Tag: photos

Mountain Perspective

 

“Mountains seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West. More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them. At bottom, mountains, like all wildernesses, challenge our complacent conviction – so easy to lapse into – that the world has been made for humans by humans. Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia. By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us.”
― Robert Macfarlane

 

I spent the greater part of today in Whistler, BC visiting friends and enjoying the mountain view. Whistler, besides being the site of the Winter Olympics in 2012 is renown for skiing and hiking. Outside of the resorts it also has become something of a large picturesque shopping mall. On a busy holiday weekend, thousands of people could be seen shopping and milling around. Many were attending a yoga festival and in the main field of the tourist park mall there were around fifty people, impressing lookers on and their friends with the way that they could contort their bodies. There were kids running and lots of dogs and people generally having a good time but moving quickly from one place to another.
It felt good to look to the mountains and see the unmoving. They have been there way before there was an Olympic village and way before there was a native fishing village. They preceded humans and may very well be there way past the time when we are not. I look to them and find patience and acceptance of everything that happens and a will to observe the hurry-scurry with tolerance, forbearing and humour even as I participated in it. Like the mountains I will forbear what comes my way tho unlike them I find times when action is necessary and even preferable. A mountain view always strengthens me tho as I realize that little that seems traumatic and important in the moment truly matters from another perspective.
Blessings, G

 

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Whistler MountainWhistler Mountain By Day

 

Tantalus MountainsTantalus Mountains in the Evening

 

Another Journey

 

“…there ain’t no journey what don’t change you some.”
― David Mitchell

 

This may be a short entry tonight for once again I have spent the day travelling from west to east and I find myself weary. This is another trip visiting relatives with kids and pets and general merriment. Still every journey should have a purpose and this is a voyage of recharging and empowerment for me. I have the intention of doing only that which brings joy and forsaking the rest and bring that sense of fun back with me to Vancouver.
Blessings, G

 

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IMG_0270Travelling

 

Shadow of the MindShadow of the Mind by G A Rosenberg

 

The Life of Trees

 

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
William Blake

 

strange when you look at trees and meditate beneath them, they take on a life of their own.
It’s difficult to see two with their roots wrapped around each other without imagining them uniting sexually
In a state of eternal bliss.

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tho it is in the glow of the sun set that I get the most enjoyment. As the light fades to be replaced by the different life of the nighttime

 

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Blessings,G

Up Pompeii

 

Then spoke the thunder
Da
Datta: what have we given?
— T. S. Eliot

 

And Now the Prologue… (Points for anyone who gets the reference)
Yesterday we docked in Naples and toured the ruins of Pompeii. Afterwards I went and explored Naples while the rest of my group toured Herculaneum.
Pompeii has a very strange sense of history to it. Parts are very well preserved and you can walk through the (restored) houses, stores, temples and businesses of people who lived close to two thousand years ago.
It is an amazing gift to be on this trip with people I love seeing these sites but for me the most awesome part is walking in places I have only read about and experiencing the people and architecture there. Each city has its own heart beat and if you are open you can feel it. Naples is a city in which I could easily live. It is busy enough to be Metropolitan yet it has that laid back seaport feel.
There is a magic that happens when I find myself in a strange city where there is little English spoken. After passing the beautiful seaport Fortress and several pizza places, I found the beautiful shopping centre that the Pompeii tour guide had mentioned. Turning the corner there were many more stores, most but not all of them international chains. Continuing walking, I found a small art gallery that featured the t painting “The Martyrdom of St Ursula” by Caravaggio (one of my favourite artists) which was the last painting that he had finished (around a month before he died). They had several other painters of that style and that vintage and I spent a wonderful 20 minutes there.
For me, it is finds like that gallery and watching people living their lives as much and maybe even more so than the sites in any particular place that brings me the most enjoyment. Being able to balance the two this trip has been amazing.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

PompeiiPompeii

 

Pompeii RuinsPompeii Ruins

 

Streets of NaplesStreets of Napoli (Naples)

 

Napoli CastleNapoli Castle

 

Toulon, France

 

“The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.

It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down – sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray.

At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing.
But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward.”
― Terence McKenna

 

Since we have set sail last night I have felt amazingly meditative. I had forgotten how comfortable I am on the water. There is a calmness and familiarity to the rhythms of the sea that seems to echo for me of times past. I love walking around the ship at all hours and being at peace.
Toulon, France is a pleasant seaport. I have learned that my French in France is not as passable as my Spanish in Barcelona. Tho the Farmers Market was amazing.

 

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On the Water. Toulon FranceOn the Water, Toulon France

 

Le Genie De Navigation StatueLa Genie De Navigation Statue–Toulon, France

 


 

Quote of the Day – August 27 2012

“Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream”
― Jack Kerouac

 

By great, of course, Kerouac was not speaking of a qualitative judgement but of size and importance, a dream filled with awe and sometimes mundanity but filled to the brim with faces, reflections of ourselves that sometimes appear strange, locations that change faster than we realize and sometimes faster than we feel we can adjust to and a sense of unreality that comes and goes with startling regularity. I don’t feel alone in perceiving it this way. Still when I decide I’m going to surf the waves that come my way, immerse myself in the dream while realizing that’s what it is… happiness and its wonderfully wise older sister joy can ensue… Feeling this and knowing this is a gift of the universe. Tho like most gifts it tends to come to those to whom it belonged to already… Tho I feel at the same time it is everyone’s birthright.
BLessings, G

 

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Faces in the Purple Fire by G A Rosenberg

Llama with beautiful Eyes

Quote of the Day – March 6 2012

“The important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little. If this machine gave you the truth immediately, you would not recognize it,”
Ursula K. LeGuin

So far the trip to London has been pretty amazing. London is a city with beautiful architecture and direct people. I loved the tower of London but found it strangely sanitized. I also love the tube station.

On the subject of the quote, I really like this one but find myself butting up against the phrase ‘wheel of prayer and scripture’ unless I start to look at it as Ms. LeGuin’s definition of life in which case I say ‘ah’ and yet is the truth a mere reflection, the merest shadow of reality and then does the wheel become a sphere, one that we can study but not fully hold. Namaste, G

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Big Ben