Tag: learning

Tuning Ourselves to Our Lessons

 

“To be in harmony with all things would be a wondrous thing, tho just as we learn best when we are outside our comfort zones, it is the points of cacophony from which our lessons come.”
— Randall Wolfe

 

Many of us strive so hard to feel at harmony with life, with ourselves and with all things. We dislike feeling out of harmony or out of balance with our loved ones or our surroundings. Yet quite often it is in the areas where we feel disharmonious that we can learn the deepest lessons and grow the most. If anything those points of disharmony are our shadows given form. Sometimes in order to feel that harmonious flow, we have to find the disharmony and discover in what way it has taken us out of balance. Sometimes just like tuning the keys of a piano or the strings of a guitar we have to play around with the point of imbalance until the flow is repaired. Sometimes to do this we have to go more out of balance first one way and then another until it feels just right. If we try to force it the string might break so instead it is a gentle tuning.
Take for example if we feel anger towards another, first we have to identify the feeling and see what may be causing this. Perhaps in doing this we may become overly permissive towards the person or behaviour that made us upset in the first place. We have to recognize we are doing that until we come to the realization that either the behaviour was ok and we were overreacting or it was not ok and we communicate this and work out the problem. We tune too high, then too low and fiddle until eventually harmony is restored.
Understanding where we become imbalanced can bring a truer harmony than we had before.
Blessings, G

 

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From the SeaFrom a Distant Sea by G A Rosenberg

 

An Alien NatureAn Alien Nature by G A Rosenberg

 

Fiorenze’d Movement (Tuscany, Italy)

 

“Ancora Imparo

(Yet I am learning)”
― Michelangelo

 

Today we were in Tuscany. We went to Fiorenze (Florence), Italy and at breakneck speed, saw Michelangelo’s David at the Academia and then at a forced march pace went to the jewellery district and then to the Uffizi gallery where we saw so many famous and favourite works of art such as the Birth of Venus by Botticelli and too many others way too fast. Our tour guide zoomed along with us following in her 4’8” wake as she held up her sign just high enough to get a glimpse with her voice receding into crackles on our head phones. She marched us to the bus where we went to an amazing meal at a resort on the Tuscany countryside and from there to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Pisa is fascinating. The tower and church that it is adjacent to is in the middle of a rather rough area that is filled with refugees from a few different countries trying desperately to eek out a living selling souvenirs manufactured elsewhere, sunglasses or umbrellas to tourists passing by. The tower, church and ground has thousands of people walking in and around, taking pictures where they are either propping up the tower or having it jut between their legs. We had twenty minutes free time there and then walked back to the bus and returned to the ship
Tomorrow we hit Rome at a similar breakneck pace. I have a new appreciation for the meaning of cruising speed and need to figure out pacing better. It is an amazing gift to be able to see so much of Western Civilization and getting to meet people from all over the world on this trip.
The Statue of David is amazing to see and walk around. I don’t know that I have ever seen the statue shot from behind.
Blessings, G

 

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David's BackDavid’s Back

 

Dat Leaning TowerLeaning Tower

 

Mediteranean SunsetMediterranean Sunset

 

Water ColoursWater Colours

Teachers…

 

“When focusing only on one’s credentials one boasts his own incompetence in his capacity for discernment of the individual.”
― Criss Jami

 

I met this old professor.
He wore his degrees like medals.
He would talk for hours of
all that he had learned thirty years ago
yet when I asked
what he had learned since
or what made his heart sing
he gave me a blank stare
“Hearts do not sing”, he scoffed
“I have learned all I need to know long ago.”
He walked away as there was nothing he could teach me.
He was right.

 

I met an old street woman.
She was a Princess in the land
she was from
or so she said.
She had only three tobacco stained teeth in her mouth
and her eyes shone.
She had dreams dancing there
and each one brought her from day to day.
She said for five dollars
she would tell me a secret
I handed her the money and she said.
“Love, Dream, Learn, Share”
I longed to forever here her teachings

 

I saw a child playing
He ran up to me and said “Play”
He did a little dance
I said “I must complete this project”
and then perhaps I will.
He looked at me and did a little dance.
He hugged me and then skipped and said “Play”
Totally in the moment
One day he would grow
and worry about yesterday and tomorrow
but today he was present.
I joined the Teacher in the moment
and danced in the now.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Intersecting RealitiesIntersecting Realities by G A Rosenberg

 

Fractal TemplateTemplate by G A Rosenberg

Withholding the No

 

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”
― Ansel Adams

 

One day when I was walking through a nearby park, I met an old man and we start talking. He talked about his early life in the military and then later on how he traveled by rail and hitchhiked all over the country. I loved his stories. Oh he expressed many views I didn’t agree with. He seemed a bit racist and his view of politics was way different than mine. I didn’t voice my disagreement tho because I wanted to hear more of his stories that so beautifully expressed his life.
It’s my experience that most people don’t take well to being told their views are mistaken, which by many means different than their own. Oh I’m not shy about expressing my particular reality tunnels either here or when asked, I just have never been comfortable negating the views of others. Think of how many stories we would miss out on if we shut someone off just because they offered an opinion, even one we chose to find offensive. Eventually people’s views especially ones we find ignorant will grow and expand given half a chance. Reality has a way of widening most viewpoints these days and seldom if ever have I seen a viewpoint narrowed by what has befallen someone.
I will always listen to people’s stories because sometimes that is the most precious thing they have to share. I have yet to meet anyone whom I couldn’t learn something from and my favourite hobby is curing my own ignorance…
Blessings, G

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High PriestessII – The High Priestess by G A Rosenberg

 

Indigo Star PatternIndigo Star Pattern by G A Rosenberg

New Worlds to Conquer

“We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.”
― Carlos Castaneda

 

I admit it. I’m a knowledge junkie. Each new area of interest I come into contact with expands my world and my existence. It telescopes outward and expands in fractal patterns. In each new area, psychology, metaphysics, art, history that captures my interest also works microscopically in reverse bringing me greater self-awareness and self-knowledge which of course becomes expansive in its own right. What new thing can we learn today and where will it take us?
Blessings, G

 

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Padding towards the SwordPadding Towards the Sword by G A Rosenberg

 

Spinning InverseSpinning by G A Rosenberg

Lotus

“The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud — the obstacles of life and its suffering. … The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. … Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one. ”
― Goldie Hawn

 

Funny how it seems each petal takes its own kind of courage as well. The first petals take the most courage but are the easiest. It’s just that doing anything for the first time can be daunting. After that  we increase in motivation but it gets progressively harder. tho the more sun we let in the better

 

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Sun Lotus by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – June 2 2012

“I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers.”
― Khalil Gibran

Amazing if I have learned these things then I have to ask myself what have I been teaching? Sanity? Wisdom? Patience?. Perhaps I need to keep asking myself this at any given time. What am I teaching by my words and actions. This gets driven home to me quite often when I notice my teenage son emulating behaviours of mine that I don’t even want to admit to. Bits of my shadow self that I still haven’t worked my way through.
Still gratitude of all of these things I find to be paramount. No matter how difficult my life may be, I feel grateful for the challenges that come my way even from those who have been less than kind, less than tolerant, and less than silent. Of course grateful for the good stuff too. Always that
Blessings, G

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In My Sights by G A Rosenberg

Flame War by G A Rosenberg