Father and Farther

 

“I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I’d turned out. Regrets about journey, maybe, but not the destination.”
― Nicholas Sparks

 

“My face keeps changing. There are times when I shave off my beard that I see my father looking back at me from the mirror, At other times I see my mother’s. Most of the time tho I see myself, an odd fusion of the two with much that is original. I find much the same happens with my perceptions of myself every time I use the razor of introspection”
— Randall Wolfe

 

Yesterday was my father’s eightieth birthday and my family threw him a surprise party with over one hundred and thirty people attending. My father is a rather amazing man who has helped many over the years in ways both large and small and has inspired many more.
A family friend is helping my father write a book about his life and his career and has been interviewing many who know and we had a few interview sessions together where I was asked many questions about my past and present with my dad. It felt pretty therapeutic and the give and take between the interviewer, dad and myself was pretty amazing as memories and emotions flowed freely. My sisters both said in their interviews that I of all of my father’s children am the most like him which I found surprising as a keynote for me was how different we are and how one of the qualities I admire the most in him was how he has given me the space and support to become myself and to learn who that is. My father is seen by many (including myself) as being a great man where I see myself as being content to be a good one. Still his values for much of my life was one yardstick (among many) for me that I would measure myself by and there are many ways in which we are similar. There is much there that I shall continue to consider.
Blessings, G

 

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Succeeding  the PlanetSucceeding the Planet by G A Rosenberg

 

Travels Along the Dimensional MazeTravels Along the Multidimensional Maze by G A Rosenberg

 

Connections – Made and Lost

 

“Invisible connection is stronger than visible. To arrive at the basic structure of things we must go into their darkness.”
— Heraclitus

 

I reach out to your touch
something unspoken pulls back
connection falters

 

Your touch caresses
my back as I rub your feet
Connection is made

 

Something inside me
pulls away from your embrace
connection is lost

 

I touch inner wounds
with my own scarred memories
Connection is real
— G A Rosenberg

 

So many of us hide our shadows and our scars not only from others but ourselves as well. We put on our game faces even with those we love and keep so much buried. What happens then is a connection of masks and many judge the strength of their relationship on how well their personas interrelate without ever going deeper. Since many of us change our personas over the years as life happens, the relationships fall apart because neither one has met the true being of the other. It is only by delving deeper and making ourselves vulnerable that true inner connection can happen even if that means showing the less savoury parts of ourselves. You can always tell when that happens between people as it results in healing and self-knowledge rather than a feeling of holding a telephone to one’s ear long after the other person has hung up their line.
Blessings, G

 

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Landscape AbstractLandscape Abstract by G A Rosenberg

 

Two of LantersTwo of Lanterns by G A Rosenberg

 

Don’t Go Changing…

 

“Express yourself fearlessly. Grow and indulge shamelessly. Exist to the fullest of your potential. Those demanding you to repress your innate gifts, ask that you take the burden of their personal inadequacies, on behalf of their own insecurities. To consent to this dynamic is not an example of compassion, it is an example of dishonesty and self destruction.”
— Paul John Moscatello

 

What is the point of living unless we are expressing our true being? This does not mean that we disregard the feelings of others but that we realize true integrity in ourselves. The worst kind of emotional blackmail is when one person says to another “If you love me you wouldn’t act like that / think like that / believe that / do that thing” If it is a true expression of our being than they are basically telling us that there are parts of us that they cannot accept and if we truly loved them than we would be something other than who we are. If someone says that to you then it is clear that they don’t love the person you are, they love the person that they would have you be. If that’s not you then it is time to tell them as clearly and gently as possible that you won’t change even tho you do love them (if you do) and they need to either accept that or a new relationship needs to be established. Anything else is living half a life at best. The only person to change for is ourselves as we gain knowledge of who we are.
Blessings, G

 

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Phoenix Rising (Phenex)Phoenix Rising (Phenex) by G A Rosenberg

 

Infinite HungerInfinite Hunger / Infinite Hope by G A Rosenberg

 

Better Off Than We Started – A Cheesy Country Type Song

 

“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and forgiving heart. Be the one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”
— Marvin J. Ashton

 

I came into the town a loner
looking for questions to answers I lost
Messed up by past misgivings
just like a salad just needing a toss
I found you, we both at our bottom
you were so sweet in need of a way
we climbed up the rung together
It was never in my plans to stay

 

we grew our lives like a flower
we watered and weeded and gave them good care
struggling with both our demons
it seemed to be one more thing that we shared
you brought out the best in me
you dealt with the rest of me
I held you through the night
I thought you were awesome
and loved when you blossomed
making up after each fight

 

When it was time for the parting
we did it with sorrow but without any hate.
We both felt the time had come
we were happy to leave the methods to fate
I found a job in the next state
your family called they needed you there
The morning we said our goodbyes
we were grateful for all of the magic we shared.

 

We brought out the best in each other
A best that we never remembered to see
Both better off than we started
We now knew what it meant to be free.
I know that we’ll both find a new love
someone with whom our spirits will soar
I sent her off with my blessings.
Each of us now will find a new door.
— G A Rosenberg

 

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SitriSitri by G A Rosenberg

 

Spirits Moving Over and Through the WatersSpirits Moving Over the Water by G A Rosenberg

Belonging — Wings and Shadow

 

“Belonging is a comfortable strait jacket with wings to fly.”
— Nolan Void

 

What we belong to grounds us. We surrender part of ourselves to the families, groups and relationships we form and in the process we discover ourselves. We find where we fit and where we don’t. We see the shadow of ourselves reflected in the eyes of those we love. When we don’t like what we are seeing, it is time to look within and discover what is it we dislike in ourselves that causes the reaction? What has brought us here? When we feel love and grounded and safe, our dreams can soar and we can realize more than we could realize any other way. Thank you my loved ones for the wings and the grounding. My life would be poorer without you.
Blessings, G

 

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PlutoHades by G A Rosenberg

 

Rolling Through the AethyrRolling Through the Aether by G A Rosenberg

 

Quote of the Day – October 26 2012

“From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in Future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. ”
― Ray Bradbury

 

How many times I’ve played my life as if it was a hand of solitaire, I dealt the cards out knowing full well how they would come out and then played it just as I knew it was. I believe most of us do this in relationships that we get into because we need the lesson which I suppose accounts for almost every relationship in which we find ourselves. It’s almost a cliche to say that the end is written in the beginning yet there it is…the alchemy that draws us into each other’s orbit decides how we will mix, partake of each other’s qualities and then either blend or separate.
As I’ve said before, we exist in relationship not only with people but with things, situations and events as well and like those, we know if we are being true to ourselves that most are transitory and the way we leave may be found in its beginning. Not that I believe its all predestined. Many choose to stay in relationships or in situations well past their sell by date. This may be because of happiness but more often it is done by our sheer stubbornness to make things work. This can lead to ongoing frustration or sometimes astonishing wonderful breakthroughs both for ourselves and the ones we journey with. After all are we not constantly changing? If that is so, if I am a different person than the one who entered the relationship, is the end still inevitable? Perhaps this is the change that involves letting the ‘beautiful stuff’ out.
Blessings, G

 

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Remembering by G A Rosenberg

 


Staring at the Ceiling by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 31 2012

“Please consider yourself, now and henceforth, and no matter what anyone else ever asks of you, free to do any damned thing you want that doesn’t hurt someone else unnecessarily”
–Lady Sally McGee (Spider Robinson)

Another one of those quotes that not much has to be said about it. In some ways to me it is our self-evident right, in others it is more freedom than most of us ever feel we have.
I’d like to think its how I lived my life. I left home when I wanted to explore, I went where and how I wanted to. I got myself into tricky situations and extricated myself, often without help.
I freed myself from people who wanted me to believe what they believed and people who wanted me to be their idea of me rather than who I was. I might not be sure of who I was but each time I learned a bit more about who I wasn’t.
Of course it is always that last part, the part about not hurting others unnecessarily that tends to be the tricky part. It takes awhile to gain that discernment over the unnecessarily part and even longer to realize that someone else can include myself as well. Still gradually I learned it and found out as I’ve gone along that each part of the statement gets tested. I guess that’s true of us all.
Blessings, G

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Magickal Child by G A Rosenberg

Vision Play Mandala by G A Rosenberg