One Minute Monologues 061

November 26, 2020 — December 29, 2020

11/26/2020 — Abbott Lake 09/27/2011 — Peaks of Otter, Blue Ridge Parkway, Bedford, Virginia

What does thinking about sex
keep us from thinking about
if we weren’t thinking about sex?

What will Artificial Intelligence
think about
when it progresses to the point
of being self-replicating,
self-reproducing?

It seems (to me)
that thinking about sex
is our genes’ way
of producing more genes.

What is the equivalent
of “producing more genes”
from an AI perspective?

It could be that the problem
for the Mystery at the heart
of Live and Being
is keeping the experiment going.
So, every living thing
thinks about sex in its own way.

And Life and Being follows
a routine course over time,
except for the occasional blips
of novelty that make it interesting.

Being interested is another
problem for the Mystery.
What keeps it going?
What is the mystery for the Mystery?
What does it think about.

You can’t get away from the fact
that the theological creation we call God
cannot get us off its mind.
God is consumed with,
obsessed by its compulsion
for us to do right by it.
We drive God to distraction.
It cannot think of anything else.
“What are they doing now?”
“What are they doing now?”
“What are they doing now?”
And writing it all down
in the Book of Life.
What a life that would be.

What keeps AI going?
What would keep us going
if it weren’t for thinking about sex?
(And having sex isn’t as important to us,
as interesting to us,
as thinking about having sex).

What is there, other than sex,
to think about?
To be interested in?
Can we think about it,
be interested in it,
without thinking there is something
wrong with us
for not thinking about sex all the time?

The culture would have us think about sex
all the time.
Sex sells.
Sex is good for the economy.
Sex and money are the foundations
of every culture there ever has been–
and where does that line lie?
The one between sex and money?

Sex is money.
Money is sex.
What is money good for
if not sex?
What is sex good for
if not more sex?
What are we good for,
if not thinking about sex?
It is what we do best,
isn’t it?
It is certainly what we do most,
isn’t it?
What would we be doing
if we weren’t thinking about sex
or having sex?

What will AI be doing with its time?
11/26/2020 — Fall Leaves 39 11/24/20 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Genghis Khan said:
“A man’s greatest pleasure is crushing his enemies.
The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies,
to chase them before you,
to rob them of their wealth,
to take their horses,
to see those dear to them bathed in tears,
to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.”

Take his enemies,
their wealth and horses,
their wives and daughters
away from him.
Put him on an island
with water to eat
and fruit and vegetables to eat,
and watch what happens to him.
What does he do with his time?
Forever?
What would keep him going?

What is your greatest pleasure?
Your greatest happiness?
What would you do without it?
Without the hope of it?
Without the possibility of it?
What would keep you going?

Blaise Pascal said,

“All of humanity’s problems stem
from (our) inability
to sit quietly in a room alone.”

What keeps us going,
sitting quietly in a room alone?

What makes it worth our time
and effort?
11/26/2020 — Sumac 03 11/10/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

It is difficult to know
where Zen begins and Taoism stops,
but.
The concept of “turning the light around”
is right there.

Turning the light around means
“Stop looking out there for what is in here!”
The Buddha is not out there!
The Way is not out there!
The Christ is not out there!
God in whatever religion is not out there!
The Enemy is not out there!

It is all in here!

When Jesus said, “Love your enemy,”
and when Paul said,
“Wretched man that I am–
who will deliver me
from this body of death?”
They were both talking about
the enemy within,
the one who sabotages
our best intents and purposes.

We do not will ourselves to perfection
and holiness,
deserving of the rewards of heaven
and life-everlasting.

We do not beat ourselves into submission,
or punish ourselves into sinless living.
“Love your enemy”
is loving ourselves,
and all that is within us
that opposes our idea
of who we ought to be.

Turning the light around
means receiving ourselves well,
with compassion and grace,
the good and the bad,
like the Prodigal’s father
welcoming him home.

It is not by striving to be pure
and sinless
that we become whole and complete,
but through compassionate,
non-judgmental awareness
and acceptance
of all that we are
and are capable of being–
and by extending this welcoming,
gracious, generous and kind
receptivity
to all others,
we participate in the making
of a miracle
that transforms
all of our relationships,
by turning the light around.
11/26/2020 — Fall Canopy 01 11/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Is it easier to deceive yourself alone,
or in a group?

When I look around at
the white supremacists,
the NRA,
the MAGA’s,
the Qanon’s,
the Roman Catholic Church,
the Evangelical Christian churches,
the Protestant Christian churches…
the list is really, really, long…

I think there is no safety in numbers,
and the more people you have,
the less likely it is
that everyone is doing a clarity/fact/check
on every statement
that is being made,
and that is, at least, a possibility
for individuals in the solitude
of their own recliner.

Deception, delusion, illusion, being fooled
are all tricks humans pull
on themselves and one another.

Avoiding them,
or just recognizing them,
is a life-long task.
And, it is one that we have to recognize
as being ours to undertake,
and to know we are responsible for,
and begin the work on constructing
what is generally thought of as a
“Bullshit Detector.”

What goes into an industrial strength BSD?
There are books,
newsletters,
YouTube videos
and soon-to-be-surely hotlines
and smart phone apps.

We would be wise to start our own collection
of methods to keep ourselves savvy
and up on the latest aids to knowing what’s what
that are available to those who want to know.

It is hard enough staying on the path
when the mud has settled
and the water is clear.
When the propaganda merchants are filling
the air with waves of nonsense and idiocy,
we have to filter everything we hear and see
through micro-strainers
to have a chance at a trustworthy interpretation
of what is going on.

Do everything you can to see what you look at,
and understand what is being said.
Everything depends on knowing what is happening
and what needs to happen in response.

Everything.
11/27/2020 — Ghost Trees 02 08/21/2015 — A blended photograph with the Ghost Tree from the Anna Zagora Collection and the Beach Sunrise from Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina

There is more to it than meets the eye.

This is the grounding hope
at the bottom of it all.

Karma and Grace and the Tao
are all a part of the More.

Synchronicity and the magic
of Timing,
and the wonder of Flow,
and whatever goes into setting
one Time and Place apart
from all other times and places,
always and forever…

There is Mystery at the Heart
of Life and Being.

Mystery that is to be trusted
and relied upon
past all logic and reason.

To be aligned with the Mystery
is to be on track,
on the beam,
at one with the moment
and in touch with the Unknown
and Unknowable–
without being able to use it
for our personal gain
or benefit in any way.

The Apostle Paul said it this way:
“Have the same mind among you
that you find in Jesus of Nazareth,
who did not count equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself
and became faithful unto death,
even death on a cross.”

To live in this way is
to be the Christ
in each situation as it arises,
in each moment of our living,
by getting ourselves and our interests
out of the way,
and doing what needs to be done
for no other reason than
that it needs to be done,
and having nothing to gain or lose
because we are serving a Secret Purpose
beyond sight and sound,
and are glad to be spent in that service,
knowing it is better and more
than anything we could ever imagine.

If you are going to take anything on faith,
let it be this,
and live in every moment
as though it is so.
11/27/2020 — Scum Panorama 01 10/25/2019 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina

We are ice dancing here.

Dancing with our life,
at one with the music
no one can hear,
to the flow of time and place
and the wonder of everyone,
ourselves most of all–
for the glory of it,
like a moth dancing with the flame,
for the hell of it,
for the joy of it,
for the rapture of it,
and the beauty of
being in sync with the moment,
having the time of our life.

And, if not,
why not?

What are we waiting for?

Step onto the ice,
and dance!

While you can!
11/26/2020 — Boardwalk Panorama 10 10/25/2019 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Everything is a portal into mystery
and unknowing.

The Hindus, and before them,
the Dravidians of the Indus Valley
(2500 BCE – 1500 BCE)
held that the world as always been
just as it is.

And always means always to them.
It means there has never been a time
when the cosmos was not.

No beginning, no ending–
like the tides on the seas.
The tide comes in
and the tide goes out,
and between coming and going,
the tide turns around.
So it is with the universe,
coming and going always.

It is a different way of looking at things.

We think of the creating event
as the Big Bang.
Before then there was only tiny bits
of matter coalescing over a long
period of time.

We do not ask,
“How many Big Bangs have there been?”
We think in terms on only one.
Why only one?
Before that one, what?

Those of us in the Christian West,
like to think there is only one God
who has always been.
We do not ask,
“Before God, what?”
or, “Where did God come from?”
We grant eternal and everlasting existence
to God.

Hindus grant it to the Cosmos.

And it all is shrouded in mystery.
We do not know where it all came from,
or how we got here,
or by what means there is something
and not nothing.

Our Sunday school teachers
told us a nice, pat, little story
that answers nothing.
That creates more questions
than it resolves.
And leaves us stuck
with not-knowing half
of all there is to know,
or even half of one millionth
of one percent
of all there is to know.

We live in mystery.
We swim in mystery.
We are awash in mystery.
And we don’t give it a thought.

We should be staggered by the wonder
of it all.
And we spend our time
complaining about the weather,
or wondering where we can find
a really good pizza.

When everything is a portal into mystery
and unknowing,
and it is wasted on us.

Absolutely wasted.
11/26/2020 — Crepe Myrtle 08 11/27/2020 Panorama Detail — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

What is meaningful about your life?
How often do you do it?
How often would you need to do it
to say without hesitation
that you are living a meaningful life?
A life that has meaning for you
is the only meaningful life there is
for you.

If what do has meaning for 10,000 people,
but now for you,
how meaningful is that?
You could still drink yourself
into oblivion every night
and feel that you had wasted your life
because it was not fulfilling for you.

And it is not self-indulgent to live
in the service of our highest/deepest
enthusiasm, “it is vital,”
as Diane Osbon has said.

Do not merely think about
what is meaningful to you–
do it–as often as possible,
for as long as possible!

Make it your thing
to do your thing,
as often as possible,
for as long as possible,
throughout what remains
of the time left for living!
11/28/2020 — Lake Chicot 03 09/27/2015 — Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

Everything is moving
all the time.

The only still point in the entire cosmos
is at the very center of ourselves.

Finding the core of who we are–
“the face that was ours
before our parents were born”–
the qualities,
character,
virtues/characteristics,
proclivities/interests/enthusiasms
gifts,
genius,
spirit/life/vitality
that are as our fingerprints
and the cones of our irises,
unique among all humans
who have ever lived,
or will ever live,
and living out of our individuality
in ways that incarnate,
express,
exhibit,
and make plain
the person we are
in the way we live our life
is the Opus we are here to compose,
orchestrate
and bring forth
in the time and place of our living.

How are you coming along with that?

What would help you with your work?
11/28/2020 — The Light at the Edge of the Woods 11/04/2020 — 22-Acre W00ds, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

If our heart isn’t in what we are doing,
it shows.
We can’t fake heart.
Better that we listen to heart–
and do what heart says do,
and not do what heart says don’t do.
We make our biggest mistakes
not listening to heart.
Or confusing heart with Eros,
and waking up in some version
of the Wasteland,
wondering how we got there.

Well.

It is too bad we aren’t born
with experience.
Because it takes listening with experience
to know what we are hearing.

But no one is keeping score,
and it doesn’t matter how long it takes,
and all it takes is waking up,
and all waking up takes is experience,
so, what’s the problem?

There is no problem!

Live on! Live on!
11/29/2020 — Redwing Blackbird Panorama o5/21/2019 — Savanna National Wildlife Refuge, Hardeeville, South Carolina

The moment we have something at stake
in a situation,
or a relationship,
a disturbance is created in the flow,
and we are living with our self-interest
at heart
and not the interest of the situation,
or the relationship.

Then we are in a “Get My Way At All Costs”
mode of operating
and the true good of ourselves,
the other person,
or the situation as a whole
goes out the window.

Getting our way is not always
what the time and place of our living
is calling for.
And, even if it is what is called for,
it still creates a disturbance in the flow
by virtue of putting us in the position
of calculating where to draw the line–
where does what is good for us
become what is bad for us,
in terms of the price we are willing to pay
to have our way.

There is no price we will not pay
when serving the good of the situation as a whole.

Men/women sacrificing themselves
on fields of battle,
are examples of people paying the ultimate price
for the good of others.

Jesus died in service to his cause
as a model to all his followers
of what was to be/is to be
expected of them in their service
to the same cause–
that is to say, “The truth of what
matters most in any situation.”

This is the “Love of Fate”
put forth by Fredrich Nietzsche
as the ideal way of embracing
one’s circumstances with a bold, “Yea!”
and letting nothing stop us from doing
“what we are here for”
in the places with the worst likely outcome.
Or of “participating in the suffering
of another to such a degree,
that we forget ourselves
and our own safety
and spontaneously do what is necessary”
(Joseph Campbell)–
“in service to the truth
of what matters most
in any situation.”

Our life is always moving toward our death.
“The Secret Cause” (James Joyce)–
that is, what we are living in the service of–
directs our steps toward our final breath.
And, through 10,000 psychological/emotional deaths
at every transition point
(where we are asked to “grow up some more again”
all along the way),
“dying to our idea of how things ought to be
in the service of how things actually need to be.”

The trick is to die the deaths that lead
to new births
and not dying the deaths that
just lead to our being dead.

That is living in the flow of our life
all the way to our last breath.
11/29/2020 — Country Cemetery 10/05/2015 — Lancaster County, South Carolina

What pulls you off course?
What attachment is stronger than
the call from your center
for expression and service?

If we are not going to live
to incarnate
what is deepest,
truest
and best about us,
what are we getting that will
offset that betrayal?

The story of the Garden of Eden
is the story of the betrayal
of our center.
The story of the Garden of Gethsemane
is the story of faithful loyalty
to our Center.
Both stories are about our dying.
Only one is about our being restored to life.

Our center is the source of life.
It is our vital core
of life and being.
When we live from the center,
we are as alive as we can be.

When we fail to guard the center,
and live to serve some other promise
of gain,
delight
and well-being,
we choose a path that leads
directly to the depths of the wasteland.

Joseph Campbell said,
“The crucial thing to live for
is the sense of life in what you are doing,
and if that is not there,
then you are living according to
someone else’s notion
of how life should be lived.”

And, “I know that I am on track
when everything is in a harmonious
relationship with what I regard as the best
I have in me.”

When we sacrifice our best
on the altar of our wants and desires,
we sell ourselves for the equivalent
of glass beads and silver mirrors.
11/30/2020 — Katahdin Range Panorama 09/26/2010 — Sandy Stream Pond, Baxter State Park, Millinocket, Maine

I dreamed last night–
or was it a vision–
that some place in the world
had been cordoned off because
a strain of COVID-19 had been discovered
that is 25 times more deadly than
the original version,
and all known vaccines
are useless against it.

Whether it is real or not
is not the question.
The potential exists
no matter how unlikely.
Our mindset worldwide
leaves us vulnerable
and reduces our chances,
regardless of what
those chances are.

A mindset is something
we can do something about.

Let’s divide mindsets between
Stupid and Savvy.

Stupid wears a MAGA hat
and refuses to wear a mask.
Savvy does the reverse.

But, Asymptomatic people
belong to both groups,
and skew the profiles

Plus, all Stupid people will not get the virus
and all Savvy people will not avoid it.

After the mud settles
and the water clears,
there will probably be
about the same percentage of Stupid
and Savvy in the world
as before.
And the vulnerability of Savvy people
will be about what it was before.

But.

Everyone can increase their chances
at a long,
centered,
balanced
and harmonious life
(Probably forgetting for some time
happy, joyous, carefree and giddy)
by learning to be mindfully aware
and self-transparent.

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s YouTube videos
(The shortest ones first)
are a helpful path
to both those outcomes,
which is really one thing,
Mindfully-Aware-Self-Transparency.

If it takes a pandemic
to ground us forever in
Mindfully-Aware-Self-Transparency,
it is our own stupid fault.
11/30/2020 — Lake Chicot 05 10/27/2015 — Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

“All things work together for good
for those (who are on the beam).”

Being on the beam is the key factor
in a life well-lived.

Beyond that,
there is no advantage whatsoever
to being on the beam.
Staying on the beam
under those circumstances
is the true test
of our resiliency and willful determination
to be faithful and loyal
liege servants of our destiny.

Our relationship with our destiny
is the central point
around which everything coalesces.
Living aligned with our destiny
means one thing for us,
and living at odds with our destiny
means another.

Here is the interesting thing:
Either way,
it is all the same with our destiny.
Our destiny is such
that it can use whatever we bring it
to realize itself through us.

It goes better for us
in terms of our peace of mind
and our being true to ourselves,
living from our center
and grounded in what matters most,
whose life is a blessing and a grace
upon all who come our way,
but we are only going to be able
to count on having what we need
to do what needs to be done.

Extravagance and indulgence are not
going to characterize our life,
and there will be days
when we have to talk ourselves into
getting out of bed
and doing the thing that calls our name.

It comes down to sacrificing ourselves,
again and again,
in the service of our destiny,
doing what is ours to do,
the way it should be done,
when it should be done,
as best we can
for as long as we are able–
with compassion and sincerity,
and without contrivance or exploitation.

Once contrivance and exploitation,
personal gain and advantage,
enter the situation,
the flow is destroyed
and we are on our own.

When we walk away from the beam
to serve our own purposes,
we die in a wasteland of our own making
every time.
11/30/2020 — Fall Leaves 02 11/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Our mythology consists of the things
we tell ourselves
to adjust ourselves to the world,
to life as it is,
to the way things are.

What do you turn to
when you have nowhere to turn?
What do you say to yourself
about your losses and your sorrows?
How do you find your way forward?

What are the stories?
The pep talks?
The the slogans and mottoes?
The mantras and the sayings?

There is a world of things
we turn to
when this world flattens us,
overwhelms us,
disappoints us…

We talk ourselves back to life,
back to functioning.
What do we say?
That is our mythology.

Our mythology is a collection of metaphors
that help us make sense of things
and find meaning in what happens
or fails to happen.

Scraps of songs,
pieces of poetry,
movie lines,
inspirational quotes,
stories of the heroes of the past,
baseball quips…
all come together in the moment
and what needs to be done about it,
in response to it
and help us find our bearings,
get our feet under us,
stand up and make our way.

What is our grounding mythology?
When we identify it,
we can consciously amend it,
elaborate it,
add to it,
improve it,
perfect it,
shape it,
form it
and formally make it out own–
and be better prepared
to meet what is coming,
and find our way through
whatever is waiting around
the next curve in the road,
and the one after that.
12/01/2020 — Koi Pond 01 05/24/2018 –Pike Nursery, Charlotte, North Carolina, from my Symbols of Transformation Collection

Everything serves our destiny.

It helps to tell ourselves that,
no matter what happens.

The things we don’t think we need,
the things we don’t want,
the things we hate with all our heart,
not to mention our mind,
our soul,
our strength,
our essence
and our convenience,
are serving our destiny,
as surely as the things that please us
to no end,
stoke our gladness
delight our mothers
and fill our fathers with pride
are.

The question is:
How are we going to respond to them?
What are we going to do with them?
Are we going to see them–
understand them,
interpret them–
in ways that shift us
off the Me And What I Want Track,
and put us squarely in the center
of My Destiny And How I Need To
Align Myself With It Track?

If everything that happens
is serving our destiny,
but we aren’t,
we have a problem.

And our destiny has a problem.

Our destiny’s only problem ever
is getting our whole-hearted cooperation.

If we aren’t living intentionally,
deliberately,
consciously
in the moment-to-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day
service of our destiny,
we are striving uselessly
to heave our own ideas for our life
into place
in order to live happily ever after.

And creating hell for ourselves
and everyone we know.

We are swimming against the current,
spitting into the wind,
digging holes in solid granite,
and free-falling into the void
through one wasteland after another.

Not so smart.

Everything that happens to us
serves our destiny
by trying to wake us up.

And it is going to keep
trying to wake us up
until we die.

We can wake up or not.
It is up to us.

If we think maybe waking up
might be a good idea,
we start the work of waking up
by asking ourselves,
What is my life trying to tell me?
And all of the questions
that question stirs to life.

Asking all of the questions
that beg to be asked
leads us to seeing things
in ways we have never seen them before.

And seeing things differently
opens doors we never knew were there.
And sooner than you may imagine,
we find ourselves in the middle
of the Promised Land,
listening for what is being called for
in each situation as it arises,
without trying to impose our will
for the situation on the situation,
but looking for how we can be helpful
in ways that need what we have to offer,
situation-by-situation,
moment-by-moment,
throughout the time left for living.

And our destiny takes care of itself.
In a thoroughly magical,
marvelous,
mysterious,
miraculous kind of way.

Without us every doing anything more
than what needs us to do it
here and now
kind of way.
12/01/2020 — Eagle Cliff Falls Panorama 09/20/2015 — Montour Falls, New York

What are your gifts?
What do you do with them?

That is all you need to know.
What your gifts are,
and what to do with them.

Then it is just a matter of doing
what needs to be done
with the gifts that are yours to share.
12/01/2020 — Mute Swans 02 08/16/2019 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina

It comes down to attitude.
Outlook.
Viewpoint.
Perception.
Perspective.

How we look limits what we see,
casts what we see
in a favorable or unfavorable light,
tilts the table for or against,
pro or con,
my way or the highway.

We tend to see in ways
that favor what we favor
and disfavor what we disfavor.

We are how we look
at what we see.

Tell me what you see and how you see it
and I will tell you who you are.

So, start with a mirror,
looking at you.
What memories come to mind
that cant you in a particular direction
with regard to yourself.

You remember the things
that justify your view of things.
That justify your view of you.

When I ask you to “look at all there is
about you,”
you won’t scratch the surface.
You will look at all the things
you always see about you.
You cannot see any of the things
that do not support your view of yourself.

The same thing applies to your view
of everything and everyone in your life.
You cannot see them for all of the things
you already see about them
that get in your way of seeing
all there is to see.

You cannot see all there is to see
about anything.

You see only your viewpoint,
your perspective,
your perception,
your attitude,
about everything you look at.
Which prejudices your outlook.

Now listen to me:
We have to get beyond how we see things!
We have to get ourselves out of the way!
We have to look at everything
as though we are seeing it
for the first time!

Here’s the way to do that:
Draw a mental frame around everything
you look at.
Set it apart from everything else.
Memories, impressions, ideas, presumptions,
assumptions, inferences, what you know
and what you think you know…
Filter all of it out,
so that it is just you looking at
what is in the frame
as though you have never seen it,
or anything like it,
ever.

Sit or stand before it in the silence
of compassionate presence
and allow it to show you who
and what it is.

Allow it to transition from “it”
to “Thou.”
And go where you are being led.
12/02/2020 — Adams Mill Pond Mirror 01 11/10/2014 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina

Ours is the most neurotic generation in history.
I say that based on the central place
of money and addiction worldwide.

Money and addiction are substitutes
for a viable, vital, vibrant and alive center.
We have no center,
no core,
no adamantine rock-solid foundation
upon which to stand,
immovable,
confident,
secure,
stable,
balanced and harmonious
in the face of the clashing rocks
and heaving waves
of the wine-dark sea
that constitute our life.

And so, the attraction of certitude
of any kind.
We will follow anyone who knows
what they are talking about.
And so, Qanon and Donald Trump.

The theme song of our age
is “The Paradox of Needy”:
I’m so needy!
I HATE being needy!
And I need to be needed
by someone who needs me
to need them too!
But I’ll hate them if they do!

All neurosis is a box
with no center
and no door,
and no floor.
A square black hole.
A womb with no due date.
With money and addiction,
lights and action
to take our mind
off free-falling
through endless neediness
and a life that has no meaning.

What’s the solution?
Waking up.
Bearing the pain, laughing.
Knowing there is no fixing any of it
only dancing with all of it,
for what?
We do not know!

Shoulder uncertainty!
Tolerate anxiety!
Trust the unknown and unknowable!
Dance with the darkness!
Play with terror and with fear!

Native Americans would tell their children
as they left home to find their way in the world,
“When you get out of sight of this place,
you will enter the land of darkness and doubt,
and you will come to a chasm.
When you do, JUMP!
It is not as far as it seems.”

Neurosis is refusing to jump.
And takes everything more seriously
that it deserves.
12/02/2020 — Om Mani 05 — From my Symbols of Transformation Collection

Joseph Campbell emphasizes the importance
of creating a sacred space
as a place to retreat
from the world of normal, apparent, reality–
in order to return to the center,
amid the things that are central
to “the harmonization of your own life.”

A sacred space is a decompression zone,
where we return to ourselves
and know the joy and peace
of being sealed off
and at one with meaningful items
that help us find our way.

Campbell says, “You must have a sealing-off
place for yourself whenever you need it–
it is an absolute necessity
if you are going to have an inner life.”

We need a play room where what we do
does not have to have any significance
beyond doing it.
Where we can play a drum,
or read a book that goes nowhere,
or listen to music that we love,
or sit looking out a window.

We need a place where our heart and soul
can come alive,
and we can come alive to them,
and join together
in the joy and wonder of being alive.
12/03/2020 — Grayson Highlands Oil Paint Rendering — Grayson Highlands State Park, Mouth of Wilson. Virginia

Each one of us
is an embodiment
of The Mystery
at the heart
of life and being.

And it is our place–
our role,
our duty and responsibility–
to consciously,
mindfully,
intentionally and willfully,
incarnate The Mystery
that is who we are.

When Jesus said
“The Father and I are one,”
and when he prayed,
“And may they all be one,
even as we are one, Father,
just as you are in me
and I am in you,
may they also be in us,”
he is talking to The Mystery,
calling it “Father,”
as it is, indeed,
the Source of life and being
throughout the cosmos.

We all carry within us The Mystery,
the Father,
and are called to exemplify
the truth at the heart of who we are
in everything we say and do.

Jesus and the Buddha did that very well.
So did Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Keller.
As are Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift.

Beautiful works of art, every one!

And it is our place to join them
as vehicles of, for and to The Mystery
in the time left for living.

How well we do that determines
the extent to which
we transform the world
by living in each moment
as conscious,
mindful,
intentional,
willful
extensions of The Mystery
in the times and places of our living,
moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
by seeing what is called for
and responding in ways fitting to the occasion
with the gifts that are ours to share,
sincerely and without contrivance,
and nothing at stake in the outcome,
all our life long.
12/03/2020 — Angel Oak 11/14/2013 Black and White — Angel Oak Park, Johns Island, South Carolina

This tree is doing all it can–
doing its best–
doing all it knows to do–
with the resources at its disposal
and the gifts that came with it
from the acorn
all those years ago,
without wondering what’s in it for it,
or thinking it isn’t good enough,
or that it is something really special,
or wishing it were a school bus,
or a diesel locomotive,
or…

This tree is,
as all trees are,
just what it is:
A tree thus come.

Where it is,
when it is,
how it is,
for as long as it is,
as a blessing and a grace
upon all who come its way,
without striving to be more than it is,
or something it is not.

Trees know where to draw the line.

They know the difference between
trusting their luck,
and pushing there luck,
and live to see what they can do
with what they have to work with
in the time and place of their living.

And they exhibit their original nature
in everything they do.

And are content to sincerely be who they are,
with balance and harmony,
through all the days of their life.
12/03/2020 — Waiting for Breakfast 05/012019 — Bluff Lake, Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, Oktibbeha County, Starkville, Mississippi

The Dalai Lama, speaking about the Chinese occupation of Tibet, said:

“If, in any situation, there is no solution, there is no point in being anxious. If the forces at work have their own momentum, and what’s going on now is the product of what went before, and if this generation is not in control of all those forces, then this process will continue.”

Some things have to play themselves out.

A lynch mob, for instance,
is not going to be talked out
of doing what it came to do.

Force is the only valid form of persuasion
in situations like that.
And “if this generation”
lacks the wherewithal to force compliance
with the rules of decency and order,
“this process will continue.”

And China remains,
after all these years,
in control of Tibet.

We can wring our hands
and wail,
“Why doesn’t anyone DO SOMETHING?”
but the “process will continue”
until it plays itself out,
or something shifts in the situation.

The Republicans in Congress
are the force
that would put the country
back on track.
But, they demur.
Look away.
Feign shock and consternation.

They disappear.
And become Trump’s invisible means of support
in the attack on democracy
and the foundations of government.

Without the force to compel compliance
with customary norms and standards
of behavior,
the country is swept by the current
of the times
into the clashing rocks
and heaving waves
of the wine-dark sea.

And as it is with Tibet,
so it will be with the USA,
without a miraculous intervention
to disrupt “the process.”
12/04/2020 — Maine Moon 09/21/2006 — Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Compliance with this
is non-compliance with that,
and vice-versa.

The only free choice we can make
is the choice between masters.
“Choose this day whom you will serve!”
is all the freedom we are allowed.

Not wearing a mask
is not evidence of freedom,
but of bondage.
The people who do not wear a mask.
cannot wear a mask.
They lose standing in their
most-cherished community if they do.
What is the value of a community
that binds us to stupidity
and puts us in harm’s way?

What is the value of anything
that destroys our connection
with our core
and commands us to do
what is contrary to our
control center within?

When Paul says,
“It is no longer I who live,
but the Christ who lives within me!”
he is saying he is being directed
by the Knower who knows better
than he knows what is called for
and what needs to be done about it.

He is saying what Captain Jack Sparrow said,
“It’s the pirate’s life for me, Gibbs.
I have no say in the matter. Savvy?”

We have no say in the matter of what matters to us.
We have no say in the matter of what
we would go to hell for.
We have no say in the matter of what
pulls us or chases us or haunts us or pleases us.

We like what we like
and don’t like what we don’t like,
but we can’t choose what we like
or don’t like
any more than we can choose
what we dream at night
or what the next thing will be
that catches our eye.

Freedom is just another word
for having nothing at all to say
in all matters of grave importance,
so we need to stop kidding ourselves
about being free,
and realize who we are bowing before
and taking our orders from,
and who is directing our boat
on its path through the sea.
12/04/2020 — Canyon Light 09/27/2005 — Grand Canyon, South Rim, Arizona

Sit quietly,
find the still point within
between liking and not liking,
thinking and not thinking,
wanting and not wanting,
fearing and not fearing,
believing and not believing,
needing and not needing,
etc.

And live from there
in doing and not doing.
12/04/2020 — Father Crawley Point – Star Wars Canyon – Rainbow Canyon — Death Valley National Park, Inyo, California

It is not a matter of thinking,
or believing.
It is solely a matter of doing–
of right doing–
of aligning our life
with what is being called for
in each situation as it arises,
and doing there what needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
how it needs to be done,
for as long as it needs to be done,
and repeating that process
in the next situation as it arises,
and so on,
throughout our life.

You can think whatever you want.

You can believe whatever you want.

As long as it enables you
to do what needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
how it needs to be done,
for as long as it needs to be done
by doing what is called for
in every situation
that arises.

Forget ethics.
Forget morality.
Forget duty.
Forget what your mother told you.
Forget what your father always said.
Just focus on what is being called for,
be right about it,
and do what needs to be done,
when and how,
situation by situation.

This is called
“living in accord with the Tao.”

It is also called
“serving your destiny.”
12/04/2020 — Lake Chicot 03/22/2015 10 — Cabin Rentals, Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

We owe our life
liege loyalty,
filial devotion
and devoted service
through all the times and places,
contexts and circumstances
of our days upon the earth.

Adam and Eve failed to do this,
and served their wants and desires,
but Abraham, Moses, Elijah and John the Baptist,
Ruth, Ester, and Mary the mother of Jesus,
and Jesus, among many others,
did it very well.

Now, it is our turn.

Our life is our destiny.
To live our life
with liege loyalty,
filial devotion,
and devoted service,
is to embrace our destiny,
and do what it calls us to do,
regardless of the price,
without any interest in
what is in it for us,
and no attempt to turn any moment
to our advantage,
gain,
or benefit–immediate or eternal–
but just doing what our life requires
in the time and place of our living,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day
our whole life long,
for the joy of serving our life.

To live this way
is to live in accord with the Tao,
and at one with our destiny.
12/05/2020 — Wild Goose Island 09/24/2006 — St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana

People group together
around their ideas
of how things ought to be.
Which is how they wish they were.
Which has a somewhat tangential
relationship with how things are.

The more people in the group,
the less agreement there is
about pretty much everything.
Unless the group doesn’t allow disagreement,
or questions,
or variations from the authority
of those in control of the group.

Insisting that everyone see things
like the leaders see things
is the grounding agreement
for peace and harmony.
The moment different opinions
and points of view are permitted,
it all goes to hell in a hurry.

Democracy is doomed from the start.
“Okay, we can all be free to live
our own life with the same rights
and privileges as everyone else,
but we all have to agree
that the majority rules.”

And then we get Trump and the GOP
suing to have an election overturned
where the majority (by 7 million votes)
voted him out of office.

How are we going to make this work?

“Good fences make good neighbors,”
said Robert Frost.
What I do on my side of the fence
is my business,
and what you do on your side of the fence
is your business.
I won’t mess with your life,
and you don’t mess with mine.

That would work except for the color
of my skin,
or my preference for a life partner,
or my right to have an abortion,
then somehow my business
becomes your business.
How does that happen?
I’m on my side of the fence.
What are you doing in my back yard?
In my bedroom?
How did my business become your business?

How is it that I cannot trust you
to abide by our common agreements?

Freedom of religion
means I am free from your religion.
So, keep your religion to yourself
on your side of the fence!

We can live together
only if you stay on your side of the fence!
When people in democracy
keep trying to impose their ideas
of how other people ought to live their life
on other people.
there is no democracy.

Democracy respects lines separating
people and their business
from other people and their business–
and requires everyone to mind their own business.

Sounds simple enough.
12/05/2020 — Lake Chicot 04 03/22/2015 Panorama — Canoe/Kayak Launch, Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

Preferences without expectations or demands
will go a long way toward peace, balance and harmony.

But.

This works only where there is
mutual respect for,
and commitment to,
the common good.

Where that is lacking,
that is where the police
and the military come in.

Everything depends upon
our ability to enforce compliance
to the agreements that hold us together.

Without the good faith participation of all
in the creation and maintenance
of an atmosphere/environment
that respects/honors the rights
of everyone to their rights to a life
they find to be pleasing–
without interfering with others’ rights
to that kind of life for themselves–
it all goes to hell in short order.

We owe it to each other
to care about the good of the other
as much as we care about our own good.

That is the basis of our life together.
12/06/2020 — Magnolia 08 06/24/2009 — Greensboro, North Carolina

Only dead people kill people.

Every person who kills someone, anyone,
should ask themselves:
“In doing this,
am I more like Jesus,
or the people who killed Jesus?”

Christians think Jesus is a Christian,
and would be welcome in all their churches.
All Christian churches think everyone is welcome.
They say so on church signs.
“All are welcome here!”
“Everyone is welcome here!”
Not so.
What they don’t say is left unsaid but implied:
“All are welcome here on our terms.”
“Everyone is welcome here to be like we are.”

The list of people who are not welcome
in Christian Churches is long.

Are gay people welcome
to hold Gay Pride rallies
and organize marches,
and preach from the pulpit on Sunday morning
in Christian Churches?

Are members of Planned Parenthood welcome
to hold Freedom of Choice rallies,
to speak from the pulpit,
and organize marches?

Are Muslims welcome
to preach from the pulpit on Sunday morning,
hold prayer retreats
and rallies,
and organize marches,
and talk about Palestinian rights?

Transgender people…
Black Lives Matter…
Buddhists…
The list is long of people
not-welcome on church property.

Yet, all Christian churches
think Jesus would be welcome.

They should devote a worship service
once a month
for silent contemplation
of all the ways Jesus would not be welcome,
and of all the things Jesus
would not be welcome to say
and do.

And then consider, in light of that,
are they more like Jesus,
or the people who killed Jesus.
12/06/2020 — Water Flower 09/02/2008 — Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

A symbol’s value
is its aliveness in the life
of those embracing it.

Symbols are alive for us
when they connect us with transcendence,
with the Numen,
the Ineffable,
the Indescribable,
the Inexpressible…
beyond themselves.

We see through symbols
when we look at symbols,
and we never confuse the symbol
with what it symbolizes,
with what it stands as a reference to,
with what it points to,
suggests,
reflects.

A symbol–all symbols–is/are alive
to the extent that it/they are metaphors
for more than words can say.
And everything is capable of being a symbol,
a metaphor,
for us when we see through it,
past it,
to what it “stands for” for us.

A symbol is dead
when it means just what it means
and nothing more ever than what it means.

God is a symbol.
God is a metaphor.
God is an idea that represents
a transcendent reality
that cannot be said,
told,
explained,
described,
clarified,
expressed,
defined
or made plain.

God is dead to the extent
that God is limited
to what can be said of God
in the Bible,
the creeds,
the catechisms,
the books of confession,
and the books of doctrine
that say who and what God is.
And is not.

God is more than we can ask,
or say, or think, or believe.

God is beyond all concepts,
ideas, opinions, descriptions…

The most truthful thing
that can be said of God
is “I do not know God.”

As a symbol,
God is “transparent to transcendence,”
as all symbols are,
in that we see through the symbol
to what is beyond the symbol
which cannot be said/told/defined/etc.

We,
you and I,
are to live in ways
that “express the inexpressible,”
and “make known what which
is more than words can say.”

We,
you and I,
are to be symbols
which are “transparent to transcendence,”
so that we are “as close to The Mystery
at the Heart of Life and Being,
as some people get,”
so that seeing The Mystery
through us,
they become present to The Mystery themselves,
and live, as a symbol of The Mystery
in the lives of others.

And, thus, The Mystery
comes alive in us all,
and we all come alive in The Mystery,
and know that at the very bottom of it all,
we are One with The Mystery,
“One with the Father,”
One with each other
and all people of all ages,
and all sentient beings
of all times and places,
world without end, amen.
12/06/2020 — Caroline Dormon Lodge 03/22/2015 — Chico Lake State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

The old Taoist saying,
“Turn the light around,”
says all we need to hear.

It can be understood on different levels.
Initially it was a directive
to stop looking for illumination
“out there,”
in books,
or lectures,
or sutras,
concepts,
creeds,
ideas,
thinking,
etc.
and start looking for it
“in here,”
in realizations,
recognition,
intuition,
insight,
instinct,
etc.

Joseph Campbell said,
“It is through reflection
on our lived experience
that we arrive at new realizations.”
And on our dreams,
and our conflicts and contradictions,
etc.

Any time we come up against a wall
is a good time for reflection,
and for listening.

Nothing beats sitting quietly
and listening
for getting past the noise
to the truth that is trying
to break through to us.

All we have to do is sit still
and notice everything
that arises unbidden within,
until something comes up
with a peculiar energy about it,
different from all the other stuff,
in a way that catches your attention
and jolts you with
a kind of “Here it is! Don’t miss this!”
emphasis.

Well, reflect on that.
Turn it over.
Walk around it.
See what you can make of it.
What is it asking of you?
Take it for a spin.
See where it goes.

On the path to the Holy Grail,
one thing leads to another.
Start with the thing with energy,
and it will lead you to something else
with energy.
Stay with the energy.
With the life.
With the interest and enthusiasm.
With the joy and wonder.

Trust those guides with your life,
and be off
on your next great adventure.
12/07/2020 — Breakwater and Headlight B&W 10/02/2002 — Rockland, Maine

There are two things to attend
in every listening session
with yourself,
and with everyone else:
What is being said,
and
What is talking.

Both must be interpreted
in light of the context and circumstances,
and who is speaking,
and who is listening.

We cannot remove ourselves
from any conversation
or any relationship,
and impact what is heard
by the way we hear it.

We have to take all of it
into account,
observing the situation
and our place in it,
moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day.

Particularly what is talking.
What is the emotional charge
behind the words?
Depression?
Dismay?
Hopelessness?
Anxiety?
Fear?
Worry?
Anger?
Rage?
Hatred?
Defensiveness?
Uncertainty?
Unease?
The push to prevail?
The need to win?
Etc.

When you respond,
speak to the emotion
as much as to the words.

Get to the bottom
of the origin of the words.
To the source
of what is being said.

Do not leave the source un-probed.

Ask the questions that beg
to be asked.
Say the things that cry out
to be said.

Take your time between
the statement
and the reply.
Allow yourself to process everything,
including your emotional response
to the statement,
and speak from your own center,
from the source of your own propulsion,
from the still point
between action and reaction–
the still point between thoughts.
Between feelings.

And make it your highest priority
to nurture your relationship
with the still point
through all the days
of your life.
12/07/2020 — Lake Chicot 10/27/2015 — Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

Sit down,
be quiet,
watch your thoughts,
watch your response to your thoughts,
distance yourself from your thoughts,
observe by being aware
of being aware,
without judgment or opinion,
with compassion and non-contrivance,
not striving for anything
but awareness of everything.

If the things that arise
become overwhelming,
return your attention
to your breathing.

Breathe slowly, deeply,
pausing between exhale and inhale
for a count of five.
After five breaths,
resume your observation
of thoughts arising in the silence.

For twenty minutes,
or for as close to that
as your schedule allows.
Do this three times a day,
as your life permits.
12/07/2020 — Beech Tree Panorama 11/27/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

The moment is where we come alive.
What is blocking our life-in-the-moment?
What is happening there
that keeps us from being alive?
What is our attitude
about what is happening there
that keeps us from being alive?

There is caring too much
and there is caring too little.

There is wanting too much
and there is wanting too little.

There is thinking too much
and there is thinking too little.

You see where this is going.

We have to be capable of doing
what needs to be done
in ways appropriate to the occasion
in every moment of our life.

We need to have access to every
action we are capable of initiating
as a fully functioning member
of the species
without being incapacitated
by over-or-under reacting
in any area.

Living from the center,
from the still point between
all extremes,
requires optimal distance
from everything.

There is too-close and too-far-away.
Strive for the middle way
in all things.
Not caring too much,
and not caring too little.
About everything.
12/07/2020 — Walnut Creek Trail 01 11/09/2020 — Lancaster County, South Carolina

Doing what our life asks us to do,
being who our life asks us to be,
faithfully offering what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
providing what is needed in each moment,
with compassion and kindness,
sincerity and grace,
without contriving some outcome,
or seeking our advantage or gain,
is to be in accord with the Tao,
living aligned with the Way,
and fulfilling our destiny,
step by step,
through each day.

Jesus couldn’t do better than that.
The Buddha couldn’t beat it.
The Dali Lama aspires to it.
The people who toss it aside
in their search for more,
continue the legacy of Adam and Eve
in trading Eden for the Wasteland,
and throwing away their life
looking for life.
12/08/2020 — Moonrise 10/23/2010 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Nags Head, North Carolina

If you are living from your center,
you can live through anything.
You can live with anything.

Your center is centered upon your Source,
and your Source,
and your center,
are equipped to assist you
in the work of fulfilling your destiny
within all possible
situations,
contexts and
circumstances.

Look at where we have been!
All of this started
in the jungles
and in the caves–
on the plains
and the barren steppes!

We came from there to here
in 30 million or so years!
And we came through everything
to be here, now!

We come from good stock!
Stock that made it through
impossible-seeming conditions
using nothing but its original gifts,
its original nature,
living aligned with its center,
its Source.

That is the strategy
for living with–
for dealing with–
whatever comes up.

Seek the silence,
seek the center,
seek the source,
find the still point,
and wait for the Way to arise
and lead you through the Wasteland
to the Promised Land–
the Promised Land being within,
not without!

The Promised Land being anywhere
you are One with the Center and the Source
of the Mystery of Life and Being!

Live from there
and we have it made
no matter what!
12/08/2020 — Caroline Dormon Lodge 01 — Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

We have been looking for the Power source
for as long as we have been alive.
As a species.

All this time,
we have been like
a man sitting on his ox
looking for his ox.
Like a woman holding her car keys,
looking for her car keys.

We have been looking Out There,
when all this time,
it has been–and continues to be–
In Here.

We have looked everywhere Out There.
In the Moon,
in the Sun,
in the Stars,
in the Mountains,
in this recipe,
in this belief system,
in that one,
and that one…

The gods and goddesses
have been legion.
We have tried them all,
looking for a leg up,
for the advantage,
for the angle,
for the leverage,
for the formula
for beating the odds
and securing our future
and having it made.

Money seems to be the one
that has made it to the top.
If we only have enough money,
we will surely have it made.
And we live our life
in the service of Mammon,
seeking more,
always more,
and never having enough
to be sure
that we have it made.

And through all of this
we are never more
than one slight perspective shift
from having what we seek.

All we have to do
is change our mind
about what it means
to have it made.
12/08/2020 — Crepe Myrtle 07 11/27/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Jim’s Favorite Rice Pudding

Bring 2 Cups of water to a boil.
Add 1 cup of uncooked rice of your choice.
Cover and reduce heat to simmer.
The water will evaporate/be absorbed by the rice
as the rice cooks. This will take about 20 min.
for white rice and about 35 minutes for brown rice.

While the rice is cooking,
in a separate pot, place
3 cups of milk (Your choice of variety),
1/3 cup of sugar, or 3TBS of Stevia
1/3 cup or more to taste of raisins or dried cranberries
1 TBS Unsalted Butter
1-3 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat over medium heat while stirring occasionally.

When the rice has cooked, add it to the milk mixture
and stir it over medium heat until the mixture thickens
and the rice absorbs most of the milk–10 to 15 minutes.
Remove from heat, cover, and allow to “set up” for 10 minutes.

Serve or store in the refrigerator until needed.

All of the old monks ate their rice.
It was the foundation of their foundation.
12/08/2020 — Carolina Thread Trail 03 11/09/2020 — Lancaster County, South Carolina

What helps you find your way?
What restores your soul?
Makes your little heart sing?
Your little footsies dance?

What harmonizes your life,
puts you back on track,
centers and grounds you,
is a reliable source of balance
and stability?

Joseph Campbell would suggest
that you create your own sacred space
around those things.

He said:
“You don’t have a sacred space, a rescue land,
until you find somewhere to be
that is not a wasteland,
some field of action
where there is a spring of ambrosia–
a joy that comes from inside,
not something external that puts joy in you–
a place that lets you experience
your own will,
and your own intention,
and your own wish (and delight)
so that, in a small way,
the Kingdom is there.
I think everybody,
whether they know it or not,
is in need of such a place.”

He continues:

“A sacred space is hermetically sealed off
from the temporal world.
When you are in such a space,
there is no penetration into the enclosure.
You are in an eternal zone
that is protected from the impact and intrusion
of the stimuli of the day and of the hour.
That is what you do in meditation:
you seal yourself off.
The world is sealed off,
and you become a self-contained entity.
You must have such a sealing-off program/place
for yourself whenever you require it:
once a week,
or once a day,
or once an hour.
It is an absolute necessity
if you are going to have an inner life.
What it provides is an interval
in which the eternal within you
is disengaged from the field of time
in the hermetically sealed sacred space
within yourself.
The further you can get into that,
the more at peace you will be
with whatever happens.”
12/08/2020 — Currituck Beach Lighthouse 10/24/20/10 — North Carolina Outer Banks

Every time and place has its own mood,
its own character,
its own sense of being in,
or out of,
the flow–
the Tao–
of life and being

Some places are so dead
redemption and resurrection
are out of the question.

I have to get myself walked out of those places.
I expect you do, too.

There are people–
lots of people–
who have no hope of
being awake in their lifetime.
They walk like the dead they are
through all of the aforementioned places.

You can see it in their eyes
and in their slack expression.
It has been decades since they were last alive.

These people and those places
constitute a large portion of the world
we live in.

They dumbfound everyone who comes their way.
Jesus left shaking his head,
muttering to himself.
As did the Buddha before him
and Gandhi after him.

How do you teach a stone to talk?
If you take the time to cultivate
a relationship with the stone,
seeing through the stone
to all that it is
that does not meet the eye,
it will speak to you of itself
and of you
in ways that startle and amaze.

The dead people and places in our life
have the same potential.
But.
It will be a potential realized in pathos
and anguish
in recognition of all that might have been
and never had a chance of being
because there were none to listen
as we are listening,
and none to see as we are seeing,
and none to care as we are caring,
and now they are long past redemption
and resurrection,
though we are listening,
and seeing,
and caring
with a heart breaking for all that is,
and was not.
12/09/2020 — Sailboat Abstract 01 10/29/2010 — Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

We would all like to sail away
from time to time.
Or, as they say in the Old West,
“Don’t fence me in!”

Being fenced in is the worst imaginable situation
for a lot of us.
“Give us land, lots of land,
with the starry skies above…
and don’t fence us in.”

The odd thing about all this
is that nothing is more confining,
limiting,
prison-like
than a damn sailboat!

I’m sure the irony is not wasted on you.

Carl Jung like to say,
“We meet our destiny
on the road we take to escape it.”

We create the very future
we try to avoid
by trying to avoid it.

And have less freedom than we can bear
by trying to be free
of all constants and restrictions.

The trick–
the work-a-round–
is to be free
right here,
right now,
just as we are.

It’s the old soldiers’ Great Escape,
being Absent Without Leave
while standing at attention
as the commanding officer
passes in review.

We are always a slight perspective shift
from being outta here.

It’s the old Taoists’ favorite retreat
into seclusion and solitude.

Just flip the switch!
“Turn the light around!”
Take your leave!
Sail away!
Without going anywhere!

And if the situation is really obnoxious,
drift back in from time to time
and say, “I’m sorry,
my mind must have wandered,
can you repeat what you were just saying?”
And drift immediately away again.

That may not work on an arresting officer,
but it’s good for insurance salesmen
standing at the door.
12/09/2020 — Cotton in the Field Panorama 03 11/03/2015 — Along the Blues Trail through the Mississippi Delta

The life that is ours to live–
the life we are built for,
that comes with our destiny attached–
is so far removed from the life we are living,
that it is no wonder we suffer
from oxygen deprivation,
can’t get our breath,
listlessly drift through each day.

We do not fit the life we are living!
We belong to another,
vastly different life,
and struggle to make room
for that life
in this life.

Our heart isn’t in what we are doing.
How long has it been?
How long have we been going through
the motions,
thinking it is going to get better
soon?

We think Jesus was about heaven when we die.
Jesus was about living the life that is ours to live
now, while we are alive!

Jesus lived the life that was his to live
and calls us to follow his lead
in living the life that is ours to live.

The Buddha did the same thing.
Waking up means waking up to the life
that isn’t it,
and to the life that is it.
And living the right life.

Even if we have to compromise,
and walk two paths at the same time–
making enough money to pay the bills
with this life,
and doing what we pay the bills to do
with our real life–
it is worth the work to do what
we are here to do.

We will find ourselves smiling for no reason,
and laughing right out loud
with delight
over the good things
we never noticed before.

How long has it been since we did that?

We are burning daylight here.
Time’s a-wasting.
12/09/2020 — Fall Canopy 04 11/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Joseph Campbell asked, “What are you going to do well?”

There is our art,
our gift,
and our life.

What are we going to do well,
when it doesn’t matter?
When no one is going to notice,
or know?

When it amounts to nothing more than
“divinely superfluous beauty”?

There is our art,
our gift,
our life.

Where in your experience
do you have to get it right?

If it is everywhere,
you need to look at
how you are dominated
by your compulsion
to be pleasing,
and your inability to say no.

Don’t do anything about it!
Do not try to make yourself
start saying no!
Simply be aware of it,
be curious about it,
search for when it started,
for its origin in your life.
Wonder about it.
Dig around in it.
See what you can turn up.

And if it is nowhere–
if there is nothing
you have to get right,
you have to do well,
you need to look at
who took it away from you.
Who made fun of you?
Who ridiculed you?
Who made you ashamed
of caring about what you cared about?

Simply become aware of your disconnect
with what was once important to you,
and curious about what happened
to render you incapable of
embracing aspects of your life
as being worth your highest esteem.
Dig around in it.
See what you turn up.

Joseph Campbell would say,
“Reflection leads to new realizations.”
And that transforms the whole shebang.
12/10/2020 — Half Dome and Merced River 04/27/2006 — Yosemite National Park, California

We cannot assume anything.
We cannot take anything for granted.
Everything is for the first time.
Nothing has gone before.
Nothing will come after.
This is all there is or ever will be.
This here.
This now.
Is it.

We are the still point of the turning world,
right here,
right now.
What we do here and now
is all that matters.

Experience makes little difference.
Prognostication is a delusion.
All we can know is right before us.
What is happening?
What is being called for?
How best to respond?
That is all we need to know.
That is all there is to know.

If the baby’s diaper needs changing,
change the baby’s diaper.
If the dog needs to go for a walk,
take the dog for a walk.

How we feel about it doesn’t matter.
What we want doesn’t come into the picture.
What needs to be done?
Who needs to do it?
When?
How?

This is the place,
now is the time–
for what?

That is the only question.
Ever.

Live to get it right.
Every time.
12/10/2020 — The Barn Down the Road 03/21/2011 — Yanceyville, North Carolina

It comes down to this:

Pay attention,
be aware.

See what you look at,
know what you know.

Do what needs to be done,
what is called for,
in ways appropriate
to the occasion.

In each situation
as it arises.

It is never more difficult than that.

Anybody can do it
with a little practice.

What’s the problem?
12/10/2020 — Carolina Thread Trail 01 11/09/2020 — Lancaster County, South Carolina

You cannot be a photographer
and be somewhere else.

You cannot be a photographer
thinking about something else.

To be a photographer,
you have to be where you are,
when you are,
and your mind has to be on
what you are doing,
what you are seeing,
here and now.

A camera requires your presence.
Your attentive presence.
It forces you to be present
even against your will.

If you are not present,
it shows.

A camera is sitting zazen.
It is better than sitting zazen.
Sitting zazen takes you out of the moment.
A camera thrusts you into the moment,
and requires you to be alive
to the time and place
of your living.
Sitting zazen is just another way
of being dead.

Between a zazen cushion
and a camera,
go with the camera.
12/10/2020 — Cypress Swamp 09/03/2015 16 Panorama — Lake Martin, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

Joseph Campbell said, “If you really want
to help this world,
what you will have to teach
is how to live in it.
And that,
no one can do
who has not learned
how to live in it
in the joyful sorrow
and the sorrowful joy
of life as it is.”

We are always trying to improve
everything about life:
ourselves,
other people,
the world,
life as it is…

Life as it is
is not the way we want it to be.
And we have a plan for that.

The Bible would have us believe
that it all started out
with Adam and Eve
trying to improve Paradise.
And we are still at it.

Carl Jung said,
“You can’t improve something
without accepting it first.”
Letting things be just what they are
is the first step
in changing our relationship with them,
and that is the essential element
in the transformation of everything.

It all changes once our perspective changes.
If you are going to change something,
start with your perspective!
12/11/2020 — Mud Cracks 03 06/30/2011 — Mud Volcano, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Living from the center,
aligned with the source,
at one with our original nature,
waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear,
listening/looking
for what arises in the silence
to speak for the Tao
flowing through all situations
and circumstances
in the service of balance
and harmony,
spirit,
vitality
and life,
enables our virtues–
the gifts that are ours from birth–
to come forth
as blessing and grace
to heal the world
through the way
we respond
to what is called for
in each moment,
moment-by-moment,
the fulcrum shifting the future
into place,
and making all things
what they need to be
over time.

Do here and now right
as best you can.

That is the difference
that makes a difference
in the way things are
always and forever.
12/11/2020 — Cullasaja River Panorama 02 04/12/2011 — Nantahala National Forest, Highlands, North Carolina

Our destiny is among the strangest of things.
It can use anything to bring itself about.
Whether we cooperate or refuse,
it is all the same to our destiny.
From its standpoint,
“Anything can happen,
but nothing can go wrong.”
Because nothing can happen
that it cannot fold into its idea
of how things need to be.

The advantage of cooperating with our destiny
is entirely our boon to embrace,
if we choose,
though it will seem to us at times
to be more of a curse than a blessing.

We have to trust ourselves to
That Which Knows more than we know,
and open ourselves to the times that are upon us–
“And when,” in the Native American way of doing things,
“we come to the chasm,
and it is dark,
and we are afraid for our life,
we jump,
trusting that it is not as wide as it seems.”

The Hero’s Journey comes down to
trusting ourselves to our destiny
time after time.
Not willing,
not forcing,
not pushing,
not shoving,
just listening,
just looking,
just waiting,
for the door to open
where we think there are no doors,
for the blessing to be bestowed
when we think there are no blessings
in this mess for sure,
ready to act when the time for acting
comes upon us,
and trusting (that word again)
that we will know when it arrives.

It is a different way of going at life,
and it is the only way
of being in accord with the Tao
moment-to-moment,
day-to-day.
12/11/2020 — Fall Canopy 05 11/08/2020 – 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

What fills us?
Where are we “filled to the brim”?
Filled with life–
with the experience of being fully alive?

Where has that–where does that–happen to us?
How do we respond?
Tears?
Laughter?
Silence?
…

Those moments are “transparent to transcendence.”
They are “thin places” (Parker Palmer)
where the world of The Mystery at the Heart
of Life and Being
breaks into the world of normal, apparent, reality,
to transform everything,
and we forget to breathe.

Then it all snaps back into place,
leaving us to wonder if that just happened,
and long for a return engagement very soon.

But the memory lasts always,
and we know we are that close
all the time,
that it could happen anywhere,
but it doesn’t happen everywhere,
so we live between the times of its epiphany,
hoping to be present again
when it is present with us,
knowing our life can’t be
more meaningful than that.

Putting ourselves in the position
to be filled–
opening ourselves to the wonder of being
here, now,
wherever we are,
looking with fresh eyes
to see past appearances,
to see what else is there,
draped in the garb of the everyday,
concealing the truth of the Other World
just beyond reach…

We live in an optical illusion.
Now we see it, now we don’t.
We have to look knowing what we are looking at,
knowing what we are looking for,
looking for how to master the shift
by not staring at it,
but just past it,
out of the corner of our eye,
not quite focusing,
seeking the wonder,
the radiance,
just out of sight.
12/12/2020 — Big Creek 08 04/14/2009 –Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Waterville, North Carolina

Whatever happens in our life
is our destiny’s way
of taking care of us,
of waking us up,
of getting us back,
or keeping us,
on the track.

It is all about us and the track.

There is being on track,
and there is being off track,
and that is all there is.

Everything that happens to us
is about keeping us on,
or getting us back on,
track.

Track is the only thing to be.
The essential thing to be.

Track is humming along,
with everything in place
and working together
to produce the music
we came to make,
with us being aligned with the Tao
and in the center
of our life’s will for us
and all is good beyond compare.

Do we know it?
Is the question.

Off Track is lost in a Wasteland
of our own making
by failing to cooperate with the Tao,
and having nothing but contempt
and derision
for the idea
that there is a better way to do it
that the way we are doing it.
“Our Way Is The Only Way,”
carries us directly
to the rock solid heart
of where we do not want to be.
And we wanted our way there
all along the way.

Do we know it?
Is the question.

We can do it our way,
or we can do it the right way.
And our destiny is here with us
to urge us to do it the right way.

Here’s a tip for you:
We get and stay on track
by sitting still
and being quiet,
and listening/looking
until we see and hear,
and know what’s what,
and do what needs to be done about it.

That is all there is to it.

How quiet are you,
for how often,
and how long?
12/12/2020 — Big Creek 08 04/14/2009 Oil Paint Rendering –Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Waterville, North Carolina — When I take a photo that is improperly focused, the only way I know of redeeming it is to render it as an oil painting or as watercolor.
All of our sins of omission or commission are the result of not knowing, or not caring, what we are doing.
And we get back on track the best way we can.

Knowing what is ours to do,
and to not-do
and to do-not,
and knowing what we have to work with
are matters of essential knowing.

And nobody explains that to us.

All of the important stuff
we figure out on our own.

And nobody explains that to us.

Everybody acts as though there is some
Almighty Authority directing their actions,
and they are doing what they are supposed to do
by aligning themselves with that invisible,
undetectable, completely imagined and non-sensible
Authority.

And, they are right.
Except, but, only
they are imagining the wrong Authority.

They are imagining an Absolute Authority “out there”
and it is “in here.”

The One Who Knows dwells within us
and communes with us indirectly
with sign language (symbol language),
metaphors and energy bursts,
dream images and compelling urges,
drifts of “soul” (whatever that is),
and stirrings of “heart” (whatever that is)…

For all practical purposes,
WE are the Super Authority we seek,
and our only problem
is working out Right Relationship
with ourselves–
knowing who is saying “Yes” and “No”
to the things we do and do-not
throughout our life?

Who is guiding our boat
on its path through the sea?

The answer is to be found within.

When we get to the bottom of that,
and are right about it,
we know what we need to know
to find what we need,
to do what needs to be done,
about everything that comes along.

And that is the best anybody can do.
12/12/2020 — Two Ducks Flying 11/30/2011 — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

We can care too much,
and we can care too little.
We can think too much,
and we can think too little.

We live on a continuum between
too much and too little.

Finding the Still Point,
is as easy as riding a bicycle.
Once you get it,
you have it forever.

Just think of your life as riding a bicycle.
And take it for a spin.
12/13/2020 — Hatteras Sunrise 02 10/31/2011 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

What do you care about?
What do you care-not about?
What is your highest allegiance?
Your deepest loyalty?

I hope you don’t know.

I hope you are living to find out.

I hope you are living
to show yourself who you are.

Otherwise, you are living
in the service of some ideology.
Of somebody’s idea
of what you should care about,
what you should give your highest allegiance,
your deepest loyalty to.

As if they know.

You are letting someone else
tell you what is important.
As if anyone but you can know what that is.

It is ours to discover it for ourselves.

No one can tell us what it is.
It is for us to know what it is
because it is.

Our life’s work is to know
what grounds us–
not because it ought to,
but because it does.

What is the immovable,
unshakable,
adamantine,
foundation
upon which we stake our life,
and which is our life?

What do we live to serve?

We live to find out.

Let it be a surprise.

We find clues
in how we have lived
up to this point.

What are the questions we can ask?
What are the questions that are not allowed?
Who says so?

When we find the things we don’t dare question,
we have to find who says so.
Where did we get that idea?
What keeps it in place?
Where are we not free to go?
Go there.
See what happens.
12/13/2020 — Lake Brandt Reflection 11/09/2011 — Greensboro, North Carolina

Diane Osbon said, “There is a track for each of us.”
A track.
A path.
A way.
A beam.
A course…

An we know when we are on it,
and when we are not on it.

We know when we are resonating with our life,
and when we are not.

We know when we are in the flow,
in the groove,
and when we are out of it.

When we in the center of our greatest joy,
and when we are in the wasteland of discontent.

I know a woman in extended care
suffering from a room full of associated symptoms
all connected with excessive alcohol consumption
for twenty or so years.
Her mind is here and not-here simultaneously,
and her body only somewhat better off.
But.
There is enough of her there mentally
for her to yell out at everyone who enters her room:
“Bring me something cold to drink
with Vodka in it,
and I want some Weed!”

That is a woman who has been off track
for over twenty years,
and knew it,
and drank to forget.

The Hero’s Journey is not for sissies,
yet it waits for each of us
to step onto the path
and start walking.
And the basic requirement of that Journey
is that we have what it takes
to live a meaningful life.

Our life will tell us when it is meaningful
and when it is not.

And when it is not,
if we reach for the Vodka and weed,
or some rough equivalent.
we have chosen poorly,
and need to get ourselves backed out of there
while we can.
12/14/2020 — Live Oak Fantasy — Undisclosed Location

There is our life to live–
the life that is ours to live–
the life that no one but us can live.

And there is our idea
of a substitute for that life–
an acceptable (to us) facsimile
of that life,
which we generally prefer
because it is apparently
softer, smoother and easier
than our Real Life,
and requires (at least at the outset),
less anxiety,
and, hence, less courage
than our Real Life.

What we need in order to live our Real Life
from the start
is more awareness of what the deal is,
and more encouragement
and preparation for the task,
from birth on.

All of which is tragically lacking,
and we are thrown into life,
like all of our ancestors before us,
with no guidance whatsoever,
and only what comes with us from the womb
to stabilize,
balance and direct us
through the maze of options,
choices and pitfalls
that await all along the way
from birth to death.

We need better odds–
which is where I,
and those like me,
come into your life.

We are here to compensate
for all the miss-direction
and bad advice that litter your life
from the beginning until now.

Diane Osbon, who was wise beyond her years,
and very much on our side,
had this to say about that:
“An old Apache storyteller said,
‘The plants, rocks, fire, water
are all alive.
They watch us and see our needs.
They see when we have nothing
to protect us,
and it is then that they reveal themselves,
and speak to us.'”

This is the Apache way of saying
that we are surrounded by
“the hills from which our help comes”
(Psalm 121).

Help is everywhere for those with eyes to see
(Which come with us from the womb).
We only have to wake up and start looking
to know that it is so
(Which come from having the right people
in our life to tell us what to do).

We are at once on our own,
and we have everything we need
to find what we need
to do what needs us to do it,
if only we will wake up
and start looking–
and trust ourselves to the process
that is waiting to assist us
all along the way.

If you are going to take anything “on faith,”
if you are going to believe in anything,
believe this,
and start walking–
with your eyes open!
12/14/2020 — Hemlock Woods 03 06/06/2012 — Roan Mountain, Carver’s Gap, Tennessee

It is the experience of life,
of being alive,
that is at the heart of existence,
not what we have,
or attain,
or acquire,
or achieve/accomplish…

Being present with what is present with us,
without trying to escape the moment
by dismissing,
disregarding,
discounting,
denying it,
but receiving the moment just as it it,
“thus come,”
and doing what is called for
in response to it,
moment-by-moment
is the hallmark
of the grace and acceptance,
of the wonder of being alive.
12/14/2020 — Far Away 05/06/2013 — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

It is easy to let someone else
tell us what to do.
To follow the herd.
From the barn
to the pasture,
and back to the barn.
Day after day.

The work of being human
is The Hero’s Journey–
finding what is meaningful,
not because it is supposed to be,
but because it is!

Not because someone else says so,
but because we say so!
Because we know so!

The right kind of community
is a community of innocence–
innocent in the sense
of having nothing to get,
nothing to gain,
from the individuals
making up the community,
but existing solely
to assist each individual
in the work of finding what is meaningful
and letting their life
fall into place around that.

Once meaningful is at the center,
we only need enough money
to allow us to pay the bills
required to do what is meaningful,
and everything takes shape
around the center.

The Hero’s Journey is finding
and serving what is meaningful
with our life.

The right kind of community
helps us with that,
and is composed of individuals
supporting each other
in the work of finding and doing
what is meaningful to them individually.

It does that primarily
by listening one another
to the truth of what they are saying,
listening in a way
that allows the speaker
to hear what they are saying,
and realize the truth of what they are about.

The right kind of community
serves as a sounding board,
as a mirror,
to everyone in the community,
so that in looking,
we see ourselves,
in speaking,
we hear ourselves,
and know who we are
and what is meaningful to us–
not because someone else tells us so,
but because we know so!
Because we experience it to be so,
and no one can knock us off of it.

As you step onto the path
of seeking and serving
what is meaningful to you,
be aware of the people
who resonate with you,
who understand the importance
of the search for what is important,
and can share things they have learned
in their own search for what is important,
and let the right kind of community
coalesce around the quest
to find and to know
what is meaningful individually
for each person in the community,
and to make that the center
and begin to live in ways that
flow from the center,
and serve the center,
throughout what remains
of the time left for living.
12/15/2020 — Live Oak Fantasy 02 — Undisclosed Location

The commitment–
our commitment–
is to the path,
to our integrity
and our potential
as a human being.

How human can we be?
How true to ourselves–
to what is deepest,
truest,
and best about us–
can we be?

We live to find out.

We find out by committing ourselves
to finding what is meaningful to us
and serving it with our life.

By committing ourselves
to finding the center
and living from there.

By committing ourselves
to finding the still point
and allowing that
to direct our action.

And letting all other commitments
fade away.

Our liege loyalty,
our filial devotion,
our deepest allegiance,
are to the grounding principle,
the axis mundi,
where heaven and earth meet
in the heart of who we are.
12/15/2020 — Mallard in Flight 01/08/2013 — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

We have interests
and proclivities,
inclinations,
tendencies,
preferences,
penchants,
passions,
etc.
that energize us,
motivate us,
stir us to action
in ways that are unique to us.

We care about things
to a degree,
and in a manner,
that set us apart
from other members of our family,
and other members of the species.

We have potentialities that are our own,
the realization of which
constitutes our destiny.

We are destined to realize our potentialities.

Our destiny is a composite of our interests, etc.
When our life is lived in the service
of these things–
when we are true to ourselves
in honoring what we cherish
and doing what is meaningful to us–
we fulfill our destiny,
and satisfy our deepest
urge-to-wholeness-and-completion.

Our life is the expression,
the realization,
the integration,
the incarnation
of the energy that manifests itself
in all these ways.

This is destiny being manifest,
or “manifest destiny,”
being worked out in our life.

his is what we are here for.

If our destiny isn’t being made manifest,
it is being frustrated,
blocked,
denied,
rejected,
spurned
and refused.

And our symptoms are evidence
of a life unlived,
calling us to wake up
and get with the program
that is built into our bones.
12/16/2020 — Wetlands Geese Panorama 01/11/2013 — Guilford County, North Carolina

We are not free to chose our choices.
Or to chose our preferences.
Or our disinclinations.
Or our desires.
Or our fears…
The list is long.
Forever long.

Freedom is the greatest illusion ever.

We have to see the way we see,
until we no longer see the way we see,
and we do not determine when that will be.

We have to feel the way we feel…

Think the way we think…

Enjoy what we enjoy…

Be the way we are…

And we talk about freedom.
We should expand it
to be clear about what we mean.

We mean freedom from oppression.
Freedom from somebody else’s religion.
Freedom from somebody else
telling us what to do.
Freedom from unwarranted intrusion
into our lives.
Freedom from invasion,
from the demolition of our boundaries,
from someone else’s idea
of how our life should be lived.

We want our bondage to be natural,
and not artificially imposed.

But freedom as a way of being in the world
is not ours to possess.

I recall the investment firm’s commercial
of a mighty bull trotting along
an endless beach at water’s edge,
while the theme song played in the background,
“To know no boundaries,
to let ourselves roam free…”

The bull was bound to run on the sand.
Not swim in the ocean,
or fly in the air.

Our bondage is absolute and inescapable.
Being clear about that
relieves us of the burden
of thinking we can will ourselves
to happily ever after
with just a bit more effort.

And then, there is Snoopy,
reminiscing about his days
at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm,
lamenting, “Once we got over the fence,
we were still in the world.”

It’s called the fallacy
of the Garden of Eden.
“One bite of the right fruit
and we are free as the breeze,
blowing where it will.”

Another way to think of the breeze
is to say it doesn’t know what to do next,
looking as it is,
for the way out of here.
12/15/2020 — Circle 5-A — from my Symbols of Transformation Collection — Circles are among the most ancient symbols “transparent to transcendence,” and have been honored, recognized, understood through the ages as a metaphor of wholeness, completion, realization, awakening, enlightenment, awareness, presence, being here/now, being grounded, being immovable and untouchable…the list is long. What does a circle mean to you?

We are not living to have our way.
We are not living to do what we want.

We are living to serve our destiny,
to be who we are capable of being,
to realize our potentiality,
in doing what is calling us to do it–
aligned with our original nature,
in accord with the Tao
(The Mystery),
the mystical flow of time and place–
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

This puts us in the position of Luke Skywalker
in relation to Obi-wan Kenobi
and Yoda,
as we take up the work
of finding our life and living it,
of discovering our original nature–
our gifts,
our virtues,
our spirit,
our vitality,
our balance and harmony,
our energy–
and incarnating it,
exhibiting it,
expressing it,
serving it,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
throughout the time left for living.
12/17/2020 — Christmas 12/31/2013

Fear (Anger, Hatred, Jealousy, Ruthlessness, etc.) ,
Desire (Greed, Lust, Passion, Obsession, Compulsion, etc.),
Duty (Responsibility, Obligation, Subservience, Obeisance, etc.),
are forever (since the Buddha’s and the Christ’s temptations)
listed as our primary motivations,
as the heart of human-being-hood,
and the things we must escape
by taking refuge in illumination (enlightenment, realization, etc.)
and not-caring about the diversions and distractions
of the world.

Well.
That pisses me off.

It places “I Want More Now!”
(“And Will Do Anything
To Get It,
Have It,
Keep It,
Increase It!”)
at the center of who we are.

And misses entirely the grace
and wonder–
the salvific mystery–
of laughter and tears,
of joy and sorrow.

I watched four episodes of Mandalorian
before quitting at the prospect of
more of the same forever.
The man behind the mask
never laughed or cried.
He just killed whomever
wasn’t doing it his way (The Way It Is).
He was/is a weapon
in the hands of Fear/Desire/Duty.
A non-human being.
A non-sentient being.
No actual non-human being kills everything
that doesn’t do it the Right Way.
Only human non-humans do that.
Or thinks it can only be happy
when all threats to happiness are destroyed.

Happy is not what we have,
it is who we are.

For. No. Reason.

Happy. Here. Now.

How about that?

It is a different way of thinking
about motivation,
and life.

We don’t have to kill anything,
or possess anything,
before we can be happy.

We can just be happy now.
Here.
With things as they are.
Why not?

What is stopping you
from being happy to be here, now,
with things exactly as they are?
Laughing and crying as is appropriate
to the occasion?
12/17/2020 — The Fire Place 04/03/2011

The fire pit where the family gathers periodically to sacrifice marshmallows
and offer thanksgiving for chocolate bars and graham crackers.

Happy is a state of being,
an aspect of mind.

A perspective,
an outlook,
an orientation,
an attitude,
a point of view.

It is the way we look
at what we see.

Joseph Campbell called for
“The joyful participation
in the sorrows of the world.”
And invited us to
walk right into life as it is
and embrace without hesitation
the full pathos of
the Mystery at the heart of Life and Being.

He said,
“The Cosmic Dancer, declares Nietzsche, does not rest heavily in a single spot, but gaily, lightly, turns and leaps from one position to another. It is possible to speak from only one point at a time, but that does not invalidate the insights of the rest.”
(The Hero with a Thousand Faces p. 196)

And advised that we “Say ‘Yes!’ to it all!”

We live as full participants
in the moment of our living
no matter what that entails.

We are here/now for the good
we are able to bring forth
in response to what is being called for
by the situation we find ourselves in–
one situation after another,
all our life long–
without being overwhelmed and undone
by what we have to work with.

We step up and do what needs doing
as the Cosmic Dancer we are,
bringing blessing and grace,
compassion and justice
to bear on where we are,
no matter what.

We live as vehicles of hope and mercy,
anyway, nevertheless, even so–
drawing our strength from,
not the results and outcomes
of our living,
but the foundation,
center,
core
of our life.

Zen Master Yun-Men said it like this:
“You should withdraw inwardly
and search for the ground
upon which you stand–
thereby you will discover
what truth is.”

And live from there
in the joyful embrace
of all things.
12/18/2020 — Axis Mundi — From my Symbols of Transformation Collection
The Axis Mundi is the Axis of the World, the center of the world and of the universe, the pole, and more than that, the point–the still point–around which everything falls into place, and upon which all things are centered, grounded, united, and become One. The Central Mountain. The Sacred Tree. The heart of the cosmos and all that is. And it is everywhere. Within everyone. Living from that point, all things are One.

We belong in on place,
not in every place.
We belong to one thing,
not everything.

Knowing where we belong,
and what our “thing” is,
is essential knowing.

Honoring what we know,
and living in accord with it,
is essential wisdom.

Allowing where we belong
and what we do
to evolve over time
is essential grace.

Living out of essential knowing,
essential wisdom,
and essential grace
is to compose a well-lived life.

No one can do better than that.
And no one can tell us
how to do that.

No one knows what we know.
No one.

We are the teacher,
and we are the student.
We are the chisel
and we are the stone.
12/18/2020 — Cabot Trail 02 09/27/2007 — Nova Scotia

Life at its best
has an organic flow about it.

There is a time to sleep,
and a time to eat,
and a time to work,
and a time to refrain from working…

A circadian rhythm governs
the planets in their orbits,
and the tides in their cycles,
and the seasons in their traces…

To live in accordance with the times
is to be on track and in tune with the Tao.
In the ancient Greek way of thinking,
this is kairos, the opportune time,
the right time,
the time for acting.

Our lives tend to be more orderly,
more routine,
more predictable,
and are run by the clock
and the calendar.

We eat at noon
whether we are hungry or not.
We go to bed at 10:30
whether we are sleepy or not.

We live buy Chronos, clock time,
calendar time.
The time bills come due,
and school starts and stops,
and the day begins and ends.

Working Kairos in with Chronos
is a balancing act only humans
have to master.
The rest of the natural world
turns when it is time for turning,
dances when it is time to dance,
and naps when a nap is called for.

Eating when hungry,
resting when tired
is the ideal to strive for.
Doing what is needed–
what is necessary–
in the time and place
the call is issued,
is the sine qua non
of a True Human Being.

How close can we come,
and how often do we dare,
are the questions
which, when answered,
tell the tale.
12/18/2020 — Coming In 03/22/2013 — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

The symbols that are alive for us
have to square us up
with the life that is ours to live,
and the world in which we live,
so that we find ways to be who we are
in the time and place of our living.

Our symbols call us to life,
and guide us in finding ways
to incarnate the deep truth of our being
within the circumstances of life-in-the-world–
to break into the world
as the Transforming Word,
the Sacred Act,
of Life coming to life
and shattering the expectations
and assumptions of life
in so doing.

Symbols are life and death in the making.

What are the symbols that are alive for us?
To what do they point?
They are doorways opening to what?
What are they calling us to do,
to become?

Two of my favorite “living symbols”
are Yoda and Obi-wan Kenobi.
The two are one.
They stand before me
as projections of my own Inner Guides,
my Mentors within,
reminding me that I have all I need,
if I will be still and listen,
and look,
and write!

When I write it out,
there it is–
exactly what I am looking for!
Calling me to incarnate it
in the way I live
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day.
12/18/2020 — Lake Martin Sunset 08 02/07/2014 — Beaux Bridge, Louisiana

One of the first principles states:
“Nothing can happen to us that is so bad
that it cannot be made better–
or worse–
by the way we respond to it.

And nothing can happen that is so good
that it cannot be made better–
or worse–
by the way we respond it.”

We hold the key to how well our life goes
by the way we respond to how our life is going.

Our response determines (or strongly influences)
everything that follows.

And so, we
Stop. Look. Listen.
And we
Look Both Ways Twice.

This means before we act/react/respond
in every life setting.

Because our response to what is happening
is much more important
than what is happening.

We set-up what happens next
by the way we respond to what just happened.

If you are ever going to believe anything,
believe this–
and act accordingly.
12/19/2020 — Mallard in Flight 16 01/29/2013 — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

Where do we go from here?
Or, as it is sometimes phrased,
Here we are, now what?

Now, we wait for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.

It is that simple every time.

Do not be impatient with the future!

It comes in its own good time!

In the meantime,
wait, watch, listen.
Seeing and hearing
come in their own time,
in their own way.

When the door opens,
walk through?

What door?
Which door?

All this will be revealed to us
in its own time.
In the meantime,
wait, watch, listen.

If you haven’t watched
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s YouTube videos
on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction,
now would be a good time
to do that (The shortest ones first).

Practice waiting, watching, listening
in each moment.
You will be amazed
at all you have been missing!

And, what’s your hurry?
There is only seeing, hearing and understanding.
And you will never get beyond
those things,
even if you lived forever.
There will always be more to see than we see,
more to hear than we hear,
more to understand than we understand,
more to know than we know,
more to do than we do,
more to become than we are.

There is no arriving on the way
that is The Way!
Only the next thing to be aware of.

And that’s where we came in.

So be aware of now,
and catch it as it evolves
into what’s next!

And do what is called for
in response to both!
12/11/2020 — Storm at Sea 09/26/2008 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

The Holy Grail represents the full realization
of the potentials
that came with us from the womb.

This is the culmination of The Hero’s Journey:
Being Who We Are!
Who we are capable of being!
Fully Born,
as one Thus Come,
at last!

The secret ingredient is compassion.
Compassion for ourselves.
Compassion for others.
Compassion for the world as it is.

This is not striving to be anything
beyond compassionate,
not trying to gain anything
beyond being compassionate,
not trying to do anything
but be compassionate–
not in order to attain anything,
but to simply be compassionate.
Knowing/feeling that is enough.

That is Christ on the cross.
The Buddha under the Bo Tree.
The Dali Lama leaving Tibet
without a disparaging word
about the Chinese.
And it is the heart of Motherhood
around the world,
bearing out the truth of Simeon’s word,
“A sword will pierce your very soul!”
even so.

Can we say it?
“Bring it on!
Let it be!
Anyway!
Nevertheless!
Even so!”

It requires no attachment
to fear,
desire,
or duty.

And exemplifies the complete freedom
and spontaneous readiness
to do what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
for nothing beyond the joy
of doing what is ours to do
with the gifts and potentialities
that are ours to share and exhibit
throughout the time left for living.
12/20/2020 — Making for Home–The Mailboat’s Wake, Stonington Maine

We live to know what owns us,
and to choose to be owned by it
or not.

We choose our owner.
It is the only choice we get to make.
Beyond that,
it is being owned.
Like it or not.

Truth is a harsh taskmaster.
Reaping what it did not plant,
harvesting what it did not sow.
Asking us, “Did you think
you were just along for the ride?”

We have to work out for ourselves
how much we can get by with,
and where to draw the line.
That is where we find out
who owns us.

We are who we show ourselves to be.
Regardless of who we think we are,
or who we say we are,
or who we wish we were.
Where we draw the line
reveals the truth of who we are.

What are the lines we live within?
Who draws them?
That is who owns us.
For better and for worse.

Better and worse.
Good and evil.
Those are coins
that have no edge.
Now it is up,
now it is down.
But, both are up and down
at the same time.
Each goes over into the other
like that,
and where does that line lie?

Whomever/Whatever owns us,
there are advantages and disadvantages.
Advantage/disadvantage is already
good/evil,
better/worse,
right/wrong.

Beyond good and evil
is out of the question.
We take the good along with the bad
and let it be
because it is.

Who owns us is who we are.
For better and for worse.
Forget advantage and disadvantage!
Decide this day whom you will serve!
Because that is who you are!

We are to be who we are because we are,
and let that be that,
because it is.

What can you live with,
being and doing,
with full awareness
of who you are being,
of what you are doing?

Be that!
Do that!
And let the outcome be the outcome.
For better and for worse.

Only God can worship God.
Everyone else
is just trying to get something
they don’t deserve.
12/20/2020 — Islands in the Stream 01/11/2013 — Lake Jeanette, Greensboro, North Carolina

Joseph Campbell said,
“The crucial thing to live for
is the sense of life
in what you are doing,
and if that is not there,
then you are living according
to other people’s notions
of how you ought to live.”

Whenever that describes our current situation,
we have to stop.
Look.
And listen.

We have drifted away from the path,
and have to get back on track
by re-orienting ourselves,
turning the light around,
re-establishing our relationship
with our center,
re-connecting with the guiding sense
of what matters most,
re-aligning ourselves with the force
of our own life-energy,
and seeking ways to express
that which is deepest,
truest
and best about us–
the virtues,
character
and manner
which are the gifts
that came with us at birth
and seek expression,
incarnation,
embodiment
in-and-through us
and the life we are living.

This is our life’s purpose,
our destiny:
to be who we are
in the way we live.

Getting back to that,
and living from it,
in service to it,
and letting everything else
fall into place around it,
is to find the sense of life
in what we are doing,
to be one with the Tao,
and to dance with the Mystery of Live and Being.

We can’t beat that anywhere.
12/21/2020 — Catawba Trestle 05-B 12/21/2015 — River Walk Park, Rock Hill, South Carolina

The term “Truth Commission”
seems to have limitations and restrictions
that would interfere with its implied purpose
of getting to the truth,
so, let’s call it
“The Katie Porter Grand Inquisition”
(The very Katie Porter who is
the Representative from California’s 45th District),
and authorize her to determine
the most efficient and expedient way
of getting to the bottom of
“Who authorized whom
to do what to whom,
where, when, why, and how–
in regard to everything done
under the Trump Administration
from start to finish,
including what laws were,
or may have been, broken,
and what penalties have been called for
that need to be applied
to see that justice is done
and grievances addressed,
in every instance,
with no exceptions or exclusions.”

And have her do it
however she determines it needs to be done.

Beginning on January 21, 2021.
12/21/2020 — Jenne Farm 04 09/28/2015 — Reading, Vermont

The next time you hear
a politician denouncing/decrying socialism
ask them who pays their salary.
Ask them who pays for their health insurance.
Ask them who pays for their housing.
Their meals.
Their eye glasses.
And all things pertaining to living their life.

Then ask them who pays public school teachers
and employees,
including equipment and facilities.

And who pays law enforcement officers,
including equipment and facilities.

And who pays military service men and women,
including equipment and facilities.

And who pays all politicians,
including their equipment and facilities
on all levels of government,
national, state and local.

And then ask them why it is okay
for taxpayers to pay all these people,
and it isn’t okay for taxpayers
to pay for their own health care
out of the taxes they pay
which pays for all these people.

And why isn’t it okay to subsidize
their own salaries when a pandemic
forces them into joblessness,
the way their taxes are used to subsidize
farmers when crops fail,
or businesses and corporations,
including air lines,
when their income is disrupted by a pandemic?

Ask them why socialism is okay in all these areas,
but it isn’t okay for the people
who are paying the taxes
that support people in all these areas.

Ask them that.
And don’t let them put you off
with anything less than
a completely satisfactory answer
that explains clearly
why you are less worthy
than any of these other people
of benefiting from the very taxes you pay.

Don’t let them go
until you know why you aren’t as important
as all these other people are.

Your taxes benefit them.
Why do politicians oppose your taxes
benefiting you?
12/21/2020 — November Orchard 10 11/03/2013 — Springs Farm, Fort Mill South Carolina, Oil Paint Rendering

Joseph Campbell said,
“One should find,
and learn to live out of,
one’s own center,
and be the source
of one’s own
for and against.”

This cannot be done
without killing the dragon
with “Thou Shalt” engraved
on every scale.

We cannot submit to the expectations
and mores of parents
and society,
and speak with our own voice
and follow our own sense
of what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

What is ours to bring forth
is unique among the ages,
and we cannot give birth to ourselves
following the dictates
of “Those Who Know Best” (Truman Capote).

We are different from everyone else,
and must have compassion
for our different-ness,
and courage to befriend it
by living in ways
that allow it to shine through
and be known
all along the way!
12/21/2020 — The Sun 06/03/2019 — Indian Land, South Carolina

Today is the Winter Solstice,
the shortest day in the year,
and the day the sun turns back toward the earth.

The day all those human beings were sacrificed
through the ages
to bring The God back–
and it WORKED!!!

All of our ideologies “work” the same way!

“Let it be!” said the Beatles.

You can’t beat that
for a life-giving attitude.

Let the sun go
if it’s going!
Let it come back
if it comes back!

We can’t do that with The God.
We have to impose our will
with our supplications
and votive offerings
and even human sacrifices.

We are stupid in so many ways.
Let’s see how many ways
we can not be stupid any longer.
12/22/2020 — In The Marsh Panorama 08/22/2015 — Beaufort, South Carolina

We are on our own.
No one can do it for us.
Teachers, at best, can only offer
their experience as a guide,
and, at worst, can only tell us
what someone told someone who told someone
who told someone…
who told them.

Too many spiritual guides
and religious leaders
only know what they got
from someone else.

Ask around:
“What do you know of God
that you did not get from
some other source,
including the Bible?”
Ask the people who claim to know
more than you know,
“What do you know of God
that you discovered on your own,
without help from anyone else?”

The old Taoist Masters
cut to the chase, saying:
“Seek the Source
in the Silence!
Live with sincerity
and spontaneity
out of your own sense
of what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
incarnating/expressing/exhibiting
the face that was yours before your
grandparents were born!”

No theology there!
No doctrine there!
No creedal formula there!
Only personal experience at the core!
And your personal experience
will be different from everyone else’s!

Their slogans,
for example,
“Eat when hungry,
rest when tired,”
mean “Live out of your own sense
of what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises!”

True to our own sense
of what needs to be done,
we gradually learn to read
our situations with a perceptive eye,
and get responding to them appropriately
down to a fine art–
and no one can tell us how to do that!

So, “Get in there and do your thing,
and let the outcome be your teacher
in knowing how to apply your thing
to each situation as it arises!”

That is all there is to it!
12/21/2020 — In the Beginning 07/28/2016 — Indian Land, South Carolina

We care too much
about the wrong things,
and we care too little
about the right things.

Consider what you care about,
and what you don’t care about.

All of the time.
12/23/2020 — Charlotte Skyline 08/23/2017 Oil Paint Rendering– Charlotte, North Carolina

Enlightenment,
Illumination,
Reflection/realization
all result in
awakening to what is important–
that is,
knowing what we know to be important–
and being right about it,
so that we live out of that knowing
in each situation as it arises.

This is all it takes to put ourselves
right with ourselves
in the life we are living,
and with the world in which
we are living.

And that shifts the world on its course,
and puts the world in alignment
with itself.

And that transforms everything.

Be right.
Do right.
Make right.

Get that down,
and we all have it made!
12/23/2020 — Adams’ Millpond 11/10/2015 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina

“What should I do?
What response should I make?
What is being asked of me?
What is being called for in this immediate situation,
here and now?”

We only have to know what is being called for
in the situation that is most pertinent
in any moment,
to know what we should do.

What is your most pressing situation
right here, right now?
Only you can decide that.

What is being called for?
Only you can decide that?

If you are being paralyzed,
or held hostage,
or rendered hopeless,
by the absence of acceptable outcomes–
if everything you can think of doing
is useless in terms of its impact
on the situation as a whole,
think smaller,
think here and now.

Share cups of cold water,
or hot coffee,
or room temperature wine,
and talk of better days,
or of what would help to get through
these days,
or simply share the warmth
of each other’s company…

You know,
like that.
12/24/2020 — Steele Creek Trestle Panorama 02/13/2014 Oil Paint Rendering — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina

It is Christmas Eve.
A wonderful time
for re-evaluating your relationship
with your life.

We know all about what
needs to be changed about the world.
What needs to be changed about you?

About your relationship with you?
About your relationship with the world?

It is a week until New Year’s Eve.
The New Year is the traditional time
to consider what needs to be new about us
in honor of a new year,
a new beginning,
replete with resolutions and high hopes
for “this year being different.”

We have a week to focus on our relationship
with our life and the world.
Not to think,
but to listen.

We do not get anywhere we need to be
by thinking,
but by listening,
by looking,
by seeing,
by hearing,
by reflecting/connecting
and forming new realizations.

What do we need to realize?
We have no idea.
So thinking cannot get us there.

Spend your time in the next week,
sitting still,
being quiet,
listening,
looking,
open to what comes up in the silence,
waiting for things to arise
with a particular “charge” about them
that “catches your eye,”
and “calls your name,”
and demands that you pay attention.

Look closer at those things,
just watching,
just seeing,
just hearing,
holding everything in your awareness,
writing down what needs to be written down,
and continuing to sit still,
be quiet,
and listen,
look…

And see where you are in a week.
Perhaps the mud will settle,
and the water will clear,
and you will know what
you are being called to do.

Then there is doing it.

Throughout the New Year,
and beyond!
12/25/2020 — Watkins Glen 07 09/20/2015 Oil Paint Rendering — Watkins Glen State Park, Watkins Glen, New York

The Christ I am
wishes a Merry Christmas
to the Christ you are.

If the Christ is anything,
the Christ is iconoclastic to the core.
No theology!
No doctrine!
No ideology!
No creeds!
Just being right about what is important,
and seeing what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises–
doing it without considering
our advantage,
or what we stand to gain or lose,
with no interest in the outcome,
just giving the best we have to offer
to the true good of the moment,
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

Of course,
the outcome of this moment,
will set up the next moment,
where we will again offer what is needed,
so that our work is never done,
which always gives us something to do,
so what’s the problem?

Well, one problem is being right
about what is important.
We get better at that over time,
bringing our experience into play
with our imagination,
and our intuition,
and our instincts,
and our sense of what’s what,
but throughout time,
consequences remain our only teacher,
and we are always learning what is important,
and getting better at reading situations,
and having less at stake
in what is happening,
and becoming more aware of ourselves
responding to what is going on,
and what’s pushing our buttons,
and yanking our chains,
and engaging our complexes,
as we work things out slowly
over time,
reflecting continually
in the service of new realizations
and an increasingly better alignment
with the Tao,
and a deepening accordance/resonance
with the Mystery at the heart of Life and Being
throughout our life.

The Christ is always becoming The Christ–
and we are always
incarnating/embodying/expressing/exhibiting
the Christ in all that we do.

And my Christ wishes your Christ
the merriest of Christmases
with good faith
and courage for the journey
through all that is before us
all along the Way!
12/25/2020 — Beaufort Fall 13 11/13/2017 Oil Paint Rendering — Beaufort, South Carolina

We are the final authority
in all matters of faith and practice.
We are the one who says so.
We are responsible
for all of our decisions and choices,
and the burden of our outcomes
remains ours alone to bear
throughout all eternity.

Our life is our responsibility.

Life is constantly throwing things at us–
and that is where we come in.
We respond to each thing as it comes,
and the way we do that
is the teller that tells the tale.

No matter what happens to us,
we say what it means,
and we say what we do about it.

If we yield our position
and allow someone else to tell us what to do,
we choose to yield and to submit to the other.

Our choices and our actions are inescapable.
We carry the weight of having lived
up to this point,
and will carry it forward
from this point on.

We are the authority
by which our life is lived.

That being the case,
you might think we would
be more diligent about
our approach to the moment at hand–
more aware,
more intentional,
more alert,
more awake,
completely present
and accounted for–
and ready to deal with
what is ours to manage
as only we can.

Instead,
we allow ourselves to be swept along
by our circumstances,
with no idea
of what is guiding
our boat on its path
through the sea.

It is time
we take up the work
of getting to the bottom of it–
and assert our authority
over what we do about
what is happening
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

Our life is what we do
in response to our circumstances.
What we do is our call to make.
Moment-by-moment-by-moment.
If we aren’t making the call,
we are making it by default
in a “Not to decide is to decide”
kind of way.

We are Luke Skywalker
with the training helmet on,
having to learn what it means
to trust the Force,
which is also the Source,
which is also the Mystery
at the Heart of Life and Being.

Moment-by-moment-by-moment.

How well we do it is dependent
on how intentional and aware
we are about what we are doing.

It is all up to us.
For better, for worse.
All our life long.
12/25/2020 — Maine Moon 09/27/2012 — Stonington, Deer Isle, Maine

Jon Kabat-Zinn is the Father
of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.
His YouTube videos are not to be missed
(The shortest ones first)
in the work of establishing
ourselves in the practice of mindfulness.

But.

There is one thing he fails to stress
to my satisfaction:

Silence is the source of Good
and Noise is the source of Evil.

Blaise Pascal said,
“All of humanity’s problems stem
from (our) inability to sit quietly
in a room alone.”

Being quiet
and paying attention
to the silence,
noticing what arises–
without engaging any of it,
but simply being aware of it,
and watching as one thing
is replaced by another,
with no apparent connection
and no inherent meaning,
and how your emotions
are aroused,
and how your body reacts physically,
to the thoughts that fly about
erratically,
haphazardly,
inexplicably…

And yet, the one thing they have in common
is you.

Watch for patterns to develop.
For themes to emerge.
For a story to take shape.

We do not think “just anything.”
Our “monkey mind” is not swinging
wildly from tree to tree.
The chaos is ordered precisely,
and presents a clear picture
of how things stand with us
at this particular moment in our life.

Our mind is shouting,
“Listen! Look!
This is how it is with you!
Pay attention to the apparent madness!
This is the mud
you must allow to settle,
so that the water can clear
and you can see what is interfering
with your ability
to live your life as it needs to be lived,
moment-to-moment,
day-to-day!”

Being aware of the noise
in the silence
allows us to distance ourselves
from the turmoil
and just see, just know, just be
in the moment with it all
in our awareness.

Returning our attention to our breathing,
allows us to hold it all in awareness,
just watching,
just seeing,
just knowing,
just breathing…

And things shift.

Without our doing anything
beyond watching, seeing, knowing, breathing…

Wu-wei, as the Zen Taoists might say.

Make a regular routine
of sitting with the Silence,
and be amazed at how that simple act
transforms the way you live your life
over time.
12/25/2020 — Peach Orchard Panorama 01/17/2015 — Springs Farm, Fort Mill, South Carolina

Martha Graham premiered Lamentation
on January 8, 1930.
You can participate in her dance here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-lcFwPJUXQ

Hers was/is the only appropriate response
to her times
and ours.

Metaphors express what words cannot say.
The most important things cannot be said.
The deepest things cannot be said.
The truest things cannot be said.

Yet we have lost the medium of metaphor.
We don’t know symbols.
If it isn’t a fact,
it isn’t real.

What are the meaningful symbols
in your life?
In the life of the nation?

We live in the absence of symbols
like a fish lives out of water.
Without metaphors to speak to us,
and for us,
we are dead people walking,
not seeing,
not hearing,
not feeling,
not knowing…

Plodding through our life
going nowhere.

Oceans of tears exist
just on the other side of silence,
but we will not be that quiet.
Noise is our salvation.
Noise and addiction du jour.

We have to talk, talk, talk,
defend,
explain,
justify,
excuse…

Anything but be still and quiet,
listening,
looking,
because we might see and hear,
and never stop crying.

Let Martha Graham say
what we are experiencing,
without saying a thing.
12/26/2020 — Mesquite Dunes 04/06/2006 — Death Valley National Park, California

They want impunity and immunity.
They want a law that puts them forever
beyond the law.
A law that says they aren’t liable,
which means they aren’t responsible,
which means they can do whatever they like.

The top 1% I’m talking about.
Maybe the top 0.5%.
And also those aspiring to be
among the top 0.5%.

They want the Prince MBS Rule,
which says, “Anything Goes,”
applied to them.
Exclusively.

And they will do anything
for the privilege
of being able to do anything.

They all aspire
to being who Donald Trump is.
Who aspires to be who MBS is.

Donald Trump will do anything
to remain in power.
Power is everything to Donald Trump
and to all of the people
who want to be just like him.

And power means making everyone
afraid to oppose you.
That is Donald Trump,
and MBS,
and all their doting legions.

Don’t forget Mitch McConnell.
The Enabler in Chief.
When he says, “No Democrat bill
will ever pass!”
he is exercising the power
he envies and envisions for himself.

Total power.
Absolute power.
The power of God.

Republicans and their keeper/donors
want the power of God.
They want to be God.
They want God to be their toady.

And they will do anything
to have what they want.

If we are going to stop them
it is going to be now.
Every eligible voter in Georgia
has to vote for the Democrats.
If they don’t win,
it’s over.

Why is this so hard to see?
12/26/2020 — Adams Millpond Mirror Panorama 11/10/2014 Oil Paint Rendering –Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina

Fraser Snowden said,
“The only true philosophical question is
‘Where do you draw the line?'”

Where do you draw it?

Only you can draw the line
where you draw it.
Where do you think it goes?
Only you know that.

What keeps you from drawing the line
where you think it goes?
Get to the bottom of that question.

Who draws your lines for you?

When we stop drawing our own lines,
it is all over for us.

Joseph Campbell said it all comes down to
drawing our own lines.
To having the courage
to draw our own lines.

His exact words are:
“The aim of individuation requires
that one should find
and then learn to live out of
one’s own center,
in control of one’s own
for and against.”

In control of where one
draws the line.

That is what makes us human.
Drawing the line where we determine
it needs to be drawn!

Oh, and we have to be right about it!

That’s the catch with being human.
We have to say so,
and not so,
and be right about it.

Being right about it
is where philosophy comes in.
Who is to say
what is right and what is not?
We are, of course.
But.
We have to be right about it.

This being right
is completely of the moment.
It is ephemeral,
mercurial,
fleeting,
and gone like that (snaps fingers).

Jesus said “The Spirit
is like the wind that blows where it will.”
Which means not even the Spirit
knows what it will do next.
Which means nothing can be
written down,
set in stone,
declared to be so for all ages to come.

There are no laws.
No laws of nature.
This is what science has discovered.
There are only hypotheses .
Only best guesses.
Of the moment.
To be verified or refuted
in the next moment,
or one of the ones after that.

There is right.
And there is wrong.
Which can be determined
only later.
In the meantime,
we are left with drawing our lines
for the time being,
and redrawing them again,
and again,
in light of future revelations,
when we are better able
to know what we are doing,
knowing that we will never know
all we need to know
to know what we are doing.

“Sin boldly!”
Said Martin Luther.
“And believe more boldly
in the marvelous grace of God!”

We have to live boldly,
from our own center,
from our own for and against,
from our own yes and no–
and be right about it.
Which means knowing when we
are wrong,
or have been wrong,
and making adjustments,
and re-drawing our lines
in light of the best information
currently available.

Believing in–
counting on–
grace all the way
to the end of the line,
knowing there is no end of the line,
as far as we can tell,
given the information
currently available to us.
12/26/2020 — The Bench 09/05/2017 B&W — Charlotte, North Carolina

Consequences are the only teacher.
Experience is the experience of consequences.
Reflection on experience
leads to new realizations.
Realization takes the past
and constructs the future.
Yesterday’s wrong
is tomorrow’s right.
It takes getting it wrong
to get it right.
Doing it wrong
to do it right.

We learn to make really good
chicken noodle soup
by making a lot of very bad
chicken noodle soup
with our eyes open,
seeing what we look at,
reflecting on our errors
to the point of new realizations
and informed hypotheses
and additional experimentation
all the way to perfection.

We live boldly,
courageously,
toward doing it better,
toward getting it right.
Right Soup,
according to our taste,
exists “out there.”
We only have to find our way to it,
and trust ourselves
to know it when we get there.

It is the same
with every aspect of our life.

We are making soup constantly.
The idea is to make really good soup,
to live a really good life,
one mistake at a time.

We get it right
by getting it wrong
with our eyes open,
seeing what we look at,
reflecting on what our experience
is telling us,
to the point of new realizations
leading to different ways of doing things,
all the way to perfection.

Throw away all of the rule books,
all of the doctrines,
creeds,
theology,
and live with your eyes open
to what is happening
and what the consequences
have to tell you
about what you need to do differently
in light of what needs to be done
to make things as good as they can be
as assessed by the majority of people
evaluating your life over time.
12/26/2020 — Colt Creek Cascades 02 04/14/2014 Oil Paint Rendering — Pierson’s Glen, Saluda, North Carolina

Our life is uniquely equipped
to lead us to the heart
of what matters most.

The problem is
that we have our own ideas
about what that is.

And our life has to get us
to abandon our idea
of what matters most
and to embrace our life’s idea
of what matters most,
and live in the service of that
with all our heart.

This is the story of Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden,
and the story of Jesus of Nazareth
in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This is the story of humankind.
We live to know what is important
and live in light of it,
serving it with our life.

And we interfere with that process,
with the process of life,
by forcing our idea of what is important
on our life.

Ideally, we live to comprehend–
and pledge our liege loyalty to–
the meaning of:
“Thy will, not mine, be done!”
with “Thy” understood as
“The flow of life and being,”
or “The Mystery of Life and Being,”
or “What needs us to do
what needs to be done
here and now.”

It would help to have this
explained to us at the start,
and to be reminded of it often.

Our life is not ours
to do with as we will!
We belong to our life
to do what it needs us to do!

This is the call of Destiny
to acquiesce to its demands.

Everything rides on our response.
12/27/2020 — Cypress Mandala/Adams Millpond Mirror-Mirror Oil Pant Rendered — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina

Our depth is without end.
We will never get to the bottom
of who we are.
There will always be
more to us than meets the eye.
Why do we stop exploring ourselves
so soon?

That is the line separating
ignorance from intelligence.

Intelligence has nothing to do
with how smart we are,
or how educated we are,
and has everything to do
with how inquisitive we are,
and how playful we are.

Most scientists are intelligent people
because they love questions
and delight in playing with possibilities,
and imagining new worlds,
and seeing what makes things work,
and keeps things from working.

Ignorant people know what they like,
and what they don’t like,
and that’s that.
They think the way
they are supposed to think,
and do things the way
they ought to be done.
And that’s that.

Ignorant people and intelligent people
have a hard time getting along,
and rarely spend much time together.
When they are thrown together
by a natural disaster
or a war,
they can cooperate in getting the job done,
but then it’s back to their way
of being who they are
with people who are like them.

It is great to have people who are like us.
That makes it easier
and a lot more fun
being who we are.

But.

We have to learn to do that
without making people who are not like us
into enemies
whom we disparage,
berate,
ridicule
and monsterize.

We have to learn to listen to one another
around the table,
across the oceans.

We have to pretend we are all
in foxholes together,
saving the environment,
defeating the pandemic-of-the-day,
sharing resources,
and improving the quality of life
for everyone everywhere.

The world is not a friendly place.
And that’s where we all come in.
We can befriend one another
without everybody being the same.

Why not?
12/27/2020 — Live Oak Lane 01 Oil Paint Rendered — Undisclosed Location

Our work is integrating opposites,
creating harmony,
realizing balance,
honoring symmetry,
maintaining the tension
of mutually exclusive contradictions,
dancing/living with the rhythm
of yin and yang coursing through
our veins
and meeting us a every turn
in the course of every day.

India’s Hinduism and Buddhism
deplore duality.
China’s Taoism and Zen delight in duality,
and see it as the heart of the cosmos,
the rhythm of life and being.

From the Tao te Ching (Chapter 42),
we read:
“The Tao gives birth to the One (The Origin),
the One gives birth to the Two (Yin and Yang),
the Two give birth to the Three (Heaven, Earth, Humanity),
the Three give birth to every living thing.

All things are held in Yin and carry Yang,
and they are held together in the Ch’i
of teeming energy.”

Duality is One with Life and Being.

When we are most whole, we are playing
with what Joseph Campbell called,
“the potentials of this infinitely and incessantly
changing universal duad (Yin and Yang).”

Living authentically, genuinely, honestly
is being true to the contradictions within,
bearing the tension of being two things at once
(I want to be the best father/husband/etc. who ever lived,
and I don’t want to be a father/husband/etc. at all!).

“This is the way things are,
and this is the way things also are,
and that is the way things ARE!“

“This is the way things are,
and this is what can be done about it,
and that’s the way things are!”

We honor the rhythms of life
in the way we live with life,
within life.

“The tide comes in,
and the tide turns around,
and the tide goes out,
and the tide turns around,
and the tide comes in…”

Ebb and flow,
up and down,
right and left,
forward and backward,
Yin and Yang…

We dance with our circumstances,
moving with the rhythm of our life,
in sync with the Tao,
doing what is called for
by the time and place of our living,
through all the times and places of our living,
without imposing our idea of how things
ought to be,
but honoring how things are,
and what needs to be done in light of it,
here and now,
all our life long.
12/27/2020 — Blue Moon 06 01/31/2018 — Indian Land, South Carolina

The Tao is recognized and honored
by all religions everywhere.

Everybody acknowledges the appropriate time,
the appointed time,
the fullness of time,
the right time,
the time to act
and the time to refrain from acting.

And everybody understands
that there is a right way
and a wrong way
to do anything–
and knows there is a right thing to do
and a wrong thing to do
on every occasion under heaven.

That is all the Tao is about:
the right way to do
the right thing to do
at the right time to do it.

We all recognize the importance
of the Tao,
but.
We don’t do much about
putting ourselves in accord
with the Tao
in the times and places of our living.

And that’s the kink in the hose.

We have to learn to lay aside
our will for the moment,
our wants, wishes and desires
for our life,
stand apart from our agendas
and our contriving
to have our way,
and live sincerely
in the service of the good of the moment,
spontaneously offering what we have to give
without seeking to exploit
any occasion in any way
for our benefit,
advantage,
pleasure.

That is all it will take.
Heaven won’t be any better than that.
12/27/2020 — Bog River Falls 09/29/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Adirondack Park, Tupper Lake, New York

Here we are. Now what?

The relationship between/among the individual
and the collective
required to produce and maintain,
oversee and steward,
meaningful change for the good of the whole–
the whole earth–
is governed by what?

Who does what to whom, when, where, how?

The Tao is doing the right thing
in the right way
at the right time,
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

Which is made possible by being quiet
and living out of our own center i
n ways that incarnate our original nature
in doing what is called for
in the right way
at the right time
in each situation as it arises.

And who is learning to do that?
Who is living to do that?

How many of us with it take to do that
in order to “turn the light around,”
and transform the way
life is lived upon the earth?

And how do we get there from here?

Someone?

Anyone?
12/28/2020 — Fall Woods Oil Paint Rendering 11/12/2006 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Martin Palmer says all of our lives
are grounded on faith,
but not all of us have any idea
of what the ground of our faith is.

It helps to know what grounds us,
and to know what we think about that
in terms of its helpfulness to us
and to the life we need to be living.

Martin and I give away something
of our faith
when we imply that
there is a life we need to be living.

That is a statement of faith
if ever there were one.

Speaking of statements of faith,
here are two collections:

“It’s fine.
It’s all fine.
Everything is fine.”

“It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters.
Nothing has ever mattered.”

These are statements of faith
representative of attitudes,
frames of mind,
perspectives
that ground someone’s life
and direct their living.

We all believe things
incapable of verification
that reflect our general orientation
and the effort we make
to shape our life
and impact the world around us.

What do you believe?
What is worth believing?
Everything about you/us hangs
on how we answer these questions.

The things we tell ourselves
and the seriousness with which we take them
make all the difference
in terms of the quality of the life we live,
and the enthusiasm with which we live it.

If you are going to take anything on faith
(And we all are going to take a lot of things on faith!)
let the importance of the things we tell ourselves
be one of the things on that list!

Martin and I would say
that our story–
the story we are telling about us
by the way we are living our life–
our life story,
is important beyond all we are capable
of imagining,
and, more than that,
it is a part of another, larger, story
that encompasses all of our stories
throughout time.

Our story is connected with all of our stories,
and all of our differences
create our commonalities
and produce the song
we all are singing
that we don’t know anything about.

And everything we do has an impact
beyond anything we recognize as being impactful.

Our influence is actual,
and it is amazing.

It matters how we live.

If you are going to believe anything
(And you are going to believe a lot of things!)
believe that!
And live as though it is so!

Moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
your whole life long!
12/28/2020 — Pawley’s Island Moon 03 12/16/2013 — Pawley’s Island, South Carolina

What do you care about?
Why do you care?
How would other people
know you care about it
by the way you live your life?

Get to the bottom of all three questions.

Write down your answers
in a poem,
or an essay,
that speaks the truth
about you
and what you care about.

Take your time with this exercise,
but do not put it off.

It will take you to the core
of who you are,
and what you are doing about it–
and call you to life.
12/28/2020 — Confluence 07 10/29/2014 Oil Paint Rendering — Ramsey Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbriar District

We all possess a super weapon
that is well within our reach,
yet far exceeds our grasp.

It is simply-and-simultaneously-impossibly
being mindfully aware
of what is happening
and what needs to happen in response
in each situation as it arises,
and how we might help meet that need
with the gifts/virtues/characteristics/
genius/original nature
that come with us from the womb
for just such an occasion–
to be used with innocence, sincerity and spontaneity,
with no investment in what we stand to gain or lose,
or any idea of exploiting the situation
for our benefit in any way.

That’s it.

We are equipped to see and do,
to rise to every occasion,
and live out our lives
in the service of compassion and grace.

If that doesn’t impress you
as being much of a super weapon,
that is because you are thinking
about weapons in the wrong way.

They are not for serving our needs
and interests,
but for doing what is right
at the right time,
in the right way.

Why do anything other than that?
12/29/2020 — The Maple Tree Oil Paint Rendered — Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

What do we talk about
when we have nothing to say?

What do we talk about
to keep from saying
what we have to say?

What do we talk about all the time?

What do we never talk about?

How do we know/decide
what to say?

How much does our talking conceal?
How much does our talking reveal?

Who is listening when we speak?

What do we have to say
that no one will/can hear?

What do we have to say
that we refuse to hear?

What are we not saying
that is dying to be heard?

What are we saying by the way
we live our life?

What are we afraid of?
Ashamed of?

What are we hiding?
What are we hiding from?
Why are we hiding?
Who are we kidding?
Why are we kidding anyone?
12/29/2020 — Baxter Creek Bridge Panorama Oil Paint Rendered 11/11/2008 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Big Creek Campground, Waterville, North Carolina

Living in ways that befriend life
balances the opposites,
integrates the polarities,
harmonizes Yin and Yang,
negotiates and compromises–
and resorts to forcing, pushing, shoving
only when all other approaches have failed
and crashing through windows
and smashing down doors
are our last remaining choice
for escaping a burning building.

Thinking of battling,
fighting,
going to war,
as our first,
best,
most efficient,
most effective
way of getting what we want
and having our way
is already to have lost
anything worth having.

“Prayer Warriors”
miss the point of prayer–
and do not grasp the significance
of “What shall I say?
‘Father, save me from this hour!’
No! For this purpose
I have come to this hour!
‘Father, Glorify your name!'”

How we face “the hour,”
how we understand “the hour,”
who we show ourselves to be in “the hour,”
is why we come to “the hour,”
in every hour,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day
our entire life long.

“The hour” is the time and place
of our revelation,
of our realization,
of our incarnation,
of who we are and what is ours to do–
requiring that we stand consciously,
mindfully,
between the contradictory forces
at work in “the hour”
and make peace,
bearing in our body
“the marks of the cross.”

Hour after hour.

In so doing,
we become Jesus in Gethsemane,
the Buddha under the Bo Tree,
and every parent worthy of the title,
and every human being
carrying the weight of being human.

It is who we are.
It is what we do.

“What I do is me,
for that I came”
(Gerard Manley Hopkins).
12/29/2020 — Ramsey Creek Bridge 04/17/2008 Oil Paint Rendering — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbriar District

We stand between how things are
and how things ought to be,
and bear the pain of the dichotomy,
of the contradiction,
and do what we can
in the service of the ought-to-be,
within the constraints
of the possibilities before us.

We do not get to choose our choices.

We get to choose from among the choices
available to us
in each situation as it arises.

How long have we been struggling
beneath the burden of racism?
Sexism?
Misogyny?
Homophobia?
Islamophobia?
Xenophobia?
Etc.?

Ours is the Sisyphean Task
of doing what must be done
within the limitations imposed upon us
by the time and place of our living.

“As good as it can be”
is often far from
“Good enough,”
and nowhere near
“The Good!”

But our work is always
in the service of The Good!

The Good is the rock we roll up the hill,
and follow to the bottom,
and roll it up the hill,
and follow to the bottom…
throughout our life.

And quitting is not an option!

Think of it as job security,
and get back to work!

One Minute Monologues 061

Published by jimwdollar

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