“What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.”
-Joseph Campbell
Surrender to the search within
even as it takes you to places
you never thought existed
as facets reveal
untold treasures
and sometimes horrors
and then there are those sides
that partake of both
Never be afraid of
the shadowed aspects
for in those shadows
the light shines brightly
and it is the darkest flame
that illuminates most.
— G A Rosenberg
“A symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. We must distinguish, therefore between the ‘sense’ and the ‘meaning’ of the symbol. It seems to me perfectly clear that all the great and little symbolical systems of the past functioned simultaneously on three levels: the corporeal of waking consciousness, the spiritual of dream, and the ineffable of the absolutely unknowable. The term ‘meaning’ can refer only to the first two but these, today, are in the charge of science – which is the province as we have said, not of symbols but of signs. The ineffable, the absolutely unknowable, can be only sensed. It is the province of art which is not ‘expression’ merely, or even primarily, but a quest for, and formulation of, experience evoking, energy-waking images: yielding what Sir Herbert Read has aptly termed a ‘sensuous apprehension of being.”
— Joseph Campbell
We build new symbol systems on the roots of the old. The same archetypes show up again and again whether they be Emperor, Fool, Mother, Thunder, or Death. Each time they arise, new aspects of their universal selves are described and no one can encompass their full meaning. More than ever before we have access to the symbol systems of the past. We know that the messenger god Hermes was seen as Thoth in Egypt, Eschu in Santeria culture and Legba in Voudon. There is always a messenger between man and the gods who stands at the crossroads and tricks our minds into being able to receive the message. We can roll these similar archetypes into one yet still there will be something missed. It seems that archetypes like T. S. Elliot’s Cats have three names or aspects, The Face we give them, the face they give themselves and a universal ineffable face that is beyond understanding as a full facet of multiversal existence.
Blessings, G
“A symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. We must distinguish, therefore between the ‘sense’ and the ‘meaning’ of the symbol. It seems to me perfectly clear that all the great and little symbolical systems of the past functioned simultaneously on three levels: the corporeal of waking consciousness, the spiritual of dream, and the ineffable of the absolutely unknowable. The term ‘meaning’ can refer only to the first two but these, today, are in the charge of science – which is the province as we have said, not of symbols but of signs. The ineffable, the absolutely unknowable, can be only sensed. It is the province of art which is not ‘expression’ merely, or even primarily, but a quest for, and formulation of, experience evoking, energy-waking images: yielding what Sir Herbert Read has aptly termed a ‘sensuous apprehension of being.”
— Joseph Campbell
We build new symbol systems on the roots of the old. The same archetypes show up again and again whether they be Emperor, Fool, Mother, Thunder, or Death. Each time they arise, new aspects of their universal selves are described and no one can encompass their full meaning. More than ever before we have access to the symbol systems of the past. We know that the messenger god Hermes was seen as Thoth in Egypt, Eschu in Santeria culture and Legba in Voudon. There is always a messenger between man and the gods who stands at the crossroads and tricks our minds into being able to receive the message. We can roll these similar archetypes into one yet still there will be something missed. It seems that archetypes like T. S. Elliot’s Cats have three names or aspects, The Face we give them, the face they give themselves and a universal ineffable face that is beyond understanding as a full facet of multiversal existence.
Blessings, G
“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and it’s spectacular. ”
–Joseph Campbell
I know many people who can say that they’re enjoying their life and they find this current period of their existence to be sweet but I have yet to meet anyone who believes that life is easy. Heartbreak, pain and suffering happen to us all and with any luck they are only occasional visitors that drop off their gifts and leave. I know for many they move in and linger. They eat all the good food, wear our clothes and leave gray muck in the bathtub. Eventually tho if only for short respites they leave. Even when the vicissitudes of life are with us tho, life is pretty amazing and if we let ourselves be swept along with it we can forget about the things that drag us down and appreciate the sun on the waters, the breeze in the air or the smile of a baby. Even our suffering can be appreciated because if nothing else it is ours and we are alive to feel it.
Blessings, G
“The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The objective world remains what it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest—as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance of a galaxy of stars.”
— Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces
The world is shaped by our experience of it. Any two of us can have a day where we experience the same events, practice the same activity and see the same things yet have two very different descriptions of it.
“Wow I got to interact with so many people today and got to respond to their needs!”
“What a day! So many people kept bothering me with their problems!”
“The weather was beautiful. The sun kept shining through the window and it brightened my day”
“That f*king sun kept shining in my eyes and it was so hot.”
“The music was so great! I just closed my eyes and let it take me. I was in a meditative state for hours.”
“I was so bored”
Imagine then when we go through experiences that transform our lives. Where once we experienced life in one way, we now experience it in another. What in one context is a problem in another becomes an opportunity or a challenge (occasionally this happens in reverse). Our experience of people changes as well. The more we come to know ourselves, the more we come to understand others and can relate better to them. It’s the same world on the outside yet it is our perceptions (and our choices) that make the difference.
Blessings, G
“All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”
— Joseph Campbell
On the surface the above quote seems obvious. I mean by the fact that we can imagine deities and heavens and hells it means we contain the. Yet there are many layers to the statement. If we are indeed the universe in miniture, and the universe contains each of these forces than we contain each one also. We can personify and give name to each aspect of our being and the more we understand that aspect, the more we can understand the named force behind it and by invoking that force, we can invoke that aspect of ourselves. Thus if we want to call up our sexuality, we can invoke Pan or Dionysus or Babylon. If we wish to invoke our wisdom we can invoke Athena or any of the other names she is called in any of the pantheons. By invoking these forces, we can better understand them and better understand that aspect of our beings. In this way we can also balance out the parts of ourselves that we don’t utilize enough.
We can also use these inner representations of deity to better connect to those aspects of the universe and thus connect our internal life with external reality. By naming these aspects of ourselves and relating them to the world at large, we can gain greater understanding, appreciation and use of both.
Blessings, G
“A mythological order is a system of images that gives consciousness a sense of meaning in existence, which, my dear friend, has no meaning––it simply is. But the mind goes asking for meanings; it can’t play unless it knows (or makes up) the rules. Mythologies present games to play: how to make believe you’re doing thus and so. Ultimately, through the game, you experience that positive thing which is the experience of being-in-being, of living meaningfully. That’s the first function of a mythology, to evoke in the individual a sense of grateful affirmative awe before the monstrous mystery that is existence.”
— Joseph Campbell
Mythology gives us a language. We hold these archetypes in our heads and dream of them. We imagine kingdoms won and lost and the spirit power behind all natural and unnatural phenomenon personified and named. If we can give these form and tell true stories about them than we have gone a long way towards the visceral understanding of deep truths. Myths and stories provide the vocabulary to express truth. Of course what we do with the truth and where it takes us is up to us.
Blessings, G
“It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religion, philosphies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.”
–Joseph Campbell
From a young age I had a strong interest in archetypes and myths. As a child I read every book on mythology that I could find in the library and constantly searched for more. There was something in me that was touched by these stories. I felt a connection to the beliefs that people had. As a teenager and young adult this expanded into studying every religion I could find as often as not from the inside. I was searching for large answers, perhaps even capital Truth (as opposed to the personal subjective small t truths we all have). More than anything I wanted to understand why people believe what they believe in and how it all matched up. When I started reading Carl Jung and his ideas on archetypes and the collective unconscious things started clicking for me. There was a reason why so many of the deities in each culture seemed to match up with one another. They were all aspects of the same universal forces. Thus almost every culture had a war god, a love goddess, brother gods who fought each other, solar gods who died and were reborn etc. Then at the age of eighteen I discovered the tarot.
At the time I was studying the works of Carlos Castaneda and using those books as a springboard into the study of Theosophy, Wiccan Lore, Qabalistic Lore, Parapsychology, Philosophy and about ten different phenomenon. A friend of mine (who was more knowledgeable than I and saw himself as my teacher) and I would read chapters and sit there with books strewn all over our apartment keeping ourselves going with over the counter caffein and diet pills and take out. It was a sublime time for me but then I have always been something of a geek.
When we discovered that there was a tarot class being held nearby we jumped at the chance to attend.
Sandy who taught the class was a woman in her late twenties who together with her husband ran an Astrological Research centre. They taught classes and did charts and readings for people. There were about eight or nine of us in the class and Sandy’s two chihuahuas. Week after week we would sit in a circle while she went over the cards and what they meant with her dogs jumping at her heels. My room mate Bill and I supplemented the class with our own outside reading which consisted of a few of Arthur E. Waite’s books, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack, Crowley’s Book of Thoth and Eileen Connolly’s Tarot Handbook for the Apprentice. We also gave each other and anyone who would ask readings.
On the night before the last night of class, Sandy thought it would be a good idea for the class to attempt a reading together. Someone suggested that she be the subject and she giddily (as she did everything else) agree. She laid out the cards in a typical celtic cross spread and then abruptly switched gears and put the cards away and started another project. Bill and I who were sitting closest had to avoid laughing because we had seen the cards. There was quite a lot in there about Sandy’s marriage and other aspects of her life she did not particularly feel like sharing.
I don’t know whether Sandy was the best teacher or not but she did start me off on a subject that has held my interest for the last thirty years. It has helped me expand my understanding of human consciousness and spirituality and cosmology. It has also given me an amazing perspective on human nature and perception and how to open myself up to my own intuition and for that I owe a strong debt of gratitude.
Blessings, G
“We’re in a freefall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective and that’s all it is… joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.”
― Joseph Campbell
Falling
aimlessly down the well
of my own failings
Have I lost my way or tripped?
Where will I land?
Flailing
trying desperately to undo
what has led me here
Can I find my way back to
where I was before?
Floating
resigned to the crashing end
and feeling peace
Hasn’t all led me to this?
Isn’t this natural?
Flying
triumphantly driving my way down
and making it happen
Have I found liberation?
What can happen next?
— G A Rosenberg
“I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child.”
― Joseph Campbell
Hanging around with many people, online and off, who are into spiritual matters I have noticed something. There are lots of people who feel that they are somehow special, a cut above the rest in awareness, knowledge, understanding etc.
I have known so many people who have felt that they had a unique connection to higher levels of being. That’s fine and it is a rare thing indeed for me to question it. What drives me a bit nuts tho, is hearing people talking about others as ‘juggles’, ‘unaware’, ‘involved’, asleep etc. OK so there are lots of people out there who have yet to explore the spiritual side of their beings yet every one of them has some form of unique spiritual beauty that no one else has…there is some facet of universal being that they are uniquely heir to with infinite potential. In the joy and delight of discovering my own and sharing with others I tend to feel too busy treading my path to worry overmuch about where I am relative to others.
Blessings, G
****Contest Winner****
Congratulations to Juliette King (Check out her blog Vampire Maman at http://vampiremaman.com) on winning a signed print of Dreamscape 17. Thanks to all those who entered. I will have another contest in June for another chance to win. Those interested in purchasing a print can do so at http://wakingspirals.deviantart.com. If you don’t see what a particular picture of mine that you are interested in drop me a note here and I will make sure its up there for you.
Rooted Abstract by G A Rosenberg 
Spirit Walk by G A Rosenberg 
