A Hope of Understanding

 

“The charm dissolves apace,
And, as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.
Their understanding
Begins to swell: and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shores
That now lie foul and muddy.”
― William Shakespeare

 

Understanding is a precarious thing and coming to it may be torturous. Oft times we think we have a handle on things and at best it is a compromise. We’ve settled on a position because it is easier than accepting that the universe is a wondrous complicated place with no easy answers yet many competing right wrong ones. Most of us need more security than that it seems. So we make our compromise and choose our positions and argue for them as if they were absolute truth. We may even get into fights both verbal and physically over them.
Which belief is the right one? Who’s deity is stronger? Who has the right to what land and with what justification? Who has the right to retaliate and how hard and under what provocation? Who has the right to exist and under what circumstances? People who have made similar positional compromises band together and drag others along with them. Innocent bystanders get hurt in the process. The water becomes muddier and muddier and all hope of a greater understanding vanishes. Yet sometimes in the midst of all this there is hope.
People not fully indoctrinated to a position start to realize the folly of the extremists. Little by little they walk away from the conflict and seek a new better way of being. It may happen slowly at first with a conversation or two but somewhere in there remains the hope of clarity. Therein lies the road to wisdom that we are capable of. Until then innocence will always be threatened, if only our own.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Reaching ThroughReaching Through by G A Rosenberg

 

Systemic UnfoldingSystemic Unfolding by G A Rosenberg

 

Breaking Social Restrictions (or perhaps just Bending them a might)

 

“No person of quality ever remembers social restrictions save when considering how most piquantly to break them.”
― James Branch Cabell

 

It started in my Junior year of High School. My parents sent me to a private school that had an amazing number of rules that seemed to govern every aspects of our time and behaviour. It seemed so much more restrictive than the public school I had been in the year before. Fairly early on tho I began to gain a new understanding. Because there were so many rules to keep track of, the part of the faculty responsible for discipline were kept on their toes. As in any bureaucratic system the more rules there are, the easier it is to manipulate the system. Because I showed an aptitude for math, they wanted to move me up one class. They told me it was up to me to decide where I felt most comfortable. I could take the lower class third period and have fourth period free or I could take the more advanced class forth period and have the third period free. It really was an easy decision. I told my forth period teacher that I was taking the easier math and the third period teacher, I was taking the advanced class and for three months, I enjoyed a double free period. By the time they had caught up to me and decided to keep me in detention for quite awhile, I had left to see if there was life outside of high school. Five months later when I came back, the heads of the school were rather dumbfounded and allowed me to take two classes during the summer and graduate with my class the next year. To be honest they didn’t know what hit them..
Since then I have learned that breaking and bending rules social and otherwise have consequences, yet not all of them are necessarily negative ones. Its a matter of self-honesty (Bob Dylan said that if you lived outside the law you have to be honest and he was correct) , understanding the reasons why the rules are there in the first place (not all rules are bad–there are as many rules are in place to promote safety as there are rules that benefit the convenience of those in charge). If we rebel for the sake of rebellion only than we are still being controlled by others, in that we are reacting to them rather than following what is right for us. Figuring out what is right for ourselves and following that is of primary importance. Didn’t William Shakespeare say “Above all else to thine own self be true”
Blessings, G

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Pulling the MoonPulling the Moon by G A Rosenberg

 
The Beating of WingsThe Beating of Wings by G A Rosenberg

Wise Enough to Play the Fool

“This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man’s art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit.”
― William Shakespeare

 

So the fool writes on. Working with the tarot and especially on the Fool Trump entry, I can see the wisdom in Shakespeare’s words. As a writer and artist constantly looking for feedback and wanting to use it to inform and not control my creative decisions I really get it. Not so much, “They don’t like the dark stuff I should go back to angels and sacred religious symbolism or pretty designs” as “Maybe I am not yet communicating these thoughts / images in a way that people can relate to” This blog is a dance of communication because by the time I get feedback on it it has been completed and so I gage moods, both that of my audience and what they have liked before and my own, what I may need to communicate at any given time. It can be a delicate dance but always a worthwhile one.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Dreamscape 11Dreamscape 11 by G A Rosenberg

 

Follow Her DownFollow Her Down by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – January 27 2013

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
― William Shakespeare

 

Infinite potential to change, Infinite potential to discover. A universe of experiences to perceive. Each day we realize more of who we are, each realization another drop of the infinite. If we are each the image of the infinite  then we embody everything. All we have to do is be willing to change, to become the new and not let ourselves fear what we may be giving up. In the long run, nothing is lost that is needed. After all what is this life but an actor’s dream. When we have played our part, our costumes return to storage,  and we leave the stage. We will perform again and who knows what the stage will be like next time. The adventure continues, always in progress.
Blessings, G

 

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SSSSalllySsssally by G A Rosenberg

 

Diving Into ActionDiving Into Action by G A Rosenberg