past - Waking Spirals

Focus on the Future

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
― Dan Millman

I’ve given up second-guessing
and regret
they’ve always weighed me down.
I can’t change the past
now would I.
I’ll let it slide
into its own detritus
providing mulch for future growth.
Instead focusing on the now and
setting my intent on what’s to come.
With clarity I’ll move forward
and my steps will be sure.
— G A Rosenberg

Blessings, G

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Background Alien by G A Rosenberg

Colour Explosion by G A Rosenberg

What I Choose To Be; What I Choose to Become

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
~ Carl Jung

The past is gone,
its footprints fade as the present
ebbs and flows along my life’s ocean.
With it goes the past hurts and triumphs
its losses and joys as well
The only use they have for me now
is as lessons that need not be learned again
It is what I encompass now that matters
and where I will take it.
Those who live in the past
reliving their glories
or remaining victim to their pain
are stagnant swamps
I would rather be the mighty ocean
flowing proudly into the future
living each day and then washing it away
with its sediment used to build anew
— G A Rosenberg

Blessings, G

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Cosmic Spider Lwa by G A Rosenberg

Protected by G A Rosenberg

Choices Informed

“No matter what choices we make in life, we still carry our beginnings with us. Perhaps its in something as simple as our choice of breakfast or how we wash our hands. But if we choose to be truly free than we ignore the influence of our beginnings at our own peril.”
— Randall Wolfe

I have been stumbling across a certain meme a lot lately. I have even used variations of it myself. It says something along the lines that we are not composed of where we came from but of choices we have made along the way. Now I do believe that our choices contribute a lot to who we are but do we choose freely? Are our choices dictated at least partly by the environment we grew up in and the way we watched our parents do things? Perhaps we have chosen to reject everything about our homes as many who have come from far less than ideal environments have. Does our rejection of our past mean that we choose our futures free of their influence or does choosing the opposite of something in rejection still mean that we are influenced by it? Are we perhaps programmed by our childhood influences in ways that we might not even realize?
It is only when we look deeply at our pasts and its programming that we can make conscious choices and know that we are choosing not out of blind acceptance or rejection but out of the people who we truly are. Even then our past influences can turn around and bite us when we least realize it. But then perhaps on a deeper level we made the choice of where when and to whom we were born in the first place. It is food for thought for sure.
Blessings, G

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Wandering Through Lunar Tides by G A Rosenberg

Crystal Mesh by G A Rosenberg

Break the Chains of the Past

“Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

We’ve all made mistakes in our past. We’ve done things we wish we hadn’t or let people use us and didn’t feel good about it afterwards. Yes, I say let them because we always have a choice in the matter and most often even if we deny it on some level we knew what we were doing and were complicit. Yet do we refuse to trust again or refuse to act again because of our past or do we take the plunge and move on. To me, letting our wounds stop us from taking more chances is akin to not learning from our past in the first place. We need to take our past and let it inform us, not control us. This world is amazing with new chances to act and do and see things we never have before coming several times every day. We need to take these chances and say yes… that is the only way to release our chains.
Blessings, G

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Looking Out Through the Green by G A Rosenberg

Space Warp Abstraction by G A Rosenberg

Clambering Through Past Clouds

“I will clamber through the clouds and exist.”
—John Keats

This week is another week of traveling and family for me. I become acquainted and better acquainted with the next generation of kids and pets and reconnect with siblings and parents. Since to do this I have to cross the continent I don’t get to do this nearly as often as I like. One of the best things about this is that as I grow and learn I feel that each time I have more to bring to the table. I have more self-awareness for sure but also a greater openness and willingness to be without facade. It’s not always the easiest thing to do. Recently I came across a quote that said that the surest test of one’s enlightenment is spending time with family. They do have all the ‘before’ pictures and remember both past triumphs and mistakes. I look forward to this adventure and can’t wait to see what insights will come from it. Another great thing about spending time with one’s past is the spotlight it can shine on the present
Blessings, G

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Flying Through Clouds

Metallic Tartan by G A Rosenberg

Discovery by G A Rosenberg

Gifts of the Past

“Often it is the gifts of our past that allow us to see our way into the future”
–Randall Wolfe

Sometimes when we find ourselves facing self-doubt or lack of confidence about the future we think of something from our past and it gives us the momentum to go forward again. It maybe something a beloved relative or friend told us. It may be a favourite song or story or toy that reminds us of a happier and more hopeful time allowing us to once again move forward. Just the memory whether it pops into our mind or has some sensual stimulus (the aroma of apples and cinnamon cooking or the feel of an old stuffed animal) can install in us the will to move forward.
Blessings, G

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Endlessly Falling
forgetting what brought me here
I wonder where I’ll land.

Journey Down by G A Rosenberg

Firbird, renew me
burn my fears away
restoring my soul
making me whole

Firebird by G A Rosenberg

Worlds and Stars I offered
yet she was not impressed
for she wanted my universe
and would take nothing less

In the end I settled
for giving her my heart
Not realizing it was
what she asked for from the start

Offered the World by G A Rosenberg

Past Shades the Present

“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

How often have you heard someone say that they were ‘speaking their own truth’ or ‘expressing their reality’? Are our thoughts truly our own or are they a combination of our religious, cultural and societal upbringings? We often feel we have rejected our past in terms of our own free thought. I know for many years I felt that only to realize then that most of what I thought were my own ideas were indeed reactions to my past. Either way I looked at it it felt like I was either fighting the tide or embracing it. It was only when I realized this that I was able to start weighing information taking my own upbringing as a factor in how I react to things I’ve learned. It will always have an influence. We are never free of our pasts and that is probably a good thing but understanding that patina has led to a greater understanding.
Blessings, G

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Moon Warrior by G A Rosenberg

Moire Vision by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 3 2012

“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”
― Milan Kundera

To me this speaks of facing our shadows, the parts of ourselves that we needed when we needed them and still can feel like comfortable old friends even as we’re sure we’re past them. Those parts can easily be the spiritual onlookers watching us rise saying “Jump Jump, come back to us. You know us and we can play the games we played at an earlier time. The vertigo can hit like a wave of nostalgia towards the who we were even as we realize we can not be that again. Well actually we can, we can play those mental photographs and fix the lessons feeling compassion for who we were and acknowledging it as part of ourselves. The past is ever contained within our beings. The Fool always has his bag with him. But then the time comes to face our future as well. That dynamic between who we were and who we will become is magical indeed and is happening NOW at every instance of our being.
Blessings, G

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Tree in a Reality Storm by G A Rosenberg

Serpentine Doorway by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 2 2012

“If you live in a past dream, you don’t enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is. There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive. Not enjoying what is happening right now is living in the past and being only half alive. This leads to self pity, suffering and tears.”
― Miguel Ruiz

There are points in our life that stick out, usually ones with strong emotion either strong pain or strong bliss. Either one of them can be traps. We relive when someone hurt us or sometimes even worse when we hurt someone else when we could have avoided it or possibly a sublime moment with someone loved that can never be repeated. Notice I don’t say it can’t be surpassed, merely that it can’t be repeated. We relive those memories (funny how they lose fidelity with repetition a lot like old cassette tapes) over and over either trying to find the sense, what we did right or what we did wrong. Somewhere along the way we find ourselves forgetting to live.
I remember breaking up with someone whose company I really enjoyed. We had a great time together. We could talk for hours and enjoyed many of the same things. Even the sex was good. That person could not live up to the intensity of a relationship I had before that was an exercise in self-destruction that had left me wounded. I hadn’t yet given myself permission to move on. Luckily I’ve since grown up quite a bit. Still tho, I work at living in the present. To be honest, I kind of prefer it this way.
Blessings, G

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Deserted Highway by G A Rosenberg

Fractal Net by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – January 9 2012

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”
–Marcus Aurelius

When doing readings for people (usually but not always with tarot cards), I find that patterns stick out. People tend to repeat the same cycles not only in one area of their lives but across the board. Relationships with others tend to reflect one’s relationship with their environment and with their job etc. If this would be true for individuals would it be that far a stretch of the imagination to suppose it to be true for civilizations and possibly even for the human race as a whole. I believe our universe to be a holographic one. Namaste, G

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Reverie by G A Rosenberg

Stained Glass by G A Rosenberg