Tag: Jack Kerouac

Snapshots Public and Private

 

“I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

One of the bigger quandaries for me as a father has been trying to decide how much to tell my son about some of my adventures as a teenager and young adult. I find that on the one hand while I want him to know that I’ll understand if life throws him some bizarre curves yet at the same time I don’t necessarily want him to make some of the more foolhardy choices I made. I do know that in all probability he will make his own. The question is how much can I tell him without romanticizing, with letting him know how difficult some of it was and how while I have very few regrets I would hope that he need not need some of the more difficult lessons that I had to learn. But then I know eventually he will hear all of the stories. Of course by that time, he may have kids of his own and his own choices about how much of his past to share.
Blessings, G

 

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Shaping Electric DreamsShaping Electric Dreams by G A Rosenberg

 

Temple MandalaEdifice by G A Rosenberg

Expanding the Road

 

“The road must eventually lead to the whole world.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

I write a lot about the road and the journey and how no two of ours are the same. There is truth in that and yet for most of us our trails widen and the areas of understanding and commonality start intersecting and overlapping more and more. It is very rare that something happens to us that is so traumatic that it narrows our road and forces us to shut down our understanding. Perhaps someone has wronged us horribly in some way that the possibility of feeling compassion for their point of view seems bleak. (As a side note here I want to point out that understanding someone’s point of view or feeling compassion does not mean we condone what they do. If someone was a threat to my family or anyone without the ability to defend themselves, I would step in and cause damage to get them to stop. Yes, I would feel compassion for them and in many cases I believe that the spirit of those who cause harm is crying out to be stopped.) As we understand and allow ourselves to walk in the footsteps of others our road leads out to the world. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Blessings, G

 

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Drifting AwarenessDrifting Awareness by G A Rosenberg

 

Fiery CorridorsFiery Corridors by G A Rosenberg

Exploring in Familiar Places

“All of life is a foreign country.”
― Jack Kerouac

 

What is the first thing you do when you enter a country for the first time? I find that
whenever I travel to someplace new, I first acclimate myself. I look around and see what is different from what I have experienced before and what is similar. I love experiencing things for the first time and delight in people watching. What can I learn here and now that I have never known? How can I expand my knowledge? Each place ends up marking me in a new way.
When is the last time you looked around at your present environment as if it were a new country to explore? How much do we take for granted in our everyday lives that could if looked at with no expectations, reveal new things about life and the world around us? Life is never static and much happens around us every day. As Dan Millman’s teacher Socrates says in “Way of the Peaceful Warrior”, “There is never ‘nothing going on’.”
I would like to challenge everyone reading this to wake up tomorrow and experience something familiar as if you are seeing it for the first time.
Blessings, G

 

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On His MindOn His Mind by G A Rosenberg

 

Scarlet DreamScarlet Dream by G A Rosenberg

Smokey Mountains Wisdom

“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.”
― Jack Kerouac

 

Things I can’t accept
the mountain teaches wisdom
Temporal things pass

 

A few days away
lonely with family
exploring mountains, peaches
and my own being
If I could remove the inner peach core
and let my outside be devoured
would that bring me greater peace?
or do I with stony exterior
address the world with hard wisdom
and acceptance of all.
My peach self will pass
and the mountain abides
I scatter to the wind
knowing that scars heal
and new fruit grows
something greater remains.

— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Smoky Mountains

Mind Scape

“I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.”
― Jack Kerouac

 

“Stop this ride and let me climb off.” I tell this to the conductor who is also me. He gives me a weary look and slows things down. He knows how often I have asked this before only to demand things start up again as soon as it came to a complete stop. Do I know my own mind? Better than most but I need to know it from the outside to see if TARDIS-like it expands eternally internally. The ride pauses if not stops completely and I grit my resolve and leap off. I hit the ground or I would if I wasn’t suddenly falling through the clouds. How often I’ve watched them outside an airplane window wishing somehow I could walk in that solid-looking illusory kingdom. It
s colder and moisture than I expected and not nearly as solid when you fall rain like. The ground comes rushing up to me and I have always been terrifying of falling or is that landing? Just like the ride tho, I slow to a float just above ground level. I step down.
There is a fire there. I sit down by the fire and look out and the stars are spectacular. They shift patterns and colours and I find myself entranced. At first I avoid inner quietude by naming unknown constellations but slowly out there lost in immensity my breathing slows. I let thoughts cross my mind without chasing after them. People pop in and pop out but they don’t stay long and after all its only me. Slowly I find peace and resolve.

BLessings, G

 

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Watching in the RuinsWatching From the Ruins by G A Rosenberg

 

Watching in the RuinsIntersecting Galaxies by G A Rosenberg

New Horizons

“Why think about that when all the golden land’s ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

As I write this, I am getting ready to go into travelling mode again. Something I look forward to as I always hope that new surroundings will equate to new insights and I am seldom disappointed. I guess its all about how present I wish to be. It seems so easy to get caught up in Facebook and my online life that I forget to see what’s in front of me and miss out on so much. After all what is adventure if I can be blogging? As much as I enjoy communicating and communing with you, I like the adventure of meeting new people and seeing either new things or revisit old things through new eyes.
Blessings, G

 

By the way, more than 777 of you have subscribed to my blog. I appreciate this more than I can say. To my new friends, welcome, To those who have been here for awhile, thank you.

 

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Channeling the WillChanneling the Will by G A Rosenberg

 

Multi-Layered BoxMulti-Layered Byox by G A Rosenberg

The Road Not (Really) Taken

 

“What’s in store for me in the direction I don’t take?”
― Jack Kerouac

 

Our lives are determined by our choices. Large and small we come to crossroads daily, knowing that any decision we make may have lasting consequences. Years later we may reflect on life’s crossroads and wonder “What if?” We may spend time reflecting on what our lives would be like if we had only turned right rather than left.
Back in my younger days I used to try to cheat this. I’d stand in the crossroads trying to look down the roads of any possible choices as far as I could. I would then with loud HOORAHs choose a course go down it a short ways until something felt off and then would curry back to the centre thinking that NOW i would make my REAL choice. I did that for years with many many decisions and misfires. Eventually it dawned on me that those choices did count and the act of choosing them changed me so even when I went back to the centre, I was not the same one who had chosen the first time. For it is each choice that determines our life and our path is EVERYTHING that we do, even and perhaps especially the misfires.
Blessings, G

 

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Serpentine Web2Serpentine Web by G A Rosenberg

 

Gosamer DreamGossamer Dream by G A Rosenberg

In Love With Your Life…

“Be in love with your life, every detail of it.”
― Jack Kerouac

 

How do you love the parts of your life that seem hard or that you fight or that you wish never were?  When I was growing up my older sister used to complain about the shape of her face. My mother would advise her part by joke and part by rote. “I love my nose. I can’t change it so I will love it and accept it. I love my chin.” She shared this with me years later and while at first I laughed at the cheesiness, it made me think. What if I took it beyond the physical?  “I love my frustration. I love my irritability.” When something bothered me about my life that I felt I couldn’t adequately address I started telling myself how much I loved it. It was amazing how empowering surrender could be. By being aware of these negative emotions or circumstances not in a confrontational way but in a loving way I found myself becoming less frustrated and less easily irritated. That’s not to say these traits have left me completely but at least they are loved rather than used as a means to kick myself.

Blessings, G

 

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Rainbows at nightRainbows at night by G A Rosenberg

 

TransformationTransformation by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 27 2013

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
― Jack Kerouac

 

I often over think  things, well everything really. I indulge my mythology with convoluted tales either on a personal or political level. More and more I realize that what I need to do is simplify. So much of the complexities I tell myself are inventions that obscure the truth. I’m learning tho to unravel the layers and discover more and more who I truly am.
I will find the simple words that express the truth of my being and I will know they are the right words because of their simplicity.
Blessings, G

 

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SalutationSalutation by G A Rosenberg

 

GalaxiesGalaxies by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 14 2013

I’m the golden eternity in mortal animate form.”
― Jack Kerouac

 

The moment whispers of a thousand eternities
ones haunted by memories of you
in that dress as you were when i last saw you
a last look of red and blue as you stormed out the door
oh eventually you came back
but the youness was gone
You no longer saw my struggles
just my past failures
and chose not to reveal
anything of thought or fancy to me
I asked you to care again
and my words echoed back
through my emptiness
How can you exist so clearly
in memories and on the couch
yet have disappeared beyond any
ability to reach?

 

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StarredStarred by G A Rosenberg</h5

 

Dreaming A Technicolour Reality

Dreaming a Technicolour Reality by G A Rosenberg