. One day I may make time for boredom. Not yet tho not yet.
Blessings, G
Click on Images to see full-sized:
Little Red’s Night by G A Rosenberg
Stepping Outside the Night She Saw Nothing Unusual by G A Rosenberg
“We live in condensations of our imagination”
― Terence McKenna
So much of what each of us consider real comes from our interpretations. When someone whom we respect tells us that we have done a good job do we swell up with pride or do we become angry at condescension? Do we become puzzled and hurt and try to figure out what they might mean by it and base our reactions on the conclusion we come to? A single mother leaves her child in the car so she can run in to a store. Is she negligent or is it ok? The answer to that depends on the imagination of the observer. So much of our reality is dependent on our viewpoint and how we fill in the blanks and there are always blanks. There are always unknown factors that we are unaware of. How we fill these voids depends on our experience in similar situations and what we imagine the consequences may be.
In either case, it is our imagination that determines our reality. Understanding this gives us the opportunity to imagine other possibilities. If we want to change the world, it may help us to adapt different interpretations. Imagining other viewpoints or other reality tunnels can enable us to act more compassionately and more positively and more openly to other people. Imagining better makes us better.
Blessings, G
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
― Albert Einstein
If our imaginations are coming attractions for our lives then why do so many of us imagine such horrible things? I do believe in the Law of Attraction to the extent that I believe that what we think does affect our future. I mean it affects our present and our past so it would only follow. Where I believe so many people become frustrated with the idea (all the normal objections about whether starving children or victims of disasters have brought it on themselves) is that it is one universal law of many and there are others such as the Law of Karma that play a role as well. Still it makes a great case for optimism. Pessimism may bring you the odd pleasant surprise yet in the long run I’d rather enjoy what’s going on around me 90% of the time than be happy that things haven’t hit their worst 10%.
Blessings, G
“This I learned in the Mysterium: to take seriously every unknown wanderer who personally inhabits the inner world, since they are real because they are effectual.”
— C. G. Jung, The Red Book
In my mind live many beings. They populate my dreams and my imagination. Many have found their way into my art. When I am alone, I speak with them. Coyote tricks me into realizing how often I fight my own reflection. The Hanged Man tells me of reflection also and insight. The Creature in my Closet turns to mist to show me how insubstantial my fear is. Mother Cloud holds me to her breasts and calms my anxiety. Even the fox has his say for no one knows better than he how to escape tight spots.
The skeletal hand beckons and the Angel sings and then there is those tempting spirits. So many other make their appearance. Each one imparts their lessons, each one made necessary by the fact that they appear. The wisdom, comfort and occasional torment they offer all help me to become. While it appears to be a playful disassociation in reality it is anything but that. I realize that they are parts of me and that I contain them.
Blessings, G
“The artist’s task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. If artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found.”
-Terence McKenna
We’re all artists, our mediums may differ but we all create our lives from our imagination using the tools and materials at hand. Some of us give up way too easily leaving designs half finished or we spend our lives searching for others who will complete our designs for us. Some of us finger paint and let our designs go willy-nilly. Don’t get me wrong for this method can produce beauty and fractal patterns never before seen. Some of us tho, partly by design and partly by taking advantage of patterns that we see as they develop, create true beauty that inspires. Our lives leap off the page or off the board and influence others to see what they can truly do and become.
Blessings, G
“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”
― Mark Twain
If we combine our imagination with a bit of will reality bends our way. Perhaps the change will be one of outlook. Quite often how we look in our lives can be the difference between a life that is less than satisfactory to one with endless possibilities. Perhaps the change will be one of action, where the dream itself gives us the impetus to make it happen. The change may be an inspirational one where our imagination inspires others to make changes with us and thus we create a better world.
Blessings, G
“See I’m Imagination. I’m Real, and I’m the best friend you ever had. Who do you think got you all this cool stuff?
The clothes you’re wearing, the room, the house, the city that you’re in. Everything in it started out in the human imagination”
— Alan Moore, Promethea
Through our imagination we create. Without the ability to imagine a finished result would we do anything volitionally? We imagine each step of the way the results of our actions and then decide our next actions on how well the results matched what we imagined and how we picture the result of our modifications. Our art and our speech are the expressions of our imagination. Everything we do and basically everything we allow ourselves to be. Ultimately we are all magicians using our will to express our imaginations.
Blessings, G
“Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal.
Interesting people can find something interesting in all things.”
― Idries Shah
Does what you’re doing seem really tedious? Does it feel like the world has ceased to entertain you and that what you do seems repetitive and has lost meaning? When is the last time you studied something new? or made up words to a song inside your head? When is the last time you really tried to answer questions about meaning that you may have given up on? When is the last time you wondered how your life would be different if everyone you knew was gender-swapped? How about wondering if it was possible that everyone around you had actually reached the peak of spiritual evolution and your mission in life was to learn from them everything you possibly could? Do things seem a bit less boring now? As Dan Millman expresses it in his Peaceful Warrior books “There is never nothing going on,”
Blessings, G
Meaning, Thought and Mirror by G A Rosenberg 
Map by G A Rosenberg 
