Tag: Shadows

Walk Beneath the Secret Moon

 

“The moon likes secrets. And secret things. She lets mysteries bleed into her shadows and leaves us to ask whether they originated from otherworlds, or from our own imaginations.”
— Charles de Lint

 

The moon is waning now but still close to full. The clouds tonight held it shrouded, mysterious with its light spilling out from the bottom giving just enough illumination so that I could see the road while walking my dog. The shadows held sway and I wondered at the secrets that they held. Sounds and smells hold sway when you cannot trust your eyes and the imagination fills in the rest. I love walking beneath the shadowed moonlight for there within illusions I can recreate the world and make of it what I will. Come walk with me beneath the pale light and together we shall have an adventure.
Blessings, G

 

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Vision of a Crystal KingdomVision of a Crystal Kingdom by G A Rosenberg

 

Strange DepthsStrange Depths by G A Rosenberg

 

At Night The Memories Return

 

“There is no sun without shadows, and it is essential to know the night.”
— Albert Camus

 

At night
the memories return
shadows of the past
The mellow ones come at dusk
The good times gone
that bring wistful smiles
At midnight I am swept
by images of love
Romantic evenings and
pleasant ones spent with friends
I know that I will build similar memories
yet none as good.
the haunting ones come at 3 AM
they keep me restless
in the art of second-guessing
that leads slowly to Dawn’s slow acceptance
The ghosts dance through my dreams
and leave me waking in peace.
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Butterfly Daemon in ReposeButterfly Daemon in Repose by G A Rosenberg

 

Harlequin's Realm AbstractedHarlequin’s Realm Abstracted by G A Rosenberg

 

Casting Shadows

 

“Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow.

Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others. Instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations.

The same way old painters would sit in a tiny dark room and trace the image of what stood outside a tiny window, in the bright sunlight.

The camera obscura.

Not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

 

To see ourselves as others see us? How about to see ourselves as we are and to see others as they truly are with the shadows stripped away? What would it be like to be so clear in ourselves that we can look at another in full joy and awareness of them rather than as the distorted reflection of things we need to work out in ourselves? That self-clarity is what I work towards every day and what I try to invoke in myself for what is ritual for but developing self-knowledge of each aspect of our existence so that we can work it out without having to use another person as a guinea pig? My big push in this next year will be to gain as much of that clarity as I can both with myself and others and to cast the most minimal shade possible.
Blessings, G

 

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At Peace Among Strange OmensAt Peace Among Strange Omens by G A Rosenberg

 

Shared VisionShared Vision by G A Rosenberg

 

Family Business

 

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
― George Bernard Shaw

 

The family gathers
and the shadow play begins.
Odd feints detectable only to those
old hands in the game.
Each move choreographed in steady rhythm.
Each practiced tone pronounced.
More of the heart revealed with every thrust
of witty rapier.
So much love looking to expand the old worn currents
so many shaded ways to show it
yet the message is always delivered
and the understanding grows
— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

 

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Strange Sky MountainsideStrange Sky Mountainside by G A Rosenberg

 

Abstract Fractal Caress in Green SpaceAbstract Fractal Caress in Green Space by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – September 23 2012

You can’t stand up to the night until you understand what’s hiding in its shadows.
–Charles De Lint

Of late I’ve become more comfortable with my shadows. Everyone has them, these parts of ourselves that we try to repress, hold back. We become whole as we learn to accept our shadows, ask them in for a cup of tea, have long conversations with why they do the things they do and why we resist them and dance with them. Finally with any luck we may learn to integrate them. Of course there will still be shadows cast but fewer and fainter. Only when we resist our shadows do we run the risk of them biting us in the tail.

On a different note, today we started cleaning out our bookshelves, 30 boxes donated and counting. Saying goodbye to some old friends, well not goodbye as such, many of the characters I’ve internalized. There are a few that I have long conversations with but the covers that once contained them have gone to new homes. It is a cleansing of sorts.

Blessings, G

 

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She Wears the Night by G A Rosenberg

 

Circles by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day — September 6 2012

“I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
— T S Eliot

Tonight I found a lesson in breaking the fourth wall. I was talking to some friends in one FB group or another while listening to music and playing with art. One friend was talking about his enlightenment in a manner that some do as if they have moved beyond earthly thoughts and patterns and was somehow above it all. This tends to irk some and inspire others. I tend to feel a kind of bemusement at it. I feel that even in hard times when the path feels its hardest, I would still much rather feel like I have a far way to go than that I have arrived at a stopping point. What would be the purpose and where the fun in that? Which basically was the question I asked my friend. What do you do for fun? There was a long pause and then he started talking about his love of photography and we talked about capturing the moment that doesn’t come again and the conversation became to me a lot more interesting.

I realized that I had gotten my friend to break the fourth wall. In stage, television and movies where sets are three walls the two sides and back, the fourth wall is that invisible wall which separates the actors and the characters they play from the audience. The audience watches its window into the world of the play and sustains the belief that these are not actors playing characters but events unfolding. Likewise, the actors and the characters usually pretend that the audience is a non existent one. However, in some plays the actor or the character he plays breaks the fourth wall and for a moment breaks character and speaks directly to the audience. Groucho did it in a few of the Marx Brothers movies, George Burns did it all the time in his show. For just a moment, my friend had broken the fourth wall, dropped the character of enlightened master and spoke as an excited human. At that moment, he became so much easier to relate to.

It got me thinking. Who is behind our fourth wall? Does the universe (God) consciously watch and feel its parts acting out its myriad dramas? How about the part of our unconscious that Ken Wilber calls the witness, that part below the surface that dispassionately watches all the events of our life. The more we identify with our witness and the less with all the drama, the farther we have come. We connect the most with the universe when we pray and the most with the witness when we meditate. In this way prayer and meditation would be the two methods by which we break down the fourth wall and come down from the state.
Blessings, G

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Paths to and From the Centre by G A Rosenberg

 

Red Gray Waking Spiral by G A Rosenberg

Night time…

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. ”
~Vincent Van Gogh

Mother Night folds me to her breast
caresses my being in shades of sleep
The day has drained me
and in her dark being
I will find myself replenished.

Shadows walking through my soul
Shadows caressing me in my bed
whisper lullabies in my ears
and bring me dreaming home

–Gary A Rosenberg

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Clouds at  Night by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – June 13 2012

“The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.”
–Lao Tsu

Wow an entry that definitely doesn’t write itself. Feeling the sun energy or perhaps the need for it of late…Definitely a bit of Obscureness…The clouds are in the way. Not that I don’t have an underlying sense of the rightness of it all. Things unfold as they will yet knowing that and feeling it are two different things. Still meditate more and fret less  or as a friend of mine says “Shut up and do your fucking yoga”. Almost always good advice I find…

Fractal clouds glowing
rainbow colours
set on fire by spirit sun

forms morphing
elemental kaleidoscope
the shapes i see
self-expression
subject of my lens perception
showing me the symbols I need
to carry on…

— G A Rosenberg

 

Blessings, G

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Tarot Trump XIX -The Sun by G A Rosenberg

Black Star Mandala by G A Rosenberg