Of Idea Banks and Tangled Webs

 

“The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle; reinvent. Build a tangled bank.”
— Steven Johnson

 

Given my love of crossroads and tricksters, it is not surprising that the Spider is one of my favourite totems. He spins out in all directions and connects (sometimes inconveniently) disparate ideas, concepts and objects. Anything and anyone may be drawn into the spider’s web and it all tends to incorporate beautifully into the somewhat chaotic design.
I draw ideas for my art and writing from many different schools of thought. I love finding connections between different mythos and belief systems and love things like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Penny Dreadful that bring together characters from different fictional worlds to see how they may interact.
Sometimes the connections may be tenuous and may fall apart under closer examination. Many spider-webs tend to be fragile and transitory. Similar things happen when I bring together friends from two different areas of my life. Sometimes it works out beautifully and we find commonalities that no one would have guessed existed. Other times it may lead to an afternoon of stilted and forced conversation.
When a new combination of people or ideas or strand of design works tho it is well worth it. It can lead to other connections and before you know it a web network is there. It may be tangled but that can all be worked out later.
Blessings, G

 

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Lady of the Two TowersLady of the Two Towers by G A Rosenberg

 

Force RenderingsForce Renderings by G A Rosenberg

 

Unraveling the Fractal Patterns

 

“What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

 

The other day a friend of mine was talking about divination and how he was responsible for his future. I surprised him by agreeing. I do believe that the most that any form of divination be it tarot, astrology, i ching or oxen entrails can and will show us is the most likely thing to happen. We all tend to follow patterns that play out in all aspects of our lives. If you know someone’s patterns and at what point they are in them, it is very easy to see both what will probably happen next and what it would take to break the pattern. I have found that the tarot cards help me to intuit a person’s pattern and how it is playing out for them fairly easily. Depending on the spread and how well I am tuned into the reading, I can also see what is needed to break the pattern. This normally takes a strong effort of will and a lot of work as most of us develop our patterns at a very early age. I have worked hard at discovering and understanding my own patterns. While I have come a long way, I still have far to go at breaking some of the more destructive ones.
Blessings, G

 

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Expansion ZoneExpansion Zone by G A Rosenberg

 

A Separate ExpansionA Separate Expansion by G A Rosenberg

Full-Court, Half-Court, Quarter-Court Shoot

“Your head’s like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune’s all we are.”
― Grant Morrison

 

When I was in my senior year of high school the first video games came out. I remember an early one in the student union at the University next door where my friends and I would hang out, eat snacks and study. This was a basketball game with an introductory loop like many of them had. It showed a basketball player shooting a basket at full-court, then the player would move to half-court and shoot at the basket again then to quarter-court and once again shoot. Then the sequence would begin again and run through until someone put a quarter into play.
I would watch this sequence over and over again and being of a somewhat unusual turn of mind I would try to imagine what existence was like for this tiny pixelated player. Was he bored with his endeavour? What was he thinking? On some level perhaps I could identify with him, playing out a life script that at times seemed to have as much meaning as full-court shoot, half-court shoot, quarter-court shoot and repeat. I resolved at that point that I would choose my script and change it as many times as I could. Even then I wished my life to be intentional, to have meaning.
I have learned in my life perhaps due to the lesson of that video-game basketball player to seek to recognize the patterns that I fall into and understand them and break them. Oh they still come up but one by one they are slowly evolving. As are we all
Blessings, G

 

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Remembering HomeRemembering Home by G A Rosenberg

 

Golden Apex MandalaGolden Apex by G A Rosenberg

Sunday Art Explosion

Kaleidoscopic Thoughts
Patterns and Colours elicit memories
that keep returning in small measure
Fractal repeating tropes
that resolve sometimes in local fashion
more often in infinite expression.

 

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Electric AztecElectric Aztec by G A Rosenberg

 

Electric Water LilyWater-Lilly by G A Rosenberg

 

Black Light ExplosionBlack Light Explosion by G A Rosenberg

Patterns

“Your self image is your pattern!. Every thought has an activity visualized. Every activity belongs to a pattern. You identify with your pattern or thought. Your patterns leads your life.”
J. G. Gallimore

So then is Gallimore using the word pattern where we we have been seeing the word story used elsewhere? A story told round and round again falls into a pattern weaving its way outwards.

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Parrot Feathers by G A Rosenberg

Heart Mandala by G A Rosenberg