Jim Dollar's Published Works

One Minute Monologues 003

11/17/2011 — 02/04/2012

11/17/2011 — We can serve our life, bring forth our life, live our life anywhere, within any context, every circumstance. We don’t have to have anything to be who we are. Prisoner of War camps are as good as Penthouses for serving the needs of soul and expressing what is ours to make plain in the world of concrete facts and apparent reality. The ongoing theme of the Hero’s Journey is adapting ourselves to every present situation and bringing ourselves forth to meet what we find there. Joseph Campbell said, “It took the Cyclops to bring out the hero in Ulysses.” We become “who we always have been and who we will be” (Carl Jung) in response to what each day delivers. We cannot think that we are to be consistently the same forever, living today exactly as we lived yesterday, repeating our clichés and platitudes on cue without thinking, and calling that being alive. The pattern we repeat is to engage each moment with creativity, imagination, compassion and courage—meeting the needs of the situation as it arises with what we have to offer—and see where it goes. May it be so with us all!
Cedar Island Ferry seen from Springer’s Point, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—In Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot says, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” This is an excellent summation of the Hero’s Journey, the Search for the Holy Grail, the trek to the Land of Promise, the Spiritual Quest, and the scope of the Process of Individuation. We seek ourselves, our Self—and in searching, find, in the words of Carl Jung, “We are who we have always been, and who we will be.” 11/17/2011
Pied-billed Grebe, a Bog Garden Personality, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Who wouldn’t fall in love with this guy/gal (How would we know?)? This little duck is alone on the pond (no other Grebes present), and seems to be quite at home with that. He/she dives and scoots long distances underwater, evidently for the sheer joy of it. The books say you rarely see these babies flying, and I’ve never seen him/her air-borne. She/he is the most active duck of those gathered (Hybrids, Mallards and Ring-necked Ducks at the moment), the most alive and definitely the most interesting. I wish for her/him a long and happy life, and wonder how long she/he will stay before migrating on. 11/17/2011
Cypress Balls, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Overheard at Barnes & Noble: “She said, ‘There are two rules to writing: Write what wants to be written and Don’t have to know where it’s going.’ ‘That’s crazy,’ he said. ‘If that were all there is to it, any fool could write.’ ‘The fools can’t keep the rules,’ she said.” 11/18/2011
Take-off, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We are often freer than we think we are. To fly we have to spread our wings and trust ourselves to the air. To what do we trust ourselves? Playing it safe is no way to live if it keeps you from living. What are you saving up for? 11/18/2011
Air Borne, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—“Where do we go from here?” “What now?” “What next?” Hmm. We aren’t here to think all this out, we live it out. We will see where we go from here, what now, what next, when we find ourselves on the way. We hamper the journey by trying to pin it down: “This, then that.” We’ll see. Our life is not a gradated series of accomplishments, a sequential set of steps from, say, Pre-School to PhD (And then what?). When I tell people I write 500-ish words a day and spend 2 to 5 hours photographing the world, they ask, without exception, “What are you going to do with it?” I take pictures and I write. I don’t think about what I’m going to do with it or what is going to become of me. I’ll see where it goes but. I’m not in charge of the going. We do what has life for us and see where it goes. If you are withholding yourself from what has life for you because you don’t know what you would do with it or how you would make it pay off or how you would defend, justify, explain, or excuse its place in your life, I recommend that you stop thinking about all of the things that don’t have anything to do with doing what you love, with what has life for you, and start doing it. And see where it goes. 11/19/2011
In Flight 01, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We don’t want to change. We don’t want to be different. We just want our lives to be better—to have things go our way more often—to get what we want. We will do anything to get what we want but the one thing that is absolutely guaranteed to give it to us: Change what we want. The process of spiritual development, of spiritual growth, calls for change. Development is change. Growth is change. We become different over the course of the Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest. We think differently. We believe differently. We behave differently. We live differently. Not what we want to hear. We have to change in order to hear that we have to change. This will not be easy. 11/19/2011
In Flight 02, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We begin every journey where we are. The path to where we need to be lies under our feet. What’s the next step? Pay attention. Be awake, aware, alive to what is calling your name here and now. What inclination, interest is stirring? Don’t know? Ask for help. The invisible world is replete with would-be helpers waiting for a truthful invitation. There is a catch, however. To ask for help, we must be serious about receiving it, we must actually need it and depend on it to move us along the path with our name on it. You know all the stories, myths and fairy-tales, where the hero spurns the help that comes because it doesn’t come as expected or lead where the hero wants to go. The hero wants to go up and the path goes down and the hero says, “No way am I going down!”? When we ask for help we have to mean it, and take what comes, and go where it leads, trusting ourselves to That Which Knows because we have declared ourselves to be empty, not knowing what to do now, next. Empty is the place to be but, we have to remember that we are empty, unseeing, and allow ourselves to be led. 11/20/2011
In Flight 03, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Since the Age of Reason we have thought we could think our way to a perfect world, with justice and love for all. Well, like it or not, wherever the left brain goes, the right brain tags along, demanding to be taken into account. We cannot create much of a world with intellectual capital and spiritual destitution. So, back to the starting blocks we go—to develop eyes that see, ears that hear, and a heart that understands to go along with the brain that calculates, formulates and reasons. If we can get the ratios right, we’ll have a chance at that perfect world. 11/20/2011
In Flight 04, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We take our peace, and our consolation, where we find it. Maybe it’s in the flight of a Great Blue Heron. Or in waiting for a Great Blue Heron to fly. And for the light to be right. And for the wind to stop blowing. And to be good enough with the camera and its controls to not miss it when it happens. No one can dictate to us where our peace, where our consolation, is to be found—and we must refuse to let anyone deny us the right to where we find it. And we must know where it is to be found. And go there often. 11/20/2011
In Flight 05, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—In my neighborhood it is a Christmas tradition to hang large balls made from chicken wire and wrapped with lights in the trees in our yards. It is a task requiring careful planning and execution and each year it comes down to waiting for night to fall to see if the photo cell on the six-plug receptacle will work. I generally have to reset the device, but I can’t tell until darkness comes to know if resetting has done the job. It’s all a great mystery to me. I’m quite helpless to do anything that will let me know things are in working order. I’ve tried covering the light cell to no avail. I have to wait. Aha! It works! or Dang! Have to go reset the thing. Which will it be? I wait. This year, it works! But who knows what next year will bring? We have to wait to see. No assurances. No certainties. Our lives are great mysteries which we are quite helpless to control. We do what we can imagine doing and wait to see how it all works out. May it be well with us all! 11/20/2011
Coming Down 01, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Knowing what we can live with is knowing where to draw lines, set boundaries, get ourselves backed up and turned around. It’s a right brained thing to know “No Not For Nothing” when we see it, but to know what we know is a left brained decision to tune in, listen up, pay attention to the red flags our right brain is waving before our eyes. Knowing is one thing, and knowing what we know is another. We generally know more than we know we know and so. We have to make a point to check in with the Knower who lives in our right brain from time to time. This is what devotional moments, or meditation, or prayer are good for, checking in with the Knower—feeling what we are feeling, seeing what we are looking at, hearing what we are listening to, noticing how it is with us—so that we might draw the lines that need to be drawn and say “No Not For Nothing” when it needs to be said. 11/20/2011
Coming Down 02, Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Our life is our charge. We are responsible for its care and tending. Life doesn’t just happen, any more than tomatoes and cinnamon rolls do. Life isn’t automatic, guaranteed. All our vital signs can be perfectly normal and we can be as dead as the oak leaves blowing across our lawns. Life is meaning, enthusiasm, emotion, vitality—and we have to cultivate these things, serve them, by living to be alive, intentionally, deliberately, willfully in every day that comes our way. So. What will you do to bring yourself to life in what’s left of today? Tomorrow? 11/20/2011
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., Springer’s Point Oak Panorama, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—The stress of life will wear you down if you don’t have a buffer, a way of cushioning the impact of “normal wear and tear” and extraordinary blows and burdens. Buffer’s come in all styles and sizes. You have to find the ones that are right for you. Could be time with the dog or a five-mile run. A slow walk through the woods, a rocking chair with a glass of wine or a cup of tea or coffee. My favorite all-weather, anytime buffer is a sounding board—a person or a small group of people who let you air it out without advising, directing, suggesting—without even sympathizing. We need a community of the right kind of people who listen closely and ask the right kind of questions that take us to the heart of the matter: Conflict ID. All of our stress is the result of conflict, contradiction, opposition. Something is happening that we don’t want to happen (even a promotion at work or a fat inheritance can be stressful in that it has implications we don’t like). We have to square up with the ambivalence: On the one hand this, on the other hand that, and on other hands, that, that, and that. Making the conflict conscious helps with the emotional adjustment and nothing aids consciousness quite like talking. We don’t think it, see it, until we hear ourselves saying it. There is nothing like a sounding board for keeping us stable and sane. If you don’t have one, form one—a community of the right kind of listeners, hearing us to the truth of our life. 11/21/2011
Heron Dance, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—This is really the last one. And, it’s too cute, but. We all can be too cute if we want to be. Inhibition has its place but. It can’t be allowed to run the whole show. We have to permit ourselves to be inhibited about being inhibited. And draw the line against drawing lines. And be too cute, or too something else, anything else, why not, when the situation calls for too something, too anything, rise to the occasion, I say. Strut your stuff, I say. Show them a thing or two, being too something or other. 11/21/2011
Sassafras, Blue Ridge Parkway, Mt. Pisgah Inn near Brevard, NC—It is about work and we are about lazy and there you are. The whole problem laid neatly out before you and I haven’t even had breakfast yet. What could I do with a little biscuits and gravy, ham and eggs, toast and coffee? That’s another problem. I don’t do breakfast. Things are as they are because I don’t eat breakfast. I’ll take full responsibility—which is what we all have to do where the fact of our laziness is concerned. We have to pick ourselves up and step into the mess and do what we can with it without hope of anything being significantly different in our lifetime. Both Gandhi and Winston Churchill are credited with saying, “Nothing worth doing is accomplished in a single lifetime.” We think if it can’t be done by nightfall, forget it. If there is no hope of immediate success why do it? We are easily stopped by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the four questions that kill all incentive and initiative: “Who Cares? Why Try? What Good Would It Do? What Difference Will It Make?” We say it’s hopeless so we aren’t going to waste our time trying. The first step toward the way things ought to be is to look Hopelessness in its ugly red eye, spit in its face and say, “Get out of my way damn you! I have work to do!” Everything rides on our doing the work that is ours to do no matter what. Hopeless is just a bump in the road. 11/22/2011
Black Walnut, Price Park, Greensboro, NC—Everything rides on our being open to that which arises within. We can’t ignore the inner world or think that our aims and goals are the only aims and goals. Consciousness works out a partnership with the unconscious, collaborating on what needs to be done and how it is to be done. We do not impose our will on our life. We align ourselves with our life’s will for us—in a “Thy will, not mine, be done” kind of way. 11/22/2011
Used in Short Talks On Good And Bad Religion–Leaves on the Water, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We keep looking for God “out there,” “up there,” “over there” to help us with the life we are living. You can see how well that’s working. We need to shift the entire religious orientation. It—what we are looking for—is not “out there” but “in here.” It is between you and you. It is found in working out the relationship, the partnership, between ourselves. It is found in the integration, the harmony, the oneness of selves, of who we are and who we also are. Bad religion says, “Shun the devil.” Good religion says, “Welcome the Prodigal home.” The work of good religion, of the spiritual quest, of the Hero’s Journey, the search for the Holy Grail and the Promised Land, is the work of bringing the conflicts, the contradictions, the ambivalence to life—that is where the vitality lies. Bad religion would have us suppress, deny, ignore these things. What we are seeking is not found in suppressing the truth but in bringing it forth. Make your inner conflicts and contradictions and ambivalence real, present, alive AND WORK THEM OUT. We work them out by asserting the authority we have over them—they are our children, our creation, we are their mother, their father—and listening to them with compassion and grace. They all have value, they all have something to say, something helpful to offer, and they all, believe it or not, have what they take to be our best interest at heart. We are the Prodigal’s father/mother welcoming all of our children home, receiving them well, honoring them with our attention, and working out the relationships among them. This is the work of oneness, of wholeness, of reconciliation and peace. It is Rumi’s “The Guesthouse” being experienced in our own life. 11/23/2011
Colors of Fall Abstract 06, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—In the beginning there was something. There has always been something. You could call it God, or the Unconscious, or Chaos, or the Demiurge, or a Carbon Atom. It’s been called all those things and more, and it has always been conceived of as something. Not nothing. Nothing has never been posited. Even those theologians who came up with “Creation ex Nihilo”—“out of nothing”—didn’t mean nothing. God was there to create “out of nothing.” Well, anybody can see that if you have God you don’t have nothing. So. There has always been something. In the beginning there was something. And here we are. You can’t deny the fact that we are here, now. How we got here and why we got here and what we are doing here and what we are to do now that we are here is all subject to debate and speculation. Lots of people have ideas, but what we know is that here we are, and the question that hangs in the air is “Now what?” ¿Aquí estamos y ahora qué? How we answer that question tells the tale. 11/23/2011
Marsh Road Sunset, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—We like this, we don’t like that. We bounce through our life like a pinball being flipped from one side of the machine to the other. Like. Don’t Like. Good. Bad. Yes. No. There is a perspective beyond Like and Don’t Like that enables us to do what is needed where we are, never mind liking or not liking. Emergency room nurses and doctors and technicians are beyond liking or not liking. They do what is needed without thinking about how much they like or don’t like it. They respond to the moment, to the situation, as it arises without the opposition or partiality that we bring to the things we meet each day. With awareness of what we’re doing, we could do what needs us as much as emergency room clientele need the people they find there, and live as a blessing and a grace, beyond like and don’t like. 11/23/2011
Reedy Fork Trail, Greensboro Parks and Trails, Greensboro, NC—An iPhone Photo—We have to play with the moment to see what might become of it but. We develop an adversarial relationship with our life somewhere along the line and lose the capacity for playfulness. Life becomes serious business and we become bulldozers, forcing our way along the path of our own choosing, oblivious to the possibility of fortuitous intrusions, disruptions, distractions, plowing headlong toward goals we know will be grand. Let’s see a show of hands from those who think this strategy is working. You could do worse than engage your life in a spirit of play. You have done worse. Are doing worse. You have absolutely nothing to lose. Even a bulldozer would like those odds. 11/24/2011
Red, Price Park, Greensboro, NC—The path unfolds before those who see things as they are—and also are. This means seeing what we look at, hearing what we listen to. Seeing things as they are and also are requires the spirit of right interpretation. What is being said? What is being revealed, expressed? How many possibilities can we imagine? Put them all on the table. Walk around the table. Consider the table. Don’t go with the most obvious, the usual, the unmistakable meaning. Look. Listen. Ask the most pertinent meaning to come forth. Respond to the situation as though that meaning is the authentic meaning, never mind the smoke screens and the red herrings. You go for the meaning of this here, this now. Right seeing. Right hearing. Right understanding. Lead to Right knowing. Right Doing. Right Being. This all adds up to Right living. You can’t beat that with two books of etiquette. Big ones, at that. 11/25/2011
Cedar Island Ferry Sunset, Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—We have to give ourselves adventures. We go forth to meet our life. We can’t just huddle in our comfortable routines waiting for some Snow White, some Handsome Young Prince, some Fairy Godmother to show up and hand us happily ever after. This is hard work, finding our life and living it. It’s the HERO’s journey, not the Slacker’s Slide into Glory! We venture into all kinds of things we’ve never tried before. New dishes at restaurants. New restaurants. New routes to work. New jobs at work. New work. New, new, new! What is new about your life today? How can you expect to have an adventure in a life in which nothing is allowed to change? Do something today you’ve never done before! Get into the old rut of doing something new everyday! See where it goes. We are here to see where it goes, you know. To do that we have to actually be going. Not sitting in our favorite chair with our hands in our lap watching the Telly, reading a book, working on the computer. The Hero’s Journey requires us to go somewhere we’ve never been, do some things we’ve never done. I wouldn’t kid you about this. Why would I lie? 11/27/2011
Pamlico Sound Sunset Panorama, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—I changed my mind about homosexuality in the 70’s listening to gay people talk about being gay. I think that’s the way it works. When we stop listening to people talk about Those People, and start listening to Those People, things change, whether the people in question are gay or Communists or Muslims or Hispanic Immigrants or some other manifestation of The Enemy. When we listen to The Enemy a shift occurs and they become increasingly less Them and increasingly more Us. It is strange what listening with understanding will do for you, to you. Listening, though, is listening and not arguing, debating, haranguing, ranting, attacking… Listening is the path to peace and reconciliation—if we listen to Them and not those who talk about Them. Which, of course, is my problem with Talk Radio. 11/27/2011
Silver Lake Sunrise, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—We live in two worlds—the visible, physical world of literal, tangible, apparent reality and the invisible, spiritual world of symbols and images and emerging meaning. Since the Age of Reason, we have been living as though the visible world is the only world. The Hero’s Journey, Spiritual Quest, Search for the Promised Land and the Holy Grail consists of reestablishing our connection with the invisible ground of existence and wandering around in the symbolic nature of the “real world” going, “Wow!” with our increasing immersion into meaning. Let’s say you fall in love. Happens all the time with everybody who is a little bit alive. It isn’t about the person with whom you fall in love. It’s about you. The other person is a mirror reflecting back to you the aspects of yourself that you need to bring forth. What are the qualities that you find attractive in the other person? What do you anticipate him/her bringing to life in your relationship with him/her? In your life? What is missing that he/she will supply? These are the things you need to bring forth in yourself—latent qualities and traits and interests which you are to develop in you. The other person may help you with that work or hinder it, which determines whether he/she is actually worth your time or simply functions to wake you up to the wonder of you. The work of bringing yourself forth is the thing of true value, not the relationship with your new-found honey. Don’t let the literal person distract you from the symbolic truth of his/her place in your life. And Do The Work! 11/28/2011
Lake Brandt Reflection, Bur-Mil Park, Greensboro, NC—It is a universal experience to sleep and dream of The Impossible Situation. We find ourselves in a fix for which there is no solution. Now What? One of the attractions of Action/Thriller’s like the Indiana Jones movies is watching him come up with a way out long after normal human beings—that would be everyone in the audience—had given up and submitted to their fate. Fate is what happens to us when we abandon our destiny. Our destiny calls us to find a way—THE way—the ONLY way. Just like Indiana Jones, or Luke Skywalker, or Harry Potter, or Frodo, or any of the heroes and heroines of lore. Our destiny requires us to sit with “Now What?” until the light blub goes off over our head, something occurs to us and we see the way: THE WAY. The way to our destiny within the impossible situation of this here and this now. Do Not Give Up! This is the universal message behind the universal dream of The Impossible Situation. Do. Not. Give. Up. Do not abandon your destiny, your calling, your work, your gift, your genius. Do not quit serving it until the end and do not accept anything as the end until your final breath. Any other perceived end of the trail is premature. Until then, Find The Way! Our destiny is counting on us. its hopes are pinned on us. It sits on the edge of its seat, holding its breath, crossing its fingers, praying that we will come up with “Now What?” again and again, living in its service all our lives long. Amen! May it be so! 11/29/2011
View from Grandfather Mountain, Grandfather Mountain State Park, near Linville, NC—Serve the gifts that are yours to give, bring them forth as needed in each situation as it arises and see where it goes. If you can find better advice, take it! 11/29/2011
Hatteras Lighthouse, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Hatteras Island, Buxton, NC—What does liking or not liking something have to do with it—with the life we are called to live? How many of us like to change diapers? Like to wash clothes? Like to vacuum and mop? Since when does liking something or not liking it get to determine what we do? What needs to be done is the question. What needs us to do it is the question. Liking it or not liking it is completely irrelevant—and in the way. Growing up is growing beyond like and like not. It’s stepping into a sphere of life where we live to bring our best forth to meet the situation as it arises, like it or not. The pitcher’s job is to put his, or if it’s softball we’re talking, her best into each pitch, never mind what the other players do after that. Never mind liking or not liking how the game is going. Live beyond liking and not liking. Live to do what needs to be done in the moment of its doing, as it needs to be done, and let that be that. If you are going to like something, like being alive no matter what. If you are going to not like something, don’t like being unable to respond to the moment because you are so gripped by your resistance to the moment that you miss the moment and the chance you had to bring forth your best and grace the world. 11/30/2011
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., Greenbriar Highway 01, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN—The only rule of faith and practice is this: Live truthfully. This doesn’t mean always tell the truth. It means live a truthful life. A truthful life squares up with what is true and what is also true, and does not pretend that the opposite of truth is a lie. The opposite of truth is truth. Stand between the opposites and live in ways that take the polarity—all the polarities—into account. Maintain the tension of the contradictions. In this way, you force awareness, awakening, realization—which, of course, increases the tension which brings about the shift, and sometimes the explosion, which transforms the situation and the world. This does not make for happily ever after. It makes for the hard, endless, work of integration, reconciliation, peace, harmony and justice for all. And it’s hell because it’s difficult. And it’s heaven because it’s worth the effort. Israelis and Palestinians working it out. You and your sister, or sister-in-law, working it out. Being deepened, enlarged, expanded in the process. Becoming True Human Beings by living truthful lives. 12/01/2011
Ocracoke Lighthouse, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—We come alive in trusting ourselves to our life, our destiny—trusting that there is a life that is our life to live beyond the life that we can think up on our own—opening ourselves to that possibility and seeing where that takes us. This is the formula for adventure on “the wheel of fortune and pain, the circle of life.” It connects us with the invisible world and requires us to find our sustenance and courage from the depth of that connection, a connection that is grounded in trust, or to use the biblical term, faith. We have to believe that it is real, more real than anything in the visible world of normal, apparent reality—and live as though it is so. Our life waits, wondering if we have what it takes to take up the Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest, the Search for the Land of Promise and the Holy Grail. Time will tell. 12/02/2011
Hooded Merganser, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC, December 02, 2011 — We need a little help along the way, a little wind in our sails, a pick-me-up, a lift, a boost. There are people who do that for us. We feel better in their presence, are blessed by their being. We don’t know what it is. They don’t know. But. It’s real, and we are glad to be numbered among their friends, those who mediate the gift of life, and bring us to life by the quality of the time we spend together. May we all have enough of people like that in our life, and may we be like that in the lives of others. May it be certainly so! 12/02/2011
Sumac, Blue Ridge Parkway near Rocky Knob, VA, November 02, 2011 — I’m sitting listening to soft, quiet Christmas music, thinking this is my first Christmas retired. I don’t have to do anything, oversee anything, orchestrate anything. This is how Christmas should be. And I invite you to look at the birth of the baby Jesus as the birth of our individual destiny—the awakening of us to the fact of our destiny, of the life that is ours to live. We are born on Christmas Day, born as the Christ, the Anointed One—each of us being anointed for the life that only we can live, to do what only we can do. Merry Christmas to you all, and with it, the realization of your own calling to gather yourself up and live the life that needs you to live it. 12/02/2011
Puckett Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway, Groundhog Mountain, VA—Aunt Orelena Puckett was a mid-wife who helped deliver over a thousand Appalachian babies, though she and her husband John did not have a child of their own. Life is funny that way. Our cross to bear is the disparity between how things are and how we want them to be, the difference between the life that is our life to live and the life that we wish were our life to live. How well we square up to that discrepancy and live with it, bear it, tells the tale. We have work to do and we cannot allow hopelessness and difficulties stand between us and our work. We are to bring forth who we are no matter what. We all are, each of us is, the Christ, Emmanuel, the Anointed One—anointed, chosen, for the life that needs us to live it, that only we can live, that no one but us can live. We cannot dismiss that as unworthy of us because it doesn’t match up with our inflated ideas for ourselves. Each of us is the Christ as only we can be the Christ. Our cross to bear is the question of whether that will be good enough for us, whether we have what it takes to bring forth who we are as a blessing and a grace to the world no matter what. Our cross is the question to which we are the answer. 12/03/2011
Ocracoke Lighthouse, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC, October 27, 2011 — Integrity is being who we are. And also are. It is not being who we are not. Too much of the time we are required to be who we are not by lives that are out of synch with the life that is our life to live, that is our destiny to live, which usurped by the powers and principalities of the way things are—you know, money and politics, and politics has as much to do with making our parents, or your spouse, or your in-laws, etc. happy as it has to do with Democrats and Republicans. Our work is to do the work that is ours to do—over the opposition and resistance we meet from all quarters. This is the work of integrity against the forces of disintegration. Which gets us to the fundamental question of life, living, being alive: Whose side are you on? 12/03/2011
Rock Castle Creek, Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA, November 11, 2011 — Some of us have less to like about our parents, or our spouses, or our lovers, or our jobs, or our dogs, etc. than others of us, but. If we live long enough, all of us will have more to not like about our life than we want to deal with. If we live long enough, we all come up against it. “It” being how things are as opposed to how we want things to be. What we do in response to that will tell the tale. I recommend squaring ourselves up with the truth of how things are and the truth of how we wish they were and working to integrate, reconcile, these contrary truths. That means facing the discrepancy and bearing the pain, the tension, of the consciousness of contradictory and mutually exclusive truths until a shift occurs. The shift will probably occur in us, allowing us to adjust to how it is and how it also is and go on with our lives to the extent that is possible. All of this, of course, is hell. The Hero’s Journey is not a stroll through the meadows of spring. We pay a price to be alive but. There is consolation along the way but. We have to choose wisely among what appears to be consoling. A six-pack for breakfast and dinner is not the right kind of consolation. Always the picking and the choosing. Can’t something be easy? Death is easy. Life is hard. We can die in 10,000 ways, and in a lot of them you have to look closely to see how dead we are. What is helpful? What is harmful? We know this better in retrospect, which means we have to back up and tun around right often. It’s all a part of the path, and you’ll have a lot of good company along the way, and everybody will be in the same boat, on the path. 12/04/2011
Two Ducks Flying, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC, November 30, 2011 — These are our parents, these are our sibs, this is our point of origin and the date of our birth, this is our hat size and our shoe size, the shape of our nose, the quality of our smile, our affinity for math or English, music or art, the curl of our hair, the color of our eyes, the stuff we stepped into, that came with us, at birth, that waited like a great welcoming party to give us what would be ours to work with, the facts of life, our fate. And in the background, there by the door, waiting its turn to bless or curse, depending on our point of view, wondering how we would receive its offering, hoping for the best, stood our destiny with the other gifts of birth, our work, our life, the meaning and purpose that call us forth as we call them forth, creating us anew and breaking our heart again and again—Mary’s baby waiting at her crib for her to carry and birth and bury—destiny’s child with child, the story of us all. We are all the Virgin born to give birth if we will in this God-forsaken place and time—of all places and times why this one why these facts, this fate in which to work out this destiny? Wrong question. Will we do it is the question? Will we say YES! and serve our destiny within these facts, this fate, no matter what all our lives long so help us God? …Will we? 12/05/2011
Triple Falls on Little River, DuPont State Forest, near Brevard, NC, October 14, 2011 — Our destiny is a warm puppy looking for love without pedigree or papers hoping we will pick it up, receive its gift, share its life for as long as life lasts but. We have our eye on a big show horse that we can ride to glory, waving and smiling to a world of admirers cheering and calling our name. We don’t get to choose our destiny. We get to serve it. Or not. We get to say yes or no—not: That one over there, the big one, showing off. Our destiny is a puppy hoping we will pick it up, carry it home, treat it well for no reason beyond the joy of loving what is ours to love, do. What’s important may not be what you think it is, may not be what you want it to be, may be a puppy waiting for you to love it for life and see what happens. 12/06/2011
Nags Head Sunrise Panorama, Nags Head, NC, October 23, 2011 — There is our idea for our life and there is our life’s idea for us. This is the arena of death and resurrection. If we do not die to our idea of what our life is to be and live to serve our life’s idea of what it is to be, we die without having lived. If we die to our idea of what our life is to be, we are resurrected to live in the service of our life’s idea of what it is to be. This is to have life and have it abundantly. But. There is nothing in that about fame, fortune, glory, easy living and having it made. All we get is life. And. That is more than enough. 12/06/2011
Pamlico Sound Sunset, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC, October 31, 2011 — You are writing the book of your spiritual development out of your experience—your awareness—of your own growth into you. We are all in the same boat on the path, and each path is unique. We find our own way on a path that we make as we go. Joseph Campbell has said that if we are on a path that has been defined and described by someone else, it is someone else’s path—not our path. We have to get off that one and find the way that is our way, or allow it to find us. As we engage the invisible world, we discover that magic, mystery and miracle are as real as the old stories suggest they are, and that help is rarely what we want or expect but always just what we need if we can be open to it coming as it does from the most unlikely and surprising sources. We also encourage and sustain one another in the work to become who we are, True Human Beings with gifts that will bless and restore the world. 12/06/2011
Cedar Rock Falls, Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, NC, October 13, 2011 — I’m sure I could take better photographs with better scenes to work with but. My scenes are my scenes. I’m limited to the time and place of my being. Any scene could be better at a different time, with different light. When I walk into a scene, that’s what I have to work with. The task is taking this scene, here and now, and doing what I can with it. I could take better photos if I had more to work with. We could live a better life with better choices. Our choices are our choices. The people we live with are the people we live with. What can we do with this life, these choices, this here, this now? What is the best we can do with what we have to work with? We all could have a better life with more to work with but. This is it. We walk into a scene, we step into our life. Now what? 12/07/2011
Rock Castle Creek, Rock Castle Gorge, Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA, November 03, 2011 — One of the Laws of Photography states: “We are always limited by our equipment.” For instance, Jay Maisel says, “The more equipment we have, the fewer photographs we take.” A lot of equipment is limiting. A little equipment is limiting. There will always be photos we cannot take because of our equipment, too much or too little. So, we resign ourselves to taking the photographs we can take with the equipment we have on hand. We live with our limitations and do what we can within the restrictions thus imposed. Sound like life to you? It should. We are always limited. The art of living is coming to terms with that which limits us and living as fully as possible anyway, never the less, even so. We cannot do this once and be done with it. It is a continuing adjustment, a never-ending dance with limits and life. So put those dancing shoes on and step lively now. 12/07/2011
Eno River Fall, Eno River State Park near Durham, NC, November 09, 2011 — We are the tip of the ice berg. What you see is not what you get. What you get is all the stuff underwater, hidden from view even our own view, unconscious—not just repressed and forgotten, but also never known, unknown but not altogether unknowable for eyes that see, ears that hear, hearts that understand. There is more to us than meets the eye and so, we have to be alert to the all-ness of us that we do not know—to motives, and interests, and moods, and agendas that are not ours but that are at work in us and through us in the service of ends and incentives we do not understand. Part of our work is to know as much of what is unconscious and unknown about us as we are able to know in the time left for living—listening to dreams and flights of fancy, to impulses and strange attractions—paying attention to what resonates with us, catches our eye, calls our name, and to depths of grief and sadness beyond what we think we have any right to feel. There is a world within that is every bit as complex as the world without. Honoring the invisible world with attention and respect is a step toward establishing diplomatic relations and negotiating treaties for the well-being of both worlds. 12/07/2011
Ramsey Creek, Greenbriar District, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN, November 07, 2011 — I wish we could be counted on to do right by one another, which would also mean doing right by ourselves. We don’t know, or care, what right is. We just know what we want and we want more of it. We want easy. Smooth. Fast. Exciting. Happy. Shortcuts—we like shortcuts. Doing what it takes and paying the price to do right by ourselves and one another is not on the table. I don’t like that about us as much as I don’t like anything. Don’t you? 12/08/2011
Thorns Panorama, Pisgah Inn, Blue Ridge Parkway near Brevard, NC—October 13, 2011 — We spend a lot of time searching for the right place to be, the right people to be with, in order to unfold ourselves and step into the world. We have to have a receiving room it seems, not unlike any delivery room—a welcoming environment where we can come forth and survive. You might think that would not be hard to find, given that it is everyone’s fundamental need, to be safely born, but. The second birth is resisted by those who are still trying to get the first one down, and they are not hesitant to abort a soul aborning. We are left, if we are lucky, with a stall in a manger and only a few animals as attendants to witness the struggling birth of who we are. 12/09/2011
Stack Rock, with Hawk’s Bill Mountain in the distance, Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC—October 12, 2011 — May we know what is being asked of us in each moment of life—in each situation as it arises—and may we have what it takes to do what needs to be done. Our agenda, our interests, keep us from knowing what is being asked of us and prevent us from doing what needs to be done. We act with our advantage foremost in mind. We look for what is in the moment that we can use, for how we can exploit the situation to our good. And we lose another opportunity to bring forth what is ours to give for the good of the world. We do not understand the concept of what is to our advantage, or how what is good for all is good for us. This is what growing up entails, which is a synonym for the Spiritual Quest, the Hero’s Journey, the Search for the Land of Promise and the Holy Grail. Growing up. Waking up. The two are one, and that’s all there is to it. 12/09/2011
Hanging Rock Vista, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—November 03, 2011 — We have to be able to say, “NO!” and we have to be able to take “NO!” for an answer. We have to be able to draw lines and allow lines to be drawn. We don’t get very far along the path running over people or allowing people to run over us. The boundaries of relationship are capable of adjustment and relocation but. They are always in place and we do not have to wonder where we stop and someone else starts. Relationship does not exist where “NO!” is not permitted. Practice saying “NO!” without defending, excusing, justifying or explaining—without making it okay that you said no. Practice with your dog. It’s amazing how many people can’t say “NO!” to their dog. Or take “NO!” for an answer from their dog. Or know when to do which. 12/10/2011
Swinging Bridge, Eno River State Park near Durham, NC—November 09, 2011 — November 09, 2011 — Aqui estamos y ahora que? Here we are, and now what? This is the starting point for everything that follows. It doesn’t matter how we got here, whose fault it is, what should have been done that wasn’t or what shouldn’t have been done that was, where we should be instead, how things might be except, but, only… HERE we are. Now what? Whatever we do in response to where we are will lead us somewhere, and there we will begin the process anew. Our life unfolds that way, one response to this here, this now, at a time. 12/11/2011
Moonset 02, Price Lake, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 10, 2011 — It takes a while to get back in the groove. We have to give ourselves time. If you ride horses a lot and then don’t ride horses for a while, you can’t hop back in the saddle and ride like you were riding before the interlude. You can’t treat now as then. You have to give yourself time to acclimate yourself again to the horse, to the saddle, to the entire experience. You’ll be a bit off center, out of synch. The horse will know it and you have to be open to it. You can’t rush being the rider you were. You have to ease back into it over time. And get off your back about your disconnection with the horse’s back. It is a natural occurrence, being out of synch. You can’t not sing for a while and be on key. That’s why professional singers practice, practice, practice. And you think you don’t have to ride your horse regularly to be able to ride your horse like you want to? Or be with your grandchildren? It takes work being in the groove. Practice, practice, practice! And while I’m practicing taking pictures of birds in flight at the Bog Garden, I am not practicing taking landscapes in low light on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Don’t think camera practice is camera practice. Being in the groove at the Bog Garden doesn’t translate into being in the groove on the Parkway. Takes time, moving from one scene to another. Give yourself time. Be easy with you. 12/12/2011
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., Moonrise Panorama, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 10, 2011 — We live on the boundary between yin and yang, in the tension created by what is true and what is also true, awash in the reality of polarity. Ambivalence is not not-knowing what to do—it is knowing this ought to be done and that ought to be done and having to decide what is to be done. The way through the opposites and contradictions that impinge upon our life begins with our rising above the conventional should’s, ought’s, and must’s that pretend to be “guides” and giving our own instinct and intuition free rein in determining when and where to do what. Consistency is out of the question. Sometimes we do it like this and sometimes we do it like that. We do it this way when it needs to be done this way and we do it that way when it needs to be done that way. Sometimes we say “Yes” and sometimes we say “No” to the same question. We strive to respond to the situation as it arises out of our sense of what needs to be done in that situation. This is the only kind of freedom—being free to live here and now as we determine, based on our consideration of all that can be taken into account, we need to live. They will crucify us, you know, but that’s a lot better than being buried alive beneath the directives of Those Who Know Best. 12/13/2011
Goose Wars, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—December, 2011 — Worrying about things can be a way of getting to the bottom of them, coming to terms with them, squaring up with them, imagining different ways of dealing with them, rehearsing our response to them, making preparation for them… There is a place for worry in our life. There are things we should be worried about, planning for. And, there are some things we can’t do anything about until we get there. We have to trust ourselves to think things up as we go, to improvise, invent and astound, to meet the unheard of with the unheard of, and rise to the occasion. Bring life on! We are here for the living of it on every level! 12/13/1011
Country Y Panorama, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 10, 2011 — Start with what it true. It could be anything. You hate your nose. Or you love it. Now, say what is also true about your nose. Say all you can say that is true about your nose. Soon you will be awash in truth about your nose. You can do this about every single aspect of your experience. What is true? What is also true? We are awash in truth. Contradictory truth. Off-setting truth. Mutually exclusive truth. And we side with one end of the polarity or another. What’s with this taking sides? With this emotional involvement with one aspect of truth? We’re pulling for truth against truth. No matter how hard we pull for this, that is going to still be true. No matter how we insist that THIS is true, that is also true. Face up to the truth of truth! Truth does not cancel out truth. Truth enlarges, expands, deepens truth. I’m going to get theological on you. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but by me.” What is also true? Jesus also said, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father.” Which way is it? “No one can come to the Father but by me”? “No one can come to me but by the Father”? Truth will do this to you every time if you stay with it. Which is what I’m recommending, that you stay with it. Don’t try to figure it out. Just be aware of all of it, of all that is true and all that is also true. And how you are going to decide what to do about it. This process will wake you up. Open your eyes. You will be a bigger, deeper person for it. Centered. Grounded. Good to be with. The good to be with part is the best part. You should do it just for that. 12/14/2011
Branches, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 10, 2011 — The first rule of spiritual growth is: Take everything anybody tells you under advisement, that is, under careful consideration, and nothing as the final word. When I was a young spurt of a photographer, my advisers were in favor of manual focusing instead of auto-focus. Maybe they weren’t working with tri-focals, and it WAS in the early days of auto-focus cameras but. Their advice stuck with me through a number of significant failures on the focus front. I kept thinking they knew what they were talking about in spite of the of the mounting evidence to the contrary. Took me way too long to ditch the guru’s and go with experience. So. I’m telling you don’t listen to me, or anyone else, over what your own experience is saying to you. Listen to me when I say Don’t Listen To Me! 12/14/2001
Three Goats, Appalachian Homestead near Todd, NC—December 14, 2011 — We have a difficult time distancing ourselves from the people in our lives who don’t understand the concept of boundaries, who are always invading, intruding, violating the space we think of as ours, who don’t know—or care—where they stop and we start, who insist that we do it the way they think it ought to be done and “get their feelings hurt” when we don’t. As far as I can tell, there is no hope of relationship with people like that even if they are family or extended family members. We have to divorce them, either literally or metaphorically, to have a chance. The proverb “Good fences make good neighbors,” reflects what I think should be the Eleventh Commandment in the Old Testament (It is found there anyway): “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark.” How to get our neighbor to understand and respect that is the best trick in the book of tricks—particularly if you do it without hurting his or her feelings. 12/15/2001
Moonset Panorama, Price Lake and Grandfather Mountain, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 10, 2011 — Children stringing beads don’t have to have a reason to string beads. They are stringing beads. “Why are you stringing beads?” “Because I like to.” That’s reason enough. They aren’t making a necklace. They aren’t practicing hand/eye coordination. They aren’t burning calories. They are stringing beads because they like to. What do you do because you like to? How often do you do it? How long do you allow yourself to do it before you say something along the lines of, “Well, this isn’t getting it done,” and move on to something you have plenty of reason to do and no excuse not to do? We need to live more like children string beads. Because we like to. 12/15/2011
Neighborhood Lights, Sunset Hills, Greensboro, NC—December 15, 2011 — What do you think enlightenment will do for you? You’ll still have to pay your bills. Your job will continue to be your job. Your life partner and his or her extended family, and your own family and extended family, will be the same. The people you don’t like will still be the people you don’t like. Your problems will still be your problems. The Dalai Lama was enlightened and the Chinese chased him out of Tibet. Jesus was enlightened and you know what happened to him. Enlightenment is not the cure-all for the things that are wrong about your life. You don’t seek enlightenment for things to finally be fine. It is no escape from the firestorm of life. So, what’s enlightenment good for? What is life good for? What do you get out of being alive? You’re still going to die. Who are we kidding? Being alive doesn’t do anything about any of the things we hate about living. Neither does enlightenment. But. With enlightenment, everything falls into place. Just as it is. And we stop battling to get it into place, into the place we want it to be. We stop wanting, needing, having to have life be different than it is. We just leave Tibet when the Chinese come for us. We do what we can do to deal appropriately with what must be dealt with, and we don’t let the fact that we have to deal with it interfere with our ability to be fully, deeply, alive in the time left for living. Why do we want to be alive? What does being alive do for us? What does life have to offer? If I have to sell you on life, you are too far gone to have any chance at enlightenment. It would be like the Dalai Lama talking to the Chinese about waking up. The better course is to leave Tibet. When enlightened people see an elephant coming down the trail toward them, they get off the trail.12/16/2011
Clingman’s Dome Sunset Panorama 01, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC—November, 2011 —

Don’t you have
some sense
of the part
you play
in creating
the life
you complain
about living? 12/17/2011
Ramsey Creek Panorama, Greenbriar District, Great Smoky Mountains Naitonal Park, TN—November 08, 2011 — A life of true value doesn’t just fall off the bus, doesn’t just appear at our door. We work it into being. We cultivate it, serve it. What has life for us has value for us. We must live consciously, aware of what has life, value, for us and what does not, aware of protecting our life, recovering it, living it. We have sacred items which carry our life and reflect what has value for us. My walking shoes and hiking boots, my coffee cups, my camera equipment, my rocking chairs… My life. What are the objects, items, that carry our life? These are our sacred symbols connecting us with life, reminding us of what has life and value for us. Keep them close. It’s hard to imagine living without the objects, items, that carry our life, that set us apart, announce us to the world, express the deep truth of our being, our soul, our Self. The deep truth of our being, our soul, our Self is exhibited in the objects, items, that carry our life, that ARE our life, without which we could not live. We make ourselves aware of our life, the life that is truly our life, by becoming aware of the objects, items, that carry our life. We have a life unlike any other life that has ever been lived, or will be lived, which we too often put under a basket, hide in a back room, deny, ignore. We cannot be alive without embracing our life, our individuality, and living in ways which express our uniqueness in the time left for living. Living the life that is our life to live does not mean recognition, fame, fortune, glory, etc. It means being alive. We are here to be alive. May we all be! 12/17/2011
Molasses Creek Impressionistic Panorama, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteraas National Seashore, NC—October 27, 2011 — We can easily settle for a life of no value by mindlessly following the cow path from the barn to the pasture to the barn. We can life a life of no value by living as we are supposed to live, doing what someone says we ought to do, keeping them all happy. The military has a phrase for maintaining your own sense of true value under the thumb of protocol: “Defect in place.” The culture, any culture, is an oppressive system of protocol, of ought-to-be’s. We serve our individuality within the culture with symbolic acts of life. We fight for our life, for our right—obligation—to live our life the way it needs us to live it in the face of overwhelming opposition to our stepping out of line and being who we are. Under the heavy thumb of protocol, we have to remember who we are with symbolic acts of life. They cannot have our soul! We will not surrender our claim to the life of our own! So we carry objects, wear items, make gestures of life, to life, within the oppressive cultures of living to remind ourselves who we are and what we are about, keeping soul alive. Remembering we are “not that, not that.” 12/17/2011
Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—November 21, 2011 — We see what is true and what is also true. We decide what needs to be done in response to it. We do it. And repeat the cycle endlessly. The road is always as long as it ever was. That’s the way it is, with a circle. We despair because it seems that we aren’t getting anywhere—like there is somewhere to be, like if we were doing it right it would be easier, we would see progress, long periods of time with nothing but peace and joy to deal with and things going our way. We think things ought to be going our way. And that there is something we can do to get them to go our way. Think positive thoughts and attract prosperity. Pray and keep the Ten Commandments and have Jesus run interference for us. Something. Sorry to be the one to break the news to you but. We do what we can think to do in every situation as it arises. And then, we do what we can think to do with the situation that developed in response to what we did. We never get beyond doing what needs us to do it in the situation as it arises. The good thing is that the situation will tell you what to do. Listen to the situation. Look at the situation. Hear the situation. See the situation. Those who can see, must see—and live as though they do. That’s all there is to the Hero’s Journey. 12/18/2011
Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—December 17, 2011 — We all are Jesus, and the Buddha, when we succeed in getting out of the way. 12/18/2011
Curve, Blue Ridge Parkway near Doughton Park, NC—December 13, 2011 — The only thing standing between us and God is, well, us. When we disappear into oneness with “Thy will not mine be done,” there is nothing but the Holy One for all to see. But there is a catch. Who says what “Thy will” is? That would be us. And there just might be a bit of conflict of interest going on. “Of course God wanted me to take that anchor. If not why would He have arranged for it to be left lying right there on that guy’s boat seat?”, said an acquaintance about a boat anchor he “found.” Funny how God’s will is always what our will would be if we were God, how God’s will so regularly coincides with what we think God’s will should be. Which leaves us conveniently able to live our life exactly as we think it should be lived. Which has created the world as we know it. If you’re going to fix something, fix that. 12/19/2011
Blue Ridge Vista HDR 03, Near Craggy Gardens, NC, October 21, 2011 — The man or woman of your dreams is dreaming, too. If you want to increase your odds of finding Mr. or Ms. Right you have to work at becoming Mr. or Ms. Right, that is the Right Person You Were Born To Be. You do that by looking closely at your Dreamboat and identifying the qualities he or she would bring to life in your relationship. What characteristics set him or her apart? Those are the qualities and characteristics you are to bring to life in yourself and in your life. You are to become who you long for. The person of your dreams carries the projection of the aspects of yourself that need to be more strongly developed in you and your life. You see in him or her who you need to be, and your are wasting your time idly wishing to be redeemed, saved, sanctified and glorified by another. You are your work to bring forth as a blessing to the world. Get with it! 12/19/2011
The Other Lone Cypress Impressionistic Panorama, Lake Brandt at Reedy Fork, Greensboro, NC—November 11, 2011 — We need a community of innocence (Innocent in the sense that it doesn’t have anything at stake in us, nothing to gain or lose by having us as a member) to listen us to the truth of ourselves, enlarge our perspective, deepen our understanding, expand our place in our own lives, bring us forth to meet each situation as it arises, call us to rise to every occasion in offering what we have to give to that which needs what we have to offer, enable us to be who we are and to do what is ours to do in each moment of our life throughout the time left for living. Now where are we going to find one of those babies? The stark absence of that which is most necessary for life in our lives is just ridiculous. 12/20/2011
Cedar Island Ferry, Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—October 23, 2011 — The transformation of perspective is another term for waking up, which is another term for growing up. You can’t wake up without growing up. You can’t grow up without waking up. And the transformation of perspective is at the bottom of it all. You could complete the Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest, the Search for the Holy Grail and the Promised Land in the privacy of your own home—if you could figure out a way to transform your perspective from the inside. It takes being whammed by something from the outside, the Cyclops, say, to do that. It is not an inside job. 12/20/2011
The Woods at Rock Castle Gorge 01, Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA—December 02, 2011 — We think it’s like this and it is really like that. We think it is one way and it is another way. No one just sits down and figures it out. Everyone hits the wall. And tries to run through the wall. And looks for a door in the wall. And complains loudly to all who will listen, or not listen, it is all the same to the complainer: “WHAT’S THIS WALL DOING IN MY LIFE???” And takes up alcohol and drugs to numb out about the ridiculous wall. And says in 10,000 ways, “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am” if it hadn’t have been for that damn wall. When we wake up we say, “Oh. That’s a wall. NOW I see,” and wonder why it took so long. 12/21/2011
Lake Brandt Sunset Impressionistic Panorama, Greensboro, NC—If you see things like I do, you believe that we are working to achieve an environment that will allow us—all of us, every last one of us, worldwide, I’m talking—to play with our lives. What else is there? If we aren’t striving to be free enough of the pain and anguish and uncertainty of living to be able to play with our lives, what??? Well. Why put it off? Why not play right now with our lives, to the extent that is possible, as often as we can? Why wait? How long has it been since you played with your life? Played anywhere in your life? What has taking everything so seriously done for you? What has not allowing yourself the freedom to live lightly enabled you to do that you couldn’t have done living lightly? If you were going to do something playful, what would it be? See how playfully you can live in the next 24 hours. Your Christmas gift to me. No. To yourself! 12/21/2011
Cape Hatteras Sunrise Impressionistic Panorama 01, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—October 31, 2011 — The older we get, the fewer plates we can keep spinning, and the more often we are apt to wonder, “What’s with keeping plates spinning?” This business of questioning why spin plates as we age is one of the developmental tasks of life. Each phase, or period, or age of life has its tasks. We crawl, then walk. We grow teeth then we lose them. There are tasks of life appropriate to each age of living—and it is crucial that we complete them at the time of their doing. The problem is, particularly as we age, that we don’t want to do them. We want to stay forever young. So we neglect the tasks of the last stage of life, pretending things are not what they are. We opt for plastic surgery instead of wrinkles. The list is long. We cannot avoid the developmental tasks and live well. Each age has its walls. Waking up requires walls. We wake up at the bottom of some damn wall. It’s the way waking up works. If we are going to be as awake as we can be in the time left for living, we are going to have to hit all the walls. Another term for “wall” is “developmental task.” We have to do what is asked of us by our stage of life. But we don’t want to. Exactly. That’s what makes a wall a wall. A wall would never wake us up if we wanted to hit it. We have to do what we don’t want to do whether we want to or not. 12/22/2011
Across the Fence, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—October 20, 2011 — We rarely ever marry the person we marry. We nearly always marry our idea of that person. As long as the person we marry is content to play the game, things go along but. If she, if he, begins to bring herself, himself, forth, things hit a snag. Then we have to divorce the other person or divorce our idea of the other person or settle for a lifetime of conflict over who the other person is going to be. The same setup goes, of course, for us in the eyes of the other person. This makes marriage a very tricky enterprise, guaranteed to challenge our idea of self and other at some point, and perhaps all the way. As it does so, marriage becomes a wall, waking us up by slamming us down, forcing us to consider there on our duff in the dirt all those down to earth (Where else would we ever spend time pondering them?) essential matters: who we are, what we are about, what is important, what is true and what is also true and what we are going to do about it. The questions of life. 12/23/2011
Urban Sunset, Charlotte, NC—December 23, 2011 — An iPhone photo—When we wake up, we see things as they are and as they also are which is how things really are. Once we see things as they really are, then we have to wake up to what truly needs to be done about it. It is one thing to see things as they are and another to see what to do about it. We wake up further when we find what we need to do what needs to be done. We wake up further when we do it and face the consequences, which creates another situation requiring us to see things as they are and as they also are, so we are forever waking up to this here, this now, what needs to be done about it and where we find what we need to do it. This is not easy. It is easier to be dead in one of the 10,000 ways to die and still be 98.6 and breathing with all our vital signs in place. So, why would anyone do it? There is no logical, rational, left-brained reason to wake up. It is a right-brain process that needs left-brain cooperation, collaboration. The left-brain has to trust the right-brain all the way. And trust is a right-brain thing. How things are and how things also are at the very heart of things. Living in and awake to the tension of polarities brings miracle into the mix and transforms all of life which we try to talk about with words like rebirth, deliverance, salvation, redemption, resurrection—which makes the work to wake up like the labor to be born. Why would anyone do that? Where would we be if we didn’t? 12/24/2011
The Oak Tree, Blue Ridge Parkway near Rocky Knob, VA—November 02, 2011 — See. Do. Be. That’s the formula for life. See what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. Do it. Be transformed by the work to put yourself aside in favor of what needs to be done, which means doing what YOU need to have done when YOU need it to be done and putting aside your dumb notion that YOU should come in last all the time! Seeing what needs to be done means seeing what YOU need to be done for YOU (Like taking a nap, for instance, or just going to the bath room). YOU are as important as any other aspect of your life. YOUR needs are equal to all other needs that are present in any moment. You are to put YOU on the table with all the rest as you walk around the table and consider what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. YOU are your Christmas gift to YOU and to the world. You decide how much for YOU and how much for THEM, giving YOU equal rights to what needs you to do it. 12/25/2011
Pylon Panorama, Four Mile Creek Greenway, Charlotte, NC—December 25, 2011 — We grow up, that is, get older, thinking things are the way we are told they are. We begin to grow up, that is, wake up and take up the path to true human being-hood, when we understand that things are not the way we were told they are—and do the on-going work of experimenting, exploring and experiencing how things actually are and what they are asking of us in the here-and-now of our living. “Oh! So THAT’s how things are!” is the fundamental ground of revelation, realization, enlightenment. “Oh! NOW I get it!” is the liturgical response of the people to the experience of their experience. We “get it” only to discover that “getting it” is just a step on the journey without end, and, laughing, look for what we have yet to see. 12/25/2011
Wetlands Sunrise Impressionistic Panorama, Four Mile Creek Greenway, Charlotte, NC—December 26, 2011 — We have an idea of who we are. Maybe we want to be that way and maybe we wish we weren’t that way but. Our idea of who we are is frozen in time and place, unchanging and unchangeable through all eternity. “That’s just who we are,” we say. “This is just the way I am.” Wait, wait, wait. Stop the cameras. Cut, cut. Take it again from the top. Our idea of us is the first thing to go. Or, to put it another way, nothing goes until it does. Nothing changes until it changes. We don’t grow one smidgen beyond where and who we are until we change the way we think about ourselves and give ourselves the freedom to live in ways we have declared to be off-limits. “Un-uh. That’s not me! I don’t ____ (fill in the blank)!” We have to let ourselves show us what we are capable of—show us who ALL we are. You know how old people are said to be “set in their ways”? It started when they were 25, or 15, or 5. If you are going to be conscious of anything, be conscious of your stiff, frozen, inflexible, rigid, unbending, unmoving places and get out of your way. Let you show you what you can do, who you can be. Surprise yourself with your range of motion. Become who you think you aren’t. See what you are capable of before you die. Amaze yourself. 12/26/2011
Wetlands Sunrise Impressionistic Panorama, Four Mile Creek Greenway, Charlotte, NC—December 26, 2011 — We dumb our way to smart. We get it by not getting it 10,000 times, and then we forget it and have to get it again. And we just want to be there. Sitting in the cat bird’s seat. Sitting on top of the world. Sitting on a rainbow. With the world on a string. We want to skip all of the hard parts, pass on the work, and go straight to bliss. Bring it on. Now. Please. It isn’t going to happen. There is only the work. The work of seeing, hearing, understanding, knowing, doing, being. That’s all there is. There is nothing beyond that to lust for. What would life be without the work of life? The work of right seeing, right hearing, right understanding, right knowing, right doing, right being? Without the work, you’re dead. Don’t die before you’re dead. Do the work of life in every moment for as long as you are alive. 12/27/2011
Little River, DuPont State Forest near Brevard, NC—October 14, 2011 — The Buddha died, it is said, from eating bad pork. Enlightenment doesn’t tell you everything. It just enables you to take everything in stride, bad pork and all. It enables you to play your position the way it needs to be played, no matter what. Keeps you from getting lost in mental anguish about the state of the world or your life. Keeps you present and accounted for, here and now, in order to live your life the way only you can live it for as long as life is possible. People keep looking for the advantages, thinking enlightenment is the path to glory. It’s the path to life. Life is the only advantage. Being alive has it all over being dead. Live to be alive in the time left for living—seeing things as they are and also are and doing what needs to be done about it. 12/27/2011
Geese at Sunrise, Four Mile Creek Greenway, Charlotte, NC—December 26, 2011 — Enlightenment gets you out of the way. Out of the way of the way. So that it is only you and the way—instead of you and your way. The way is not your way. This is what they are holding back from you, all those people who make quick bucks telling you what you want to hear: How to be happy and prosperous. How to get what you want. How to live the life of your dreams. How to have it made. “The Prayer of Jabez,” “The Secret,” and all books of this ilk are about you and your way and how to have it. Enlightenment stands in your path and asks unmistakably, “What are you doing on THIS path? THAT’s the path!” The Hero’s Journey requires us to give up THIS path in favor of THAT one. No wonder so many people talk about enlightenment and so few actually bother to be enlightened. 12/28/2011
Hawk’s Bill Sunset, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 11, 2011 — We are to embrace our life—and all of life—as voluntary participants in “the circle of pain and fortune” that is the lot of all living things, all sentient beings. This is it, whatever your life has been and will be, that’s your life. What are you going to do? Not live it? Sit this one out? Wait for something more on the order of what you have in mind? You’re burning daylight here. Refusing to live by what light there is is to die before you’re dead. Why would you want to be dead? Ah, don’t tell me. “The Pain! The Pain!” Right. Pain is a pain, all right. And it is an individual call whether pain is a stopper, whether the pain is too great to go on. But I’m here to call you on, in spite of the pain, into what life there can be between now and the end of life. Live it! That’s what we do with life, we live it while we can, in what light there is, for as long as life is possible. And, in so doing we show what we’re made of. We bring forth what we have to offer as a blessing and grace before we are gone. Where would we be if we hadn’t come into each other’s life? Where would the world be if we opted to sit it out, holding ourselves aloof, waiting for something more our style? 12/28/2011
The Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway near West Jefferson, NC—December 14, 2011 — Understanding is what WE understand, not what someone else explains to us. You can’t take the someone else out of the picture, but no one can give us understanding. Remember Algebra with it’s x’s and y’s, or Organic Chemistry with it’s balanced equations? We all sat in the same classroom and heard the same lecture, the same explanation, and some of us got it and some of us, like me, never did. The switch is in us. We click or we don’t. No one can give it to us. We have to get it ourselves. We can only know there is something to get, some shift to experience, something beyond what we currently understand to be the way it is, and wait for the shift to happen. Until the shift happens, we trust ourselves to the Quest, to the Search, to the Journey, to the Way, to Ourselves. We trust ourselves to the Knower within and wait to know what the Knower knows. We trust ourselves to the Company of those who receive us well, and treat us well, and tell us to trust ourselves to know what we need to know when we need to know it, and listen us to the truth of our own experience. Which is the ground of being. And wait for the shift to happen that is called “Enlightenment.” 12/29/2011
Price Lake, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 11, 2011 — We are on our own. It is all up to us. We are OUR responsibility. AND. We cannot do it alone. We need a community of innocence with nothing at stake in us (We don’t teach their Sunday School classes, or sing in their choirs, or give 10% of our income to their budget, or give up our Wednesday evenings for their Fellowship Suppers), who can listen us to the truth of ourselves and encourage us in the work that is ours to do. AND we need to connect with the invisible community within for their guidance and support and the resources that are available to us there. BUT this does not mean using either community for our own ends, to get what we want and live the life we have in mind for ourselves. Our idea of our life is the first thing that has to go when we embrace what has to be embraced: Living from a “Thy will not mine be done” orientation. At that point, we open ourselves to the wisdom of both communities in finding and serving ends worthy of us, and collaborate with them in guiding our boat on its path through the sea. 12/30/2011
A “happy new year” reminds me of the phrase “one big happy family.” The happiness of the family is either a charade, a façade, or a hell-of-a-lot of work on the part of those who don’t mind doing their share of compromising, relenting and standing aside. Happy new years follow suit. Happy doesn’t just drop out of the sky, just land at our feet, just appear one day out of nowhere to thrill and delight. Happy is the result of authenticity, genuineness, compassion and compromise being worked out in the heat and grime of our lives. Happy is squaring ourselves up to the truth of how things are and how they also are and doing what can be done about the polarities within which we live—and making our peace with all of the things that cannot be done. Happy wrings us out and bleeds us dry. Happy is the satisfaction that comes with knowing we stood our ground with yet another manifestation of the Cyclops, facing what had to be faced, doing what needed to be done, and did not quit again. May your New Year bring forth exactly that kind of response to all of the situations you will encounter as a blessing and a grace upon all who can be blessed and graced by your presence, compassion, vulnerability and resilience. Amen! May it be so! 12/31/2011
Blue Ridge Vista 05, Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, NC—October 21, 2011 — Here’s my staple blessing for the New Year: May you see things as they are (which includes seeing things as they also are). May you be clear and correct about what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. And, may you have the courage to do it. Amen! May it be certainly so!
Pamlico Sunset, Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—October 31, 2011 — We don’t just hand ourselves over to the invisible world, we stand between worlds and work out the connections, the implications. We receive our identity, our calling, our destiny from the invisible world and work them out in the visible world of normal, apparent, reality. “Who we are,” says Jung, “is who we always have been and who we will be.” But. The visible world can bury us beneath its requirements and demands. We can become too easily one with the visible world, buy too thoroughly into its ideas of what is worth our time and what is not. We forget too quickly who we are and embrace too swiftly who we are not. We have to distance ourselves from both worlds in order to be the point of contact for each. We live our way into right relationship with the two worlds. The path is easily lost and easily found—it is always under our feet, requiring only eyes that see, ears that hear, a heart that understands, asking only that we wake up, square up, grow up, get up and do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises—what WE say needs to be done after listening carefully to all sides, ALL sides. We live the adventure of seeing, hearing, knowing, doing, being as those who are awake, aware, and alive. Amen! May it be so! 01/01/2012
Bass Lake 10, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—October 06, 2011 — Listen to the Inner Other and see how it goes. That’s my best advice. Oh, and if it doesn’t go so well, listen to the Inner Other about what to do about that and see where it goes. Oh, and be sure the Inner Other you listen to is not you. Tricky. Interesting. Could be fun. See where it goes. 01/01/2012
The Beach House, Ocracoke Island, NC—November 01, 2011 — May we all be alert to moments of crucial importance when they come upon us! May we know what is before us and what is being asked of us and what the implications of acting, or failing to act, are! May we not be so lost in the concern for our own advantage that we miss the opportunity to serve a larger concern! May we sense the significance of each situation as it arises and rise to every occasion in bringing forth what we have to offer for the good that is the greatest good in that time and place no matter what! Amen! May it be so! 01/01/2012
The Woods at Springer’s Point, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—October 28, 2011 — We don’t have any moments to burn. There is no time to waste. We cannot be flip and casual with our life. Everything rides on how we handle this here, this now—and all the ones following. This doesn’t mean we can’t be playful. Playful is one of the most important things to be. It means we can’t be asleep. Awake is THE most important thing to be. To be awake is to respond to the situation as it arises in the way most appropriate to that situation. To be awake is to know what’s what and what now. We can’t blow off any moment, any situation, just because things aren’t going our way and we aren’t in the mood to be attentive to any needs other than our own. To be awake is to live beyond our mood of the moment. It is to rise to the occasion and offer what the moment needs us to give. In every moment. 01/02/2012
View From Grandfather Mountain 07, Grandfather Mountain State Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Linville, NC—October 13, 2011 — It is up to us to find the meaning in the flow of time—in the string of days—that add up to old age. Meaning doesn’t happen without our intentional participation in its production. It takes the determined pursuit of meaning, the willful engagement with meaning to live a meaningful life. Meaning and value—the two are the same—characterize the lives of those who know a good thing when they see one and do not pass it by, either because it is too much trouble, asks too much of them, or because they hope to find something better or just as good and a lot easier down the road. We seize meaning like Jacob seized the angel and do not let it go until we have received the blessing (and the limp). All meaningful lives pay a price for the experience of the wonder of meaning. Meaninglessness is free for the taking—not that we want it, but it is the only thing left those who let meaning go, who don’t have what it takes to hang on and enjoy the ride, who aren’t awake enough to know what’s what and what’s now. What’s what and what’s now where meaning is concerned is what matters, what’s important, what has true value. What’s now is throwing our arms around it, giving ourselves to it for better or worse as long as we both shall live—because we know there is no living without it, only the empty shell of a life that missed its chance at life when it had one. 01/03/2012
Silver Lake Dawn, Ocracoke Island, NC, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, October 26, 2011 — Your primary relationship—the one you must tend and serve, love and honor all your life long, maybe, who knows, not even parting at death—is with your calling, your work, the work that is yours to do, that only you can do, your genius, your gift, your life. How many so-called “life partners” last nearly that along? And, if they do, how much of your calling did you both have to deny in order to maintain what is really a secondary relationship—and has to be recognized as such if we are to have any hope of becoming the True Human Beings our calling might bring into existence? Our calling is the gift and the curse that brings us to life and asks us to die again and again in its service. Apart from it we are lost and alone I don’t care how married or bound to another we are. Apart from it, our life is a wasteland and we are wearing a mask that does not fit, pretending to be what we are not, pretending we aren’t pretending, living shadow lives. Our “life partner” must be a partner in the truest sense in the life that is ours alone to live—and we return the favor, supporting our partner in his, in her, quest to bring forth and serve his, her, gift in the world. We help one another birth ourselves to life in our lives. In marriage, we are mid-wives to each other. That is a marriage, a partnership, worthy of us! 01/04/2012
The Woods at Springer’s Point, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—October 28, 2011 — What’s different about us? Where are we changing, shifting, growing, developing? What can we do that we couldn’t do a year ago? Ten years ago? Where are we stuck, unchanging, frozen in time and place, continuing to respond to the same conditions in the same ways? Where is the movement in our life? Where are we coming forth, bringing ourselves forth, to meet our life, to express our gift, our genius in the here and now of our living? Where are we refusing to change, to grow, to shift, to move? Where are we embracing our stuckness because “That’s just the way I am”? Where are we as obsessed with achieving what is important to us as Voldemort was with achieving what was important to him—without exploring whether we are right about its value? Where do we see ourselves, hear ourselves, understand ourselves and ask, “How can we do this better?” What are we doing to change, grow, expand, deepen, enlarge, develop ourselves in response to our life and the gift we are asked to bring forth in our life? Hmmm? 01/04/2012
Springer’s Point Silhouette, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—October 28, 2011 – In doing what is ours to do we become who we are. Doing is the only path to being. 01/04/2012
The Woods at Springer’s Point, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—October 28, 2011 — Do the work, the work that is yours to do. Believe in the work. Be transformed by the work. This is the Revolution—the Revolution beyond all revolutions. This is a revolutionary as it gets. You cannot be more subversive, more of a dissident. Jesus and the Buddha, Gandhi and Lao Tzu… The list is long of true revolutionaries, True Human Beings, who did nothing to eliminate the suffering of their contemporary generation, but the work these people did transformed the world and led all who picked up their work by doing their own work to a better grasp of the world and their place in it. This is how it is to be with all of us. Do the work! May they say that about each of us when we have been gathered unto those who have gone before us. Amen! May it be so! 01/04/2012
Another Barn, Transylvania County near Brevard, NC—October 17, 2011 — The Zen path to happiness ever after is to let go what’s going and to let come what’s coming. If you can find a better one, walk it! 01/05/2011
October Colors, DuPont State Forest, Transylvania County near Brevard, NC—October 15, 2011 – When we wake up, we wake up to the reality of our gift, our work, our genius over time, over the course of our life. So THAT’s it! Who would have imagined it? The pearl of great price is the stone the builders reject. One way to spot what is ours to do is to pay attention to what interests us. What do we drift to? Where do we spend idle time? What do we do that isn’t required? What characterizes our way in the world? What do friends notice about us that may be invisible to us? What claims us and will not let us go? What keeps standing before us in a “Here I am and I’m not going away” kind of way? 01/05/2011
Blackberry Stem 01, Price Park, Greensboro, NC—November 11, 2011 — Being who we are requires us to be who we are not. Who we are is always beyond who we want to be, who we are comfortable being. We cannot grow without growing beyond ourselves, beyond our current configuration, into who we are not, through who we are not. We expand, deepen, enlarge ourselves by becoming more than we have been up to any point. Who we also are is who we are not. So. In determining what needs to be done in the situation as it arises, in determining what is ours to do and leave undone, we cannot fall back on “who we are.” Changing diapers may not be your thing, it may not float your boat or toast your bread or top your chart but. If the baby needs changing, you change the baby. If the dog throws up on the carpet, you clean up the mess. Everything goes on the table as we consider what is to be done. We don’t rule out any possibilities. We may have to pick ourselves up and do the unwanted thing, like it or not. 01/06/2012
Puckett Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway near Rocky Knob, VA—November 02, 2011 — Our task is to grow up into the child we ought to be. And into the mother we ought to be. And into the father, And into all the roles of true-human-being-hood. A True Human Being gets the ratios right in each situation as it arises, coming forth to be exactly what is needed in the moment of living. But because the roles of true-human-being-hood are infinitely expansive we can only hope to approximate true-human-being-hood in any moment. We are never all grown up and resplendent in our Human-Being-Hood. We are always growing up into who we need to be here and now. The roles themselves are beyond us, expanding, deepening themselves as we approach approximation, so our work is never completed, finished. We cannot think we are ever grown up because we must always be growing up. There is no finished state to True-Human-Being-Hood. What is to be avoided is rigid compliance to an idea of how we ought to be in any moment. The moment calls us forth. We get out of the way! Each of us is to be all the roles a human being can be and work out for ourselves how much of what to be when. Life is art, play, a quest. 01/06/2012
Mossy Boulders, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbriar District, TN—November 07, 2011 — Part of the task before us is to find the magic in the scenes, in the moments, of our lives. Magic isn’t something we generate so much as something we uncover, discover, unearth, reveal. Eyes to see, see the magic that transforms the world and our place in it. We are never more than a perspective shift away from the wonder of being alive, even here, even now, in this old place, this old life. Who woulda though it? The trick is to see more than meets the eye, to see what meets the eye in different ways, to say more about it than is evident and obvious. What else is true, here, now? The Taoist approach is to find whatever can be found about the current situation that will lift us, buoy us, along to the next situation. Stop looking at wherever you are, at whatever you face, as a dead end. Everything is a step on the way to something else. You are just along for the ride. So. Enjoy what can be enjoyed about it and see where it goes! 01/07/2012
The Woods of Rock Castle Gorge (05), Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA—December 02, 2011 — With apologies to Immanuel Kant, my version of the Categorical Imperative (because it is a must beyond all categories, moral or rational) is this: Wake up! Grow up! Face up! Square up to the way things are and also are and what needs to be done about it. Stand up and do it! Repeat the process in each situation as it arises. All there is to it. 01/07/2012
Hanging Rock Vista, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—October 03, 2011 — Which would we choose? “I will love you forever!” Or “I will treat you lovingly forever, regardless of how I feel about you.” 01/08/2012
Fall Colors, Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—October 17, 2011 — We all need what we can give ourselves. We are new-born babies at every stage of our lives, hoping someone will pick us up, keep us safe, love us as we need to be loved, surround us with all the resources required to face what must be faced and do what must be done in each stage of our lives. We are the ones! We parent ourselves, nurture and nourish ourselves, and bring ourselves forth to meet the day. Every day. It’s all up to us and we cannot do it alone. We need someone to remind us it’s all up to us. 01/08/2012
Rake’s Mill Pond, Blue Ridge Parkway near Floyd, VA—December 02, 2011 — We look for it everywhere, maybe this, maybe that, over here, over there, and not finding it, become frustrated, then angry, then despondent, then irreconcilable, empty, hopeless, dispassionate, cruel—perhaps only cruel to ourselves, but cruelty becomes our primary characteristic, evidenced in the life-denying, denouncing, way we live: carelessly, recklessly, excessively—and why not? What difference does it make how we live? Who cares? Not us. We quit caring years ago, when it became apparent to us that it doesn’t matter what we do, so why try? We give up because we know it doesn’t exist, life as we think it ought to be. We give up in protest because life as it is is not worth having. If this is the best we can hope for the joke is on us and we aren’t laughing. We’ll opt for making ourselves numb until we die. Anybody who tries to talk us out of it is a fool to think we’ll change our minds and live on any terms other than our own. Changing our minds is another term for shifting our perspective, for seeing things differently, for waking up, for growing up, for facing up to the truth of how things are AND HOW THEY ALSO ARE and what can be done about it (WHAT ALL CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT), for standing up and doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises all our life long no matter what. Being alive hinges on being able to change our minds. 01/09/2012
Remnant, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—November 04, 2011 — Life all around us spends most of its time waiting and very little of its time acting. Waiting for the right time to act. We spend most of our time acting and very little of our time waiting. Wondering why things don’t go more our way. We act with no inkling of the rightness or wrongness of the time of our acting. We invented the term “knee jerk reaction.” And the term “impulse buying.” And the term “shooting from the hip.” Which came along just before “shooting ourselves in the foot.” Nature waits, watching us ricochet through our lives like nuclear powered ping pong balls thinking we will get it eventually, which is what we are thinking, going after it on full throttle all the time. 01/20/2012
Rock Castle Creek, Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA—December 02, 2011 — Our moods are not necessarily our own. If we find ourselves gripped in a mood arising “out of nowhere for no reason,” we might ascribe its origin to “a source of ancestral nature” and feel it while living around it. We do not know all there is to know. We do not know half of all there is to know. The entire invisible world is, well, invisible. Unconscious. Not Known. We do not know what it is capable of, what it suffers from, what its needs are, how we might help or hinder its operation. It’s a safe bet to assume that it is as much of, if not more of, a mess as the visible world of normal, apparent reality. It is also a safe bet to assume that our ancestors have experienced horrors we cannot imagine. Emotion must be felt, made conscious, witnessed, acknowledged in order to be assimilated, integrated, reconciled. We bear the emotional weight of the species and help the unconscious, invisible world work through its pain. Interesting theory, you’ll have to admit. Whether it is anywhere near accurate is a shot in the, well, dark. But how can it hurt to live as though it is? To think that the pain of the species is working its way out in us—that the invisible world is becoming conscious of its pain through us—as though we need more pain to deal with but. To divvy up the pain into “mine” and “theirs” makes it more bearable, more doable. Give it a shot and see if you don’t think it’s so. 01/11/2012
Leaves on the Water, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—November 22, 2011 — If you are going to listen to yourself, you are going to have to create listening room. You can’t listen at full throttle, careening through your life, bouncing from one thing to another, volume on high. You have to be still. And quiet. Two things our life will not allow. When sitting, just sit. When listening, just listen. When sitting and listening, just sit and listen. Prayer is thinking and listening to your thoughts. Prayer changes things when you hear what you are saying and adjust your living accordingly. Meditation and prayer are great aids to “hearing yourself think” but. You have to listen. When you are under a great deal of stress, listening is the first thing that goes. Then we’re living blind, deaf. Not seeing, not hearing, not knowing what to do next. And so. The routine. Establish a routine. Make a space in your day, or several spaces, for sitting and listening. And sit. And listen. Regularly. If writing helps you listen, as it does me, then write. If playing the drums helps you quiet down and listen, then play the drums. Design your own space for listening to yourself and go there often. 01/12/2012
Forest Lawn, Greensboro, NC—January 11, 2012 — No borders, no walls. That’s the essence of the Promised Land. The Chinese can take over Tibet but they can’t touch the heart of Buddhism. When truth is attacked, truth just becomes invisible, goes underground, shifts shape and lives on without borders or walls. When you have borders and walls you have a standing army and police on patrol, weapons at the ready. Truth asks us to die again and again—to relinquish our old life—in order to live, to embrace New Life—but. It doesn’t kill anyone. “Making disciples of all nations,” as in compelling their compliance whether they are ready or not, is ridiculous. Truth waits for readiness. We all wake up against our will but. No one can be forced to wake up against their will. Truth waits us out. And if we die first? Oh well. No boundaries, no walls calls for communities of innocence—innocent in the sense of having nothing at stake—to form as needed and disperse. Communities of innocence have no paid clergy, no buildings, no parking lots, no doctrine or dogma, no boundaries, no walls. They serve truth with compassion and grace. Communities of innocence enable us to hear the truth of our life, to know how things are and also are and what to do about it. Communities of innocence enable us to know what we need to know do do what needs to be done without telling us anything. Just listening. All it takes is honest conversation straight from the heart in good faith. Why is this hard? 01/12/2012
View from Pilot Mountain, Pilot Mountain State Park, NC—November 04, 2011 — The Bringer of Fire does not bring anything new to anyone but, announcing, unveils what is already there, smoldering, awaiting the word of release, of recognition, to resonate and ignite what has been praying to brightly burn. In the beginning was the Word but. The Word was a mere invitation meeting readiness, uniting to engulf the great all-ness in creative flame. Here, in these little paragraphs, I hope to play the Angel to your Virgin Mary, stirring something that is already in place for you to bring forth for the salvation—the awakening—of the world, which you do, of course, by being awake yourself to the wonder of you. And if you are already beginning to turn away and shut me out, it is only fair of me to ask, “Whose side are you on?” 01/13/2012
The Woods at Stone Mountain, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—November 04, 2011 — We are here to serve the Source. Forget what do you want to be when you grow up. It isn’t about what you want. Rich. Powerful. Happy. Famous. It’s all forgotten in the grip of what Joesph Campbell calls “the Mythic Vision.” The Mythic Vision is your sense of what the Source needs of you. Your experience of the Source’s need might come on you like falling in love. You may see a book title on some esoteric aspect of mathematics and be smitten, never to recover. You don’t find what needs you. It finds you. Your task is to not dismiss the white rabbit when it winks at you and says something on the order of “How about me, Honey?” We keep tossing aside the life, the path, with our name on it in favor of the life, the path, we have in mind for ourselves. Turning away from the Mythic Vision, we enter a Void of our own making. Serving the Mythic Vision puts us squarely in the center of the Hero’s Journey, with all it’s wonders and terrors. There is no Life like that one! 01/14/2012
Colors of Fall Abstract, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—December 04, 2011 — When we speak of our experience with the Source, our words fall under the category of “You have to know what I’m talking about in order to understand what I’m saying.” We cannot talk about an experience to those who do not share the experience and hope for anything more than blank expressions or eye rolls and “Oh, no! Here we go again!” So we talk in order to find the people who can hear what we have to say and reply with words that are music to our ears. Know what I mean? 01/14/2012
Four Mile Creek Wetlands, Four Mile Creek Greenway, Charlotte, NC—December 25 2011 — We sustain and encourage one another for the task at hand: Bringing ourselves forth, seeing things as they are and also are, being clear and correct about what needs to be done in the situation as it arises, and doing it no matter what. The no matter what part is the stopper. It’s easier to follow a worn path than to make your own. Life, in the deepest, richest sense of the word, calls us to do what’s hard—no matter what. On our own, we don’t have a chance. We need the right kind of company—the right kind of people—on our side, those who are more on our side than we are, to wake us up to what we are doing and ask us, “Whose side are you on?”—getting us back into the work of blazing our own trail back to the Source by being aligned with that which is deepest and best and truest about us in every moment. 01/15/2012
Spanning the Gorge, New River Gorge National River near Fayetteville, WV—September 24, 2011 — Want to beat aging? Be alive! Want to be alive? Do the work! The work that is yours to do. The work that is ours to do requires us to do it within the constraints and limitations, the terms and conditions of our life. As we get older, those terms and conditions change, become to some degree more restrictive, confining, yet the work remains the same. The work calls us forth, brings us out, unfolds us in increasingly surprising, amazing, astounding, bumfuzzling and confounding ways. The work is the Fountain of Youth—youth properly understood as vibrant, pulsating with life, eager to leap into the day every day to discover what the day holds and what we will do with it like gifts on Christmas morning. What does the work offer to us and ask of us today? How shall we serve the Source today, an a “Thy will not mine be done” kind of way? Where will our life take us today? Align yourself with the Source and see where it goes. It will be the ride of a lifetime, and perhaps—who knows—beyond. 01/15/2012
View from the Barn, Tannenbaum Historic Park, Joseph and Sarah Hoskins’ Farm, Greensboro, NC—January 15, 2012 — To be alive we have to be interested in what we are doing. What we are doing has to be alive for us. We have to believe in our life—in the way we go about life, who we are, what we are about. We have to exhibit, express, our deepest beliefs, our highest values. The way we live has to be an authentic demonstration of what is important to us, of what matters most to us. “Don’t preach it, brother/sister! LIVE it!” We get caught up in the cultural obsession with having something to show for our effort—in having to see results, garner a payoff—and think “So what? Who cares? Why try? What difference does it make?” about the things that have value to us when they don’t accrue fortune and glory. And so, the test. Will we believe in what we believe in, exhibiting the values that have value to us, anyway, nevertheless, even so? Because that is where the life is for us and that’s all the payoff we need? 01/16/2012
South Shore, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta—September, 2003 — There are things that are important, whether or not they are important to us. Compassion, for instance. Grace, Mercy, Peace. Justice, Kindness, Generosity, Gentleness, Tenderness, Authenticity, Genuineness, Joy, Patience… The list is long. These things don’t have to matter to us to matter. They are always in season. They don’t wait for us to feel like doing them to do them. These things comprise the center, the ground of being and life. They are the North Star of the spiritual journey, always there to orient, direct, enable us to find our bearings and bring ourselves back to the important matters. When we live in the service of the core values of the species, we place ourselves on the beam and serve the good while we wait for our personal sense of destiny and purpose to be restored. Life’s blows can disorient us, traumatize us and rob us of any sense of meaning and purpose. When that happens, the core values remain viable and vital—a life support system in the interim while we reorient ourselves and find our way back to who we are and what we are about. “Do justice, love kindness…” “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or worthy of praise…” Live to serve these things and they will get you back to the place of serving the things that are your things in particular to serve. 01/16/2012
Urban Sunset, Old Ardrey Kell Road, Charlotte, NC—January 13, 2012 — All of my problems are imaginary. I make them up in anticipation of the real thing. I can’t wait. I am so eager for the Impossible Predicament, the End of the Line, the Dead End Dilemma that I hurry it up just to be able to stand transfixed, immobilized. It’s great. Scaring myself is what I do best. Inventing monsters when the real ones are on maternity leave. Gives me something to do. It is much better to sit and fret than to just sit. So I conjure up the dread du jour and cook it to perfection. I know it’s only a matter of time until the Shoe Falls. The suspense is killing me. So I hurry it up. It falls in my mind in differently chilling and increasingly morbid ways. I’m sure it’s a Dollar trait. Dollar, by the way, is from the Scottish word “dolour,” meaning sadness, grief, gloom, misery. I am proud to maintain my ancestral heritage, looking for better things to worry about than the course, common stuff that litters my life. If you ever get bored with your lot, let me know. I have monsters to share. Good ones. They will keep you awake nights. My pledge to you. 01/17/2012
North Shore, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta—September 2006 — We can wake up but. We can’t wake ourselves up. We can’t help being awake or asleep but. We can recognize our helplessness. We can only be as awake as we are. Seeing what we can see in this moment leads us to seeing what we can see in the next moment. There is no seeing all there is to see in any moment. There is no seeing as a general state of being. Just seeing this, here, now. There is more to any moment than meets the eye. Any eye. See as much of the moment as you can see. Hear as much as you can hear. Perceive as much as you can perceive. Do as much of what truly needs to be done as you can see needs doing. No one can do more or ask you to do more. 01/17/2012
Upper Falls, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—January 16, 2012 — Energy and enthusiasm for the tasks at hand are functions of our affinity with the tasks, of the degree of our resonation with the tasks, of the depth of our belief in the value of the tasks. We can stand at a copy machine, copying someone else’s documents, with energy and enthusiasm, only so long. Comes a point they can’t pay you enough to run one more copy or free one more paper jam. You can feel like doing something that doesn’t exhibit and express who you are only so long. You can do something you don’t feel like doing only so long. When your heart isn’t in your life—your life, the life that is your life to live, isn’t your life, isn’t in the life you are living—and your task then becomes getting your heart and the life that is your life to live together with your life. This is a problem for a very large majority of human beings. We are living lives that do not belong to us. We are running someone else’s copies, pretending things are just fine. It’s time to dust off that soul mirror and stand before it and have a heart-to-heart talk with our heart. There is life to be lived yet, in the time left for living. 01/18/2012
Hanging Rock Vista 03, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—November 03, 2011 — I have one sermon: In every moment, in each situation as it arises, look around. See as much of how things are and also are as you are capable of seeing. See as much of what to do about it, how to respond to it, as you are capable of seeing. Do it. Repeat this process throughout all of the moments and situations of your life for as long as life is possible. Amen. May it be so! 01/19/2012
Puckett Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA—November 03, 2011 — Joseph Campbell says, “Everything that comes, goes.” He also says, “What remains when all is lost?” I say, if you know what remains when all is lost, you have it made. Now, look. Life is about coming and going. We make a big deal about both. A birth. A wedding. A death. A divorce. We worry about getting old and losing all our faculties. Our sight goes, our hearing goes, our teeth go, our mind goes. We agonize over all that “downsizing.” What remains when all is lost? Our destiny remains, for one thing. Our calling is still intact. We are to bring forth our gift in every circumstance and condition of life. We. Are. To. Be. Who. We. Are. No matter what. Wherever and however we are, we are to be ourselves, us, me, you. WE remain US, OURSELVES, when all is lost. The inexhaustible Source remains constant, always there, always with us, when all is lost. We have who we are, our calling, and the Source. That’s a Holy Trinity if there ever was one! What are we worried about? That isn’t going away! We can always do what is ours to do wherever we are, however we are, whenever we are. HA! 01/19/2012
Dirt Road, Pilot Mountain State Park, Yadkin River Section, Bean Shoals Access, near Pinnacle, NC—January 18, 2012 — If we are wrapped up in, embracing and embraced by, the calling, the work, we can do anything, rise to any occasion, meet any obstacle. Then “one book opens another,” and every choice is charmed, and all roads lead home. But. We cannot take up the call, the work, in order to be protected. Our heart has to be in the call, the work. We cannot take up the call, do the work, with one eye on what’s in it for us. Sin is the profit motive. Just try to be rid of it. Just try saying, “Thy will not mine be done” without thinking of the advantages that will accrue when we do “Thy will.” Only a good faith journey in service of the journey, of the call, the work, will protect those on the journey. Just try living in good faith exploiting good faith! PS: Being protected on the journey doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to you. “It rains on the just and unjust alike.” It means you have what it takes to do what needs to be done in dealing with the things you don’t like. You find help with the things you need help with, on the journey. 01/20/2012
The Bison—a Panorama, Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park, WY—It is easy to talk ourselves into standing at the copy machine copying someone else’s documents all our life long. It is hard to talk ourselves into living our own life, bringing up from the inexhaustible source what needs to come forth, here and now. Standing at the copy machine is safe, secure, comfortable. We know how to do that. Living our own life is anxiety producing: The Unknown! Living life for someone else, the company, our parents, is well-structured and carefully spelled out. We have to work out our own life always. Living our own life requires us to work it out amid the details, the duties and responsibilities of the life we have lived up to this point. We hate working it out! We just want to be left alone to enjoy our life. Our responsibilities clash with our responsibilities! Damn it all! Lao Tzu is said to have said “To hell with it,” or words to that effect, and walked off into the forest. We all know the feeling. There is always something else to be worked out. We have to square ourselves up with this and this up with that. Juggling, dancing, forever. If we can add “laughing” to the list, we have it made. Can we work it out, juggling, dancing AND laughing? The test of true-human-being-hood! The holy fools are those who work it out laughing. They let come what’s coming and let go what’s going, laughing. When we laugh, we dance differently, we juggle with our heart in it. We are no longer resisting, we are just doing it in a way that is not-doing anything. 01/20/2012
The Tree by the Side of the Road, Rural Virginia—January 20, 2012 — The toughest thing about photography is giving your eye something to see. You can’t take your eye somewhere without going with it. And a quiet day reading by the fire with a cup of coffee is out of the question. You want to do this and you want to do that. That conflicts with this. What are you going to do? Enlist the agony! Bear the pain! The only people who live pain free lives immune to agony are dead. They may be upright, intact, 98.6 and breathing, but they have been dead for years past counting. If you are going to be alive, you have to live with the pain and agony—the reality—of this negating that. Mutually exclusive wants, wishes, options, choices and desires characterize being alive. You get this by giving up that. You get that by handing over this. Trade-offs are the price of being alive. When you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, be damned and be done with it. Make a choice. Decide. Get the camera and give your eye something to see. Or sit with the book and read. It’s your life, live it—and bear the pain of being alive! 01/21/2012
Black Birch, Rocky Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA—January 20, 2011 — People kill themselves to avoid bearing the pain of life. “Life is suffering” is one of the foundational realizations of Buddhism and of life—of being alive. Life is lived on life’s terms. Those who cannot accept life’s terms turn away, numb themselves to the truth of existence with drugs and alcohol, distract themselves with the 10,000 diversions, or sit facing the wall moaning, “Poor me, poor me.” Some people can’t take it. Can’t pay the price of being alive. Can’t live on life’s terms. They reject “the deal.” Demand a better one. But. This. Is. It. We can always imagine a better world than the one we live in. We don’t get the world of our dreams. We get this world, just as it is. We live here, now, or not at all. Takes courage. Takes concession. Takes accommodation. Takes acquiescence. Takes waking up. Growing up. Facing up. Squaring up to the truth of how things are and how they also are, and of what needs to be done in response, and doing it, no matter what. Standing up and doing it. Bearing the pain. Being willing to be alive anyway, nevertheless, even so. Let’s do it. What do you say? 01/21/2012
Appalachian Still Life, Blue Ridge Parkway near Rocky Knolb, VA—January 20, 2012 — Coleman Barks tells a story about his granddaughter’s soft ball team’s lopsided loss to their cross-town rivals. The winning team gathered outside their dugout chanting, “We Won! We Won! We Won!” His granddaughter’s team spontaneously started a chant in front of their dugout: “We Lost! We Lost! We Lost!” You can’t beat that for how it needs to be. That is the Buddhist concept of joyful participation in the suffering of the world. Somebody wins and somebody loses. That’s how it is and it’s just fine. When we see suffering and pain, not as the end of all hope and meaning, but as the threshold to the reconciliation of ourselves with how things are and also are—to the integration and oneness of ourselves with all things—the shift happens and we say “Yes!” to life as it is, embracing the wonder of it all, and continue the journey to ourselves, the Source, Home. Fran Tarkenton, the pro football quarterback with the Vikings and Giants, talked about missing everything about football when he retired—the wins and the losses, the touchdowns and the sacks, playing in the rain and mud, snow and broiling sun. That’s it. We are alive. We win and we lose. It comes and it goes. And it is a completely wonderful, unbelievable, unimaginable experience. We will miss it so much when it’s gone—or would if we weren’t dead—that it behooves us completely to embrace it fully and live it with our eyes and hearts wide open, joyfully participating in the sorrows and the triumphs of life in this world. 01/21/2012
Mabry Mill, Blue Ridge Parkway near Meadows of Dan, VA—January 20, 2012 — YOU do it! YOU are the one! YOU are the only one who can—who can do it the way YOU can do it. Your life, of course, that is. No one can do it like you can, or has any business trying, or has any business telling you how to do it. Our place is to get out of your way and cheer you on, trusting you to do what you see needs to be done as it needs to be done according to your own sense of what needs what you have to offer. The thing to bear in mind—the guiding principle, so to speak—is that as you do what needs to be done, you aren’t trying to do anything with it. I was walking slowly along a Charlotte Greenway with my camera when who turned out to be a sure enough make a living at it photographer walks by with his girlfriend, stops and asks me, “Who are you working for?” like I was on assignment from National Geographic. I asked him, “Who are you walking for?” The three of us laughed and enjoyed a conversation that got me to a place where something caught my eye. This is the attitude we take when we do what needs to be done. We walk for ourselves. We take pictures for ourselves. We do what needs to be done because it needs to be done—NOT to do something with it, turn it to our advantage, exploit it, profit from it. We are not here to make a profit. What are you going to do with a profit that would be better than doing what needs to be done in the situation as it arises as only you can do it? Hmmm? 01/22/2012
Sidna Allen House, Hwy 52 near Hillsville, VA—January 20, 2011 — This from the Virginia is for Lovers travel guide: “This capricious, if provincial, expression of the Queen Anne style was briefly the home of the notorious Sidna Allen. Allen was member of the so-called Allen Gang involved in the Carroll County Courthouse shooting in 1912. The house, finished the year before the shooting, was designed by Allen and his wife. It was built by Preston Dickens, a local carpenter, with Allen assisting. Allen dreamed of the finest house in Carroll County, and the house was his dream come true until confiscated by the state after his conviction for the courthouse incident.” What that says to me is that you have to know what is important. That’s your primary responsibility. You have to be able to tell a white rabbit from a wild goose—and you can’t pursue a wild goose past the point of recognition. If you set your jaw and pursue your way come hell or high water, you better be right about your way being the right way. Good judgment is your only guide. 01/22/2012
The Farm House, Rural Virginia near Hillsville—January 20, 2012 — If you do what truly needs to be done, you will be surprised—perhaps shocked or appalled—at what you find yourself doing. You can’t approach your life with fixed ideas about what you should do or not do, about how life should be lived. The more fixed your ideas, the less alive you can be. Life is fluid, moving, sometimes like this and sometimes like that. Always “like the wind that blows where it will.” You will probably not be able to defend, justify, explain or excuse what you do. The left brain won’t know what the right brain is doing. 01/22/2012
Midnight Hole, Big Creek Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, along the TN/NC border—Our rituals seal us off or open us up, depending on how conscious we are of the rituals, of whether we see through them or hide out in them. Singing the Doxology or repeating the Apostles’ Creed, making coffee or watching the fire in the fireplace, can open us to the moment of our experience or close us all from all moments, from all experience. OM can be just another way of avoiding the pain of being alive or enable us to transcend the pain with compassion and grace for our circumstances and all those with us in this here, this now. It’s a question of how awake we are and how awake we are willing to be. Seeing means seeing everything as it is and as it also is. Our rituals remind us to see, and seeking, look beyond what is apparent to what is also true. Grace before meals can connect us with all those who are responsible for, who had a part in, getting this meal to this table—including the plants and the animals that were sacrificed in our behalf. It is a humble experience to thank all—the Great Allness—for our life, to realize how dependent we are upon all that contributes to our living and keeps us alive. And for what? What are we doing with the life that so many, so much, contributes to? In this way, the ritual of grace becomes a point of meditation, opening us to depths beyond the apparent reality of this hamburger and these fries in the worst hamburger joint on the eastern seaboard. There is always more to see than meets the eye. See what you can in every moment. 01/23/2012
Bass Lake Reflections, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—Joseph Campbell quotes the Bhagavad Gita as saying, “Get in there and do your thing! Don’t worry about the outcome!” That’s quite different from what a lot of us heard growing up, “Keep your nose clean and to the grindstone, believe in God and say your prayers, do your part and God will take care of you (through every day, o’er all the way) and it will all turn out well for you in the end.” Most of us didn’t hear anything about doing our thing. We heard a lot about doing God’s will, but that was far removed from our thing. We were sinful, you know, and our thing was a bad thing. We were misled. We need to unlearn most of what we have been told is true, and learn how to know our thing when we see it and how to throw ourselves into doing it, not worrying about the outcome. That’s my wish for us all! 01/23/2012
Totem Dawn, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, NM/AZ — Another aspect of the Bhagavad Gita paraphrase by Joseph Campbell, “Get in there and do your thing! Don’t worry about the outcome!” is the “Get in there” part. “Get in there into your life just as it is! Don’t be holding yourself back, waiting for a better life, the life of your dreams, perhaps, life as it ought to be. Get in there now! Don’t hold ANYTHING back! Step right into this ‘vale of tears,’ into the suffering and pain, into the uncertainty, the fear, the anguish, and bring yourself forth there, here, now, doing your thing as only you can do it, as you were born to do it, to hell with the outcome. Bring yourself forth as the Virgin brought forth the Christ Child, into the squalor of the manger and the terrible instability of Roman occupation, and the inability of the religious leaders and political authorities and even the masses of the people to receive with understanding what he had to say. It’s always that way with those who have the courage to be the next incarnation of the Christ within. Just another manifestation of the Cyclops waiting to bring out the hero in all of us. So get in there and do it!” 01/23/2012
Virginia Landscape, Hwy 52 between Fancy Gap and Hillsville—January 20, 2012 — Edward Hicks painted over a hundred versions of “The Peaceable Kingdom” between 1820 and his death in in 1849. That’s having to get it right—having to do it well. This is the primary distinction between the artist in both the practical arts and the fine arts and those who aspire to be artists by doodling around, owning all the props and wearing the costume. A plumber is as much an artist in what he does as the painter or the poet is in what she does. What makes them both artists is the drive to do it well. My wife has never taken a landscape photograph in her life, but she has landscaped beautifully and well the yards of every house we’ve lived in. It’s where your gift lies. Everyone is an artist who knows what gift she, he, has been given and lives to serve that gift, to bring it forth and do it well according to his or her own sense of perfection, no matter what the critics say—and the critics there be many whether they get paid to write reviews or snicker about your flowerbed as they walk down the street. What do you have to do well? Who says when it’s done well? Joseph Campbell said, “If you can do something you love to do without fear of criticism, you will move. You will feel the joy in it. You don’t have to move more than an inch to feel the joy. Remember, the Buddha’s third temptation was duty, doing what people expect you to do. That’s the censorship fear.” Live your art, express your gift, do your work—and do it well, according to your own sense of completion. 01/24/2012
North Carolina Wetlands, Guilford County near Summerfield, NC—January 15, 2012 — In order to wake up we have to bear the pain, the discomfort, the uncertainty of waking up. Waking up requires us to leave the fixed ideas—the things our Mama told us, or the Preacher told us, or the Bible told us, etc.—behind and begin trusting our own judgment based on our own experience and our own intuitive, instinctive, sense of what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. The transition between always knowing what to do because somebody told you to do it and why would they lie and deciding what to do even though there is no way of knowing for sure if that is the right thing to do but you are going to take a chance and be responsible for dealing with the outcome no matter what it turns out to be—this is a terrible place to be, emotionally, psychologically. This is growing up, leaving home, waking up to our own sense of how things are and how they also are and what needs to be done about it. It is much easier to follow orders, to go where we are led, to do what we are told. We get the shakes and the 2AM terrors when we take our life in our own hands and live it as we think it needs to be lived. Another of the 10,000 manifestations of the Cyclops blocking our way, saying to us, “If you want to wake up, grow up and be alive, you’re gonna have to come through me,” grinning. 01/25/2012
Wetlands Sunrise Panorama, Four Mile Creek Greenway, Charlotte, NC—December 26, 2011 — The moment does not last or return. This is the foundational lesson of photography and of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle.” Don’t be throwing away any moments. Treasure each one. Do with it what needs to be done with it. It is a pearl of great price—and the stone tossed aside by the builders. So, which is it? It’s your moment. Which do you say it is? 01/25/2012
Wetlands Sunrise Panorama, Four Mile Creek Greenway, Charlotte, NC—December 26, 2011 — We—that is the “I Want, I Fear, I Lothe,” side of us—have to disappear in order that we—that is who we are called to become, the True Human Being, the Christ, the Buddha, within—might come forth into the world of normal, apparent, reality. We disappear and come forth into the moment of our living when we see the moment as a meditation point and allow it to open us to the truth of how things are and how things also are. Our life is not the arena where we amass what we want and avoid what we don’t want, but the matrix within which we are born and grow into who we are. The goal of the spiritual journey is our emergence into our self. Our self is the pearl of great price and the stone the builders reject. So is the moment of our living. We have to see our self and the moment for what they are and for what they also are, and consciously move from the wanting-fearing-loathing me to the trusting-gracious-compassionate me in an “It is no longer I who live but the Christ who lives in me” kind of way. We do this by allowing the moment to show us who we are and who we also are and let go what is going and let come what is coming—in a “The old has passed away, behold the new has come,” and “I must decrease (so that I might) increase” kind of way. It’s all laid out there in the holy writ of all religions. Only takes seeing to know it is so. 01/26/2012
Revolution Mill, Greensboro, NC—January 26, 2012 — People don’t want to do the work. They want to read about the work, listen to lectures about the work, watch interviews of people who are doing the work, but they don’t want to do it themselves. You. Have. To. Do. The. Work. Waking up. Growing up. Facing up. Squaring up. Standing up. And doing what needs to be done—what needs you to do it—in each situation as it arises. People just want to feel better about their lives, their lot, their place in the world. They don’t want to do the work required to get better. To have a life. To be alive. They just want to have it made and be happy. Don’t let me be talking about you. 01/26/2012
Textile Mill Ruins 01, Franklinville, NC, Built in the 1930’s, closed down in the 1970’s, burned in 2010 — January 25, 2012 — Think of the work as running consciously, intentionally, with full awareness into an unmovable wall. It is impossible. It cannot be done. The work of being a True Human Being. Ridiculous. Whose idea is this? The Wall is what we encounter when we take what we have to do, what has to be done, what is ours to do (ending poverty, feeding the hungry, preaching the gospel—some gospel, any gospel—paying the bills, etc.), in one hand and what we have to do it with (the nature and circumstances of the life we are born into including our genetic makeup, call it our fate) in the other hand and try to get them together. In each of us, our fate (what we have to work with) meets our destiny (what we have to do). In that equation, our perspective, outlook, attitude, courage, spirit makes all the difference. Our Moxie hits The Wall. How much can we take? How long can we keep up our spirit for the work, our Moxie for the Wall? How soon do we have to have results before we say to hell with it and see how much beer we can drink before we die? Two things keep us going. The title of a Paul Watzlawick book, “The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious” is one key to keeping at it. We are losing but what do we have to lose? The other is the splendid company of those with us who also understand the nature of what we are about and wink at us from time to time as if to say, “Let’s go show that Wall a thing or two!” 01/27/2012
Light on Grandfather Mountain, Price Lake, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—December 12, 2011 — We are stuck with the problem of having to interpret our experience correctly in order to incorporate it properly and respond to it well. The meaning we assign to things determines the way we live with things. It all comes down to eyes that see, ears that hear, and a heart that understands. When we flub up the basic tasks of seeing, hearing and understanding, things go downhill fast. Here’s a hint for you: It is all metaphorical. Here’s another: Everything is a starting point for meditation. Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Cinderella can be read as the process of a young woman’s maturation into the strength of her own womanhood and tackling life as a fully operational human being, waking up to the masculine/active powers of her own makeup. Is that the right interpretation? Sit with it and see how it sits with you. See where it leads you. See what it has to offer. And decide for yourself how you will interpret the fairy tales. Do the same with everything whose meaning you have assumed you’ve grasped. Consider how else you might have interpreted the event/experience. See where it goes. How things are is neatly complimented by how things also are. Fixed ideas and One Way Only Thinking are the quickest ways to get untracked I know of, Oh, except for Telling Ourselves What We Want To Hear. 01/27/2012
Textile Mill Ruins 02, Franklinville, NC—January 25, 2012 — Built in the 1930’s, closed down in the 1970’s, burned in 2010 — Play to the right crowd, that’s what I say. Live to make the right people happy—to please the people who know what’s pleasing. You find these people by pulling up from your own depths what is deepest, best and truest about you and seeing who smiles. In his Flower Sermon, the Buddha held out a flower, which is where every sermon should stop, and one person in the crowd smiled. You may find you are working with the same percentage. Great. Play to that crowd! Keep them before you when surrounded by the glassy eyes and the cat calls and the complaints and the sarcasm as you bring out the flowers. You’ll be just fine. 01/28/2012
Used in Short Talks on Contradictions, etc., Country Y, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—December 13, 2011 — We have to work it out. The Work is working it out. The Way is working it out. We work it out with ourselves, with one another, with the Neighbor and the Enemy and the Sister-in-Law (you know the one I mean), with all sentient beings everywhere. Working it out is reconciliation, integration, peace and wholeness. Working it out is coming to terms with mutual exclusive interests, wishes, desires, claims—with contradictions, conflicts, ambivalences internally and externally. We have to work it all out. We have to work our lives out, what we will do and not do, how we will live, who we will be. There is no end to it. Negotiation and compromise, kid. Negotiation and compromise. If you can walk up to that and give it a big, juicy, wet one right on the kisser, you have it made as much as you can have it made, and you’re one of my kind of people. 01/28/2012
Tobacco Barn, Guilford County, NC—January 27, 2012 — The first order of business, maybe the only order of business, is figuring out how to get our way. Crying works for a while, sometimes forever. Most of us have to learn increasingly sophisticated ways of getting our way. Power, control, seduction are three favorite cards to play. We barter. We trade. We buy low and sell high. The only thing money is good for is getting our way. Indoctrination and propaganda? Somebody’s strategy for getting their way. You have it. I want it. And I have to figure out how to get it. This is the basic dynamic at work in all of our relationships: Getting what we want while keeping other people from getting what we have. Then comes along the idea that getting, having, owning, possessing, acquiring, amassing isn’t what we think it is. We, some of us, wake up to the realization that what we value is over-rated. Sometimes that leads to despair and despondency and sometimes it comes in conjunction with the crazy notion that there is more to life than living would lead us to believe. That we are being asked to give up everything, so to speak, to give up our attachment to things, to let nothing matter more than our allegiance to That Which Calls Our Name. And we follow That Which Calls Us along strange paths, into the company of unfamiliar people who we recognize as friends—no family—into the land of no boundaries or walls, and know what it means to be alive for the first time. 01/29/2012
Glencoe Mill Village, A Renovated Mill House Community, Glencoe, NC—January 29, 2012 — Cotton beat the everlasting hell out of the working poor. From the field hands who chopped Johnson Grass and then picked and stuffed into long bags for a penny a pound, to the mill workers who inhaled cotton dust and belonged to the company, we rose to the top of the textile world on the backs of those with their backs to the wall. We are doing the same thing today with the Chinese labor market. Profit making becomes profiteering in a wink. And we all like a bargain. Who pays for the savings we relish? It isn’t The Man. The Man always makes his. But, what to do? The Man is laughing because we have no effective recourse. A world-wide minimum wage would be a start. Think that would float at the UN? About like Gay rights. Here is one more place where what is right and what is wrong is very clear and no mechanism exists to right the wrong the advantaged classes always exact on the disadvantaged classes across societies and cultures, nations and ages. But, what to do? Wake up. Each one of us. Individually. Personally. Compassionately identify with the “least of these my (and your) brothers and sisters” world-wide throughout time. It will make a difference for the good by changing even slightly how we live. How we live matters. 01/29/2012
Pecan Hulls, Old Ardrey Kell Road, Charlotte, NC—December 26, 2011 — The real difficulties have no solutions. There is no fix for much that is wrong about our life. Alcoholism and Autism and Alzheimer’s and I’m only in the “A’s.” I haven’t gotten to a parent dying prematurely or a child dying at any time. We would all be old by the time I got to the end of the list. The list has no end. We labor beneath burdens we cannot bear or lay down, deal with problems we cannot solve. Don’t let it get you down. This is the way it is but. It is not the only way it is. It is not all there is. There is also what needs to be done, what needs us to do it, the life we have to live—anyway, nevertheless, even so. “Oh, but how can we go on?” we say, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” It’s called Walking Two Paths At The Same Time. This doesn’t cancel out That. We have problems that have no solution AND we have a life yet to be lived. We cannot be dying before our time. Our task, our work, is to live until we are dead, stiff and not breathing, but alive and looking for that which needs what we have to offer, for the life that needs us to live it—not because it’s a duty but because it is a joy, it’s where we come to life, it’s where we counter the weight of the world with life and light and peace and all the other old values that are at the heart of all that is worthy of us. Life is sorrowful AND we embrace The Deal and “participate joyfully” in the beauty and wonder of being alive, doing what we can imagine doing to establish “the other pole” and maintain the polarity between sorrow and joy all our lives long. 01/30/2012
Glencoe Mill Door, Glencoe, NC—January 29, 2012 — Repeat after me: This is it! This is it! This is it! And this: If it gets better it will be because of what I do to make it better! There is magic out there, don’t get me wrong, but it is largely conditional on what we do in response to how things are. That makes us, in a manner of speaking, the magicians, the wizards and wizettes. We bring magic to bear upon the way things are by the way we respond to the way things are. We keep waiting for magic to happen to us. It happens THROUGH us. Big difference. 01/30/2012
Flood Plain Wetlands, Lake Brandt, Greensboro, NC—January 21, 2012 — Our perspective is the magic wand transforming all of life, the magic carpet whisking us into new worlds. Our life rides our perspective into all it might become. 01/31/2012
Pecan Hulls, Old Ardrey Kell Road, Charlotte, NC—December, 26, 2011 — To what do you say no? To what do you say yes? Your no’s and yes’s have gotten you to this point in your life. How have you been doing? 01/31/2012
Textile Mill Ruins 03, Franklinville, NC—January 25, 2012 — Built in the 1930’s, closed down in the 1970’s, burned in 2010 — We are constantly having to adjust ourselves to how things are. This is not what we do best. We hate it. We would prefer alcohol in large quantities. Or any one of the 10,000 addictions to divert us from the task at hand: Squaring up to how it is and doing what must be done about it. Every year I have to do my taxes. Think I rush gleefully to embrace the task? How long does it take? Maybe four hours, with regular breaks for sustenance and courage. It might as well be Life At Hard Labor. I’m going to publish an eBook of these photos and reflections but I have to use a program I am not familiar with to format the content. You would think I was fifteen having to call a girl for a date. Or having to dance with the girl once we got to the party. And you would think I might get better at just doing what has to be done. Hate to disappoint you but. I buck and snort all the way. And you can’t tell me anything to make the process easier. I’m going to hate doing taxes next year. And the year following. Adjusting ourselves to the way things are is not our strong suit. It’s another manifestation of the Cyclops laughing at us, drooling. And we have to gather ourselves again, draw ourselves up and go spit in his ugly damn eye. That’s just how it is. 01/31/2012
Stone Mountain Vista, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—November 11, 2011 — Start with what excites you and see where it goes. This is not easy. William Alexander Percy nails it: “They cast their nets in Galilee/Just off the hills of brown/Such happy, simple fisherfolk/Before the Lord came down…” Before they went with what excited them. And found out where it took them. But. It remains our best bet at what James Hollis calls “an interesting, meaningful life.” Understand though, it won’t work out like you think it might, hope it will. Back to Percy: “Contented, peaceful, fishermen/Before they ever knew/The peace of God that filled their hearts/Brimful, and broke them, too.” The peace of God is being on the beam, on track, fulfilling your destiny, doing what your life needs you to do and knowing you are right in the center of where you need to be. You pay a price to be there. The Cyclops grins, knowing about our tendency for second thoughts, our lust for shortcuts and Easy Street, the likelihood of our cutting and running. See where it goes! Abdicate control! Trust yourself explicitly to whatever “fills your heart brimful.” It will be quite the ride. 02/01/2012
Tobacco Barn 02, Guilford County, NC—January 27, 2012 — We are all Moses in search of the Promised Land like a man on his ox looking for his ox like a woman with her sunglasses on her head looking for her sunglasses. We are what we seek. “Thou Art That!” “Get in there and do your thing, and don’t worry about the outcome!” “Start with what excites you and see where it goes!” This is not difficult. We make it difficult by wanting someone to explain it to us, and hand us the rules, and give us a road map, make certain we are doing it right, and tell us what to do. It’s your life—LIVE IT! From the ground up. From the inside out. Beginning right now. And don’t keep score. 02/01/2012
Black Birch B, Blue Ridge Parkway, Rocky Knob, VA—January 20, 2012 — Prosperity is having enough money to buy what it takes to do what needs to be done the way only you can do it—to do what needs you to do it. We buy the tools required to do the work. Maybe you need a Grand Piano. Or a barn. You need a set up. A poet needs something to write with, and on. We need enough money to pay the right bills. We have to know what the right bills are. And the wrong ones. And incur the right ones. And we have to use the tools we buy in the service of the work that is ours to do. We can’t settle for looking like a writer, with the latest laptop and maybe a beret. We have to actually write. Every day. Not when the mood strikes and we have an inspiration. A big hat and spurs don’t a cowboy make. Or a pickup. It takes more than a pickup. You have to be able to back a trailer. And get a cow in it. Exactly when does a cowboy become a cowboy? It’s a heart thing. A being thing. Not a costume thing. A cowboy is a cowboy when a cowboy does what cowboys do. Mend fences, brand cattle, shoe horses, roundup strays… It isn’t about having the cowboy look about you. Same goes for the work that is your work to do. You. Have. To. Do. The. Work. You can’t just buy the tools. 02/01/2012
Rock Castle Creek, Rock Castle Gorge, Blue Ridge Parkway near Tuggle Gap, VA—November 03, 2011 — Everything is an entry point for reflection and meditation, a threshold to another world. Everything has metaphorical qualities—there is more to it than meets the eye—inviting us to consider what else—what all—there is to it and wake up to possibilities and alternatives beyond counting beneath the surface of our lives. Every strong emotion, love, attraction, desire, fear, anger, desperation, despair, loathing, hatred, jealousy, resentment…is a call to consider what is going on here. What is the pull, the push, the compulsion, the obsession ALL about? The antecedents come together in a great Gordian Knot of emotional entanglement and it is our place to untie the threads and see where they lead, remembering, experiencing, reconciling, integrating, incorporating, deepening, expanding, enlarging, seeing, hearing, understanding, knowing, becoming, growing and repeating the process throughout our lives, meeting ourselves again and again until we all are one. 02/02/2012
Greenbriar Highway, Greenbriar District, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN—November 30, 2011 — Enlightenment settles us into our life, into the way things are, into how it is with us and what we can do about it, into what is called for from us in response to the way things are. If you couldn’t bat .350 before enlightenment, you won’t be able to bat .350 after enlightenment. But, if it mattered to you before enlightenment, it may not matter to you after enlightenment. Enlightenment shifts what’s important, rearranges priorities, increases the amount of stuff we send to the dump. Lightens our load. Dances us along the way. 02/02/2012
Flowers of Spring, Crocus, Bicentennial Garden, Greensboro, NC—February 02, 2012 — We do what is ours to do, say what is ours to say, right up to the end and let that be that. Why hold anything back? Why wait? Know what the pressing matters are and tend them. Things are always coming up which push other things to the side. When you break your arm, you may not type for a while but. You do what you can while you can when you can how you can in doing what is yours to do, saying what is yours to say. And trust that it will be enough. We all die before the work is done, before the things that need to be said are all said. That’s the magic of the work, of the talk—it lives on, and we all take our turn, as we are able, serving one another in the task of life. 02/03/2012
Grown Over, Near Sparta, NC—February 02, 2012 — This was once the Big House. Still is a big house. “Time and chance happen to us all.” So, we have to be awake to Joseph Campbell’s observation, “Everything that comes, goes,” and let that be, because it is, and stop acting like living in the Big House is something, because it isn’t. 02/03/2012
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., Flowers of Spring 02, Crocus, Bicentennial Garden, Greensboro, NC—February 02, 2012 — We need a weapon to defend ourselves against those who attack and kill, brutalize and destroy. There are bad guys (mostly guys, anyway) who rape, pillage, burn or worse and laugh about it. The Dali Lama flees the onslaught but seeks protection of those who have weapons and will use them in his defense. It’s a fine line that is wasted on me, not killing but taking refuge with those who will. All the heroes had weapons. Give us laser swords to carve out a safe space for our OM’s and peaceful way of life. So what if it is a contradiction? Everything is! Give us something with which to draw a line! “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword” is no excuse to not use the sword—those who DON’T live by the sword die by the sword! At least, with swords in hand they have to think before the run us over, or through. Ah but, the meek and defenseless drift through time as refugees with no place to settle, to be. Bullied about, told to leave, praying for deliverance and hoping to just be left alone. The monks and hermits seek poverty and high mountain caves to have nothing to lose and nothing to invite attack, the rest live on the run, the plight of the gentle-hearted and kind, who can’t be intimate, authentic, genuine and real without being vulnerable and exposed. It’s a hell of a price for true-human-being-hood, but warriors have their own brand of brokenness with which to deal. And those who know know we heal one another with sighs too deep for words. 02/04/2012
Flowers of Spring 03, Crocus, Bicentennial Garden, Greensboro, NC—February 02, 2012 – We’ve never had optimal conditions within which to work but. Our conditions have brought us forth in a way that optimal could not have done. So don’t think twice about your working conditions. “Get in there and do your thing and don’t worry about the outcome!” (Joseph Campbell) 02/04/2012

One Minute Monologues 002

08/17/2011 — 11/16/2011

Black-eyed Susans and Purple Cone Flowers, Blowing Rock, NC—Everybody wants to bail out from time to time, to eject from this world and float happily down into some other, better, world. Everybody. The Buddha got his start wanting to escape this world. Jesus said, “How long must I bear with you? I can’t wait until I’m out of here!” (or words to that effect). It’s a universal human malady, not wanting what we have, wanting what we can’t have. Something we all have to square up with over and over at different points in our life. So, we need one another to remind us that it is the most natural thing in the world to feel this way, and to encourage us to look our life in the eye and see it as another manifestation of the Cyclops standing in our path, grinning. Here comes the mantra you have to embrace, understand, comprehend, believe and recite: “It’s all hopeless, meaningless, useless, pointless and futile, and coming to a very bad end (we all die, you know)–AND how we live in the meantime makes all the difference!” Look at the difference the Buddha made, and Jesus. And they didn’t change one thing about the world they didn’t like. So, you have to rearrange your thinking about the influence for good you have in your world, and pick yourself up and live your life as only you can live it, with the right attitude and right spirit about you, as a blessing and a grace upon all who come your way. We have to remind one another to do that, because we all want to bail out from time to time, and how we live through that makes all the difference. 08/17/2011
Coming In, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—No one can tell us, show us, hand us what is meaningful. We know it on our own. If we are living meaningless, empty lives, it’s our own fault. We said “No” too many times to too many things. We said “No!” to things that were “Yesses,” and we knew it but. We allowed our principles to stop us, or our responsibilities, or our concern for what Those Who Know Best would say. Or we turned away because our Mama or Daddy wouldn’t approve, or because we couldn’t afford it, or because our circumstances wouldn’t allow it. When we let someone else set the course of our life, we are headed for empty and meaningless. When we live in a hole, or a corner, because we will not unleash our imagination and trust ourselves to find ways to serve what is meaningful in spite of our circumstances, we resign ourselves to empty and meaningless. There is a price to be paid for living a meaningful life—some risks to be accepted, some chances to be taken. The Hero’s Journey is not for the faint-hearted, the timid and shy. It is for those who realize there is nothing really to lose so why hold anything back. The good news is that it is never too late to start living meaningful lives. The question for us is always the same at every point in our lives: How alive can you be in the time left for living? We owe it to ourselves to find out. 08/18/2011
Beaver Pond Reflection, Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—We need the company of the right kind of others to remind us that we have what we need, which is a very good thing because no one can give it to us—our sense of direction, our “feel for the game,” our intuitive grasp of the situation as it unfolds/arises, our sense of flow and timing, our realization of what resonates with us and what “rings true” or doesn’t, our instinctive notion of what is right for us and wrong, good for us and bad, our heart/spirit for holding on and hanging in and doing what needs to be done no matter how hard or how long, our courage and our resilience and our trust in ourselves to “rise to the occasion” and “take care of business” that is truly our business in ways appropriate to the circumstances… We need to be reminded of these things from time to time, and we need to hang out with people who can be our reminders and not try to make us dependent on them to do our living for us. We can do our living for ourselves with the kind of help that says, “Come on. You can do your own living, and if you are afraid you can’t, we’ll keep you company until you see that you can.” 08/18/2011
View from Signal Mountain Panorama, Grand Teton National Park, WY—The Trail will take as much from us as it gives to us. The taking is the key to the giving. If you walk the Trail, unbent, unbowed, unchanged—just all triumphant and smiley—you missed something crucial along the way. The Trail requires us to accommodate ourselves to the Trail, to hand ourselves over to the Trail, to become one with the Trail. It’s like this: There is what the Trail demands of you and what you demand of the Trail. The Trail is all Ups and you want all Downs. Something has to give. Guess what it is. It’s like this: There is your one-year-old daughter and there is you. The needs and interests of one conflict with, clash with, the needs and interests of the other. You both have to do your fair share of giving in to the other. Each of you is the Trail for the other. It’s like this: Life is an optical illusion, the old woman who is also a lovely young maiden. The Trail which is a mean SOB and you with your needs, wishes, and desires. You sit with an optical illusion until you can see the opposites and how the opposites are one illusion. The two are one. So you have to sit with the Trail or your daughter until you can see that you and the Trail are one and you and your daughter are one, merging, flowing, into and out of each other. Two, one, two, one… This is not about winning and losing but about accommodating ourselves, acquiescing, to what needs to happen in each moment. It is not surrender and defeat but growth and becoming. We are better people for having walked the Trail, for having the daughter, without having imposed our will on either. 08/19/2011
Cunningham Cabin, Grand Teton National Park, WY—If we are here to bring forth and make conscious and visible the high values of the invisible world, we could do a better job of it. The high values are often lost in the effort to have things our way—a problem identified as long ago as the early chapters of the Book of Genesis. This is not called making headway. The problem is compounded by each of us having to wake up to the problem individually and work it out alone. The church in all of its incarnations is evidence that there is no corporate solution, and we are left with the realization that it is up to us, personally, to wake up, grow up and get to work cultivating compassion, civility, grace, mercy, love, kindness, justice, awareness, insight, generosity, beauty, patience, joy, and all their companion values—bringing them forth in our lives, making them visible, tangible, real and ever-present in all of our moments of all of our days. This is the work that saves the world and it is ours to do alone. 08/19/2011
Streamside, Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—We tend to opt for the easiest life possible under the circumstances, that is the life most ruled by diversion, distraction, denial. We run, hide, escape from the pain of emptiness, meaninglessness, hopelessness, frustration, futility, grief, loss, sorrow and boredom in a regular and recurring way. “Give them circuses” (or it’s equivalent, drugs, sex, alcohol and all forms of plastic) keeps the masses, that would be us, from roaming the countryside bent on aimless destruction, rioting and mob violence because they/we can’t think of anything else to do. Facing up to and bearing the pain of being alive would be something else to do. We have a life. What are we going to do with it? With the resources at our disposal? In this context? These circumstances? We have been sentenced to life in this here and this now as it is. What are we going to do about it? We have no idea. So we run for the circuses in all forms to take our mind off the problem of what to do with our life and the givens we have to work with. And all the while, the invisible world—that would be the world of our soul/Psyche/Self—waits for our cooperation, collaboration. We have all the help we need “right here.” It only takes waking up to it to know that it is so. Perspective is the best tool in the whole toolbox. With the slightest shift in perspective, everything changes. Seeing, hearing, understanding transforms our world and we live to transform the entire world of normal, apparent reality. We save the world by becoming awake, aware, alive in our world, in this here and this now—by becoming awake, aware, alive to the other world, the invisible world, the world of soul/Psyche/Self. To do that, we have to look beyond circuses and plastic to see what else is there, here, now. 08/20/2011
Rosebay Rhododendron, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—Every living thing has something to worry about, whether it knows it or not. The trick here is not to arrange our lives so as to be worry-free, with things like high walls, guarded entrances, a physician on call at all times and more money than we can count, much less spend. The trick is to trust ourselves to deal appropriately with whatever arises. “Bring it on! Show me what ‘cha got! Hit me with your best shot!” We’ll find a way. Always have. Always will. It’s something else we have in common with every living thing. Life finds a way, and lives (and loves) on! 08/20/2011
Monroe, NC Depot—We spend too much time and energy trying to keep things as they are in an effort to avoid the work that is to be done. The real work that we put off indefinitely, resist eternally, is to let go what’s going and let come what’s coming. You get that down, you got it made.
Taggett Lake, Grand Teton National Park, WY—How much money would we have to pay you to not do what you love to do? I hope they don’t make that much money. You couldn’t buy my camera from me, or pay me to not take photos. My wife likes to say I could make a lot of money from photography if I just quit taking pictures. She thinks she’s funny. But. A lot of us don’t do what we love to do because we cannot sell it, market it, make money from doing it. That’s like being paid to not do it. It’s selling out. It’s being bought off. It’s corrupt, immoral, an outright betrayal of soul. We should be ashamed. We should be ashamed for connecting a monetary value to a spiritual endeavor. We should write poetry, draw, paint, teach children to read or just read ourselves, walk the dog in the woods, ride horses, play golf, fish, swim, run because we love to even though nothing is going to “come of it.” Carl Jung was quite the amateur artist, but he was careful not to market any of his paintings because that would cheapen their value, detract from their true worth, which was the connection they provided to his soul and the work they enabled him to do in understanding his soul and what his soul was communicating to him by way of symbols and images. What we love to do is soul stuff. Do it because you love it and see where it leads you—not in terms of financial profit and reward, but in terms of insight, understanding, grounding, centering, focusing, meaning, purpose, direction and the expression of the high values of the invisible world. 08/21/2011
Rosebay Rhododendron, Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—What are we going to do with the time left for living? This is a problem that cannot be solved by thinking about it. We cannot sit down and make our “Bucket List” of things we want to do before we “kick the bucket,” and hope to come close to the things we need to do in the time that is ours. What does wanting know? Remember your first marriage? You wanted that. Need I say more? Knowing what we need to do with the time left for living is a problem that can only be solved through prayer. But. This is not prayer as it has devolved. We think of prayer as a wireless network for placing orders and requests to a kindly Santa Claus in the sky. We ask, we receive. Simple. Wrong. Stop thinking about getting and start thinking about being. Prayer is the practice of seeking the beam and being aligned with the life that is our life to live, which needs us to live it. Prayer is meditation, contemplation, introspection, and openness to how things are and also are and what needs to be done about it. Prayer is listening for what needs us to do it, here and now, in the situation as it arises. As we move toward what needs us to do it, we find what we need to do it, but rarely more than we need. Prayer is a way of seeing what needs to be done—the path to insight and enlightenment. It is an attitude, an orientation, that takes it all in and perceives responses that are fitting and proper so that we might do what is being asked of us. It is the way of finding our way into what we are going to do with the time left for living, and doing it. 08/22/2011
Linville Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC—We would do well to live more instinctively, more intuitively. We think we have to think things out and make careful, reasoned choices because we might be asked to defend, justify, excuse or explain our actions. We live such tight little defensive lives that we might as well be dead. Anything with life about it is all over the place. Puppies, kittens and children, for example. Not us. We don’t run to do anything except run and we time our distances even there. What do we JUST DO??? FOR NO REASON??? Make this a regular part of your spiritual practice. Just doing stuff that you instinctively, intuitively, sense it’s time to do for no reason other than it’s time has come. 08/22/2011
Yellowstone Canyon and River, Yellowstone National Park, WY—Pay the fare and ride the ride, that’s my best advice. What are we holding back for, saving up for? So far as we can tell this is our one shot at life. Why not live while the time for living is upon us? We are afraid of what, exactly? Where is it you have never been that you have always put off going? What is it you have never done that you have always put off doing? How is it that you are refusing to live the life that is waiting to be lived? Why are you keeping it on hold? When do you expect to start living? To move beyond the normal routines, the familiar patterns, the cow track from the barn to the pasture and back to the barn? You think you are safe and secure not venturing out into the life that is dying for you to live it? Lightening could hit the barn tonight. It’s all going up in smoke eventually. Make a routine of shaking up your routine. Create a pattern of life that includes wiggles, whizzes, slides and splashes. Invite the unknown, the unpredictable, the startling and disquieting into your life. See what happens. 08/23/2011
Grandfather Mountain from Rich Mountain, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—We think with enough money everything else will fall into place. This is a happy fantasy implanted by a culture grounded on a money-based economy. It’s a mindset. A foundational assumption. And we serve it with our lives. We would be better off serving our life with our lives—the life that has a mind of its own, the life that has its idea of how we should be living, which is not dependent on having a lot of money. But we think our life is what we do with money. We have no grasp of life apart from our ideas of how we spend our money. Listen. To. Me. We have a life separate from our ideas of our life which has ideas for us and the way we need to live. Cut off from our life’s idea of itself, we are left on our own to invent a life for ourselves. The smart thing to do would be to find our way back to our life and its idea for itself and for us. Of course, that would be hard to do, but to not do it is to do things the hard way. Eventually, we get to the point of doing what’s hard and wonder why we didn’t do it that way in the first place. Our life has been wondering that all along. 08/23/2011
Beaver Pond Reflection, Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—An art dealer told me my photos don’t sell because there is too much blue in them. “People don’t buy blue,” she said, “certainly not bright blue. They are looking for something to go with their sofa, their carpet and their walls.” A quick perusal of my photos will turn up dump truck loads of those that will never sell. Well. The Paleolithic paintings on the wall of the cave in Lascaux, France didn’t sell for 17,000 years. How’s that for not selling? And it didn’t stop the artists from painting. The soul loves an image, it seems. I’m serving my soul with my photography. I’m doing with my photographs what the cave artists did with their pigments and their charcoal and chipping stones. I’m soothing myself, grounding myself, centering myself, calming myself, making it right, somehow, with my soul that things are as they are. When I’m out of sorts, feeling down, grumpy, snarly, pouty, at loose ends and at war with every little thing, I gather up the camera and we go settle me down by finding images that restore my equilibrium and still my soul. I’m particularly fond of blue. And if not one of them ever sells, when you factor in what I’ve saved in psychotherapy bills, you’ll see that I come out way ahead in this game, and we haven’t taken into account prescription medication. 08/24/2011
Great, ahem, Blue Heron, the Bog Garden Pond (AKA Starmount Farms Pond), Greensboro, NC—If you want to come to life in the life you’re living, to be alive in the deepest, fullest sense—vibrant, alert, aware of the moment and loving everything about it—you have to find the symbols that grab you and be grabbed by them. Now, a symbol represents something that cannot be said. A sign is just what it is. A stop sign is nothing more than a stop sign. Our symbols have been turned into signs. In the Christian church, for instance, the cross and the communion table, mean just what we have been told they mean, no more and certainly no less. The symbol has become a sign. Not a good thing to have happen to your symbols. In order to bring us to life, our symbols have to be alive—they have to have infinite depths capable of being eternally explored. In order for THAT to happen, we have to reclaim our symbols and the mystery behind them, and immerse ourselves in the wonder of more than words can say. In order to do THAT, we have to say what is true for us about the symbol using words that have never been said. But, here’s the catch, for our symbols to come alive for us in this way, we have to free them and ourselves from the explanations—the theology—we have been handed and told to believe. We have to sit with our symbols and let ourselves imagine what else there is about them that is also true which we have never been told is true. This is resurrecting the symbol. As we bring our symbols to life, they bring us to life, and we dance through the rest of our days. 08/24/2011
Footbridge on the Rough Ridge Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—What makes us think that a man or a woman would make all the difference in our life? That romance is the solution to all of our problems today and tomorrow? After romance, there’s the laundry, the yard work, the cat to the vet and life is back to what it was before romance. Romance is a happy interlude between all the next damn things that demand our time and attention. Romance is not all it is cracked up to be. Nothing is. But. Everything, romance included, is an opportunity to look closer, to dig deeper, to wake up to the depth, and breadth, and wonder of life. Falling in love is an amazing aspect of being alive—an invitation into the depths of life—and we would be crazy to pass it up, to dismiss it as nothing more than a “happy interlude.” It is an opportunity to explore the questions that lead to wherever it is that we are going: What do we need a man or a woman for? What do we need him or her to help us do? What do we imagine the “right man” or “right woman” will bring into the relationship with us? What characteristics and qualities will he, will she, exude? Who can we count on him, on her, to be? What are the deficits that he, that she, will counteract? From what will he, will she, save us? How will our life be different with him, with her in it? And, here’s the jewel, What does thinking about him or her keep us from thinking about? While you wait for the right man or woman to come along, consider the questions. Ponder them. Explore them. Follow them out. See where they lead, what other questions they raise, how they change your life. 08/25/2011
Gardiner, MT—Gardiner is the Northwest Entrance to Yellowstone and a great place to find lunch and regional art work in the shops along the street—We can never be sure where we are going with our lives. We await inspiration, direction, clarity, focus, invitation, chance, grace, luck, the reappearance of the white rabbit… The white rabbit is always coming again, and we have to be ready, watching, waiting. This is the kind of eschatological promise we can count on—the coming of the white rabbit is always at the end of time for one time in our life and the beginning of time for another. The Second Coming is not the Final Coming, just the one after the first and before the third. How many comings are there? Depends on how well you respond to them. Could be thousands. Could be only one, waiting and waiting for you to wake up to its calling and get on with your new life. We live only once? Hardly. We live as many lives as we can cram into a lifetime—if we are up for it. In each moment we stand before an infinite number of futures and choose one. Is it an inspired choice? The right choice? Takes choosing to know for sure. We have to follow what appears to be the white rabbit for a while before we know if it is the white rabbit, or a red herring, or a wild goose. Takes going to know, which means we cannot be afraid of being wrong. The roots of tomorrow’s Right are grounded in yesterday’s Wrong. We are internally guided, self-correcting beings but. To be guided and corrected we have to be moving. We can’t wait long trying to decide if it’s a white rabbit or not. It will be gone by the time we make up our mind. We have to go to know. 08/26/2011
Dugger’s Creek Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC—There are questions we cannot ask, trains of association we cannot allow ourselves to board. This is where the conscious, willful, ego comes to the rescue of the invisible world, where we “save our soul.” Soul drifts toward the woeful sloughs of despond from time to time, and needs us—the conscious ego us—to will ourselves forward, to call ourselves up and on. In this work, to gather all of us for the work that is ours to do, our conscious self relies on an aspect of the invisible world other than soul: Spirit. Think of soul as the interface, the connector, between body and Spirit. As such, soul tends to be “of the earth,” moist, wet, sensual, passionate, etc., and can “lose the way” in its desire to experience fully the physical side of life—and can “give up the ghost” when physically things seem, or are, hopeless, “taking over” and “possessing” us with its moods. At this point, we have to remind soul (Talk about a role reversal!) of its connection to Spirit, and speak for Spirit sternly to soul. Spirit is “of the air and light,” high, clear, the source of highest value, always calling us to the best we can bring forth in every situation and circumstance. Spirit is, all together now, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-discipline”—and all the other values as well, including courage, compassion, grace, mercy, justice and perseverance. So, we call on Spirit to urge soul on, which gets us to the questions we cannot ask, the thoughts we cannot think but. The limitations of space here will make that a good topic for next time. 08/27/2011
Sunrise, Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park near Canyon Village, WY—“Why are you so downcast, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?” The Psalmist knew the ways of the soul, how it can “turn on a dime,” bright and shiny one minute and dull and down the next. Carl Jung says that there is no reason to think that all of our moodiness, or our shift in mood, is our doing, because all of our feelings don’t necessarily belong to us. He says that as participants in “the collective unconscious,” we may carry the unresolved emotional baggage of psychic entities we do not know. Heraclitus said in the 6^th century BCE, “If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road, so deep is its measure.” There is more to soul than we have likely considered. One thing to consider is its propensity for moods. We think we are feeling the mood when it may well be that soul is feeling the mood through us—we are the vehicle for making conscious soul’s moodiness. If that is the case, then we are in position to wake soul up to, and be responsible for, its own mood of the moment—and refuse to carry a mood that does not belong to us. If we are to stop indulging soul’s propensity to deepen its spiral downward, there are questions we must not ask, thoughts we must not think. They are: “So what? Who cares? Why try? What’s the use? What’s the point? What difference does it make?” And: “Nothing I do matters. It won’t do any good. Nothing good will come of it. It isn’t worth it. It’s a waste of time to try.” Things are difficult enough without our taking sides against ourselves. Our place is to look to the Spirit within as the everlasting source of encouragement and value, and live toward the best we can imagine in each moment, in each situation as it arises, “Anyway, nevertheless, even so!” 08/28/2011
Barn on Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, WY—The dance dances the dancer. The song sings the singer. When the dancer tries to dance the dance, or the singer tries to sing the song, it is apparent to everyone that things aren’t working. During my last eight years in the ministry (I’m retired), I enjoyed the freedom of an early service which allowed me to invite local singer/songwriters (not religious) to share their music each Sunday in lieu of traditional hymns and praise bands. I relished the time with these folks and their music but. A couple of them looked beyond the music to making it big. The ones who actually made it big—one won a Grammy this past year, and another has enjoyed several appearances on A Prairie Home Companion and written music for plays and orchestra productions—were at one with their music, loved their music, and were in it—are in it—for the pure joy of the music. The others, the ones who were looking for success and using music to get there, are still looking, and will be always. I translate this into photography like so: Don’t step into a scene looking to take THE photo of that scene. Step into every scene bent on taking ALL the photos that scene affords as though each one is THE photo. Enjoy the entire process, the looking as much as the seeing, the seeking as much as the finding. It’s all photography. What’s making it big going to do for you that you don’t have going for you right here, right now? You have a camera—you have a scene—what more could you possibly want? 08/28/2011
Summer Wetlands, Guilford County near Greensboro, NC—We cannot be self-directed, self-determined, self-correcting without being self-reflective. We have to think about who we are and what we are about and how we decide to do what we do and what we mean, what we intend, with our lives. A life is not automatic. A life does not flow naturally from being 98.6 and breathing. We can live without being alive. The idea is to be fully, vibrantly alive in the time of our living—in the time left for living. We don’t do that accidentally. If we are going to be alive, we have to work at it, asking, seeking, knocking, looking, listening, inquiring. Ours is the work of developing eyes that see, ears that hear and a heart that understands, so that we might see what we look at, hear what we listen to, grasp what is before us and bring what we have to offer alive in each moment of living as a blessing and a grace to the moment and to all who share it with us. May we always see things as they are (which includes how they also are), be clear and correct about what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, and have the courage to do it. Amen! May it be so! 08/30/2011
Peach Orchard, Springs Farm, Fort Mill, SC—It’s easy to love God when all is well with our life, or when we think loving God is the key to having all things be well with our life. As long as things are fine, or as long as we think God is in charge of things becoming fine, love is in the air but. Let life have its way with us and we are right in their with Job, railing, ranting at the God we loved, or curled in a fetal position wondering where God is and why the God we loved so allowed things to be as they are. God is not our ace in the hole or our heavenly hedge against the complete loss of everything—or everything that ever mattered. God is our partner in making this moment all it can be, in doing what truly needs to be done in each situation as it arises—which may not have anything in common with what we think needs to be done, or which we are told (by Those Who Know Best) what needs to be done. God has funny ideas about what needs to be done, so it’s hard to predict what it will be in any here and now—which means we have to take chances and hurl ourselves into what we think needs to be done when, as it turns out, wasn’t what needed to be done at all, but. Doing it opened our eyes to what we can do about it to redeem it, resurrect it, in the next moment or the one after that. We live to bring ourselves forth in the life we are living—to live life as it needs to be lived in each situation—to live our life better than God could live it in our place, and get only having done it out of it. That’s playing the game the way the game was meant to be played. Batter up! 08/31/2011
Spider Web, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—Is it a blip? Or, is it a glitch? Or, is it a portent of things to come? Takes living with it to know. The problem is that we want everything to be all right right now, but. Our lives move in and out of all right and good enough all our lives long—and each time, we don’t trust our ability to adapt one more time. We have enough stress in our lives when things are fine. Even when it’s easy, it’s hard. We don’t need the roof to start leaking, the toilet to back-up, the dog to barf on the floor. Well. What helps you through? How do you soothe your soul? Calm yourself? Gather yourself? Provide yourself with the wherewithal to step into the situation and do what is needed one more time? I write it out. Take the camera and go looking. And I carry with me always the happy fantasy of a community something like the regulars in Cheers, with the difference that the one of my dreams would be focused on helping its members face up to and find ways of dealing with the reality of their life. Talking it out. Absent that kind of “community of innocence,” talking becomes writing for me. Whatever squares us up with our lives and enables us to look the angel of life in his/her ugly red eye and say to him/her, “I’m not letting you go until you give me the blessing!” is exactly what we need to walk with the angel into every day. May we all find it and dance daily with the angel of life. 09/01/2011
Mallard Landing, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—There are no secrets. Everything is right out in the open. It only takes seeing things as they are (which includes seeing them as they also are) to see what needs to be done about them in each situation as it arises. We interfere with the process by tilting the table toward what we perceive to be our advantage, our gain, our profit, our benefit, our best interest. What needs to happen takes a back seat to what we want to happen and Dollar’s Law prevails: Stupidity trumps everything. We stand poised to play the Stupid Card in every moment, scoop up our winnings and head for the house. So, we have to see that, too, as a part of the way things are, and listen carefully, look closely, for what needs to be done, knowing that we really want to be stupid at every opportunity, and see if we have what it takes to avoid being stupid this time. 09/01/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Portrait of a Green Heron, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We wake up gradually, over the course of our life. Living wakes us up, if we can be awakened. Banging into the way things are wakes us up, if we can be awakened. Coming up against life as we have been not told that it is—as we do not want it to be—wakes us up, if we can be awakened. We dismiss, discount, too often what cannot be ignored. We expand our theories about the way things are to explain away the discrepancies and contradictions, and continue snoring and dreaming that the world is how we wish it were. Waking up is coming to terms with the differences between the world as it is and the world as we would like for it to be. I’m getting older by the minute. I cannot pretend that away and live as fully as I’m capable of living for as long as life is possible. My living has to take the reality of my life into account. So does yours. We adjust, adapt, consciously to the facts that define our existence. This is waking up to how things are and what can be done about them and what truly needs to happen in response to them. Every moment is not a call to action. Every situation is not one that asks us to Do Something Now! Often, we can only wait, watching, for the time to be right for our action to be right. Being awake to the moment, waiting for the time for action to come upon us is the key to a Green Heron’s existence, and ours. 09/02/2011
Sunset, Water Rock Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesville, NC—We work hard to make things work. We do what we can think to do. Working harder isn’t the answer. Perspective and luck are. Perspective takes it all into account: The situation, the Deal, the Way Things Are And Also Are, What Can Be Done About It, and Of That What Needs To Be Done Next—Here And Now. Nothing tops perspective—seeing into the heart of the matter, seeing things as they are and also are—for settling us into what needs to be done and doing it. Will it work? It’s out of our hands. That’s where luck comes in. Now, when I talk about luck, someone who has been told by someone else how to think, always says, “There is no such thing as luck! It’s all Providential! God’s Providence takes care of us all.” My stock reply is to say, “Aren’t we lucky that God is so providential?” Luck, you see, is a matter of perspective. Luck or Grace or Providence—it’s all the same. Call it what you will, it comes down to the fact that there is that which is out of our hands. If it helps, we are lucky, graced, providenced (Okay, I just made that word up). If it hurts, we are unlucky, disgraced, plagued and cursed. Farmers put everything into a crop that is washed away by a hurricane. We can only control our effort, not the outcome. We do what we can think to do and take our chances. And, when we are flat out of luck, we think of what to do about that—seeing things as they are and also are, what can be done about it, and, of that, what needs to be done next, now, here, and doing it. That’s the process that is not harmed by the daily prayer, “O God, Let me be lucky today!” 09/03/2011
Sunset, Water Rock Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesville, NC—I spent five minutes yesterday watching two snails making their way into their future. It’s astounding how far a snail can go in five minutes, given the fact that it isn’t moving at all. Handed this illustration of the Taoist principle of accomplishing everything without doing anything, I recalled a favorite Dollarism: “You can get anywhere if you go slowly enough.” I formulated this defense against my detractors when they deride me for my slow pace up a mountain trail. Some people, it seems see breathing hard as a sign of being out of shape. I see it as a sign of walking too fast. If you want to breathe easily, slow down. When they tell me to hurry up so I won’t miss anything, I tell them to slow down so they won’t miss anything. Clearly, there are different ways to get to the top of a mountain. The eagle has its way, the snail has its way. The best way, or the right way, is merely the way Those Who Know Best prefer. Left to find our own way up the mountain, we would distribute ourselves over the mountain side in a pattern that would reflect a “normal distribution curve,” with some racing to be first and some being happy to be last and most spread out in between. We would not be all bunched together in a sprint to the top. Just so with everything else about our lives. We find our own pace, our own rhythm, serve our own interests and inclinations, and spread out over the entire spectrum of life, loving what we love and doing what we do in ways that are commensurate with who we are, collaborating with soul and Spirit to come up with what is right for us in the time and place of our living. Amen! May it be so! 09/04/2011
Baxter Creek Bridge, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Big Creek Campgrounds, NC—We live on two levels at once. We walk two paths at the same time. Physical and spiritual. The physical realm has its requirements and demands, duties, obligations and responsibilities. So does the spiritual world. We balance, integrate, reconcile, make compatible the two worlds. Ideally. In practice, we always ignore the spiritual world in favor of the physical world. Sometimes we talk, talk, talk about how wonderful and important the spiritual world is, but. We live in the physical world as though we have never heard of the spiritual world. Which was Jesus’ complaint about the religious authorities of his day. Nothing has changed. So. Our work is cut out for us, bringing the spiritual world forth, giving it equal billing in our lives. We do that by paying attention to “the other side.” Our dreams, for instance. Our intuition, our instinct, the things that catch our eye, the things that resonate with us, that strike a cord, that turn our head. We give these things a place in our life, and live in this world as though that world is real. Which it is. It is the realest world, and the oldest. It was there before this one ever thought about coming into being. 09/04/2011
Mouse Creek Falls Panorama, Big Creek Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC—The spiritual realm informs and directs our life in the physical realm, or would, if we were not so locked into lives of our own. We think it is just us and our life. “It’s MY life and I can do what I want to with it!” The problem here is that we can only want what we want. We cannot want what we ought to want if it varies in the slightest from what we do want—and, here’s the doozy, what we ought to want may have nothing in common with what we think we ought to want, with what we have been told we ought to want. We don’t know what to want, what we ought to want. It quickly gets to be more than we want to fool with, leaving us exactly where we were: Us and our life with nothing but our wants to guide us. We could use a little spiritual guidance and direction but. We would have to go to the trouble of setting ourselves and our wants aside in order to seek what is always with us, waiting to be found. 09/05/2011
Big Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC—Show of hands now: Does anyone here see the stupidity of saying, “We would all have more money if we didn’t pay any taxes!”? Here’s another one for you, hands up now, Is there a quicker, cleaner, more efficient way of shooting both of our feet completely off with one shot than by agreeing that taxes are evil and not only are we going to refuse all additional taxes ever, but we are going to repeal all the taxes on the books, and never pay any more taxes, plus we are going to get rid of all unions because what they do is kind of like forcing us all to pay taxes in the form of higher prices for goods and services which we wouldn’t have to pay if there were no unions? Hold them up high so I can be sure to count them all… What we have just voted on is the heart of the Tax, I mean Tea, Party Agenda. More Money For All Of Us Via The Route Of Less Money For Some Of Us. Stupidity comes into play here in that all of us think the “all of us” in that sentence applies to us and the “some of us” applies to someone else. Let me explain this to you in two more very short so you can understand them sentences. The first is from Walt Kelly, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The second is from me, They are coming after you, stupid! The they in that sentence is all of those who make money at the expense of someone else and the you in that sentence is, well, you. At stake here is the coal miner’s right to a quality of life that is higher than the mine owner’s idea of the life the mineworker ought to be happy with. If you are not the owner, you are the worker, whether you work in a coalmine or teach school or work as a plumber or an auto mechanic. Your quality of life is about to be taken out of your hands, and will be if you raise your hand for no more taxes, no taxes at all, and no unions ever.
Moon at Water Rock Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesville, NC—As anxiety rises, the tendency is to do something quickly to relieve the tension and get things back to normal. We cannot bear the pain of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear for long—rarely long enough to see if we have anything to be afraid of. We tend to embrace those who tell us smooth things, offer simple solutions and tell us we only have to “get rid of the Jews,” or their present-day equivalent (there is always a scapegoat handy), and our problems will be solved. By focusing on “those people” and their evil ways, we shift attention from us and our anxiety, and feel better by making things worse for those who are not like we are. There is a better approach to the problem for all concerned: Face Your Fear And Befriend It! You have to work it out with your fear or it will work you over. Take your fear on a slow walk around the block. Listen to it well, as though it is your child with nightmares. Become your fear’s loving parent. Tell your fear it has nothing to be afraid of—that you will take care of it and find a way to handle all that is terrorizing it. Comfort your own fear! In so doing, you will be separating yourself from it, not identifying with it, so that now it is afraid but it is no longer scaring you. Reassure your fear that you can be trusted to come up with appropriate responses to everything it is afraid of if they, in fact, come about, and in the meantime, take it out for some ice cream, maybe with a piece of hot apple pie. 09/07/2011
Hanging Rock State Park, Lower Cascade, near Danbury, NC—If you want to be spiritual, you have to live in certain ways. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hear these words of mine and DO them.” This means healing on the Sabbath or it’s modern day equivalent, associating with the Unclean, and calling into question the common assumptions of the day, any day. It means thinking for yourself. It means thinking. It means aligning yourself with the life that is yours to live regardless of the life that would be more profitable or more pleasing to the people in your life. Who are you trying to please with the way you live your life? God? Whose view of God? Whose idea of God? Who is telling you what it would take for God to be pleased? The answer to these last three questions better be YOU. And you better be living so as to expand, deepen, enlarge, transform your view of God and not to better align your view with that of whomever you recognize as The Religious Authority Over Your Life. You better be the religious authority over your life. You are the one who says so, who says this and not that. Jesus didn’t take his directions from anyone. He lived his life straight from the heart, his heart. Your heart is waiting for you to start taking directions. 09/08/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Hidden Falls, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—Awareness needs silence for reflection, introspection, examination, exploration, contemplation, consideration in order to acknowledge the truth of how things are and also are, within and without, and determine what to do about it. No one rushes to insight, understanding, enlightenment, realization. No one speeds up the time to right seeing, right hearing, right understanding, right knowing, right doing, right being. The masters have all been around for awhile. We call them “The Wise Old Woman,” “The Wise Old Man,” for good reason. It takes a lot of looking to be able to see, a lot of listening to be able to hear, a lot of asking to be able to understand, and a lot of wrong turns to get one right. So take up the practice of sitting for a while regularly, or walking slowly, and being open to the allness of how things are. Bring forth the opposites, the contradictions, the conflicts. Listen to all sides. Put everything on the table and consider the table, waiting for what needs to be done to emerge, to become obvious, to entice you into action. 09/09/2011
Widow’s Creek Falls, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—When you are a writer and you don’t write what needs to be written, when it needs to be written, the way it needs to be written, even for the best of all reasons possible, you pay a price in the form of a missed opportunity at deepening, expanding, enlarging your own sense of how things are and also are, and you can’t get it back, no matter how many pages you start and throw away trying to find the phrase that would have led you to the next phrase and filled out the idea and generated thoughts and created perspective to who knows what unending elaboration of who knows what ephemeral whisper of insight murdered aborning. If you are a writer, you know you are not in charge of the process, and you don’t write at a time, in a place and manner of your own choosing, and it will help if you remember that in all times and places. And, if you are not a writer, the same thing applies to you in the service of whatever it is that you serve. And if you don’t serve anything it’s only because you are not aware of what you were born to serve, because you think you are here to be served and spend your time wondering what somebody could do for you and why don’t they all try harder to be pleasing and where are you going to find the kind of help and cooperation you deserve before you die. 09/10/2011
Heron Silhouette, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We all would be better off if we knew what we had a right to expect from ourselves and from one another. I’m more disappointed in myself and in the people I depend on to do what I think is right than I have any right to be. We’re all doing about what can be reasonably expected. Getting off our backs and stopping the rehashing of how we have been “lied to, made blue, turned down, pushed round, cheated, mistreated,” stomped on and treated like dirt would go a long way toward standing us up and sending us into the next situation with the determination to do there what can be rightly expected of us, and with a little luck more than can be expected, but certainly no less. May it be so with all of us! 09/10/2011
Detail of Widow’s Creek Falls, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—We are guilty, which makes us easy pickin’s for those promising relief from the burden, forgiveness and redemption. The sad truth remains that after forgiveness and redemption, nothing changes, we are still guilty. We are guilty by virtue of our participation in the world as it is—the world of normal, apparent, reality. This is a world in which we do not get good enough choices. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. To get this, we have to give up that. To do this, we also do that. In this world, good and evil come wrapped up together. Someone’s good is someone else’s evil. If you want to reduce the United States’ dependency upon world oil production JUST DRIVE THE POSTED SPEED LIMIT! The good of reduced dependency is mixed up with the bad of having to slow down. It’s like that everywhere you look. Parenthood, you want to talk parenthood? Marriage, you want to talk marriage? Divorce, you want to talk divorce? Not being a parent or not getting married, you want to talk those things? Good and bad all mixed up together, inseparable, conjoined twins, and we feel guilty, are guilty, for something we can’t do anything about. The solution provides no relief but it enables us to function as fully as possible in a crazy world: We see things as they are and as they also are. We step into our life and we bear the burden of guilt by participation. We make what we consider to be the best choices available to us under the circumstances. We sacrifice what must be sacrificed in the service of what truly needs to be done (Which is not often what we are told needs to be done, what we have been led to believe needs to be done—it is what we determine needs to be done after taking everything into account) and see where it goes. 09/11/2011
Lower Cascades, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—If you are going to deepen your capacity to live in this world on the basis of the other world, the spiritual world that is the source and ground of normal, apparent reality, you are going to have to do some things differently. You are going to have to trust yourself. This is hard. You don’t have anybody in your life except me telling you to trust yourself. Our life is culturally conditioned to not allow ourselves to trust ourselves. We have to be told what to do when and how. We have to ask permission. We can only think officially approved thoughts and ask officially approved questions. Our lives are based on the authoritative directions and instructions of Those Who Know Best And Must Be Pleased. And no matter how much we may say we don’t like it this way, we love it because it takes the pressure off of us. We don’t have to decide which brand of orange juice to buy, we just buy the one the advertisers succeed in convincing us is the right one to buy. We get our directions and instructions from people who have a vested interest in telling us what to do. And we like it that way because otherwise we would have to decide what to do which would keep us tangled in emotional knots trying to know what to do and be right about it. If you are going to be more spiritual than you are, you are going to have to throw the need to know what to do and be right about it out the window. You are going to have to trust yourself to know what to do and to deal with the fallout when you are apparently wrong about it. The saving grace is that you score even when you are wrong, and use what you learn from that experience in countless ways throughout the rest of your life. Tomorrow’s right is rooted in yesterday’s wrong. Remember that as you plunge into today. 09/12/2011
Discordant Harmony, Urban Moonrise, Greensboro, NC—The solutions to our problems with life are found in the experience of our problems with life, not in thinking about the problem, not in devising rational, logical approaches to the problem, but in living with the problem. When we live with a problem with life, the solution emerges, naturally, over time. The solution may not be that we disappear the problem but that we disappear our problem with the problem—not that it goes away but that we adjust to its presence, fold it into our life and are truly okay with our life together with what was the problem. Living with the problem sometimes changes us, sometimes changes the problem, and sometimes changes us and the problem. Experience with the problem enables us to work something out. We grow up. No problem. So, all those things you want solved about your life right NOW? It takes living with them for them to go away—in whatever way that turns out to be. There is no magical solution but. The experience of the problem transforms the problem. That’s right magical in itself. It’s certainly amazing. And we cannot explain what happened or how. Life is a wonder untold, un-tell-able. 09/13/2011
Little Deer, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—There is the kind of thinking that deepens thinking, enlarges thinking, enables thinking—the kind of thinking thinking is all about—and there is the kind of thinking that stifles thinking, disables thinking, obscures thinking and keeps anything from ever being thought. Faux thinking that pretends to be thinking, puts itself forth as intelligent, and arouses the emotions of the masses is destructive to the democratic process and to the recognition of truth on all levels. “My Country Right Or Wrong!” “Better Dead Than Red!” “Love It Or Leave It!” cut off the conversation and rule out any possibility of the exploration of the issues and any chance of understanding things from a perspective different from the one we keep on a short leash and under close supervision. When a member of the NC House said, in support of the Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment, “Two Dads Don’t Make A Mom,” he diverted a responsible consideration of Gay marriage into a dismal swamp of false assumptions, presumptions, inferences and conjectures. We cannot create a world that is better than the one in which we live without deepening, expanding, enlarging, developing our capacity for envisioning and imagining that world. To say, “The Way We’ve Always Done It, Seen It, Thought About It Is The Way It Ought To Be Done, Seen, Thought About,” slams shut the door to a future that is different from the past, and keeps us all in the caves—in the prison without bars—created by the fear of the world beyond. 09/14/2011
Middle Cascade, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—I keep working through the sins of omission and commission that were committed against me in my childhood and youth as a way, as the way, of squaring myself with how things are. We have to do that, you know. We cannot just wave it away, pretend it did not happen. It happened. It impacted us, and we have to face the happening and the impact, and say, “Yes. That’s the way it is.” Then we have to say, “And now what?” Aqui estamos. y Ahora que? Here we are, and now what? This puts us in charge. Whatever happens from this point is up to us. We are in charge of the input—What we do and how we do it. The outcome is out of our control but. We are in charge of how we respond to the outcome, what we do and how we do it. At some point, we have to square ourselves up with our life and say, “It’s my life and what I’m doing, I’m doing to myself. “ We can either keep doing what we’re doing or we can stop and do something else instead. We don’t have to respond to what happens in our life the way we have always responded. We write the script we read from. We can rewrite it. No one is going to hand us a different life. If we are going to live differently, it’s all up to us. What are we afraid of? How is what we are doing and how we are doing it an attempt to avoid or pre-vent what we are afraid of? What do we fear? We cannot move beyond being stuck where we are until we face what we fear and trust ourselves to deal with it—to find what we need to deal with it. Those sins of omission and commission in my childhood and youth? They were committed by people who were afraid and were afraid to know what they were afraid of, afraid they didn’t know what to do about it. Facing our fear is the first step in redeeming our life and being alive in the time left for living. 09/14/2011
Crabtree Falls near Little Switzerland, NC—Don’t let your principles stand between you and what’s important. Tea Party members are willing to sacrifice themselves and everybody in the country (and world) for No More Taxes. The Tea Party would let us all die if we had no medical insurance, that is, if living meant higher taxes. You can’t let your principles run away with you like that. You have to stand apart from what matters to YOU to serve what matters beyond YOU in the moment of your living. You have to be able to see the situation and make an objective determination regarding what needs to happen in the situation as it arises with everything on the table. Everything. “As long as your feet are under this table, you going to cut your hair short, Young Man!” misses a larger point. Short hair has no connection with character and values and the ability to be who our life is asking us to be. Higher taxes are not the end of life in the universe. Life can actually be served with higher taxes. It isn’t about more money in OUR pocket. It’s about the true good of all. 09/16/2011
Urban Sunrise, Wilkesboro, NC—No one ever quit, you could look this up, in love when love was returned and the way of love was open. This is not the time to quit. This is the time to go where the path leads you, with your eyes open and all senses alert and receptive to the delights and pleasures of love. Now make the shift with me from love on the outside, in the external world of normal, apparent reality, to inside and the internal world of the really-though-apparently-not real. Being in love is a psychic phenomenon that is experienced as an external event. It’s all projection, a trick done with blondes and beefcakes (or their close-enough approximation). Being in love is Psyche’s way of waking us up to what is also true, Psyche’s way of saying, “Don’t Quit!” What is also true is that the In Here can be stirred to life by the Out There. The In Here and the Out There can mingle and merge and mate and dance their way into deeper, better, greater stuff than either can manage of its own. And consciousness awakens to the wonder and beauty of the allness of the All and throws itself into the everlasting service of Love, which generally lasts until the in-laws stay for a week or some other aspect of the “real world” bursts the bubble but. The reality of being in love hooks us and pulls us into Life, which we never forget no matter how many times the in-laws come or how long they stay. The trick is to make the shift from outer to inner, and allow the experience of being in love on the outside open for us the possibility of being in love on the inside, with the truth of Psyche-Soul-Self, enlisting ourselves in the service of love, and living to express Out There the truth and beauty of the reality of our love for the In Here—never quitting, regardless of the obstacles or difficulties in our way (any more than we would quit the service of love for the person we love in the external world). Love keeps us going. Love keeps us going in the work of merging the two worlds, integrating, reconciling, marrying, bringing forth the truth of the one in the other. If you are going to be anything, be In Love!
Little Switzerland Tunnel near Little Switzerland, NC—We spend our lives putting the pieces together, and putting them back together. Figuring things out. Learning to see things as they are—which is not the same as how we have been told that they are, and certainly not the same as how we wish they were. Adjusting ourselves to our lives as they change again. Amid all the fluctuation and turmoil, we are the constant we seek. WE are the ground, the foundation, the core. No matter how the context and circumstances of our lives whirl and churn, we remain who we are, we continue to do what is ours to do. Who are we? What are we about? If we have ever answered these questions truthfully, authentically, we are set to always answer them truthfully, authentically, no matter what happens to us or how our lives change. Who we are and what we are about is the golden thread—the beam, if you will—running through all conditions and every stage of life. Nothing can happen to us that can take us away from us or remove from us the task of bringing ourselves forth to meet the moment and to offer what is ours to give in each situation as it arises. “It’s a new world, Golda,” and we meet it with the confidence born of the ages, knowing we have what it takes to be who we are and do what is ours to do in every world for as long as there are worlds. Amen! May it be so!
Moon Over Greensboro Poster, Greensboro where else, NC—We have to wake up sooner or later. Why put it off? It isn’t going to get any easier. We start the process by realizing we don’t know half of what there is to know and that most of what we think we know is wrong. We don’t know how to wake up. Start there. We don’t know who we are or what we ought to be about. Start there. We don’t know what to do. Start there. See where it leads. 09/18/2011
Baxter Creek Bridge, Big Creek Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC—We wouldn’t quit as easily as we do if the value of what is ours to do were more closely aligned with what we value, or if we were more clear about what is truly important. It’s the clash of values between the two worlds, visible and invisible, that makes cooperation and collaboration so difficult. The invisible world is much more likely to get off on sunsets and daffodils and really good music and a glass of wine at just the right time than on status and wealth and making a good impression and standing ovations and first place finishes and keeping the rules. In taking up the spiritual quest, path, journey, we are exchanging one value system for another. Spirituality is not a way of getting what we value by “getting God on our side.” What we value is transformed by the process whereby all things become new. We have to understand this or we will quit before quitting time. This is the invisible world’s great fear, that we will quit too soon—that we will not see it through—that we will have eyes for other things and leave the path, turn from the way, and settle for glass beads and silver mirrors, or their modern day equivalent. The invisible world knows that the revolution that integrates the worlds is fueled by those with eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart than understands what is truly important, and live in light of it, in service to it, all their lives long. We are the invisible world’s hope for the reconciliation of the worlds, and its real hope is that we don’t quit before it’s done. 09/19/2011
Upper Cascade, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—You don’t have to wait until you retire to do more of what you like to do and less of what you don’t like to do. You can start working this aspect of retirement into your present life situation. How much of what you like to do can you work into a day? A week? You owe it to yourself to find out. Let me give you all of the justification you need. Your soul comes to life doing the things it loves to do. My deep hunch is that you love what your soul loves, and that if you start doing more of what you genuinely like to do, your soul is going to benefit all the way. When your soul comes to life, you come to life with it. And, here is the really sweet part, if Joseph Campbell is right when he said, “The influence of a vital person vitalizes,” as you come to life, you are going to be bringing to life those who can be brought to life in your “sphere of influence.” Life is contagious. It’s catching. Start an epidemic beginning immediately. 09/19/2011
Hay on Groundhog Mountain, Blue Ridge Parkway near Fancy Gap, VA—We owe it to ourselves to find out if we have anything to be afraid of. At 2 AM we can be afraid of everything. We have to live into our fear, dance with it, wrestle with it and demand the blessing. What we are really afraid of is that we don’t have what it takes to handle what we think we are afraid of. Well. We learn to handle the bad stuff by gaining first-hand experience with it. We do not develop self-confidence by thinking about it. We do not wish it up, cast a spell upon ourselves and step forth all confident and ready for anything. We walk right into our fear and look around for what’s there to be afraid of, and thank it for the gift of learning to deal with it. Courage comes from acting courageously, no matter how frightened we are. The only way to be courageous is to act that way no matter what. 09/20/2011
Oil Painting Effect, Garden Creek Baptist Church, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—The cold, hard facts of life anchor us in this world and keep us from wandering mindlessly through the airy reaches of that world. We can be grounded in the reality of spiritual truth only to the extent that we are also grounded in the reality of physical truth. We have to pay the bills that we incur being who we are called to be. We have to do what is NOT ours to do (mowing the lawn and vacuuming the house, etc.) while we are doing what IS ours to do (coining phrases and writing these little reflections, etc.). The people who give spirituality a bad name think they don’t have to work for a living or do anything they don’t like to do, or don’t feel like doing, because the universe will take care of them and the Law of Attraction will bring them all the prosperity they can dream of having. Jesus was executed in the service of being who he was, doing what was his to do. That should do it for the friendliness of the universe theory. The facts of this reality save us from the La La Woo Woo aspect of that reality—and from the terrible depths of the unconscious sea that wait impatiently for those without a rudder or moorings (Which we see most clearly in schizophrenia). Spiritual reality does not set aside the facts of physical reality, and as mediators of the two realities, we have to be as much the advocate for physical truth as we are for spiritual truth. This is called, Shirley, you have this down by now, “Walking Two Paths At Once.” The Path is Two Paths. If you think it is only one, it quickly becomes a slippery slope to hell. 09/21/2011
Tory’s Den Falls, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—This is what spirituality (enlightenment) does for you: It helps you square yourself up with your life and it helps you live with your life as though the invisible world is truer than the visible world but it does not dismiss, discount or diminish the visible world or relieve us of our responsibilities in it and to it. That’s it. It does not give you a leg up, provide you with any advantages, or assure you of prosperity and gain. It enables you to live with what you have to live with, to be alive in the time and place, the here and now, of your living. Period. If you are looking for more than that, you have to go somewhere else. Now, one of the things I find interesting is that in order to be spiritual we have to do what spirituality, spiritual growth, requires and enables us to do, we have to square ourselves up with our lives and live in ways appropriate to the occasion. This is generally not the thing we have in mind. We are forever trying to escape our lives. Our parents aren’t the right kind of parents, our spouse isn’t the right kind of spouse, our kids aren’t the right kind of kids, our dog isn’t the right kind of dog, our job isn’t the right kind of job, our neighborhood isn’t the right kind of neighborhood… It always takes a different, better life. THIS old life will never do. Yet, (Bad news coming) THIS old life is exactly the life we have to square up to if we would be spiritual. We have to come to terms with the way things are here and now and do the work of working with what we have to work with in transforming ourselves and the life we don’t want to live. Our life makes us better people when we “voluntarily participate” (Joseph Campbell’s term) in the work of making it better—and we can’t do it without becoming spiritual. 09/22/2011
Heron in Flight, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—There is nothing like the natural world for showing us how things are. Life eats life. Can you say “Yes!” to that with compassion and grace, mercy and peace? If you can, you have what it takes to live amid the stark contradictions and irreconcilable differences that constitute the matrix of our lives. Stand between, say, George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein and offer, “Why can’t we all just get along?” See what it gets you. That’s you and your life. You and your spouse or partner, in-laws, children, boss—you and YOU! Our life is a swirl of discordance and incompatibility, and it is our task to integrate the opposites. To do that we have to bear consciously the pain, anguish, agony of contrariness. We hold in tension contrary truths which cannot co-exist and see where it goes. If you think that’s ridiculous, what does war do for you? 09/22/2011
Goose Silhouette, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We work for stability, for equilibrium, for comfort and security, for a life we can live with and the truth is that we can live with anything. We can rise to any occasion. We just don’t want to. We don’t want to spend our time rising to occasions. We don’t want any occasions. Well. There are plenty of places where no occasions are allowed, where no occasion is ever coming along to overwhelm and disrupt, decimate and destroy. Things have been the same there for as long as there have been people to remember how things are supposed to be done. Life left generations ago but people there still go through the motions of living as though they are alive. Life is so steady and dependable there it’s death, and no one notices. That’s being deader than dead. It takes unpredictable disruption and consternation to bring us to life, to bring to life the question, “Now what?” If we aren’t asking that question from time to time, we’re deader than dead. “Now what?” forces us to grapple with things beyond imagining, requires us to rise to another damn occasion. Life leaps at the opportunity. That’s what life does best, tackling another “Now what?” We want it to be about calm, peace and serenity. Life likes action, loves a good mess, thrills over not knowing what to do next, searching for the way, relishing the wonder of being alive. 09/23/2011
Glade Creek Mill, Babcock State Park near Clifftop, WV—Where are the real Republicans? The members of the Grand Old Party? The people who are grounded in the value of integrity, straight from the shoulder talking and living, liberty and justice for all? Why aren’t they calling out these late-comers, these Republican-pretenders, who have usurped the throne? Why aren’t they saying, “THAT is not the way WE do it!” Why is there only deafening silence when the crowd boos a gay soldier serving in Iraq? When the crowd applauds at the idea of a poor person without medical insurance being allowed to die? Why aren’t the real Republicans denouncing the low nature of this brand of humanity? Why aren’t they saying to those who so boo and applaud, and those who would, given the chance, “You should be deeply ashamed—as I am of you, and for you and those like you! I don’t want you voting for me! I don’t want to have anything to do with you! Look at you! Look at your heart, your soul! What does love your neighbor—and your enemy—that is, those who are like you and those who are not at all like you—mean to you? What does do unto others as you would have them do unto you mean to you? What does living in this country with its constitution declaring ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ as a foundational right to ALL PEOPLE mean to you? Go home! Look in the mirror until you can see yourself as you are, and do not claim to be a Republican until you can be worthy of the name!” ??? 09/25/2011
Spanning the New River Gorge, near Fayetteville, WV—The quality and degree of our spirituality is dependent upon the 10,000 things. Nutrition, for instance, hydration. Fasting can be a spiritual discipline, but when your blood sugar level spikes and dives, you are going to be out-of-sync with all that is good and matters. Same goes for hormonal fluctuation. And for finding our way through life’s deep loses. Spirituality is no smooth path through the impinging necessities and inevitabilities of life. It is not a way of living above it all but in touch with it all. Spiritual development does not disconnect us with the reality of the visible world, but connects us in an ever-deepening way with all things. Life impacts us. We bear consciously the burdens of the time and place of our living. Listen up here: There is no immunity! Spirituality enables us to square up to the how-it-is-ness of life in this world, and to live with it as well as it can be lived with, responding appropriately to, what is being asked of us in the time and place of our living. May it be so with us all! 09/26/2011
Two Trees in Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park, VA – Success is not to be measured by the outcome, the results, the impact of our living. It is enough to be influential in the service of good—to have a hand in the things that matter. Success is measured in the depth and quality of our life—in the degree to which we are alive and joyfully participate in the experience of life and increase the wonder of life in the lives of each other by our presence with one another. Who did we show ourselves to be? How did we do it? Any idiot with a suicide belt and nothing to lose can do great things in the eyes of his or her comrades in arms. What can he/she do without blowing anybody up? What can he/she bring to life through the quality of his/her life? What can you bring to life through the quality of your life? Why not spend the rest of it finding out? 09/27/2011
Searching for Whitewater Poster, New River Gorge National River near Fayetteville, WV – You are living successfully, have had a successful life, if you have learned to meet what comes with a fitting response, and when—as will certainly be the case—you revisit what has come and wish you had dealt with it differently, better, having the advantage of distance, maturity and hindsight, you can deal with THAT with a fitting response. Successful living comes down to making fitting responses to our present experience. The more consistently and reliably we do that, the more successfully we are living. Measure the quality of your life in terms of the fitness of the responses you have made, and are making, to the experience of being alive. Improve the degree of your success by improving the quality of your responses. Improve the quality of your responses by being aware of what is happening, externally and internally, and what you do in response, and being aware of what happens next. To change what happens next, change your response to what happened when it happens again. Generally, we do what we do because we are afraid of what will happen if we don’t do it, or if we do something else instead. We owe it to ourselves to find out if we have anything to be afraid of. Do not let your fear seal you into less than fitting responses to the things that happen in your life. Give yourself appropriate things to be afraid of and respond in appropriate ways. In so doing, you create for yourself a number of fine adventures in the time left for living. Amen! May it be so! 09/28/2011
Peaks of Otter Poster, Blue Ridge Parkway near Bedford, VA – We strongly influence what happens next by the way we respond to what happened last. We are the fulcrum which shifts the future toward or away from as much good as is possible given the nature of our circumstances. Do not dismiss or discount the importance the present moment has for all future moments of your life and the lives of all those impacted by your life. Don’t throw this moment away! There are no throwaway moments! Cherish the time of your living and live to do right by it! You may have no control but you have endless influence, so live as though you do, and treat this present time as though it is precious because it is—not because you if you do this, that will happen, but because doing this is the most fitting response you can imagine to what has just happened. We do not know what will happen if we do this or where this will lead but. How we live in this moment will generate a certain blessing, grace, momentum, karma that carries us into the next moment. As we build momentum for the good we create life and save the world. Amen! May it be so! 09/29/2011
Sunset at Peaks of Otter Poster, Blue Ridge Parkway near Bedford, VA—When a situation has no chance of becoming what you want it to be, or of offering you what you want to have, you make things worse by trying to force what you want to happen. Sometimes, you have to take a deep breath and do what you don’t want to do. This doesn’t mean give up on what you want to happen—it means biding your time. It means waiting things out. When you wait things out, you wait for a shift in your circumstances which opens the way to the realization of what you want. Sometimes, the shift is routine and predictable as when the kids get out of college. At other times it is completely unexpected, as when the Great Depression hit. When the situation does not hold any possibility of what you want to happen, you have to wait for the shift and be ready when it happens. And if it doesn’t happen? Oh well. The consolation prize is that you have shifted yourself through long years of making fitting response to a situation that was not to your liking—which has grown you up and made you much deeper, more humane and valuable to those around you than having what you want could have ever done. Either way, you are better off for having waited and, in the meantime, offered what was needed in the time and place of your living. 09/30/2011
Abbott Lake Poster, Peaks of Otter, Blue Ridge Parkway near Bedford, VA—There are four questions we have to answer in the time left for living, really two questions asked two different ways: Who are we? What are we about? What do we need to do? What needs us to do it? These questions take us to the heart of the matter: Our gifts, our proclivities, our genius and the situations in life which call for—and call forth—the very things we have to offer. We spend too much of our time trying to offer what we do not have to give—because everybody says we ought to and because we think we have to in order to be somebody. We have to be who we are—and also are—which is not about perfection but about completion, about harmony, about living in sync with ourselves AND with the situation as it arises, with the here and now, the time and place of our living. What is right for us? What does it mean for us to do right by ourselves AND by the time and place of our living? These are the questions. Don’t let anyone else tell you differently. Answer them and you have it made, as much as any of us can ever have it made. Giant Sequoias have it made, but that’s another story. 09/30/2011
Peaks of Otter Sunset Poster, Blue Ridge Parkway near Bedford, VA—Consciousness has its work cut out for it. We do that work by actually being conscious, aware, of every little thing, inside and outside. The problem is that while we are focused on this—the deer, say, that just jumped in front of the car we are driving—we are completely oblivious of that, and that, and that, and all the rest of the 10,000 things. The job cannot be done but. It is our task to do it as well as possible, to be conscious of as much as possible—to be aware of all the things that press in on us from all sides, inside and outside, in each moment. We practice awareness of everything, which includes the ability to look past everything in focusing exclusively on the one thing that must be done right here, right now, exactly as it must be done or else. We are better able to do the one thing if we are able to take all things into account and know what our distractions are, and where they come from, and what unfinished business they call us to take up, explore, experience and put in place. This all takes time and attention, which those who do not understand are apt to label “laying about,” and “not getting anything done.” Which is something else for us to be aware of as we do the work of being conscious of every little thing, and doing what needs to be done about the things that need to be done and putting the rest aside. 10/01/2011
Sunset at Abbott Lake Poster, Peaks of Otter, Blue Ridge Parkway near Bedford, VA—It was a magical twenty minutes or so that started with me looking out of the window of our room at the Peaks of Otter Lodge on my way to another glass of wine. Who would have guessed a sunset at the bottom of a bowl? Abbott Lake is surrounded by mountains. I don’t know where you’d go for a horizon. I never considered a sunset possibility but. The clouds were catching the light and turning a little pink here and there. Time for Photo Man! There is a moral here. We walk past miracles every day. We swim through magic. We are awash in unexpected gifts, astounding surprises. You get up for a glass of wine and are kissed by a sunset. Oh, sure, it happens along negative lines as well. We wake up to flat tires. We brush our teeth and tear a rotator cuff. A phone call comes out of the blue and our world changes for the worse just like that but. It also happens along positive lines. Sunsets on the way to the wine. Pay attention. Notice throughout your day the things you don’t see everyday. Be astounded in the grocery store, at the traffic light, washing dishes. Things are happening all around us that are magical, wonderful things, wondering why we don’t notice, applaud. 10/02/2011
Sharp Top Mountain Sunset Poster, Peaks of Otter, Blue Ridge Parkway near Bedford, VA—We’re still here. You can’t deny that one. Think of all the things we have been through to be here, now. It’ll take your breath away. If we had known about it beforehand, we would never have given the okay. We would have said hell no I can’t do that—I won’t do that. But. We did it. All of it. Every last minute of it. And here we are. Now, the moral here is that we can do anything. We can find a way. We can wade right into the biggest possible mess and deal with it. We can rise to any occasion. We can do it because we have done it. We have the scars to prove it. I would want all of you on my side in a bar fight. And I would hate to go up against any of you. You have what it takes. I’ve always liked that about you. 10/02/2011
Abbott Lake Poster, Peaks of Otter, Blue Ridge Parkway near Bedford, VA—We live to be at one with ourselves. We all have had moments in which that was the case, where we were in sync with ourselves, inner expressed in and revealed by outer, and then it was gone, but the memory lingers. Consciousness exists to get the two worlds together, so that we can be in our outer life as we are in our inner life, so that who we truly are and who we truly need to be might be one. The matrix in which, by which, this becomes possible is compassion. And grace. Living compassionately, graciously, we do not force anything but allow everything as is fitting to the occasion. We do not repress, suppress, hide, deny anything, but find ways of bringing it forth in appropriate ways. Our work here is assisted by keeping two ancient principles in mind: Be True To Yourself and Thou Art That. Living consciously between these two poles brings forth the harmony, the union, we seek with ourselves and between ourselves and the world of other selves. This is how True Human Beings do it. 10/03/2011
Black Birch at Rocky Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway near Meadows of Dan, VA—The ideal is symmetry, not one-sided-ness. We are many-sided, multifaceted, and must find a place for all of us at the table, on the path. No one is unwelcome, no aspect of us is uninvited in the work of becoming at one with ourselves, living in sync with ourselves, finding appropriate ways to express who we are and also are within the context and circumstances of our living. It takes all of us to make a whole. So. We have to find the disinherited parts, the fragmented parts, the rejected parts—the parts that were not acceptable to the significant others in our life early on, and hence, unacceptable to us—and reclaim them, honor them, as prodigal children coming home. 10/03/2011
Black Birch Poster, Rocky Knob, Blue Ridge Parkway near Meadows of Dan, VA—When you draw a line, someone is going to call you selfish. You can’t draw lines and avoid the selfish charge. And you can’t live the life that is your life to live, that is indicative, expressive of who you are and who you also are without refusing to be who you are not. I come from the Deep South. People in the Deep South spend their time being nice to one another, doing anything to keep from hurting anyone’s feelings, doing everything to not appear to be selfish, being mostly who they are not. The Shadow of the Deep South is the deepest, darkest thing about it. The Shadow is who we also are but deny because we are so concerned about being who we are not. Keeps us from being symmetrical, whole, at one with ourselves and in sync with the life that is our life to live. To be who we are and also are, we can’t waste time and energy being who we are not. We have to draw lines. And take the heat. 10/04/2011
Whitewater Poster, New River Gorge National River near Fayetteville, WV—If we discount the possibility of communion with Soul and the place of Soul as a guiding, sustaining, principle in our life, we are left with the responsibility of deciding for ourselves what to do with our lives—straight out of the left hemisphere of our brain—without the consultation and collaboration with Soul whispering to us from the right hemisphere. We can’t be more alone than that. 10/04/2011
Fall Fern at Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park, VA—It’s all such a mess I don’t see how anyone could give any credence to the idea of intelligent design. The intelligence is evident and at work in taking this squirming spaghetti bowl of interests, motives, moods, dispositions, aims, urges, incentives, aspirations, fears, etc. and aligning it all in ways that not only make sense but also are strikingly beautiful. We are still creating order out of chaos. It’s what we do. It’s what life does. We bring meaning to life through the associations we make throughout the experience of being alive. This is intelligence at work in our life. It’s called waking up. Enlightenment. Realization. It is religion at its best because it stands us at the brink of the Great Unknown and brings forth the WOW! of amazement at the allness of it all and our place in it. Which we, of course, reduce to something quite manageable and inane with our explanations and interpretations—robbing life of its mystery and wonder and proving there is nothing we cannot cheapen, degrade and empty of all value. This is the opposite of intelligence at work in our lives. Call it stupidity. We stand between the creative powers of God and, well, the most tasteless, tacky town you can think of. Please, let’s not settle for pancake houses and half-pound blocks of fudge, exclaiming, “Ain’t this the life, though!” 10/05/2011
Summer Panorama, Blowing Rock, NC—We want to figure it out and know what’s next and what’s after that and where it’s all going and what it means and what’s in it for us and who’s on first. Our left hemisphere wants to run our life. Tell it to sit down and shut up. The purpose of meditation is to force our left hemisphere to sit down and shut up so that our right hemisphere might have a chance at us. There’s a lot of good stuff in our right hemisphere. It is the receptor/source of amazing things, and would, if it could get our attention, lead us on the path of life, to life, knowing, as it does, what life is all about. Give your left hemisphere the task of learning about the right hemisphere. That should keep it busy for a while. 10/05/2011
First Photo of Fall 2011, Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—Take the Ten Commandments. Who is to say? Who is to say when you’ve killed somebody? My father killed my mother’s spirit. That should count, even though she has outlived him by thirty years. Who is to say when you’ve gone and done any of the things the Ten Commandments say don’t do? And why only those ten? Think of the things that didn’t make the list. Thou Shalt Not Be Stupid. How about that for one? How is it we get by with being stupid, which is what most highly religious people are who carefully keep the Ten Commandments and treat the people around them in shameful, much less than loving ways? So, throw them all away. Replace the lot of them with two simple rules for life: Live together in good faith and do right by everyone including yourself. That should do it. 10/05/2011
You cannot figure it out all at once. Write it down. Refer to it often. Don’t even try. There are no black footprints to where you are going. You make the footprints as you go, and the winds of time blow them away so that going back is like going forward—you don’t KNOW how to do either, and must do something even if it is nothing. Start with paying attention, with being aware. It is the cumulative impact of living that leads us to know what’s what, how things are and also are, and what needs to be done about them in the time and place of our living—to live appropriately in each situation as it arises. You cannot plot these things out. You bring them forth. And are amazed that you could do anything so wonderfully right. Were does that come from? Depths you cannot begin to plum. Trust them to be there, providing what you need. And put yourself in position to need what they offer. My gift to you is, well, you.
First Light on Grandfather Mountain, Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—A favorite saying among flight attendants going through their pre-flight instructions is, “Shift happens.” This is also the heart of spiritual dogma. Shift happens! Be ready for it! Look forward to it! Believe in it! If you are going to believe anything, believe “Shift happens!” There are situations without end that have no solution. We have to wait for the shift to happen. The shift transforms the situation so that solution becomes unnecessary. Carl Jung said, “Some problems have no solution. We have to out-grow them.” When we out-grow a problem, a shift happens. This means that it’s a waste of time to try to force something to happen before its time. We get out of bed each day and go to war, compelling here, pushing there, wrestling our will into being over there. What? Is our life any better for it? Here’s a different approach: In situations that defy solution, simply hold your ground. Maintain the tension. Keep the situation “in solution.” Oppose all quick fixes, or any fixes. Be the fly in the ointment. Keep everything stirred up. And keep an eye out for the shift. Shifts cannot be predicted, they can only be recognized. When the shift happens, pounce! Go with the shift! See where it goes! It’s all about seeing where it goes, you know. The plan for the rest of your life is wait for the shift to happen and shift with the shift. 10/08/2011
Early Light Panorama, Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—I want to be living toward the best end I can imagine when the end comes. I don’t what to be just hanging out, killing time, waiting for the end to come, wondering what’s taking so long. I want to be living as though there is no end. I want to be completely surprised when it comes. I want to be using the time between now and the Great Surprise in the work of bringing myself forth into the world of time and space as though I might be surprised in the next 30 seconds and there is no time to waste on frivolous matters because I have bigger fish to fry. I want to fry the right fish. 10/08/2011
Color Line, Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—I don’t know how many perspectives there are, or how many tripod positions. Each of us is probably good for several million. Add that up and the number gets unwieldy. We should try to walk around with that number written on a piece of paper in our pocket as a way of keeping our strong feelings and absolute convictions in, well, perspective. 10/08/2011
Hand-in-Hand, Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—Adjusting ourselves to the time and place of our living and offering to the moment what is needed in the moment out of what we have to give to the moment—this is to live well upon the earth. All the flap is about getting what we want. What does wanting know? You can’t ride the horse called Wanting to a destination that is good for your soul. It will never arrive, for one thing. It will trot by something else it wants on the way to what it wants and it’s off on a new chase, only to be detoured by something else it wants. We have to sit down with our wanting and have a heart-to-heart, well, okay, heart-to-heartless-passion, with it. “Look,” we have to say, “You want every bright, shiny, plastic thing that comes along. I can’t trust you to know what’s what and what to do about it. So. I’m going to have to listen to another guide.” But what’s another guide? We are so attached to wanting to tell us what to do, we don’t know any other guides. We don’t know there is another guide. Well. We know about the other voices. The Invisible World is packed with voices—our Mom’s voice and our Dad’s, the Judging Critic’s voice, the Pleading Dependent Helpless Victims voice (You know the one: “You can’t leave me! Help me! Don’t do anything for yourself! I need you!”), and however many more there are. Filter out the voices, looking, listening, for the Inner Guide, your Self, the True Human Being within. And pray for the courage to do what you will then know needs to be done. 10/09/2011
Out for a Drink, Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—What moves you? Move closer to it. See where it goes. We’re always putting what moves us on the back burner until it’s convenient to “get around to it.” It is never quite convenient enough. Soul is shouting at us, jumping up and down, waving its little hands in our face, doing everything it can to get our attention, and we are off in another world, chasing after what we think it will take to make us happy. Look. Happiness is not about getting. It is about doing. Doing what we are built to do. Doing what is ours to do in the time left for living. Doing what moves us. Convenient or not. 10/09/2011
And a Beaver Swam By, Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—After you achieve understanding, attain enlightenment, and know all there is to know about spiritual reality, you still have to translate it into how you live your life. The practice only deepens, expands. You never graduate, or retire. You have to be with every moment, and allow the moment to be different from the way you want it to be, and allow the moment to show you what it needs, and allow the moment to teach you what you the next lesson in wholeness, compassion and how to be a True Human Being. Practice takes knowing to new levels.
Blue Ridge Sunrise, Thunder Hill Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—What is not-right about your life? Be clear about it. Make a list. Add to it as needed. Do the same thing with what is right about your life. We know what is right and what is wrong about our life the way we know anything is right or wrong. Aspects of our life resonate with us. Other aspects irritate, exasperate, us. Notice, note, do not dismiss or discount the experience or right and wrong. Where you must, consciously accommodate the wrong. Where you can, move away from it. Reduce the amount of time you spend with it. Change your life to reduce the wrong and increase the right. Do more of what is right and less of what is wrong. And when you find yourself stuck with what is mostly wrong, compensate yourself well. Find ways of rewarding yourself for living with what is wrong about your life. Know, though, that it is wrong. Do not let them convince you that you are wrong about what is wrong, that the problem is with you. You have to be your own advocate, your own champion, when you are surrounded by those who would separate you from you and destroy the spirit that is the source and goal of life. Integrity is being one with heart and soul—oneness of being. Integration is our work. We must live toward who we are, and express who we are in the way we live our life. We must live toward what is right for us and away from what is wrong for us. This is the imperative that operates within and beyond all categories and circumstances: Know thyself! To thine own self be true! Amen! May it be so! 10/10/2011
Linville Cove Viaduct, Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC—There are toxic places where we have no business being. One of those places may be our family of origin. The Buddha couldn’t go home again, abandoning the royal palace for a rice bowl and a thatched hut. Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers and sisters?” Can be a problem, finding where we belong, a place that is not toxic to our souls. But, we don’t have to be burdened with the effort to make ourselves fit in everywhere. We won’t fit in lots of places. Recognize it early on and let it be, because it is. The people who are family are the people who receive us well and don’t try to make us into who they think we ought to be. I’ve posted the “Ground Rules for A Community of Innocence” on my blog site: http://outlandspress.blogspot.com/ Check it out if you are interested in my idea of the kind of place that would be the right kind of place to be. If you can’t find one, create one. Call it your new home. 10/10/11
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., Price Lake Panorama, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—If you can consciously maintain the tension of your own contradictions long enough, a shift will occur, and what appears to be mutually exclusive tendencies will become distinctive features capable of being integrated into the wonder of a True Human Being. That would be you. 10/10/2011
Beaver’s Been Here, Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—The shift that is the ground (Great image, right? Shifting ground. How’s that for a foundation? Well. That’s the way it is. Get used to it) of spiritual development occurs on both inner and outer levels. An internal shift happens as we grow up. Growing up is a shift. Everything is transformed though nothing may change, but the transformation changes everything. Since we are forever growing up (No one is ever all grown up. The minute you think you are, that Sister—you know the one I mean—or that Brother comes for a visit. And we see again how far we have to go), we are forever shifting our perspective and changing the way we live in response to the way things are. The shift is external as well. We lose our job, someone we love dies, our own diagnosis is a shocker… The possibilities are endless. External shifts generally require internal shifts. We grow up in response to our circumstances—against our will, I might add. No one ever volunteers to grow up. Can’t do it. We are drafted, conscripted, into growing up. It’s never our idea. “Oh, I think I’ll grow up today.” We can do all of the spiritual reading, discussing, note taking, list making, we can stomach but it won’t make any changes in our lives until we have to apply what we have learned in a real-time situation when something shifts and our life takes an unwanted turn. So, embrace your unwanted turns and mine them for the gold, rising to the occasion and becoming who you are capable of being, against your will. 10/11/2011
Fall Woods Panorama, Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC—This photo is a reward for persistence and perseverance, walking through the North Carolina version of Chinese Water Torture, rain that does not cease ever—Occasionally I am stopped by sadness for the plight of living things. Not just me and you with our struggles and burdens, but the broken-winged goose and the duckling excommunicated from the hatch, swimming alone for some unforgiven sin. The world-wide victims of the War Against Women, robbed of life and soul by men who have neither. The sway-back old horse standing in a pasture of Golden Rod and Iron Weed and the cold drizzle of October, with colder drizzles coming, no shelter in sight. I have begun a list without end, all needing a break, a kind word, an act of grace. All gathering themselves as they are able to meet another day, without hope, going nowhere fast or slow, what’s the difference where they live, unnoticed, unknown, on their own with a life that is more of a curse than a gift. I bow to them all, honoring them for living on, one-eyed or blind, spongy hooved and lame, living on, living on. We, on the other hand, have an opportunity to create a community of innocence for the mutual support and encouragement of the members of the community. We do not have to bear life’s deliveries alone. We can ask, “How are you?” and listen. Compassionate witnesses make all things bearable through their presence that sees and knows and does not turn away. May we do at least that much for one another and all others, sharing as we do the plight of living things. 10/11/2011
Crabtree Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway near Little Switzerland, NC—Fold it in. Let it be because it is but don’t make more of it than needs to be made. You have bigger fish to fry. So let this become a part of your background, your gestalt, your sitz im leben, and allow it to open you even more to the way things are that have to be taken into account, considered, as you bring forth your art, your work, to bless and grace the world and all that is therein. This too, this too, becomes grist for the mill, shifting—that word again—our orientation, perspective. Enlarging our experience, deepening our sensitivity, expanding our field of vision, making us—against our will—more human in our being and a better friend to those who need one with our developing brand of softness and practicality. “If the situation calls for a bunt, you bunt—I don’t care if you do think of yourself as a home run king. So stop your grousing and complaining and play the game as the game needs you to play it!” That’s good friend talk. None of this, “Oh poor thing. That mean old coach won’t let you do what you do best. No one understands you like I do. Let’s build a little Pity House together and I’ll take care of you.” Bunt when a bunt is called for and stop trying to force your way in situations that need a different approach. Develop your knack for character acting and be what is needed regardless of who and how you want to be. 10/11/2011
Linn Cove Viaduct, Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC—You’ll feel better if you drink enough water and eat enough of the right kinds of things to keep your blood-sugar level in line. And exercise. Eating, drinking and exercising. Jim’s three step plan for improving your mood and your outlook. Want to get crabby quickly? Ignore Jim. 10/12/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., On Grandfather Mountain, Grandfather Mountain State Park near Linville, NC—Learn as much as you can about everything. Be as curious as you can be about everything. Embrace the contradictions. Don’t say, “This cannot be true if that is true.” Just keep the contradictions in mind. Be curious about the contradictions, and see where your curiosity takes you. You may get to a place where you see how this and that can be true, and understand that “all our dichotomies may be false dichotomies.” Wouldn’t that be something? But even if that does not turn out to be the case, do not, whatever you do, settle down with one way of seeing, thinking, believing, feeling, doing. If you cannot embrace, at least be conversant with, a number of ways of seeing, etc. The larger the number, the better. Life keeps coming at you, and the larger your repertory of ways to think about and deal with life, the better your chances of negotiating your way through the complexities of existence. The larger your perspective, the more options you have. Keep working to expand, enlarge, deepen your perspective and your life will thank you for it—and things will come together in amazing ways. 10/13/2011/
On Grandfather Mountain, Grandfather Mountain State Park near Linville, NC—There are six elements at work in making a photograph: Subject, Setting, Light, Composition, Focus and Exposure. It’s the photographer’s task to work out the right ratios. Get these six things right and you have a wall-worthy photograph. 10/13/2011
Davidson River Fall, Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, NC—The most important thing you can do is ask questions. Inquire about everything. When someone gives you an answer, or even better, THE answer, see what questions THE answer raises. Ask them. Questions aren’t for answering but for wondering about, for keeping aloft like hot air balloons to see where they take you. Questions are the path to seeing all things new—with new eyes—because you inquired about them in ways no one had ever considered, or dared to. Questions open us to a future that is bigger and better than anything the answers could ever provide. See how many questions you can ask in a day. Break the record each tomorrow. 10/13/2011
Holding Nothing Back, Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, NC—Why hold anything back? Why sit on red or yellow, or on whatever their equivalent in you is? Why not just BE who you are, OFFERING what you have to give? Oh, wait. They may not like it. Right? Hmmm. These guys better tone down the red, reduce the yellow. Might be too much. Somebody might not like it. The trees are laughing, you know—at the very idea of allowing the Color Police keep them from being up front and out there with who they are and what’s theirs to give. The angel asked Mary if she was up to birthing what was hers to give. “Sure am,” she said, or words to that effect. “Sure am,” say the trees of fall. What say we? 10/13/2011
Little River, DuPont State Forest near Brevard, NC—The truth is the bed you sleep in every night. The truth is the world you wake up to every day. The truth is how you respond to your experience in that world. The truth is what keeps you going. What holds you up. What grounds you, centers you, focuses you. What sees you through. What you turn to when you have nowhere else to turn. That’s the truth. All of that is the truth. It helps to be conscious of it. To square up to it. To know what’s what and what you can count on and where the places are that restore your soul and who the people are who can help you along the way. 10/14/2011
High Falls, DuPont State Forest near Brevard, NC—We can’t be authentic if we can’t be vulnerable. We can’t be vulnerable if we aren’t safe. If we start out in an unsafe environment, it is very difficult for us to believe that any environment can be safe, so we are afraid we are not safe even when we are. So, in comes courage. You will remember, I’m sure, the story of the Wizard of Oz and where the Lion got courage—from acting courageously! It’s all circular and paradoxical with me—Shirley, you know that by now! Everything hinges on our acting courageously. At some point, we just have to take a deep breath and go—and trust ourselves to deal with the consequences. Amen! May it be so! 10/15/2011
Blue Ridge Sunrise Panorama, Thunder Hill Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—My grandparents on my father’s side, Silas and Sophie, have become over time for me a married pair of Taoist priests. They were lovingly able to take everything in stride. They laughed a lot, embraced life in its fullness, said yes more often than no and blessed everyone who came their way with kindness and grace and a perspective that saw past the apparent, beyond the obvious, and took more into account than met the eye. I didn’t realize then what a gift I had been given, but it has become increasingly valuable, and is now one of my most prized possessions. And the joy is that there are, and have always been, people like Silas and Sophie all over the world, counterbalancing the craziness and offering solace and peace to all who know them. May we all know someone like that and become someone like that in the time left for living! Amen! May it be so! 10/15/2011
Trail to Triple Falls, DuPont State Forest near Brevard, NC—Everybody has a different way of seeing things, of sensing what is important, of saying what the truth of their life is and what to do about it, in response to it. Everybody has a different gift, a different art, a different genius and a different way of bringing it forth as a blessing and a grace for everybody else. We get to the way we think by putting the way everything has ever been thought by everybody on the table and walking around the table, considering the table, wondering what to make of the table, until the way we think about it becomes clear. We cannot hurry thinking the way we think and not the way someone else wants us to think, tells us to think. We grow into it over time. We start by having thoughts before we realize we’ve had them. So, we have to start paying attention to our thoughts in order to know when one comes along that we haven’t heard from somewhere else—that isn’t already on the table. It’s hard to believe that anyone can think a thought that hasn’t been thought, but it happens all the time. New thoughts are always popping into our heads. We have to recognize them for what they are and think about them to see if we think they are worth thinking. If they are, we think about them some more and see where thy lead, which, of course, is always to other thoughts that aren’t on the table, and probably to a life we have not thought about living. And a new world opens before us. This is called having bigger fish to fry. We all do, you know. 10/16/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Cedar Rock Falls, Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, NC—We cannot wake anyone up, including ourselves, but. We can delay being awakened indefinitely so. In order to assist our awakening, we have to stop working against it. We have to stop thinking we are awake. We have to stop clutching so tightly the truth we have been told is true. We have to start looking for what else is true—searching out the polarities, the contradictions, the contraries, the opposites—and live deliberately within the tension of mutually exclusive realities. We have to square up to our lives, to the way things are and the way things also are—which is the way things are. We have to do what can be done about what needs to be done in each situation as it arises and let that be that. We have to wait for the shifts and stop trying to force our way, to will our way, upon our life and the lives of others. We have to sit longer and walk more slowly. We have to see what we are looking at and look at everything. We have to hear what we are listening to and listen to everything. We have to act when the time for acting comes upon us “like a thief in the night.” We have to stop waiting for everything—or anything—to make sense. We have to trust ourselves to deal with whatever comes our way and stop trying to arrange to have only the things we want to deal with come our way. We have to look closer at the things that catch our eye. We have to move toward the things that move us. And see where it goes. 10/17/2011
On Grandfather Mountain, Grandfather Mountain State Park near Linville, NC—The center we seek is our own sense of direction, our own knowing, our own grasp of what has value, our own recognition of what is important. We seek to resonate with ourselves, with our own apprehension of where life is to be found, how life is to be lived. We seek to know what we know and to live in ways which honor that and reflect it in the time left for living. Don’t be thinking it’s “out there,” or “over there.” Running away from the center is no way to find the center, except that when we are worn out from running, there it is. 10/17/2011
On Stone Mountain, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—We find our way with only “Yes” and “No,” Right” and “Wrong” to work with. The trick is knowing when to say “Yes” and when to say “No.” Right is not always what we have been told is right. Wrong is not always what we have been told is wrong. Puts a different light on things when we cannot trust what Those Who (Think They) Know Best know—when we have to “judge for ourselves what is right” (That’s one of the never-quoted sayings of Jesus, by the way: “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?”). We have to take the situation into account and determine what is happening there—what is trying to happen—and how we might assist it, then have the courage to go where we think we are being led. And then deal with the situation that arises from that decision in the same way, assessing and acting to the best of our ability. Now, I know there are those who would stoutly protest that “Scripture alone is the infallible and all-sufficient guide for faith and practice!” Well. What made slavery wrong? It wasn’t Scripture. Scripture was used for generations to justify and condone the institution of slavery. What made the subjugation of women wrong? It wasn’t Scripture. Scripture was used—and is still used—to justify the second, or third, class status of women. What made child labor wrong? It wasn’t Scripture. The list is long of things that are clearly, morally, wrong that Scripture was/is used to justify and sustain. Which puts us back to standing before a situation and listening deeply for what needs to happen there, and having the courage to do it—no matter what the weight of public opinion might be. Growing up happens or happens not in this way. May we all be always growing up! 10/18/2011
Two Barns Two Horses, near Etowah, NC—If we own a piano because we love to play the piano and not because we love the idea of owning a piano, the piano is a tool, not a prop. If we own a sail boat because we love to sail and not because we love the idea of owning a sail boat, the boat is a tool, not a prop. If we own a camera because we love to take photographs and not because we love the idea of looking like a photographer, the camera is a tool, not a prop. Our tools bring us forth, enable us to do the work of unfolding ourselves in our lives, of being who we are in the time left for living. Props help us pretend to be who we are not. I think we should buy tools, not props. Of course, it will wreck the economy. Vive la Revolution! 10/18/2011
Blue Ridge Parkway as it skirts Grandfather Mountain near Linville, NC—How alive can we be in the time left for living? We owe it to ourselves to find out. One way to begin is to spend more time with what we like and less time with what we don’t like and see where it goes. We let ourselves be talked out of what we like and into what we don’t like too easily. We shouldn’t just hand ourselves over to our circumstances. We do have to put ourselves in indefinite suspension for the sake of some circumstances—but not for all of them, not for every one of them! We have to see to it that we get the same degree of compassionate consideration from ourselves as everybody else in our life. We have to be our own advocate, our own champion, looking out for our own interest. I don’t know you as well as I would like to but I know that you don’t have enough people in your life looking out for your interest, and I know you certainly have to be one of them. So, start with what you like and do more of it as a way of reviving yourself, bringing yourself back to life. The people who have been sapping life away from you may think you’re being selfish, but the world will benefit more from your living than from your dying. You certainly will. See how alive you can be in the time left for living. 10/19/2011
Julia Lake Panorama, B/W, Oil Painting Effect, DuPont State Forest near Brevard, NC—We are to realize our distinctiveness, our individuality, and integrate it—reconcile it—with everyone else’s. NOT merge it with or disappear it into everyone else’s! “We are all One, but not the same one!” The trick is to be who we are in relationship with those who are being who they are—to “Define ourselves while staying in touch.” We can’t do it without compassion for ourselves and each other.
Black and White Panorama, Pisgah Inn, Blue Ridge Parkway near Brevard, NC—Everything I have to say is a derivative of this: Think of what you love with all your heart and do it with all your heart and see where it goes.—That’s what I have to say. Your heart is a guide to the associations that lead you where you need to go. One thing leads to another. You may start cutting out paper dolls in the attic like you did when you were a child and that may lead you to the store to buy more paper and something might catch your eye on isle 11 that you had forgotten about loving but now you have to make a lemon meringue pie and before you know it you are planting Giant Sequoia seeds in Northern California. This is how it works. You don’t think your way to planting Giant Sequoia seeds in Northern California. You live your way there. And that isn’t the end of the line. It’s just a way-stop to counting hawks as they migrate through Virginia. You follow your heart wherever it goes AND take care of your responsibilities and duties that you pick up along the way, spouses or partners and kids and pets and car notes and house payments—and you work it out. You work all of it out, and that’s it. That’s how it works. Everything else I ever say is going to be an off-shoot of this. This is all there is to say. Get it and you got it. 10/19/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Linn Cove Viaduct, Blue Ridge Parkway near Linville, NC—We have to do the work. The spiritual journey is the Hero’s Journey is work. This is not a matter of understanding the “plan of salvation,” memorizing the catechism or the Books of the Bible in Order, naming the disciples and getting Sunday School pins for perfect attendance our whole life long. This is about waking up, being awake, aware, alive. This is about seeing things as they are and as they also are, living consciously with the contradictions, knowing what needs to be done in the situation as it arises even though it may not be what anyone else thinks needs to be done and doing it. It’s about living in the service of our art, our gift, our genius. It’s about moving in the direction of that which calls our name, which catches our eye, which announces itself to us as that which is ours to do. It’s about knowing what our business is and what it is not—what we have no business doing. It is about separating ourselves from our wants, wishes and feverish desires in order to do what is ours to do in the moment of our living—and doing what it takes to know what is ours to do whether we want to or not. It is about trusting ourselves to find what we need to do what needs to be done in every circumstance of life. Even Bilbo Baggins has a Bilbo Baggins, sometimes internally, sometimes externally. It is about living the life that is ours to live regardless of the payoff or the outcome every day for the rest of our life. Starting now. 10/20/2011
Davidson River, Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, NC—Don’t think it is easy or fun doing what you love to do. What you love is “a harsh task master” “planting where it doesn’t plow and reaping what it didn’t sow.” It will beat you to death but. It will resurrect you from the dead. It is a wonder that cannot be duplicated by the lights and action of Gay Paree. Photography, for example, will require you to get up before sunrise and drive for an hour or more to be ready for the sun to come up thirty minutes before it’s due, because sunrises are not about sunrises. They are about the show that happens about thirty minutes before the sun rises. Once you see the sun, it’s pretty much over. The reverse is true of sunsets. It’s about twenty minutes after the sun goes down that the show starts. You have to wait. You have to get there early and wait. And, you can’t tell what the sky will be like two hours before sunrise so you have to “go to know.” You can’t be a photographer without being there. Early. And waiting. Every time. You begin to think you don’t love it after a while. And then, nothing sells. You can’t make a house payment selling photos. You can’t even feed the dog. At this point you realize you have to love it. No one would do this if he, if she, didn’t love it. So you get out of bed and step into the cold of the wee morning hours and go. You go whether you want to or not, feel like it or not, are in the mood for it or not. Doing what you love to do is not always doing what you want to do. So don’t get all romanical on me and think I’m selling La La Land here. You’ll hate me for it after a while. Stay with it. It’s your life. Your ticket to being fully, wonderfully, alive. Which is something Gay Paree can’t touch. 10/20/2011
On Grandfather Mountain Panorama, Grandfather Mountain State Park near Linville, NC—We think our work, our talent, our gift, our genius, our art, our calling, our mission—call it what you will—should pay off. We think, “What good is a gift/art/talent if you can’t make money with it?” With us, money is the living end. We don’t understand yet that money is the means with which we buy the tools to do our work, express our gift, make our art. Money is no good whatsoever if it does not go into deepening, expanding, enlarging our ability to do what is ours to do. What’s the first thing people do when they become rich? They stop working. They “travel.” Their art goes to hell and their life with it. Listen to me: Our life is our art, our work, our calling. Take that away from us and we have nothing. Our eyes take on that Little Orphan Annie look and we wander around wondering what’s the point. We never wonder what’s the point when we are engaged in bringing our gift to life. The point then is that we are alive in the fullest possible sense, gripped by a passion for what we are doing. You can’t buy that with lots of money. So, forget about your talent paying off. Serve your talent without demanding that it pay off. The pay off is the joy you derive from doing what is yours to do. You can’t buy that with money, and it’s yours for nothing. It’s a by-product of doing what we love. If we do that, it will be well with our soul. 10/20/2011
On Grandfather Mountain, Grandfather Mountain State Park near Linville, NC—We are to get on the horse named My Heart’s True Love and ride her wherever she takes us, doing whatever we can do with our heart truly in it, and see where it goes. It is not our place to “do something with it.” It is not our place to “make something come of it.” It is not our place to steer the horse to fame and fortune. Fame and fortune are grossly over-rated. Nothing comes more quickly between us and our heart’s true love, or blocks us more completely from immersing ourselves in our heart’s true love and expressing it in our life. The idea of making a profit kills the joy of the experience, and we suddenly have to make production and be concerned with market share and all that is involved therein. The horse lives out her life penned in the pasture while we worry about dying. Interesting, isn’t it, that the people who worry about dying are the people who have been dead most of their lives. The people who are alive are thinking about living, not dying. They are riding their horse through the wide open range, not knowing where it’s going, loving every minute. Get on your horse! Enjoy the ride! 10/21/2011
Price Lake Framed, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—If you can’t think of anything you love with all your heart—if there is nothing you can think of that you can do with all your heart—think of the last time you did something with all your heart and do it. See where it leads. Your heart is dying to give itself to the thing, or things, it loves, and you are disconnected from the experience of heart-full-ness, so you have to re-establish connections. You have to prove to your heart that you can be trusted with its desires. It won’t take your word for it. It has been disappointed too many times. You have to display your good faith in the matter of knowing what your heart loves and serving its desires with what remains of your life, never mind what you think about this whole business. You are here because something isn’t working about your life. What you think hasn’t done it for you. Thinking, reasoning and logic have brought you to this point. Heart is your only hope. You have to trust yourself to your heart but. For your heart to reveal itself to you, it has to trust you to do right by it so. You have to display your willingness to do anything to reconnect with your heart and serve its desires. So if the last thing you did with all your heart was play baseball and you are too old to do that now, go to a baseball game. If you can’t get a World Series ticket, make plans to go to Spring Training. And carry them out. See where it leads. You have to make a good faith effort to place yourself under your heart’s tutelage. This is your work, believing that your heart knows what it is doing and allowing your heart to direct your life. And if “heart” is too much of a ridiculous concept for you, think “right hemisphere of your brain.” Trust it. Connect with it. And live in its service. You could do worse. You’ve done worse. You have nothing to lose. 10/21/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Fall Medley, Leaves and Pond Scum, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Two primary principles of spiritual development—and to be more accurate, it’s conscious development. Our spirit is already developed, and waits on the rest of us, namely our left hemisphere, to catch up—are: “See where it goes” and “Work it out.” In seeing where it goes, we trust ourselves to the guidance of our right hemisphere without having a plan, a map, a guidebook, a compass and an itinerary in hand. In working it out, we pile all of the contraries, opposites and contradictions on the table and go about the business of reconciliation, of integration—of holding the mutually exclusive options in conscious tension without relaxing it in favor of either pole—until the shift occurs (The Shift is another principle of conscious development) and then we see where it goes. This is all very intense work with consciousness and unconsciousness, with the left and right hemispheres, and WE have to do it. There are no catechisms to memorize, no doctrines to believe, no plan of salvation to comprehend. There is just seeing where it goes and working it out. People who want an easier way opt out of being alive in favor of being comfortably dead, spiritually/consciously speaking. 10/22/2011
Blue Ridge Vista, Blue Ridge Parkway near Mt. Mitchell, NC—There are so many distractions, diversions, it’s no wonder we lose focus, forget to ask the grounding questions: Who am I? What am I about? What is my business here and now? What is happening and what needs to happen in this situation? How might I respond to it in ways that are helpful and are authentically ME? 10/22/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Nag’s Head Sunrise, Nag’s Head NC—All we need is a sounding board. Everything else is built in. A sounding board helps us hear what we have to say—provides us with a reflective surface by which we can see who we are (and also are)–helps us know what we know—grounds us, centers us in ourselves so that we might remember who we are and what we are about and follow the guidance of our innate sense of direction to where we need to go, to what we need to do. The key characteristic of a sounding board is that it cares about us without having a vested interest in us. It has nothing at stake in us—nothing to gain or lose by virtue of its relationship with us. It exists to help us find the way that is truly our way and not its way for us. It simply listens to us until we can hear ourselves, identify our conflicts and contradictions, and find our way to our way. May we always have the sounding boards we need to find what we need to do what needs to be done and do it. 10/23/2011
Bodie Island Sunset, Cape Hatteras National Seashore near Nag’s Head, NC—If we are serving our art, talent, gift, genius, daemon, heart, calling—call it what you will—everything else will fall into place. One of those things is you. You fall into place. Your priorities shift (that word again). Your idea of what matters most shifts. You shift. And everything else shifts as well. The world serves you serving your art. Not so that serving your art is a technique for getting the world to serve you and give you what you want. You give up getting what you want when you take up serving your art. You want to serve your art. Period. What you get is what you get—and it’s okay. It’s just fine. Really. Because you are serving your art and what do you care about anything else? Your art is IT. Then the world serves you serving your art, but not in a way that onlookers would be impressed with. It isn’t a selling point to serving your art. It’s a by-product that impresses only you serving, as you are, your art. But, it’s something to watch for, expect, be impressed by—the world serving you, things falling into place, everything falling into place. That’s something when seen from the standpoint of your new perspective. 10/24/2011
Ocracoke to Cedar Island Ferry, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—The concept of free will has no basis in reality. Our will is anything but free. We think of free will as the freedom to do anything we want to do. Therein lies the rub. We are not free to will what we want. We cannot will ourselves to want anything we do not want. We are not free to choose our wants. And we are not free to choose our choices. So we can’t blame free will for our problems. Free will doesn’t exist. But our problems do. The idea is to stop looking for a reason for them and start looking for what to do about them. “Here we are. Now what?” The formula for the rest of the way is “Look, Listen, See, Hear.” We have to “clear a space,” get some distance between ourselves and the situation in order to assess what needs to happen and what we can do to assist its happening. “Too many cooks ruin the broth.” Too many people telling us what to do ruin our chances at doing what needs to be done. Carl Jung said that none of the real problems have a solution—they have to be out-grown. Growing up is our life task. We start by dealing with our present situation as well as we know how and applying what we learn here in the next situation all the way to the end of the line. 10/24/2011
Sunset, Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—We spend our time trying to arrange our life to suit us. The spiritual path requires us to arrange ourselves to suit our life. Bob Dylan said, “The song was there before me. I just wrote it down.” Our life is there before us. We just live it. We sing our life the way Bob Dylan sang his songs. We sing the life we are given, handed, asked to sing. Where do we stop and where does our life start? We live on the boundary, on the cusp, between ourselves and our life and allow our life to take us where it will. In so doing we have to think of our life as the physical circumstances of our existence—the time and place of our living, our genetic make-up, the choices we have, etc.—and as the art, gift, calling, genius that is ours to serve, express, live out within the terms and conditions of our living. We bring the givens of our gift forth within the givens of space and time. This is enough for us to think about. We don’t have to be worrying about who wins the World Series or building a fortune. How to be who we are, how to do what is ours to do, here and now is all we have time for. 10/25/2011
Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—We wake up in the world we wake up to every day. What changes? Everything is transformed and nothing changes. Life is an optical illusion. The old hag becomes a young maiden by virtue of the way we see the drawing in front of us. We can look at our life and see the old hag. We can look again at our life and see the young maiden. Which way IS it? It is all ways at once. Start looking for The Other Ways. Don’t settle for the way you have always seen things. Thresholds exist to new worlds on every side, waiting for us to walk through them to new lives. Creative vision sees possibilities everywhere. We all have The Eye. We all are dying to see. There’s a catch, of course. To see more than we have seen, we have to live differently, or be willing to. Seeing enhances, enables, living. If we aren’t seeing it is because we aren’t willing to live toward where seeing will take us. We cannot just see new worlds—we have to live there. It’s called the Hero’s JOURNEY. Get it? 10/26/2011
Silver Lake, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—We have to be ready for the wind to stop blowing and the clouds to appear. The shift will come in its own time. Be waiting. Ready.
Hatteras Lighthouse Panorama, Buxton Wetlands, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—We make seeing and doing what needs to be done more complex than it needs to be. “Eat when hungry, rest when tired.” What needs to be done is on this basic level. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Whoever offers a cup of cold water to one of these little ones will be considered great in the kingdom of heaven” (or words to that effect). See? This is not hard. A kind word when a kind word is needed. Ordinary, every day, impossible to live without stuff. What needs to be done. Do it. Simple. 10/26/2011
Silver Lake, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—We start with the givens, the facts, and wonder what needs to happen here and now—wonder what we can do to make things better than they are, more like they ought to be than they are. Maybe there is nothing to do to right things on a large scale (as in a prisoner of war camp), but. There is always something to do to right things on a small scale—a kind word, a cup of cold water, being a caring presence—as we wait for the shift to make possible righting things on a large scale. The Occupy the World Movement is a beautiful way of focusing the world on the wrongness of the way things are. We go on strike to protest working conditions. We mount civil disobedience campaigns to call attention to the social and economic inequities of race, gender, sexual-orientation and class. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. led the way to changing things that appeared to have no chance of being changed ever. The way opens before those who are open to the way. We don’t have to assume that nothing can be done just because no one is doing anything. We can be the shift we are waiting for by doing things differently here and now. We stop mouthing the platitudes and the liturgical responses. We stop pretending that things are all right as they are. We question authority and would-be authority on all levels: Who says this is the way things ought to be done? Who says this is the best we can do? It’s easy enough to find fault with President Obama—also find fault with those who stand to gain by finding fault with President Obama. No Social Security? Who says that’s a good idea? No More Sound Bites! Push everyone to the limits of their suggested solution over into imagination and creativity and transformation! Let the revolution to a civil, fair, and just world for all begin!
Ocracoke Lighthouse, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—An iPhone Photo—The trick is to see what we look at and look at everything. I was looking for the black coffee maker in the house we are renting for the week, and didn’t see the white one on the counter top. The things we don’t see, the things that are completely invisible, are right there in plain sight, waiting to be seen. Eyes that see are eyes that look at everything without looking for anything. We’re working at that. Right? 10/27/2011
Molasses Creek, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—There is no having it made. No getting it all together. No arriving. No standing on top of the world. No sitting in the cat bird’s seat. No ain’t I something now. There is only taking care of this moment the way this moment needs to be taken care of—with a long string of moments stretching out before us, waiting their turn. There is no quitting, no stopping, no retiring from the work that is ours to do. There is only doing the work, being who we are (and also are), being about what is ours to be about. There is nothing more to it than that. Receive well the moment. Do there what needs to be done as it needs to be done the way only you can do it. And do it again in the next moment. If you get that down, you’ll have it made.
Ocracoke Lighthouse, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—What we tell ourselves enables us to take it or stops us in our tracks. What we tell ourselves provides us with the courage and incentive to make our way through the present circumstances, or folds us up and hands us over. We have a situation. The situation calls for some response. It isn’t the way we would like for it to be. What are we going to do? What are we going to tell ourselves about the situation? What we say to ourselves about our life, about life generally, sets the tone of our living, enables us to do what we do or keeps us from doing much of anything. What do we say? What are we telling ourselves these days? What we say to ourselves helps us deal with the situation at hand or hinders us in dealing with it. What we say about the situation determines what we do about it. Living better begins with talking differently about our lives. How we live depends upon what we say to ourselves about our life. Monitor your self-talk. Change what you say and you’ll change the way you see and the way you live. 10/28/2011
Marsh Sunrise, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—Here’s an Internet Gem for you. If the Dalai Lama didn’t say it, he could have: “The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, replied: ‘Man—because he sacrifices his health in order to make money, then he sacrifices his money in order to recuperate his health. And then, he is so anxious about his future that he does not enjoy his present, the result being that he does not live in the present or the future. He lives as if he is never going to die, and dies having never lived.’” 10/29/2011
Pelican, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—There are things throughout your life that are like knowing where to place the tripod is in my life. I don’t know how I know where to put the tripod. I don’t know why it’s here and not there, or over there. After I’m done here, it may be over there next. Maybe not. I’ll have to wait to see. It’s like that with us in countless places and ways. Why do we choose to wear what we wear each day? How do we know when enough coffee is enough? We know things we don’t know how we know. These are the important things. A street map can tell us how to find a bakery, but when it’s time for a cinnamon roll is beyond a map’s capabilities. How we know what to do with our lives, or what to do next, is like how we know where to place the tripod, or whether to wear the red shirt or the blue one. One place is not as good as another, one shirt is not the same as another. The differences matter. We are guided, led, toward one and away from the others. Why? How? It is enough to know what we know without knowing all there is to know about what we know. Know what you know and trust it without having to know what you don’t know. That’s my best advice. 10/29/2011
Limb at Springer’s Point, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—If we were in a foreign country, Italy or Africa, the right thing to do would be to honor the customs and ways of the foreign country. In the United States, we bump into foreign customs and ways at every turn. What is with the attitude that says “THEY (that is anyone who is not one of US) should be like WE are (that is ME and those who agree with ME)”? The right thing to do is honor, respect, perspectives and ways of doing things that are not the way WE see and do things. Our way is just our way. It is not THE way. No way is THE way. There are 10,000 ways of getting it done, of getting life lived. You would hate living the way I live. I would hate living the way you live. Let’s start there, and honor each other for living it the way we live it and making it work as well as it does for us—without trying to force our way on the other. It will be a step on the way to creating a world in which all people are safe to be who they are, which is as basic a human right as I can think of. 10/29/2011
Cormorant Run, Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—It starts with allowing ourselves to be who we are, where we are, how we are, what we are, why we are. We do not get to where we want to be by trying to get there. We get to where we need to be by being here, now. This doesn’t mean we resist change to stay here, always. It means we stop resisting change—allowing ourselves to change in ways we do not think is conducive to getting where we want to be. Where we want to be is not necessarily where we need to be. Our lives are constructed to get us where we need to be when we need to be there—and then where we need to be after that when we need to be there. There is no steady state of being. Being dead is the only steady state, and who knows how steady that is! But. We do know that a steady state of being-while-alive is death. Life is moving, movement, evolving, becoming, growing. Death is being the same, yesterday, today, tomorrow. When we stop resisting change, we move toward where we need to be in order to move on to where we need to be after that. Your life will bring you what you need for the next step. You only have to be awake enough to receive it. Your life brings you the poem but you have to write it down. 10/30/2011
Pamlico Sunset Panorama, Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—The top half of this photo is the photo. The bottom half is the top half copied, flipped and merged with the top half to create a faux reflection. Because the wind was in the 15 mph range, down from the 35 mph range early this morning and that moves me beyond taking a picture to making one. We take what we are given and do what we can with it. This is the way things are and this is what we can do about it and that’s that. 10/30/2011
Ocracoke Lighthouse, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—We don’t know what drives our boat on its path through the sea, or why this path and not that one, or any of the things that matter. We trust ourselves to it all—without being able to explain, excuse, justify, or defend. We make things up to satisfy our family, friends and critics but. We don’t know what we are doing. I get up to take another picture at sunrise as though the world needs another picture at sunrise. What am I thinking? I’m thinking to talk myself out of getting up to take another picture at sunrise because I have no valid, stand-up-in-court, reason to do so would be to violate something essential and truthful about my core. I have no idea if that is correct but. Something needs me to get up and take another picture of sunrise and I am here to trust myself to that Something and see where it goes, So are you. This is called the secret to having life and having it abundantly. Doing stupid things you can’t begin to understand because Something needs you to do it. May we all live so stupidly and so well! 10/31/2011
Hatteras Sunrise, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—“Pie for Strength” is the motto of the Park Cafe and Grocery at the St. Mary entrance to Glacier National Park. I think pie is it’s own reason for existence, and strength is just an added benefit, but we’ll take our strength wherever we find it. Strength and encouragement for the journey, for the work at hand, for what needs us to do it the way only we can do it along the way. It’s good to know where to go for those things, and stock up on them while we can. It may be a long walk between pies. 10/31/2011
Pamlico Sound Sunset, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—The thrust of our life is the flow of the stream. We will be who we are. Carl Jung said, “We are who we have always been, and who we will be,” or words to that effect. The stream flows through its context and circumstances, and its character is developed in its interaction with its environment—in its work to find a way to be who it is no matter what is in its path, not with complete disregard for what is in its path, but with taking everything into account and working with it to be itself there, then, in the here and now of its living/being. The stream does not bulldoze its way to the sea, and it does not stop flowing. As Linda Cohn might say, “Are you picking up what I’m laying down here?” 11/01/2011
Silver Lake, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—We don’t have long to say what we have to say, to do what we have to do. We can’t be squandering the time that is ours hanging out at the mall, looking for another party. We aren’t skimming stones. Frivolity, banality and superficiality are no substitutes for life. We have bigger fish to fry. The Cyclops, for instance. We are here to take on the Cyclops in all of his myriad manifestations. It matters how we live. We cannot throw life away because we are afraid of living—because we are afraid we don’t know how to live, don’t know what to do, don’t think we have anything to say. We owe it to ourselves—and to each other—to find out if there is anything to us. We cannot allow ourselves to hide in the trivial and the repetitious, bingo, canasta, bridge, shuffle-board and their myriad manifestations. 11/02/2011
Cloud Bank at Sunset, Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—Unless our dreams encounter reality, they remain forever happy fantasies, incapable of delivering their promise and growing us up. A dream requires barriers the way a butterfly requires a chrysalis and the struggle to exit it. If Odysseus’ father had paid his son’s way, bought off the Cyclops, arranged for the Sirens to not sing, Odysseus would have remained an invalid, clinging to Father’s Love (Not!) forever. The people who deliver our dreams to us wrapped in a ribbon do us no favors. “Some kind of help is the kind of help we all could do without.” The dream has to work us over, call us forth, require us to meet the challenges of serving the dream our whole life-long, else it’s a travesty and a tragedy in the making. The Buddha had to escape the dream-eating power of his royal beginnings. Jesus had to rely on the power of his dream to overcome the demons he encountered along the way. It is a solitary task, dreaming ourselves into existence, our life into being. 11/03/2011
Pamlico Sunset, Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—Having a dream is not the same as having what it takes to live in the service of our dream. Ten thousand kids dream of being Michael Jordon but. They don’t have what it takes to practice with Michael Jordan’s dedication to the perfection of his art. They don’t have what it takes to study and make the grades to stay in school. They don’t have what it takes to be a part of a team. They dream of being a star but. They don’t have what it takes to be a star. A real dream will beat you into shape. It will shape your life. It will make you over. And over. We think living our dream is like Hollywood, all glory and fame. Wrong. Living our dream is doing what is ours to do whether we want to or not, whether we feel like it or not, whether we are in the mood for it or not, in all weather conditions, no matter what, because we live to serve the dream and not the other way around. So, when you dream up a dream, make sure it’s worth your time because it will take all of it. And it’s worth every minute. Just look at the people who never had a dream—or what it takes to live one out. 11/03/2011
Hanging Rock Vista, Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, NC—We have to celebrate the quality of our effort, not our outcome. The results are not always satisfactory and are usually out of our control. We meet the day as well as we are able and let that be that. We do some things better than Jesus could do them, or God. When I water the yard, I do it as well as it can be done. Rain couldn’t do it better. Rain’s only advantage is that I don’t have to water when it rains, and I hate watering the yard. But I do it well. There are lots of things we do very well that go unnoticed. Making coffee. I make coffee better than Starbucks. Filling the car with gasoline. Too bad I don’t get points for filling the car with gasoline. The list is long of things we all do well without credit, without even noticing. We notice the things that we don’t do well or that don’t have the outcome we want. It’s easily, “Bad Jim,” here and “Bad Jim” there, here a “Bad,” there a “Bad,” everywhere a “Bad, Bad” throughout our day every day. We are culturally trained to not like what we do and not like ourselves for doing it. We suffer from self-inflicted misery because we are taught “Bad Jim” early on and no one—no voice—counters the cultural lessons. It’s time we countered them ourselves. “Nice going, Jim!” Tell yourself “Nice going!” when you load the dishwasher and empty it—and do all the other things you do really well, regardless of the outcome, never mind the results. Stars for effort all the way. 11/04/2011
Stone Mountain Woods, Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, NC—We wrestle with God. “Thy will, not mine, be done,” is not easily wrought. It comes after, “I will not let you go without a blessing!” The blessing is always the two of us walking together along the way we both agree is the way. “Thy will be done,” is recognition of the rightness of “Thy will.” It comes, if you remember, after the struggle, with sweat pouring forth likes “drops of blood,” after it becomes apparent, the rightness of “Thy will.” We must not give in too easily, too soon. The struggle is at the heart of the matter. We have to be convinced that “Thy will” is right about the way. We have a voice. We are not to be ignored. It is not for nothing that we live. God repents before the wisdom of those who call God to task. “Shall not the Judge of the earth do right?” We find the way together, and walk it in consultation with one another, collaborating in justice, compassion, grace and peace. Amen! May it be so! 11/05/2011
Buzzard Roost, Walnut Cove Water Tower, Walnut Cove, NC—You’ve heard of the Swallows at Capistrano, well. Here are the Buzzards at Walnut Cove. You couldn’t make this up. “They’ve been coming here as long as I’ve lived next door,” said a neighbor. “That’s over two years now. The town’s tried to scare them away, but they keep coming back.” I love this about life. Buzzards who know a good thing when they see one, and refuse to leave. May we be as persistent and determined in the work that is ours to do. May we know as clearly what is ours to do, and prevail!
Black Birch, Blue Ridge Parkway, Rocky Knob, VA—What holds life together for you? It’s the adventure for me. The not knowing what is going to happen today and what I am going to do with it. The wondering what I’ll see. What I’ll think. What I’ll say. Each day can be like Christmas Morning if you approach it with the right kind of spirit, seeing it as a package to be opened, a new bike to be ridden who knows where. Live so that death catches you by surprise, I say, and as though you might die any day. “It’s a good day to die” means, “I’m ready to die because I’ve done everything I could think to do up to this point, but I’m going to be thinking of other things to do all the way to may last breath.” Die with cookies in the oven and crumbs on your plate. Live every day as though it will be your last and as though you’ll never die. One of those ironic parameters that enclose us all in their loving arms and tickle us into laughing out loud. 11/06/2011
Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—One of the laws of photography is “You have to go to know.” You have to go see, go looking. The camera is always saying, “Let’s go looking!” I don’t know why I go where I go any more than I know why I place the tripod where I place the tripod. Or, I think I know where I’m going and what I’m looking for and find something unexpected and quite IT along the way. Photography isn’t a thinking thing and you have to be thinking all the while—thinking is autofocus on or off, is the lens clean, is the battery charged, are the settings suitable for the occasion. Another of those ironic parameters. Just when you think you don’t have to think because you’ve thought about it enough that everything is automatic, comes the reminder: No compact flash card in the camera. Great. The camera is always there to remind you to pay attention. Awareness, awareness, awareness. The same old lessons are new every day. Just like with life. 11/06/2011
Jennette’s Pier, Nags Head, NC—We have a certain drift of soul, toward this, away from that. We are built for some music and built to avoid other music. Some things “go against the grain.” Some things “carry us away.” Over time, we find our place, know where we belong and where we have no business being. You don’t find the Dalai Lama at football games or strip clubs, and we don’t fault him for that. Why do we fault any of us for where we have to be or cannot go? The young woman who served my lunch today was excited to tell me about her pending tattoo—a colored iris as a memorial to her Grandmother, done by an artist she had spent time searching out. I was honored by her sharing that with me and celebrated it with her, though I am not likely to order one up for myself. They all don’t have to do it the way I do it. We don’t have to oppose the paths others trod. We can be supportive and encouraging without endorsing or subscribing to. There are a lot of ways to wash dishes and to get from here to San Francisco. And, if you are thinking of “the best way,” best in terms of what? Dance to the music you call music, and let the rest of us do the same. 11/06/2011
Clingman’s Dome Sunset, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC—We find our own way, we make our own path. There is no recipe, no formula, no map or blueprint—no black footprints laid out for us to step on to glory. The disciples must become like the Master in following no Master. We see the path by looking behind us. We are creating the path with each choice, each decision, each act. The path that led us here, now, is the path we made. It’s the same path that will take us wherever we are going. Listen to everything everyone says and then listen to yourself—decide for yourself what you think about it all. How does it strike you? What do you make of it? Learning to listen to yourself—learning to trust yourself—is the primary lesson of life. Education does not pour stuff into us, facts and parts of speech. It pulls stuff out of us, stuff we didn’t know was there, tucked away within us, poems and ideas and questions. It’s already there, waiting for us to listen to what we have to say, to trust ourselves to it, and dance with our lives to glory. 11/07/2011
An Old Wagon Road near Walnut Grove, NC—We are in a hurry to be somewhere, somewhere better, somewhere where we have it made, have no worries, no problems, no fears. Wealth seems to represent the place to be for a lot of us. We dream of winning the lottery, of having “our ship come in.” In the not-too-distant past, people dreamed of Glory Land, Paradise, Heaven and all its splendor—where they could lay down their burdens and be free at last. Escape is a happy fantasy. Snoopy in the comic strip Peanuts said all the puppies at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm dreamed of escape but. “Once you get over the fence you are still in the world.” I recommend squaring up to how things are and how they also are, and what you can do about it—doing it and letting that be that. Too often we dream of miraculous deliverance because we live in binds where no matter what we do we make things worse trying to make them better and we are stuck, trapped, in a life we cannot live. We need resources and help beyond what we are able to generate ourselves. There, we have to walk too paths at once, the reality path—doing what must be done to take care of business as business must be taken care of—and the dream path—doing what must be done to be ready for the door to open when it does. If you are going to believe anything, believe that the door will open and you have to be ready to go through it when going time comes. We can’t lose the hope of the open door even though we have no idea what form it may take. We wait, watching, ready. 11/08/2011
Maple Lane, Forest Lawn Cemetery, Greensboro, NC—It isn’t hard to find photos in the fall in North Carolina. It’s hard finding a place to park and a place to set your tripod. The rural roads have no shoulders and people, urban and rural, are funny about you walking through their yard and standing in their flowerbeds. Their dogs are even funnier. So, you are limited to public places with parking and no No Trespassing signs. And you thought it was about having an expensive camera and several lens. You make the same mistake with everyone who comes your way. You look at them and fail to notice what all they are dealing with, how the Cyclops in some present-day manifestation is body-slamming them just for the fun of it, and laughing. So, John Watson’s words are worth carrying around, remembering, living out: “Be Kind; Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle.” 11/09/2011
Yellow Leaves, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—I’m going to miss fall. I love finding photos everywhere, not having to look for them, having to wait on them, not that there isn’t something to complain about: Not enough camera time. That’s my complaint. Fall doesn’t last nearly long enough. If it only lasted as long as July and August! There should be some compensation for July and August! They last six months apiece. That’s a year total. Fall should last a year. Fall should last long enough that I begin to long for winter. Wish it would snow so I could shovel the driveway. That’s how long I want fall to last. Something else to be big about—as though we need something else to be big about! We spend all our time granting concessions, making allowances, adjusting our stride to fit the terrain, accommodating, accommodating, accommodating… The turtles and the fishes, the deer and the Great Horned Owls have to do the same thing, but they don’t know they are doing it. It’s just, “Oh, well,” with them. They don’t sit around grousing about it. Not even the Ruffled Grouse grouses. Something’s wrong about that. Something else to grouse about. To be big about. To get over. Geez. 11/10/2011
The Other Lone Cypress, Lake Brandt, Greensboro, NC—The Lord and I love chocolate. And, if you think that is reprehensible and sacrilegious, allow me to remind you that for several thousand years it was high holy dogma that the Lord loved the aroma of burning bulls. I propose that chocolate is much to be preferred over the stench of sacrificial animals, and I am pleased to allow the Lord to enjoy it vicariously through my obedient service to the Lord’s holy will. We take our chocolate dark from the good people at Hershey’s, though Dove is also a good choice and has the advantage of scriptural symbolism on its side. Chocolate bunnies and eggs at Easter have long been connected with the highest of holy days, and I cannot possibly see how anyone could take offense at the idea of chocolate being well up on the Lord’s list of things to do. So, I’m pleased to say that the Lord and I love a good chocolate session together, and we think we will go enjoy one right now. 11/10/2011
The Woods at Springer’s Point, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—A moment in our life is like the next pitch in a baseball game. What we do in response to that pitch, to the moment, tells the tale. Everything rides on how we respond to the situation, to the moment, as it arises. We cannot be locked into always doing it the way it is supposed to be done—the way it has always been done. We have to be free—to allow ourselves the freedom—to play with the moment, with the situation, to innovate, create, invent and bring forth the astounding and unheard of. Of course, this will not sit well with Those Who Know Best And Must Be Pleased. So? 11/10/2011
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse from the Buxton Wetlands, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Hatteras Island, NC—I watched a small boy standing with his mother ahead of me in line at the Post Office. He was working on a Post Office give-away sucker while his mother stamped her last letter before her turn at the window. He turned to say something to her and his sucker hit the floor. With a mixture of heartfelt surprise and disbelief he exclaimed, “IT DROPPED!” He didn’t say, “I dropped it,” with a tone suggesting the imminent end of the world with maybe a bit of prosecution, conviction and jail time to compliment his last day on earth. “It dropped! I had nothing to do with it. I was just standing here minding my own business, having a conversation with my Mom. It is obviously not my fault and I will have nothing to do with the outcome. I am as chagrined by this turn of events as anyone would rightly be, and I demand to be cleared of any charges that may be pending.” The kid’s on to something. “The milk split. The car door slammed on my finger. The edge of the cabinet hit my head.” The possibilities are endless. We don’t have to take the rap for anything that ever happens. One of life’s lessons while waiting in line. 11/11/2011
Colors of Fall Abstract, Bog Garden Reflections, Greensboro, NC—We are here to help on another along the way but. No one can help us or be helped with the essential matters. We have to grow up on our own. We have to face up to the truth of how things are, and also are, come to terms with our choices and do what we can imagine doing with, and about, all that constitutes the here-and-now of our existence. The truth is that we don’t have good-enough choices. We want better choices but. We don’t get to choose our choices and. No one can help us square ourselves up with that fundamental fact. “Look, Jim, these are your choices. Do what you can imagine to do with them and let that be that.” That’s about as much help as we can be to one another. We have a lot to not like about our life with very little that can be done about any of it. This is called The Human Condition. We can soften the sharp edges of reality, provide a little comic relief, offer a psychological/emotional respite, interlude, oasis—provide a modicum of peace. Peace and understanding, tenderness and compassion, warmth and kindness… That would help. Acknowledging our mutual plight. Agreeing that anybody would want better choices.And then saying, “But. Here you are. Now what are you going to do?” That would help. If you could do that much for me, I will be just fine. 11/11/2011
Silver Lake Sunrise, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, NC—If we knew what to want—what we ought to want—and wanted it, and lived in its service, the world would be a quite different place. For the most part—that is, for most of us, most of the time—we know what we want and don’t know, or knowing, we don’t care about, what to want, what we ought to want. The spiritual quest, the Hero’s Journey, is growing up, out of our facilitation with what we want, into our allegiance to and alignment with what we ought to want and living in its service. The catch here is that what we ought to want has no necessary connection with what we think we ought to want, with what we have always been told we ought to want. It is not a simple matter of doing, finally, what your Mamma says—and it is not a matter of NOT doing what she says. Growing up is growing into our own sense of how things ought to be, no matter what anyone says, and being right about it. There is a mysterious, numinous—that is, holy—sense of “YES!” when we are in the center of “the beam,” when we are “on the right track” with our lives. Joseph Campbell says, “We know when we are on the beam and when we are off of it.” There is nothing worth wanting beyond the beam, nothing worth doing beyond living in its service. The trick is being okay with not knowing what we are doing there, but knowing that it is right, and trusting ourselves to it no matter what Mamma or anyone else says. 11/11/2011
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., Lake Brandt Panorama, Greensboro, NC—Sin is refusing to grow up. All sin can be lumped under the heading: Emotional Immaturity. Refusing to bear the pain of contradiction. Insisting on having our way NOW! Waiting nothing out. Running stop signs. Failing to heed—or read—any of the signs or flashing signals. Barreling down the road of life to destinations we deem worthy. Not listening. Not seeing. Not inquiring. Not understanding. Serving our agenda at the expense of ourselves and everyone else. Thinking if we do this, that will happen, and being undone when it doesn’t. Being undone. Doing whatever we do as a strategy to get what we want. Thinking we know what to want. That we know what we are doing. That we know where we are going. That we know who we are and what we are about. Thinking we know. 11/12/2011
Blue Ridge Vista, Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, NC—Remember in the 70’s the solution to the drug problem was recreation centers? Tennis courts, soft ball fields? Give kids something to do and they won’t do drugs? That didn’t work out so well. I think it should have been meaning. Give kids meaning and they won’t do drugs. Or, not as many of them will. That’s tricky, though. How do you give someone meaning? Meaning isn’t like a rock that we can pass around. We don’t find meaning so much as we bring it forth. We bring meaning forth in our lives by living meaningfully—by living in ways that have meaning for us. And we are the only ones who can say what that is for us. How do we know? How do we know pie or cake? Chicken salad or spaghetti? I don’t now how we know, but I know that we know. We know what has meaning and what does not, what brings us to life and what kills our soul. And we know when we are living in the service of a substitute for meaning, ersatz meaning, sham meaning, pretend meaning, no meaning at all. It all hangs on our willingness to do what is meaningful. No more kidding ourselves. It all hangs on that. 11/12/2011
For Rent, Price Lake, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—We are going to be dead a lot longer than we are alive so. We better do everything we can think of to be as alive as we can be in the time left for living. We don’t have, as they say in the deep south, a minute to waste but. That’s exactly what it takes to be alive. Wasting minutes. Throwing time away in the pursuit of nothing. Sitting silently. Walking slowly through the world with our eyes open. Being not what the world would call productive but. Being alive. In the moment of our living. Open to what is happening here and now—and to what is trying to happen, to what needs to happen, and doing what we can with what we have to work with to assist its happening, to bring it forth in the world of space and time. Not imposing our idea for the moment on the moment but. Listening to the moment and assisting the coming forth of what needs to come forth in each situation as it arises. Being alive to the time of our living and dancing, playing, with what we find there for the good of the moment. Amen! May it be so! 11/13/2011
Bodie Island Lighthouse, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, near Nags Head, NC—Brooks Vance told his wife, Louise, “Don’t keep track of the liabilities, Louise. It’ll only depress you.” You couldn’t find better advice in the entire Book of Advice. The losses add up. Some of them are large. The cumulative impact of our losses, even only the small ones, will take our breath away. No. Will take our life away. Now look, it isn’t just our life. We think it is. We think, “It’s our life and we can do what we want to with it.” Two things are wrong with this position. One is it isn’t our life, not wholly, not entirely. Two is we don’t know what we ought to want, just what we want and what do we know? We don’t know nothing. Remember that the next time you think you know when to quit living because your losses have added up to “Stop!” We don’t know nothing. And our life isn’t all ours. We have the hopes of the invisible world riding on us. We live for more than ourselves. The world of unconscious, invisible, psychic reality intersects this world of normal, concrete, apparent reality in and through us. We are the interface between worlds. We have responsibilities and duties we don’t know anything about (because they are unconscious). There is more to us than meets the eye. If you are going to believe anything, believe that there is more to us than meets the eye and that we live for more than ourselves. Explore what that might mean in the time left for living, and don’t be surprised if you discover you’re living in behalf of some of your biggest losses who are now counting on you to live for them. The invisible world has some strange twists and turns, and we don’t know nothing. 11/13/2011
Cedar Island Ferry Panorama, Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, NC—I’ve been retired from the ministry (Presbyterian Church USA) nearly a year now and what strikes me upon reflection about Sunday morning worship services is how loud they were. The organ was loud, the hymns were loud (“Sing it like you mean it now!”), the anthems were loud, the guitars and percussion were loud… Reflecting the principle “In order to be good it has to be loud.” My friend Bob Taylor taught middle school band early in his career and told me the secret to Jr. High (and high school, and college) half-time shows was to make it loud. “Have the band march toward the home side of the field with the brass blaring and the drums beating and everybody will think it’s great.” Loud is a substitute for good. Give me the infinite echo of a Tibetan singing bowl, the resonating peace of a chorus of “AUM,” the silence of many minds experiencing Mind… Think of the most worshipful, non-church, experience of your life. How loud was it? Turning up the volume is simply a way of letting ourselves off the hook. We impact ourselves with pseudo-WOW and avoid having to do the work of facing the truth of our lives in order to discover God-with-us there. The ground of worship is the individual work each of us does in order to see things as they are and also are in each moment of our life. Work? Did somebody say work? Just bring on the band at full throttle! 11/14/2011
Pisgah National Forest, Davidson River near Brevard, NC—We connect with the invisible world through symbols engaged with our imagination, and we exhibit the connection in the way we live our lives. Our nighttime dreams are rich in symbols (it is a rare dream that is to be taken literally) which we decipher and interpret imaginatively, consciously. When we sit quietly, what arises? We are constantly generating, creating, fantasies, stories, scenarios—what themes are being borne out? When our mind “makes something up,” what does it make up? What symbols are being presented to us from the unconscious? What do we make of them, do with them? Are we always scaring ourselves, imagining terrible things happening to us or those we love? Try this: Tell your unconscious that you can be trusted to deal with the absolute worst life can do, that it can rely on you completely, that you will protect it and your relationship with it under all circumstances, as though it is your child and you are its loving parent. And that you will consult it about its needs and concerns and be open to it expressing those to you in dreams and waking fantasies. Your imagination is the interface with your unconscious, you can direct it and consciously make up a story, say about horseback riding in the west, and in the middle of your story something completely surprising happens. Our imagination works both ways, from us and to us from our unconscious. We read the symbols and incorporate our interpretation into our lives, collaborating with our unconscious in a life of joint partnership. Let the adventure begin! 11/14/2011
Pied-billed Grebe, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We keep trying to make sense of things but. It’s as though there is another side at work in the service of disorder and nonsense. The more rational and logical we make the world, the crazier, chaotic and out-of-control the world gets. Insanity erupts. Unless it is honored, respected, allowed its place at the table. Rationality has to get off of its high horse, as they would say in the deep south. We have to take the emotional, irrational, ground of existence into account—in our politics and in our personal life—in order to integrate the whole and make room for all. We cannot just think our way into our life, we also have to intuit our way there, hunch our way there, and feel our way along. Insanity is never without its basis. Chaos is order from far enough away or close enough in, and order is chaos. Sanity and insanity work the same way. Insanity is as sane as it gets from a certain point of view and sanity is crazy as hell. We think AND we feel—consciously, with awareness—and we take both thinking and feeling into account in seeking out the way forward together. 11/15/2011
Geese Landing, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—There are 10,000 ways of letting yourself go, most of them bad, like, for instance, eating potato chips by the bag full and ice cream right out of the carton, smoking and refusing to exercise beyond walking to the refrigerator. That isn’t the idea. The idea is to let ourselves go in the direction of our heart’s flow toward its life. The idea is to let our heart have its life. We all have a bent, a lean, a tendency toward some things and away from others (And I’m not talking potato chips and ice cream here). We override our innate tendency toward our heart’s true love to our long-term, one might say eternal, detriment. We refuse to let ourselves go. It’s too outlandish, too expensive, too absurd, too far removed from what we are supposed to do, or not do. The excuse list is long, one might say eternal. We have good reasons for not being who our heart needs us to be. If you are going to override something, override your refusal to be who your heart is calling you to be! Let yourself go! Experience being alive before you die! 11/16/2011
King of the Pond, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We grant ourselves, each other (and all others) the benefit of the doubt and see where it goes. We would all do better if it weren’t for something. So, cut a little slack, grant a little grace, dish out a little kindness and see what happens. 11/16/2011

One Minute Monologues 001

04/29/2011 – 08/16/2011

04/29/2011 — Be aware of what you throw away.
Notice every time you dismiss something that catches your eye,
or reject something that appears to be useless or repulsive.
Every variety of light is the perfect light for some subject.
The work of photography is finding the subject
that is suited for the light
we have to work with.
Everything has a hidden side.
Your task is to find the blessing.
04/30/2011 — Photography is about going back to the good places,
looking again at what you have seen a hundred times already.
Don’t think you have seen anything worth seeing just
because you’ve looked it over once or twice.
Anything worth seeing once is worth looking at again.
Go look.
See what happens.
It’s our arrogance that lets us get by with thinking
we know what we will see,
and it won’t be much.
We have to allow ourselves to look again. Again and again.
04/30/2011 — What we see is a function of how we look,
of what we look at,
of what we look for,
of the filters we place between ourselves and what’s there,
before us, waiting to be seen.
We have to be receptive to receive what is being offered to us.
04/30/2011 — We walked our way, as a species, to where we are today.
Walking is what we do.
Why don’t we do more of it?
The Aborigines restored their connection with soul
by taking walkabouts,
not necessarily going anywhere—
just finding themselves again.

We get lost when we don’t walk.
Lose our direction,
sitting at home.
Drift away from soul driving
five miles an hour above the posted speed limit,
thinking we are going somewhere.

We live faster than we can process,
than we can accommodate,
than we can adjust ourselves to.

We are built for walking.
Two miles an hour,
two-and-a-half downhill.
We don’t walk,
and wonder why our lives are unlivable.
05/01/2011 — Every pursuit has it’s rules.
Horseback riding is done in certain ways.
So is getting dressed.
There are no exceptions.
You don’t play basketball the way you play chess.
God is approached via The Rules for Approaching God,
though they aren’t the ones you’ve been told about.

We’ve been handed the wrong set of rules for doing a lot of things.
We spend our lives figuring out what the rules really are.

Horses and cameras will straighten you out in no time.
Too bad more of life isn’t that way.
05/01/2011 — Dogwood trees and May Apples have their business—making the most of what they need of the things that come their way.

Their focus is narrow: light, water, pollination, reproduction.
Wars and weddings and who wears what to the Oscars all go unnoticed.

There are worlds within worlds, each with its own
rhythms and necessities.

May we be as right about what we think is important
as Dogwoods and May Apples are about what is important to them.
05/01/2011 — The soil is not deep along the Blue Ridge Parkway,
the rocks are numerous,
the Black Berry vines are thick and persistent.
It takes a resilient spirit to make it under these conditions,
a strong back,
a stout heart.
Life is hard.
We prefer easy.
Quick and easy.

Shortcuts everywhere.
Buffers.
Cushions.
Distractions.
Escapes.

Joseph Campbell said,
“It took the Cyclops to bring out the hero in Ulysses.”
The Appalachian wilderness could do it, too.
Any life could do it if we took what it handed us
and didn’t rush to denial and diversion.

Bear the pain!
Square up to the discrepancy between how things are
and how you wish they were!
Walk out the back door and milk the cow!
Every day at the same time!
05/02/2011 — Folks are still farming in the region along the Parkway,
raising livestock,
growing cabbages
and pumpkins,
bailing hay.

Life is the most persistent force in the universe.
Life does not quit.
Life finds a way.
If we are going to be alive,
that’s the attitude we have to adopt.

We cannot sit around,
waiting to be pleased with our lives.
We have to step into them just as they are
and find a way,
make it work.

Photography reminds me of the task that is mine,
ours.
Stepping into a day
and finding the photograph
no matter what.
Any light is the perfect light for some subject.
I have to find the subject
that is coming down the runway
in this light, saying,
“How ‘bout me, honey?”

We have to find the gold in this damn gift from the gods.
That’s life.
05/02/2011 — Fall is one of the reasons I would stay here
given a free ticket to anywhere.

Waterfalls,
National Parks (three),
and fall.
A conversation with one of the granddaughters
had me replying to her question
about what heaven was like,
saying, “I’m not going to heaven.
I’m going to stay right here.”

“But Pops, everybody wants to go to heaven.”
“Not me,” I said, “I’m not getting on the bus.”
“Mom,” she yelled out,
“Pops says he’s not going to heaven!”
Things went downhill from there.

Point is, North Carolina is close enough to heaven for me.
Who needs pearly gates and angelic choruses?
A walk in the woods is much to be preferred.

People with their attention on heaven,
miss what is all around them.
05/03/2011 — The spiritual journey
is never more difficult than growing up.
Growing up is changing our minds about what is important.
Shifting our point of view,
our perspective.
Evaluating our values.
Doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises.

How long do we put off the inevitable?
Doing our taxes.
Mowing the lawn.
Cleaning the bathroom.
Dodging the odious things in life is not conducive to spiritual growth,
but too much that passes for spirituality
raises itself above the odious without engaging it.
Acceptance that does nothing about what needs to be done is denial.

Those who are spiritually grown up
wade right into the doing.
If the baby’s diaper needs changing,
we change it when it needs to be changed,
the way it needs to be changed.
No whining,
moaning,
complaining,
just doing.

Size up the moment and do what needs to be done.
That’s as spiritual as it gets.
Middle Cascade, Hanging Rock State Park, near Danbury, NC—There is how things are and there is how we wish things were. We live with the discrepancy. The more conscious we are of the discrepancy, the fewer symptoms we have, but the more we suffer. There is no escape from legitimate suffering. It’s when we try to escape, via diversion, distraction, denial, addiction that our symptoms mount and the real trouble begins. My recommendation is swearing. “Swear like a sailor,” the saying goes. And here’s the important part: Laugh at yourself swearing. It’s great. You’ll love it. It’s the best way I know of through legitimate suffering. All the real gurus swear and laugh. You could look it up. 05/03/2011
Cone Manor, AKA Flat Top Manor, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—There is an inner world—you know the one, where dreams come from, and intuition lives, and imagination creates wonders, and instinct guides with hunches and holy nudges—and an outer world with its stop lights and check-out lines. We would do well to develop our awareness of the inner world to the degree that we develop our awareness of the outer world. We think the external world is the real world. The inner world is “all in our heads,” to be discounted, dismissed, ignored. The entire length of the spiritual journey is the distance from the left side of our brain to the right side. 05/03/2011
Lower Cascade, Hanging Rock State Park, near Danbury, NC—It comes down to you and your life. We spend our time focused on our life, trying to arrange things there like we want them to be. Our context and circumstances consume us in a “Not that! This!” kind of way. Streams, on the other hand, have more of an internal direction. A stream’s context is just the conditions under which it flows. It must flow, to hell with the circumstances. What must we do, to hell with the circumstances? Dogwoods bring forth their blooms, bending and stretching to find the light. They must bloom. You are the thing. What is trying to come forth in you? Forget the things on your list. Bring YOU forth, however you can. 05/04/2011
Wright Dairy, Rockingham County, NC—It’s all up to us and we cannot do it alone. We need the right kind of company to have a chance. All the heroes on all the journeys have help with golden threads through the maize and sorting the beans and figuring out the name. No one does it alone. But, as Shel Silverstein says, “Some kind of help is the kind of help that help is all about, and some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do without.” Finding the right kind of company is a trick. The key is being the right kind of company ourselves. The rule is: Be what you need! You know what to look for that way. Makes it easier. Glad to be of help. 05/04/2011
Upper Cascade, Hanging Rock State Park, near Danbury, NC—May you see things as they are. May you be clear and correct about what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. May you have the courage to do it. Amen! May it be so! 05/05/2011
View of Grandfather Mountain from Raven Rock Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock and Boone, NC—The key to vitality, exuberance, enthusiasm and LIFE is to look closer at the things which catch your eye. We dismiss, discount, ignore too easily the things that catch our eye. The rule is: Don’t do that without first looking closer! Examine the interest, no matter how faint. Give it the full benefit of the doubt. Let your first assumption be that something knows more than you do and is trying to get your attention. You are here to take instruction, to be guided, to be led along the way to the treasure, the precious jewel, the heart of life itself. On your own, you are a leaf being blown by the wind—maybe this, maybe that, maybe that over there. We have to trust ourselves to something. My recommendation is that we trust ourselves to the white rabbits that wink at us, and nod, and sometimes call our name. 05/05/2011
View of Grandfather Mountain from the Fire Tower Trail, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—Jesus is a white rabbit but. All white rabbits are not Jesus. Takes going to know. We don’t live the life that is ours to live, the life that we are made to live, the life that is our destiny (which is not the same thing as fate, by the way), by thinking about it and then doing it. Destiny unfolds in the doing of it. We have to trust ourselves to it to know. Jesus is destiny, our destiny, which means Jesus is different for each of us. We all follow a different Jesus. Tell that to your Sunday school teacher only with EMT’s on hand and at the ready. If you ARE a Sunday school teacher, oops, oh well. 05/06/2011
View of Grandfather Mountain and setting moon reflected in Price Lake, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—Our life is the hero’s journey. Finding our way to the life that is our life to live, and living it, is on par with the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Search for the Holy Grail. It is epic stuff that we are about. If we think otherwise, it is because we have not allowed ourselves to be gripped by the mythic vision and hurled against our will into the destiny that is ours to fulfill. 05/06/2011
View of Grandfather Mountain and Price Lake at Sunset, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—We are here for more than hanging out until we die. We are here to unfold, emerge, come forth—to discover who we are and what we are capable of—to dig ourselves up, bring ourselves out. We do it by following the white rabbits and by challenging ourselves to do the things that intrigue us, attract us, beckon to us, test us. We cannot pass up a test because it’s hard, or threatening, or fearsome. “It took the Cyclops to bring out the hero in Ulysses,” says Joseph Campbell. And, it takes the darkness to bring forth the light. It’s a lot more interesting than hanging out, waiting to die. 06/07/2011
View of Grandfather Mountain and Price Lake from the Sims Pond Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—Don’t wait unless you have to, that’s my best advice. I had to wait to take up photography until the daughters got out of college and I could afford to buy film. There are good reasons to wait, but too often we don’t wait for a good reason, we just wait because it’s easier that way. We put things off until it’s too late to do them. This view of Grandfather Mountain is no longer there—grown up and over with trees in the way. You waited too long. What else are you not doing for no good reason? Life is passing you by! Start doing the things that you don’t want to die having not done! The days are flying by! 05/07/2011
View of Grandfather Mountain and Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—We can look at a Trillium, or a waterfall, or a sunset and either see it or not see it. Walking through a scene is no guarantee that you will relish the scene. Walking through wonder does not mean you will be awestruck. In order to see what is before you in each moment, you have to see what stands between you and seeing. What are you “seeing” that keeps you from seeing? Where are you instead of being here, now? Only you can bring yourself into the moment and be present with the moment. There is much to take the moment from us, but a moment unseen, unlived, is like, well, death. 05/08/2011
Jesse Brown’s Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Boone, NC—The National Park Service has a slogan: Your Safety Is Your Responsibility! It doesn’t stop there. Our life is our responsibility. We think life is automatic, natural—that if our vital signs are normal and everything is operational life should flow. Not so. We can be 98.6 and breathing and deader than dead. How to be vibrantly alive in the time left for living is our problem, and our responsibility. We bring ourselves to life by connecting with that which is life for us. We know what brings us to life and what kills our soul. We know where we belong and where we have no business being. Are we waiting for someone to make it easy for us? For someone to invite us to be alive? Our life is our responsibility. 05/08/2011
The Old Mill of Guilford, Guilford County, near Oak Ridge, NC—We have to shape ourselves to accommodate the facts of our life and we must not do that all glib and smiley. We must consciously bear the pain of accommodation—without being sour, bitter and doleful. It is an art, living truthfully, consciously, honestly. One that we are not taught to develop. We are taught to pretend it isn’t so. All of the things we don’t like about our lives are so much better than the things someone else has to tolerate, we have no business complaining. So, we dismiss our complaints. Deny the weight we carry. Put on a happy face, and lie our way through life. When we fake it this way, our body keeps score—or someone in our family bears the weight of our denial. Weird how that works, but real. The spiritual law is this: Pain will be borne, consciously or unconsciously. How well we bear it is an indication of how well we live. 05/09/2011
Greensboro Skyline Panorama, Greensboro, NC—What is important to you? What are you doing about it? You know how you aren’t doing enough of what’s important to you because you are doing something else that is important to you? This is called a values conflict. It’s when we set aside something we love to do in favor of something we love to do. Something has to go, and it does. Now here’s what I want you to do for me: Bear the pain of that conflict consciously, with full awareness. Suffer the conflict! Suffer all of your conflicts! Do not dismiss them, deny them, discount them, distract yourself from them. Enter the dichotomy: This, or this, or that over there? Do NOT allow your conflicts to cancel each other out and do NOT allow one love to erase and disappear another love. Love things that cannot exist side-by-side. Maintain the tension, bear the pain, consciously for as long as it takes for something to shift. This is where the magic happens. You can’t predict what or when or how, only that. Bear the pain and see where it leads. My best advice. 05/09/2011
Flyfishing in the Davidson River, Pisgah National Forest, near Brevard, NC—Lethargy keeps us in place with its deadly questions: “So what? Who cares? What’s the use? What difference will it make? What good will it do?” Instead of following the white rabbits on the adventure of our life, seeing where they take us and what we can do with our lives along the way, we watch TV, read about the lives of movie stars, and go shopping until we die. We lack incentive, motivation, ambition. We are as good as dead. What will it take to get us moving? Where comes the kick in the rear? We dream of magical interventions (winning the lottery) and dismiss the simple magic of moving our body out of its accustomed routine into new patterns of life and giving the white rabbits a chance. 05/10/2011
Spring Hills, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Boone, NC—We need a sounding board as much as anything—a place to air things out, to talk our way to clarity and vision and direction and peace. The best therapists offer this kind of safe, caring, space and invite us to explore our unrest, discomfort, conflicts, or the sense of things being not quite right somehow. We talk ourselves to the truth of how things are, and what needs to happen, and into the courage to do what needs to be done. The right kind of conversation restores our soul—restores us to our soul—by allowing us to talk our way to what needs to be said, seen, realized, understood, done. Who do we know who invites and allows this kind of search for the truth that is at the heart of our lives? We may need to meet some new people. 05/10/2011
An Oak Limb in the Fog on the Fire Tower Trail, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—Think of your soul as a child who wants to see, taste, touch, smell, hear, feel, dance, inquire, explore, play, laugh, run, hug, tumble, roll, and not keep score. Give your soul what it wants for a minimum of thirty minutes once a day for the rest of your life. I’m as serious as I can be. My soul is laughing. And dancing. At the very idea of you doing that for your soul. At the very idea that I have a soul that is mine and you have a soul that is yours. My soul thinks that is very funny. But my soul is that way. What way is your soul. I have to stop now. My soul is laughing so hard I can’t think. 05/11/2011
High Falls, DuPont State Forest, near Brevard, NC—You cannot be spiritual and spend most of your time being rational, logical, reasonable, intellectual, left-brained. Soul is a right brain experience. Our right brain divines the path to soul. We dowse soul as though it were water (which has always been a metaphor for soul/psyche). We are as dead as we are spiritually because we think we can think our way to being spiritually alive. Nope. We have to live our way there by trusting ourselves to our right brain and seeing where it takes us. The child we are within leads the way to soul, and is soul. Stop thinking and go play! 05/12/2011
Dogwood in the Fog, 2011, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Rocky Knob, VA—My soul likes to play a game called “Get the camera and let’s go looking!” Going looking is one of the things my soul loves to do. It’s always up for it, and always calling out, “Stop the car! Turn around! Let’s look closer at that!” So, the soul and I are always out there looking for something to see. My hunch is that all photographers share the same soul. We all share the same soul for all I know. How many souls are there? How many minds are there? We talk about being “like-minded,” well how many different minds exist among us? We share the same sky, the same galaxy, why not the same mind, the same soul? Soul mates, all. We should pretend that is the case, and act like it is. That would make for a better world in a lot of ways. 05/12/2011
Swamp Iris, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We are never more than a perspective shift away from enlightenment, from waking up, from seeing things as they are and also are, from being healed, and whole, and saved (that is restored to ends worthy of us) and well. Seeing is everything. And hearing. And understanding. And living aligned with that which has need of us and the gifts we bring to each situation as it arises. The perspective entails comprehending what it means to say “Thy will, not mine, be done.” Who is the “Thy”? It doesn’t matter. Call it God. Call it Tao. Call it the Great Mother. The Sacred Source of Life and Being. Calling it anything is problematic because once you call it anything you’ve laid the foundation of creating a doctrine of the thing you call it and you have gotten away from “Thy will, not mine, be done” and started serving your idea of how things ought to be. Bad idea. 05/13/2011
Pink Dogwood, Greenway Park, Greensboro, NC—When we aren’t trying to make happen what we want to happen or keep from happening what we don’t what to happen, what are we doing? How do we spend our time when we aren’t on a mission? Gardening? Yard work? Sewing? Cooking? Reading? Writing? Walking? These pursuits “between causes” could have “soul value” in the sense of being refreshing and restorative on a spiritual/emotional/psychological (Where DO those lines lie?) level. And, they could be a better indicator of where life is found for us than in the things we do to “wrestle life into submission.” We might be pouring life energy into the wrong things. 05/13/2011
Lake Townsend from the Laurel Bluff Trail, Greensboro, NC—We live to serve the center, the core. Everything else is busywork. It may pay the bills, but if they aren’t the right bills, we’re kidding ourselves. If we aren’t paying the right bills, we are living the wrong life. The right bills serve the center, the core, bring forth who we are and also are, and help us do what is ours to do. Finding our way to the center is the quest for the Holy Grail, the spiritual journey, the search for home. We can be distracted from that task by the glass beads and silver mirrors that mesmerize and promise eternal bliss, but we will not be satisfied until we are one with the core in a “Thy will, not mine, be done” kind of way. 05/14/2011
Swamp Iris, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Your work is to find the work you believe in, and do it. This may not be work you are paid to do. Lois Hamilton was paid as a bookkeeper, but she believed in Tatting. Tatting kept her going. What keeps you going? You have a happy fantasy of winning the lottery and quitting the work you get paid to do because you don’t believe in it but. What will you do then? Drift around? Hang out at the resorts, on the cruise ships? Pass the time merrily until you die? Your work is to find your work, and do it. 05/15/2011
Mallard Drake, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Evil comes in two forms in my way of looking at things. Evil is a shortcut to the good of those taking the shortcut at the expense of everyone else’s good. And evil is anything that interferes with our idea of the good. Sometimes the two are one. 05/15/2011
Tulips, Blowing Rock, NC—Every test along the way comes down to “Whom do you trust?” Will we trust ourselves to our idea of the good: “No Lord! This should not happen to you!” Or will we trust ourselves to the work that is ours to do, the life that is ours to live no matter what: “Thy will, not mine, be done!”? Laying aside our work, our life, in favor of our idea of the good is an ongoing temptation, and the nature of every test along the way. We never get beyond thinking we know what we are doing—thinking we’ve got it now—thinking if they would just do it our way it would be a quick run to glory—thinking there is a place to be and we have the map. There is never a better good than doing the work that is ours to do, living the life that is ours to live—and we can do that anywhere, in any context, any circumstance, any time, any place. There is no good place for doing the work that is ours to do, for living the life that is ours to live. One place is as good as any other to live in the service of the good that is good. 05/16/2011
Lenten Rose, Greensboro, NC—Fear and laziness keep us stuck in place, miserable but not quite cold enough to get up and get a blanket. We aren’t what you would call real happy with our life as it is, but what good would it do to try to change things? And we might make things worse! There could be dragons waiting beyond the city limits sign! Better to stay where we are, complaining. Actually, it’s better to find what we’re made of. Joseph Campbell says “It took the Cyclops to bring the hero out in Ulysses.” Fear and laziness keep us from finding the hero within. See what you can do with your life in the time left for living. Forget playing it safe! Go for interesting and meaningful every chance you get! Bring on the dragons! See what you can do with them! 05/16/2011
Greensboro Grasshopppers Poster, NewBridge Bank Park, Greensboro, NC—We are here to do what is ours to do, to live the life that is ours to live. We think it’s about doing what we want. It’s about aligning ourselves with what wants us. We think money is about doing what we want to do. Money is about buying the tools that assist us in doing what is ours to do, in living the life that is ours to live. We never get a day off, or take a holiday from, being who we are called to be, from doing what is ours to do. Our work—to the extent that it is truly our work, the work we are called to do—is our life. If our life is empty, meaningless, boring and stale it is because we are not doing the work that is ours to do. Our work is interesting, meaningful work but. It probably isn’t what we have in mind. It probably isn’t what we want to do. There you are. The only thing standing between us and life is us. 05/17/2011
Boone’s Trace, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Boone, NC—Communities of innocence are innocent in the sense that the community doesn’t have an agenda it is trying to serve at its members expense. The community doesn’t try to talk its members into being this way and not that way, except to the extent that it says “Be who you are and also are!” and does its best to assist its members in doing that. Communities of innocence listen us into hearing what we have to say. They are therapeutic in that they serve the self-development and self-determination of their members, connecting us with who we are and also are and helping us live that out in our lives, but they are not therapy groups. They do not advertise or charge for their services. They exist to serve the cause of wholeness, integrity and peace. Your best chance at finding one is to start it by being the kind of person who offers the right kind of help in the right kind of way to those who come your way. Listening them to recognition and awareness, not telling them a thing. 05/17/2011
Davidson River, Pisgah National Forest, near Brevard, NC—We don’t know what our work is, what life is our life to live, by thinking about it. It isn’t a left brain process. We know what our work is, what our life is, instinctively, intuitively. The right side of our brain is clued in from the start. We know what we are built for and we don’t have the faintest idea. Both are true at the same time. Get used to paradox, contradiction. That is the fundamental nature of reality perceived through two different ways of seeing. What we see, you know, depends upon how we look. 05/18/2011
Catawba Crossing Poster, Catawba River, near Rock Hill, SC—The spiritual journey comes down to being who we are and also are, and fulfilling our destiny by doing what is ours to do, living the life that is ours to live. We complicate things by having big ideas and dreams of glory. The life we have in mind for ourselves is not the life our self/soul has in mind for us. What we wish were ours to do has little in common with what is ours to do. You see the problem. We are divided within, at odds with ourselves over who is going to guide our boat on its path through the sea. The story of how we resolve the conflict is the stuff of epic poems, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings. It’s enough to keep us awake nights, wondering how it is all going to turn out. 05/18/2011
Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We want what we have no business having. That is as succinctly as you will ever hear, okay see, The Problem presented. All of our aches and agonies can be traced back to this fundamental kink in our makeup. This heron has its business. We have our business. The heron has no aspirations or interest in anything that is not its business. We are a wiggling, wanting, ball of aspirations and interests in everything we can imagine that is not our business. Our life work is saying “Yes!” to that which is our business and “NO!”—maybe, “NO! DAMN IT!”—to that which is not our business. Or, as it is sometimes phrased, “Thy will, not mine, be done!” 05/19/2011
Lake Brandt Sunset, Greensboro, NC—We think being smart is the solution to all of our problems today. Not! Being lucky is the solution to our problems! We cannot be lucky if we don’t take chances! We are here to align ourselves with our business and do it, but we aren’t sure what our business is. So, we have to guess! Guess and go! Only do it in good faith. Good faith is the hinge upon which it all turns. You can’t do just anything and say you are guessing it is your business. It has to be your best bet. You can’t get by with saying, “Oh, maybe this, maybe that.” You’ll never have the right kind of luck if you don’t go through life making your best bet about what is and is not your business. 05/19/2011
Wright Dairy, Rockingham County, NC—All we have to work with is the moment and the gifts we bring to the moment, the resources available to work with the moment. What are we trying to do? See what can be done in light of our mutual interests, ours and the moment’s. We place all the needs on the table—what needs to happen here and now in this moment as it unfolds? Then we walk around the table, or sit considering the table, until something stirs, separates itself from the pile, and shows itself to be what obviously needs to be done. Then, we do it. We do not step into the moment to show the moment who is boss. We step into the moment to assist the moment with what needs to happen in that moment. We are not separate from our lives or from the moments of our living, any more than a stream is separate from its channel. Our moments carry us where we are going, as we serve them with the gifts we bring to each one. 05/20/2011
Fishing Shacks, Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia—I’ll go to great lengths and unreasonable expense to put myself in a scene—to have a chance at a photograph. This is, at once, brilliant and stupid, my shame and my glory. I do not know where the line lies between an addiction, a compulsion, and a calling. I cannot begin to explain, justify, defend or excuse what I do for a living—and I don’t mean what I do to EARN a living. I mean what I do to have a life, to be alive. This makes me one with all of you who know what I mean, and quite to be pitied by all of you who have no idea of what I’m talking about. I have to go look for a photograph the way Columbus had to go look for India. 05/20/2011
Ramsey Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN—The Bible is a treasure trove of metaphorical truth which we miss entirely in our hysterical insistence that everything has to be factual, literal, actual, tangible and concrete in order to be real and true. Abraham left home, left everything that was familiar and comfortable, and wandered in the wilderness in search of the Land of Promise, which he never found. We are Abraham on our own journey to the Promised Land, a destination we will never reach in this physical universe, which is the full realization of who we are and also are, and of our destiny, our work, what is ours to do, the life that is life for us, that is ours to live. The Promised Land does not have latitude and longitude any more than the Garden of Eden did, but it is what we are born for, where we are going. It is who we are, what we are about, what we are called to undertake in the time left for living. 05/21/2011
Bass Lake in October, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—That which has always been thought of as God is experienced as outside of us, beyond us, in a “more than words can say” kind of way. This is called transcendence. The experience transcends us and our world of normal, apparent reality. Anything can be the threshold to transcendence—dogwood blossoms, a waterfall, the birth of a baby, an expression of adoration and wonder on a child’s face… The list is endless. The experience is timeless. And then, like that, we are snapped back into our present circumstances, left with the memory of the transcendent moment and the dream of its hoped-for return. 05/22/2011
View of Grandfather Mountain from Price Lake, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, NC—Our scenes are our scenes. Other photographers have better scenes to work with and will take photographs we will wish we had taken. Our work is to take the photographs that are ours to take—to take them as well as they can be taken—and let that be that. Doing our best with what is ours to work with and letting that be that is the real key to successful living. Other people have better options, more resources. Ours are ours. We get up each day and step into our lives exactly as they are and do what can be done with them—live them as well as they can be lived—and let that be that. Squaring ourselves up with our scenes, our lives, and doing our best with them and letting that be that is to be as successful with our photography and with our living as anyone has ever been. Anyone. Ever. 05/23/2011
Lake Louise, Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park, Alberta—Loss of soul in ancient societies was the loss of conscious, self-determined, existence. The person would be “taken over” by forces beyond her, or his, control. Addiction might be a modern equivalent, and religion is as addictive as alcohol or gambling. “You have heard it said, but I say unto you,” said Jesus. And he asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” What do we know of God that we haven’t heard from someone else? How much of what we say of God comes from the common pool of religious platitudes and how much comes from our own experience and point of view? We can lose soul talking about soul when we only say what is being said around us, when we only think what we are told to think by “those who know best” (Truman Capote’s phrase). 05/23/2011
Private residence, Blue Ridge Parkway, VA—Our part entails cultivating all the old values—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, self-discipline, grace, compassion, tenderness, hospitality, etc.—and living in ways which express them appropriately throughout our lives. Hospitality means being open and receptive to a wide variety of ideas, perceptions, perspectives, ways of seeing and doing things. It is the opposite of smugness and arrogance, and it is one of the necessary ingredients in developing eyes that see, ears that hear and a heart that understands. It means knowing we don’t know half of what there is to know and more than half of what we think we know. Makes us a lot more fun to be around. 05/24/2011
Otter Point, Acadia National Park, near Bar Harbor, Maine—There is how things are and there is how you wish things were, and how you live with the discrepancy makes all the difference. My recommendation is that you live consciously with it. That you consciously bear the pain of the discrepancy, taking solace in the good aspects of how things also are—that are exactly like you would like for them to be. So, there is how things are, and how things also are, and how you wish they were. That is how things are. Live consciously in that tension. Do not relax it with denial or addiction. If you square up to the truth of how things are, all that you are told that is not true will be unable to stand the heat, and will have to leave the room, and your load will be immediately lighter. You may have to laugh. 05/24/2011
Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—The Bog Garden is five minutes from my house, and I sit at the pond there often, waiting for a photograph, watching life play out before me. There is a goose with a broken wing, making out as she, as he, can. Three families of ducklings slowly being decimated by a large loggerhead snapping turtle—the balance of nature, you know. Green Herons, Blue Herons, Kingfishers, geese, ducks, frogs, sunfish…an entire pond world. Life at that level finds a way without the drama of life at our level. A goose breaks a wing and drags the wing, doing what geese do. A duck family loses three ducklings to the turtle and now there are five instead of eight doing what ducklings do. If it rains, the pond world does what it does in the rain. If the water level drops dramatically in a drought, the pond world does what it does in a drought. Each species has its business and goes about its business as well as it can imagine no matter what. What is your business? It’s important to know, and to be about it, no matter what. 05/25/2011
Dawn, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, NM-AZ—One of the advantages to being old is you can repeat yourself with abandon. I can’t remember the last time I said something new. If I haven’t said this to you, I’ve said it to someone, maybe recently: Jacob Bronowski said, “If you want to know the truth, you have to live in certain ways.” He meant that you have to live truthfully, that is, with a spirit of free and open inquiry—not living trying to prove the validity of something you believe to be true. You can’t make up your mind about what is true and then try to find evidence supporting your contention. That isn’t living truthfully. It’s living with an agenda, stacking the deck. Living truthfully is knowing what you don’t know—to the extent that’s possible—and being up front about it. It’s being as ignorant as you are and asking, seeking, knocking your way to eyes that see, ears that hear and a heart that understands. 05/25/2011
Moonrise, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, AZ/NM—There are forces in nature that do not have our best interest at heart. Tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, breast cancer and anacondas, just to mention a few. The idea that the universe is a friendly place and is here to help us toward wealth and prosperity is a happy fantasy that ignores the facts. The universe does not care about us so we better! We better care about ourselves and one another! We are all we have! That being the case, start noticing how often you set yourself aside. You cannot do that and live truthfully. Living truthfully means, among other things, embracing the truth of you, being true to yourself, bringing yourself forth into the time and place of your living—not repressing, suppressing, denying yourself and stuffing yourself into some dark corner because you are not suitable for the light of day. Whose side are you on? The anaconda’s? 05/26/2011
Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We have to have the freedom of our own life. If you have symptoms, ask yourself where the constraints are. Where are you being held captive by the life you are living, prevented from even thinking about the life you wish you were living, the life you could, maybe, one day live? We can be held hostage by legitimate responsibilities (I thought fatherhood would never end, then I thought work would never end), but the most abusive guard at the prison with no bars is our fear of what might happen if we walked away. We are, too often, our own jailer. Symptoms suggest constraints. Gather yourself and name them all. Become conscious of all that is keeping you bound to a life that is not conducive to being alive. Do not become hopeless and despondent! Part of the work of living truthfully is facing the truth of how it is with us. The wonderful thing about truth is that it has another side: How it also is. Facing how it is, opens us to how it also is. There be doorways and thresholds you haven’t begun to imagine. Life has not given up on you. Don’t you give up on life. 05/26/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Lupine, Guilford County, near Oak Ridge, NC—When your problems become overwhelming, go sit for a while in a field of Lupine. It won’t do anything about your problems but. It will bring a little solace to your soul. Our soul needs to know, needs to be reassured, from time to time that our problems are not all there are. There are also Lupine. The Lupine do not cancel out the problems. The problems do not cancel out the Lupine. They exist together as eternal contraries in our experience. We integrate the contradictions of our lives, reconciling what can be reconciled and holding in suspension the opposites that will forever be “also true.” Many of our problems have no solution and will be with us for a long time as “also true.” The goose with a broken wing has such a problem. Once we come to terms with the life-long nature of such a problem, a subtle shift occurs within—call it a perspective shift—and the problem is no longer the problem it once was. We have, without trying, changed our mind about the problem, and that changes everything. 05/27/2011
Hooker Falls, DuPont State Forest, near Brevard, NC—Don’t miss a side trip. The Path gets all the press, as though it is some kind of interstate super highway to glory. The side trips are the glorious part of glory. We can’t get there if we keep missing them, turning them down, on our high horse with our nose in the air and our manual on how to get to glory tucked under our arm. It’s the side trips that make going worth the trouble. The side trips are the interesting part, the things we remember along the way. You lupine in the previous photo was a side trip. I went to get a photo of the Old Mill of Guilford. I got there about 5 and the light would have been right at 7, but then, who is going to cut down all the overgrowth between me and the mill? Summer is already in the way! On my way home, I took a side trip. Saved the excursion. That’s the way it is with side trips. And then, there are the side trips on the side trips. This is great. Who cares if we ever get there? Why pass up glory on the way to glory? 05/27/2011
One and Two, Triple Falls, DuPont State Forest, near Brevard, NC—If you are going to do right by some living thing, do right by your soul. Your soul is, to paraphrase the National Park Service doctrine about your safety, your responsibility. You have to learn the language of soul and live aligned with soul. This is integrity. Living aligned with soul. Soul doesn’t communicate, commune, with words but with emotional charges, popping us from time to time with something akin to an electrical jolt. Any strong emotional reaction, either positive or negative, is soul saying, “Listen to me!” Of course, we have to interpret what soul is saying, and there could be a little conflict of interest at work here so. Good faith is the foundation of our relationship with soul. “If you are not here with us in good faith,” said Rumi, “you are doing terrible damage.” Practice living in good faith with soul and with all who come your way. It is a simple act that will change the course of history—yours and the world’s. 05/28/2011
Looking Glass Falls, Pisgah National Forest, Transylvania County, near Brevard, NC—Look around you. Note everything that has a human origin. All of it is just made up. Everything you see was just made up in someone’s head. It all came right out of someone’s imagination. Pianos? Someone imagined a piano, if you can imagine that. Everything we have created over the history of the species originated in our imagination. That being the indisputable case, what is more real, concrete, or the imagination that imagined concrete into existence? Why do we think the world of concrete and steel is the Real World and anything to do with our imagination is frivolous and inconsequential? Why do we dismiss imagination and emphasize the left brain to the exclusion of the right brain at every opportunity? God lives in the right side of our brains. The length of the spiritual journey is the distance from the left side of our brain to the right side of our brain. I’m making all this up. That doesn’t mean you can just throw it away.
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., Dawn, East Fork Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Brevard, NC—Bearing consciously the pain of contradictions (This is how things are and this is how things also are and that over there is how things also are) is the critical key to spiritual growth (which is indistinguishable from just plain growing up). The trouble with bearing consciously the pain of contradictions is that they get increasingly extreme. We cannot do it apart from an environment which supports us in the work and provides a safe place for us to do the work. Schizophrenics cannot tolerate contradictions and create them constantly, which, as you can see, does them no favors. We avoid the path of schizophrenia in part by avoiding, denying, ignoring contradictions. “That cannot possibly be true if this is true!” A safely understanding environment helps us see how this and that can be true at the same time, how what is good can also be evil, and vice versa. AND it helps us act in wonderfully bold and contradictory ways. May we all find our way to that kind of environment! 05/30/2011
East Fork Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway near Brevard, NC—We are here to do right by ourselves and by each other, and conflicts of interest abound. My good is often your bad. Your good is often my bad. How do we do right by everyone in the room, in the world? We have to work it out. One important aspect of working it out is recognizing early on what can be done, and cannot be. There are people whose good is the only good, who must be coddled to or else. These people are abusive and toxic to our souls. I recommend giving them a wide berth. You will never receive better advice. We desperately need the presence of those who understand and honor the nature of LIFE—the importance of doing right by ourselves and each other, and working out the differences, the conflicts of interest, to everyone’s, more or less, mutual satisfaction across the board and around the table. When you meet people like that, make them your friend. 05/31/2011
Skinny Dip Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Brevard, NC—Suicidal thoughts and impulses may indicate that something needs to die but that something is definitely not ourselves. The thoughts are not to be taken literally, but metaphorically. They generally come upon us at the transition points in our lives (adolescence, divorce, job loss, kids leaving home, etc.), and point to the fact that the way we have been living needs to be “laid to rest.” We have to die to our idea of how life ought to be lived—we have to change our minds about what is important—so that we might live the life that we are being called to live. So that new ideas and new perspectives may emerge. Our thoughts and fantasies of suicide indicate that we are at a transition point, that we are being asked to grow beyond, to move beyond, where we have been and live in light of a different goal, a different purpose. Our life is calling us forward and we are being asked to let go of the past and let the adventure begin. The Hero’s Journey, you know. 05/31/2011
Mabry Mill, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Meadows of Dan, VA—I keep saying this because it’s my central operating thesis. You’ve heard it before, so you can skip this one. But you’ve probably heard the next one before, too. That’s how things are. Did someone say, “That’s how things are”? What a coincidence. I was just thinking about that. There is how things are and there is how we wish they were, and how we live with the discrepancy makes all the difference. We can always imagine a better world than the one we live in, and everything turns on how well, and to what extent, we square ourselves up to the disparity between the world we live in and the world we dream of. The work to square ourselves up with this disparity, this discrepancy, is called spiritual growth. It’s also called growing up. Spiritual growth is growing up, and you can’t grow up without becoming spiritual in the process. Growing up is squaring up, is waking up, is getting up and doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. That’s all there is to it. 06/01/2011
Garden Creek Baptist Church, Stone Mountain State Park, NC—This is the way things are. This is what you can do about it. And that’s that. Trying to avoid legitimate suffering by refusing to recognize, accept and live in a world that is not how we wish it were is the source of all our suffering. “Where there is a will, there is a way!” we say, re-doubling our efforts to make the world and our life how we want them to be. What does wanting know? Remember your first marriage? You wanted that, a lot. Sin is wanting what we have no business having, wanting the wrong things, wanting unrestrained, undisciplined, unbounded. But we cannot want what we do not want. The word for this is stuck. We want what we want and are determined to have it even if it kills us. Our wanting is part of the way things are, and we can’t do anything about it. And that’s that. Well, not quite. We can do something about it. We can be aware of it. We can know the degree to which we are enslaved to our reckless, wanton, wanting. Consciousness is freedom but. With consciousness comes suffering consciously. What will it be? 06/02/2011
Cathedral Rock, Yosemite National Park, CA—A sermon should do two things. It should help you with your life and help you with your relationship with God. No! Wait! These are not two things! These are one thing! Your life IS your relationship with God! We cannot use God to help us with our life, as though they are two different things—to pave our way and pad our pockets—to deliver to us that which we want and deliver us from that which we do not want. We must use our life to align ourselves with God, with that which has always been called “God,” which may have no connection whatsoever with that which is popularly and currently and fashionably called “God.” Religion as it has devolved narrows God down to that particular religion’s idea of God, which is then proclaimed at the expense of all other ideas of God. Religion at its best, as it always existed until we got our hands on it long about the Age of Reason, perhaps a bit before, expanded our experience of God beyond all ideas, and dogmas, and doctrines. Ah, those were the days, when life and God were one thing. 06/03/2011
Looking Glass Rock, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Brevard, NC—Our work is finding our work and doing it, finding our life and living it. We facilitate the search by learning the language of soul. Soul speaks in metaphor, relishes paradox, loves images, approaches us playfully, through imagination, instinct, intuition, paradox and irony. Soul loves the role of devil’s advocate and is always compensating for over-developed states of ego-consciousness, so that if we dream we are a pig wallowing in the mud and are horrified by that image, we might wonder if we are not a bit too pristine and pure in our actual life. If we relish the image, it’s a different matter and we might look at the extent to which we allow ourselves the freedom of personal expression in our actual life. The same dream can have quite different meanings at different stages of our life. Soul speaks a language that is quite context and situation specific. Soul is very much here-and-now, present and real—which is where the work to find our work, to live our life, is always carried out. 06/04/2011
The Tetons reflected in Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, WY—In becoming who we are called to be, we never get far from who we already are. It’s just a slight shift in perspective that takes a lifetime to pull off. The work is to be ourselves, to integrate who we are and who we also are, to reconcile the opposites, square up to the conflicts, welcome all sides to the Guest House (Rumi) and enjoy the party. Harmony, wholeness, completion, genuineness, authenticity, integrity, oneness, peace—these are terms that describe the end result of the work that is ours, work that is facilitated, made possible, by grace and compassion for ourselves. And this is the work that takes a lifetime and beyond to complete. But, we’ll never get it done if we don’t get started! 06/04/2011
Twilight, East Fork Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Brevard, NC—The Hero’s Journey consists of doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. The Cyclops that stands in our way is always the next thing that we don’t want to do. Do we have what it takes to get up and do the thing without the boost of a Powdermilk Biscuit? Can we step into our lives day after day and do there what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, the way it needs to be done? We long for a different life, a better life, a more thrilling, fun, life, an easier life. All we get is this old stinky life with our name on it. Do we have what it takes to live this life the way it needs to be lived? Do we have what it takes to live this life that only we can live better than anyone else could live it in our place? We want to tag out and take to the hammock, while the Hero’s Journey waits to be trod. 06/05/2011
Wright Dairy, Rockingham County, NC – (Duplicated Photo) Our work is our work and not the things we get paid to do. We do the things we get paid to do to buy the tools and the goods (food, clothing, shelter you know) we need to do our work. Our work is our destiny, what we are built for (You wouldn’t want me doing your small engine repair), what is ours to do. Life has a way of separating us from our life, from what has life for us, from our work. The 10,000 things are offered as substitutes for the things that bring us to life and are life for us. There is little to assist us in the work that knows our name, but there is enough. Something stirs within us, something catches our eye. We move toward the thing that moves us and find just enough help to keep going in the service of what we live to do. Trust yourself to the faintest glimmer of hope still smoldering within. Blow gently on the coals. Believe in the fire. 06/06/2011
Valley View, Yosemite National Park, CA—We walk into a scene, looking. We step into our life, looking. Hoping to see what is there. Hoping to see things as they are. Hoping to see what truly needs to be done and what we can do about it. We bring with us what we have to offer to the scene, to our life, hoping to find a way to offer what we have to give as a grace and a blessing upon the scene, upon our life. We are not here to plunder the scene, to pillage our life, to loot, ransack, rifle and move on to look for more treasure elsewhere. We are the treasure we bestow upon the scene, upon our life. We are here to give what we have to offer for the good of the world. Our perspective, our presence, can transform for good or for ill. Our challenge is to tread lightly and leave kindness in our wake. 06/07/2011
Zabriskie Point Panorama, Death Valley National Park, CA—Not one of us is here, now, as the result of careful planning and minute attention to detail. Yet, not one of us can deny that here we are right now. We don’t know where we will be tomorrow or in 5 years but that doesn’t stop people from asking, “Where will you be in 5 years?” Like 5 years ago we could have told them we would be here, now. The other thing is that we all have come through some bad stuff to get here. We never thought we would make it. But here we are, now. These two facts will be true throughout our future. We won’t get there by planning it out and we will get there by dealing with some bad stuff. We have done it already. The fact that you are here, now, is proof enough that you have done in your past what you will need to do in your future. You can trust yourself to the care of that which has delivered you to this point in your life. If that’s not having it made, I don’t know what is. 06/08/2011
Great Blue Heron, Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—Whoever gave birth to the idea that the universe is a friendly place and has our best interest at heart and will assist us toward happiness and prosperity if we will just get out of the way with our negative thoughts, never sat pondside. The Bog Garden is a study in ruthlessness. It’s like being at Wal Mart when the doors are opened for the After Thanksgiving Sale. Baby ducks are pushed out of the brood for not being quite right somehow. Herons gobble fishes. Snapping turtles eat anything slower than they are. Pecking orders are established and verified with malice and without mercy. Nature’s way. Bullies win. Civilization comes along to give the rest of us a chance. The soft values, compassion, kindness, generosity, altruism and the like, have to have advocates, have to be championed. A balanced budget is not the highest value, particularly when the tax rate is not equitably distributed across all income levels. The bullies have to be stopped by people like me and you. 06/08/2011
False Kiva, Canyonlands National Park, UT—Perhaps Primal Peoples worshiped here—its purpose is as obscure as its origin. We all know how nice it would be to have help from on high in dealing with the deep needs of life, like food and water and encroaching Bullies. We all need a sanctuary where we can express our fear and anguish, and invoke the benevolent powers to intervene in our behalf. Where do you go to find what you need? Carl Jung says whenever we encounter something mysterious, we project our own assumptions onto it. We tell ourselves things about it that make sense of it. We create a religion and talk about “the man upstairs.” Jung also says, “In each of us there is another whom we do not know.” He is speaking of the unconscious realm. We project outward what is inward, and seek “out there” beyond the cosmos, the source of consolation and reassurance—that ever-present help in time of trouble—that dwells within. 06/09/2011
South Toe River, Carolina Hemlocks Picnic Area, Pisgah National Forest, near Burnsville, NC—If we replaced the founders of the country with the current set of politicians in Washington, all the English would have had to do is send over a boat load of lobbyists with about a tenth, maybe less, of the money they spent on the Revolutionary War and we would still be a British colony. Complaining about the lack of heart and vision doesn’t change anything. How do we replace the current spirit of politicians with the spirit of the founders? The Dali Lama said, about the Chinese occupation of Tibet, “If what is going on has been going on for a while, it will likely continue to go on,” or words to that effect. Momentum carries us with it. You can’t stop a tsunami, or a glacier. Well, used to be you couldn’t stop a glacier. We’ve stopped a few in our time, sad to say, but. The point is how do we get people to be who we need them to be? When the horse has the bit in its teeth, you hang on for the ride and hope for the best. Like the Dali Lama said, “You ride it out,” or words to that effect. 06/09/2011
Kiva Ladder, Mesa Verde National Park, CO—Nature’s timetable leaves a lot of time between the times for action. If you have a pet, you know what I’m talking about. There is a lot of sleeping and lying about going on. The animal world doesn’t live by the clock or keep a full social calendar. Migrations happen on a more or less fixed schedule. The search for food and water is on-going. Sex happens when it needs to. Beyond that lies waiting. Between the times for action, we wait. But. When we wait, we get bored. We cast about, flip through the channels, look for some entertainment, some diversion, some distraction to take our minds off waiting, and miss the time for action when it comes upon us because we are distracted by the 10,000 diversions we have created to fill up the empty time. All time is not empty, but it may as well be because we fill all of it artificially and cannot tell “the fullness of time,” the time that is “right,” from “ordinary, empty, dullsville, boring” time. We have lost the art of waiting. Don’t even know that we are waiting. We think life is passing us by when it is waiting for the time to be right to call our name. 06/10/2011
Hwy 163, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Utah—I watched a Great Blue Heron attack a mother duck and three ducklings today for no reason that I could intuit other than they were in an area he/she had decided belonged to him/her. And he/she had the power to draw a line. Lines are everywhere. Invisible as See-Me-Nots. Without knowing it we are over the line and have to be slammed to the floor a time or two to be reminded to not cross the line. This is crazy. Whose idea was this? We should all get memos upon arising each day that carefully spell out the do’s and don’ts and leave no questions unanswered. Until that happy day dawns, we are stuck with walking unwarned into some damn heron’s favorite stretch of real estate and taking our lumps. May we not take it personally but understand it’s the stupid way of the world, and do our best to be kind to the mother ducks and ducklings who stray across our lines. 06/10/2011
Julia Lake, DuPont State Forest, near Brevard, NC—No one ever had a problem with things going her or his way. It’s when things don’t go our way that things go quickly from bad to worse. Things don’t go our way and we respond in a way designed to get things to go our way. This is called The Struggle for Supremacy. It is sometimes called Flailing About in Helplessness. It comes from not being clear about the nature of things. Let me explain it to you. It is all useless, pointless, hopeless and coming to a very bad end. And how we live in the meantime makes all the difference. If you can understand that, you have it made, as well as you can have it made. Things will not go our way and how we live with that makes all the difference. Practice living well with that. You will save the world, and your mental health will be dramatically improved. 06/11/2011
Mouse Creek Falls, Smoky Mountains National Park, NC—Yes and No are all we have to work with. We walk into each day with only Yes and No at our disposal. How we apply them determines the outcomes of our days. The process is complicated by our ambivalence about many things. On the one hand, Yes, on the other hand, No. We have to come to terms with our ambivalence—not so as to get rid of it, but to bring it forth, relish it, delight in it, explore it. All of our decisions would be better decisions if we didn’t rush past ambivalence on the way to decision. Splash around in ambivalence! Let the magic work! The magic is the heart of life. We don’t know what to do with our Yes’s and No’s. We’re lost with nothing but Yes and No to work with. Everything depends on the magic, and the magic requires us to be as ambivalent as we are for as long as it takes for the magic to work. So, sit with ambivalence, bring it forth, explore it, inquire of it, listen to it, live it. Put everything on the table and consider the table. Walk around the table. Listening. Looking. Waiting to see, hear, understand and know, in light of the whole shebang, what is Yes! and what is No! 06/13/2011
Midnight Hole, Big Creek Campground area, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC—Our lives unfold, emerge, in a dance with our circumstances and our proclivities. The place of consciousness is to bring ourselves forth in light of what we know of ourselves at any point in our living. We are mostly unconscious, hidden away, known and made conscious by the one who knows us best—that would be us—within the context of our life. Think of our context as fate—what we are born into, the givens, the things we can’t do anything about, the time and place of our birth, for instance, the constraints and opportunities that define our days. Think of our self, the person we are capable of becoming, as our destiny—who we show ourselves to be through the process of living our lives. We embrace and bring forth our destiny within the confines of our fate. Or not. We can succumb to our fate and be who we are told to be by our circumstances and Those Who Know Best (Truman Capote’s term). Our task is to unfold ourselves and redeem our circumstances as a boon to the world. The Hero’s Journey. 06/14/2011
Roaring Fork Falls, Pisgah National Forest, near Burnsville, NC—I’ve been retired from the ministry (Presbyterian Church USA) for four and a half months, and have realized in that time how much time I spent bridging gaps, reconciling differences, healing breeches and disruptions in relationships between me and members of the church and among church members. It was exhausting and ongoing work. It has eased up a bit without an entire congregation to stay in touch with, but it doesn’t stop. There are still family differences to take into account and my own internal riffs and snits to oversee and mend. The work of reconciling differences, within and without, is the work of being consciously human. We do not lay it aside ever. We work to integrate ourselves within and to integrate ourselves with our closest relationships and to integrate our group with other groups, our nation with other nations, so that the interests of all are respected and cared for. It is exhausting and ongoing work. And it must be done. 06/15/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Flame Azaleas on Roan Mountain, NC/TN—We live such discordant lives! We are torn between a myriad of emotions and values! Conflict abounds! Contradiction and ambivalence prevail! And our work is to integrate the whole, to reconcile the opposites, make peace, serve wholeness, make one… Makes us crazy. Wears us out. Sends us into neuroses and addiction. All of which adds to our workload. Now we have more opposites to reconcile, to make this square with that! Carl Jung says the mandala is the soul’s way of soothing itself, holding itself together in torn and broken world. Life is, well, modern art, all jagged and off-center and out of sync, layers of contrasting colors, loud, ugly. Soul yearns for peace, oneness, wholeness, completion and takes refuge in creating/coloring mandalas—making complimentary what could be contradictory and negating. Photography, for me, is mandala work, using a rectangle or a square instead of a circle, to bring the elements of the photo together into a harmonious whole, grounding and soothing my soul, making peace. 06/16/2011
From Round Bald, looking toward Jane Bald and beyond, Roan Mountain Highlands, NC/TN—Nothing makes us happier than busting our butts in the service of that which needs what we have to offer and needs to be done whether it is convenient, easy, fun and enjoyable or not. We think happy is an extension of convenient, easy, fun and enjoyable. We will not be happy until we change our mind about what constitutes happiness. We are in the mental, emotional, physical state we are in because we will not, under any circumstances, change our mind about what is important. Our life has been banging us against the wall of unrelenting reality all our lives long, and we have been just as unrelenting in our insistence that what we say is important IS important! The first lesson of the spiritual journey, which is the journey to wholeness, which is the journey to maturity, which is growing up, which is seeing things as they are, being clear about what truly needs to be done, and doing it—the first lesson of that process is: How we see things isn’t how things are. This is also stated as: How we wish things were isn’t how things are. We have to change our mind about what is important a lot along the way. 06/17/2011
Roaring Fork Falls, Pisgah National Forest, McDowell County, near Little Switzerland, NC—The visible world is not the only world. Life is lived on two levels, in two worlds, the visible and the invisible. We do not live in “filling the world and subduing it”—in erecting edifices of concrete and steel—in “making our mark” in the world of normal, apparent reality. When that is the case, we weep along with Alexander the Great when there are no more armies to defeat, no more peoples to add to the list of the conquered. We live as partners, collaborators with—envoys, extensions, expressions of—the invisible world. We take our cues from the invisible world, find our guidance, our direction, in the invisible world. Disconnected, cut off, from the invisible world, we are a flag with no pole, a ship with no rudder. You would think we would nurture and nourish the relationship but. The visible world is replete with seductive pleasures. “You can’t keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Gay Paree!” We are off after the lights and the action, the achievements, accomplishments, acquirements, acquisitions and success of the visible world, addictions that do not satisfy. 06/18/2011
Rhododendron on Roan Mountain, Carter County, TN—Our challenge and our calling is always to live the life that is ours yet to live, within the context and circumstances of our existence—to bring forth who we are here and now—to present ourselves to this time and place so as to express the gift that is ours to give in redemptive, healing, ways, and thereby bless the world, though it may not be seen by the world of that time and place as a blessing. Got that? It means the world of your experience is likely to resist your bringing forth who you are and is not likely to receive well the gift you have to offer for its own benefit, salvation. You cannot let that stop you. It’s just another test along the way, the Cyclops in one of his many configurations. We don’t get a lot of cooperation in the work that is ours to do—being a source of blessing and grace in the time and place of our living—and just enough encouragement, often not from the sources we are looking to for that, to stay on the path. So, buck up! Know as much of who you are and also are as you can know at this place in your life, and bring it forth into your life, for the good of those who are capable of being blessed and graced by the gift of you! 06/19/2011
Jane Bald, Roan Mountain Highlands, Carter County, TN—We live to integrate the two worlds, visible and invisible—to bring forth the invisible world into the visible world of normal, apparent, reality. The visible world is a life support system, providing the physical means for physical life, but the invisible world is the source of vitality, enthusiasm, exuberance—“the wellspring of living water”—which brings us to life by providing us with meaning and purpose and the wherewithal to serve and know what is good. We cannot allow the physical world to supplant the invisible world by offering counterfeit purposes, surrogate goals in the form of forbidden fruit and corporate ladders of success. We have to nurture and nourish our connection with the invisible world by developing eyes that see, ears that hear and a heart that understands. Sees what? Hears what? Understands what? More than words can say! We seek out the “thin places” between the two worlds in art, music, nature and in our relationships with one another where experiences with numinous reality (which we call sacred) remind us of the truth of the other world and call us to look, listen, inquire and serve in a “Thy will, not mine, be done” kind of way. 06/20/2011
Flame Azalea on Roan Mountain, Carter, County, TN—It is easy to be distracted by, to be overwhelmed by, the events and circumstances of our life in the world of normal, apparent, reality. No connection is easier to lose than the one with the invisible world. Yet, it is only a perspective shift away in any time, any place. Every moment is a threshold to the other world for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart that understands. We only have to open ourselves to the all-ness that is before us in any situation to see what else is there. Stuck in traffic, we can see that we are part of the great river of life, with everyone going her, his, way, yet also participating in the same experience of life that all people in every time and place have experienced, and serving ends quite beyond us that we don’t know anything about, locked in, as we are, to what is important to us. As we begin to wonder what is important and how we know, we are close to asking that of our inner guide, our invisible twin—close to being conscious of the partnership that transforms our ordinary life into a magical tale of epic proportions. Let the wonder begin! 06/21/2011
Sun up, East Fork Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Brevard, NC—We are not here as a tourist walking through our life, liking this, not liking that, wondering what’s for dinner and what’s after that. We have business here. What’s your business? What truly matters? What are the things that you are to be about, that you are here to serve with your life? What is satisfying? What is interesting? What is meaningful? No one can answer these questions for us. They are our questions to answer for ourselves. We would not trust anyone else to order our desert for us, or sweeten our coffee for us. Why do we trust anyone else to tell us what to do with our lives? Our life is our responsibility. We cannot do just anything with it, as though it does not matter how we live. “Maybe I’ll go snowboarding today, or lie in the sun with a good book.” The day is not ours to do with as we please! We have work to do, bringing ourselves forth as a blessing, a grace, a gift to the world. We cannot be casual, indifferent, clueless. We have to take up the work of knowing what our work is, and doing it, in the time left for living. There is no time to waste. 06/22/2011
Flame Azalea, Roan Mountain Highlands, Carter County, TN—It is important to know what is important, and what is not. It is important to know what our business is, and what it is not. Ah, but. These things change with time and circumstance. One here and now is not another. What is important here, now has no value there, then. Our business is like the wind that blows where it will, but. It is always our business to know what our business is, what is important, what truly needs to be done, in each situation as it unfolds—and to do it. Formulas, rules, recipes, laws, conventions are no guide. They are shortcuts at best, evidence that we will work harder to avoid the work that is ours to do than doing the work the work requires. Listening, looking, seeing, hearing—and responding courageously to what is being asked of us in each here and now that comes along. How do we know? We have to risk being wrong! We have to take a chance with everything on the line! What is being asked of us? What is important? What is our business—here and now? 06/23/2011
Willow Flats, Grand Teton National Park, WY—Play like a rookie. That’s my best advice. Everybody wants to be seen as an Old Pro. Everybody one-ups everybody else, wants to know more than anybody else has ever known. Know nothing. That’s my best advice. Look at the world as though you have never seen the world. Listen like you have not heard the first thing. Ask, inquire, of everyone about anything. Hunger and thirst for understanding—for RIGHT understanding. Everyone can teach you something if you consider them with eyes that see, ears that hear, hearts that comprehend. Everything you know can be known differently, has other sides, can be seen in other ways. Be open to what the world has to show you. Be receptive to what the world has to give to you. Be eager to learn it all all over again fresh every day from the ground up just like a rookie. 06/28/2011
Haden Valley, near Canyon Village, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We are born with everything we need. We have what it takes but. It takes nourishing and nurturing our connection with what it takes—with the resourcefulness and resolve that comes with us out of the womb. Apart from a nourishing, nurturing, environment—and the creation of that environment is as much our responsibility (Whose side are we on?) as it is that of those whose charge we are. We cannot place the burden of a failed environment entirely on the shoulders of others—we have a part to play in the crafting of a life of soul. We have to learn the language of soul, tend to the affairs of soul, live soulful lives. When we take care of our relationship with soul, that relationship provides us with all we need to do what is ours to do—to do what truly needs to be done—in each situation as it arises but. That is not what we have in mind. We want more than soul has to offer. Soul can only provide us with an interesting, meaningful life. We want the lights and action, you know. The stuff sold by Madison Avenue, glass beads and silver mirrors and promises of happiness ever after. Given a choice between happiness or interesting and meaningful, go with interesting and meaningful. You will be as happy as can be if you do. Of course, it will take a while. You have to trust me here. 06/28/2011
The Beaver Pond at Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—A week in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks with two daughters and their husbands and five granddaughters has given everyone ample opportunities to field hard grounders and routine fly balls and decide what to do in the situation as it unfolds before them. Just like the people who do that kind of thing for a living, no one has thrown her, or his, glove in the dirt and stormed off the field exclaiming, “If you are going to keep hitting me those hard ground balls, I’m quitting!” When we put on the uniform and step onto the field, we expect hard ground balls coming our way. When we get out of bed each day and step into our life, we expect things to be dished out to us that we do not order or see coming. We field the hard grounders and do what the situation requires in every situation that arises—deciding what needs to happen in each here, in every how, and assisting its happening in ways that serve the true good of all. This is the work of grace and maturity, and it is what constitutes the spiritual journey, one situation at a time. 07/02/2011
Rainbow at the Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park, WY—The things we like about the people we like are the things that set them apart, that stand them out, that identify them—characterize them—for who they are. We like their uniqueness, their individuality, their special flavor. We don’t go for bland, tasteless, dull, boring, paper doll people. We prefer the company of those who have a style, and a perspective, all their own. Then we work to be like everybody else. We want to look like everybody else, think like everybody else, believe like everybody else and do what everybody else is doing. We take our cues from the crowd, shed our unique colors and hues and blend in, become invisible. You want to help me here? What are we thinking? The Wasteland is where everybody is doing what they are supposed to do (Joseph Campbell)–thinking what they are supposed to think, believing what they are supposed to believe, saying what they are supposed to say. That is the land of death and decay. Don’t live there. Don’t even visit. Hone your own point of view. Cut your own path. Make your own way. Find your own life and live it. Do not throw away the time that is left for living striving to be approved by Those Who Know Best (Truman Capote) And Must Be Pleased! 07/03/2011
Used in Short Talks on Contradiction, etc., String Lake, Grand Teton National Park, WY—We wake up when we see how things are and how they also are. We grow up when we square ourselves up (reconcile ourselves) with the contradiction between how things are and also are and how we want them to be (how we wish they were). We wise up when we align ourselves with the core, the center, and live in ways which exhibit/express who we are and also are in serving what truly needs to happen in each situation as it arises. This is all there is to it, waking up, growing up, squaring up, wising up. It all comes down to laying ourselves aside in a “Thy will, not mine, be done” kind of way but. We are the ones who say what is “Thy will” and what is “mine”—we don’t take anyone else’s word for these things. We are the ones who conceptualize the “Thy”—who say who or what the “Thy” is. We live on the basis of our evolving understanding of what constitutes life—of what being alive and really living are all about. It is our task to be as alive as we can be in the time left for living. May we hold nothing back in that work, and amaze ourselves in increasingly wonderful ways! 07/04/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., The Teton Range at Sunrise, Grand Teton National Park, WY—When we run from what is hard about our lives and escape in our addictions, distractions and diversions, we reject the hero’s task and miss out on the miracle of synthesis. The perennial conflict between how things are and how we want things to be requires us to bear the pain of the contradiction while we work to work things out until a shift occurs. The shift may happen in our external situation and it may happen internally. Internally, the shift is called “accommodating ourselves to reality” or “growing up.” Carl Jung says that none of the important problems in our lives have a solution—we don’t solve them or resolve them we simply out-grow them. This is the hero’s work, wrestling with our problems until the shift happens and circumstances change or we change. This shift is the miracle of synthesis, of reconciliation, of integration, of wholeness and completion. It happens in the experience of those who have what it takes to look their life in the eye and say, “Show me what you got.” Who can see into the heart of how things are and how things also are and accept that that’s how things are. These are the people who are there with their eyes open when the shift occurs, who can smile or laugh and say, “How about that. Who would have guessed it? Wow!” 07/05/2011
Sun Star, Black Sand Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, WY—One of the characteristic features of human beings is that we aren’t interested in anything we can’t exploit. We turn everything into our advantage but. What’s the advantage of having advantages? We turn everything into money, but. What do we turn money into? Addiction? Distraction? Diversion? More money? We are living a life that has nothing to do with the life we are called to live. Who does the calling? We do. We call ourselves to live a life we aren’t interested in living because we cannot exploit it for our own advantage. We are divided this way. At odds to the core. We want what we have no business having, and know it when we go to the trouble of thinking about it. So, who is guiding our boat on it’s path through the sea? We are. That’s why we go in circles, capsize, sink. And that makes the spiritual journey the work of aligning ourselves with ourselves, making peace within, squaring up with who we are and also are, reconciling ourselves with our invisible twin, and living consciously together the life that is left to be lived. Amen! May it be so! 07/06/2011
Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, WY—The only people who go to hell are the people who believe in hell. Joseph Campbell, and T.S. Elliot, talk about The Wasteland. The Wasteland is dry and tasteless and barren. It is where people go through the motions of living but are dead. It is the place Jesus talked about when he said, “Leave the dead to bury the dead.” They are dead because they have no life of their own. They do what they are supposed to do, what somebody else tells them to do. They think what they are supposed to think, believe what they are supposed to believe, vote for who they are supposed to vote for. They never have an idea or an inclination of their own. They never say anything they haven’t been told to say. They paint by the numbers and stay carefully within the lines and all of their paintings look exactly alike. They carefully step in the black footprints laid down by their ancestors and do not deviate in the slightest from how things have always been done because that is they way they are supposed to be done. They are afraid to do it any other way because they have been told they will go to hell if they do. They are in hell because they believe in hell. They have sacrificed their life in the here and now in the hope of avoiding hell in the then and there, that is, after they die. But their lives are hell. Don’t let anything stand between you and the life that is yours to live, particularly the idea of hell. 07/07/2011
Mormon Row Barn, Grand Teton National Park, WY—How alive can we be in the time left for living? We owe it to ourselves—and to that which knows what it means for us to be alive—to find out. Carl Jung says, “There is within each of us an unknown other whom we do not know.” This Unknown Other knows what it means for us to be alive. Our work is to know what he, what she, knows—to align ourselves with his, with her, will for our life (which is to embrace our Destiny)–take up the Hero’s Journey (which is the Spiritual Quest)—and discover what we are made of and what we are about. Our work in the time left for living is to find our life—the life that is truly our life, the life with our name on it, the life we are built and called to live—and live it. We are Odysseus, Ulysses, Jesus and the Buddha, searching for the life that waits for us to live it. We only have to believe that it is so and act as though it is to discover the wonder of the gold in the worthless stone we had taken our lives to be. Knowing/believing the truth of the value of the life yet to be lived sets us free to live it, transforms us and the world. Amen! May it be so! 07/08/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Yellowstone River, Yellowstone Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We work out all of the discrepancies, reconcile the opposites, integrate the contradictions, come to terms with the discordances, square up with the conflicts, make our peace with how things are and how things also are… This is the Hero’s Task, which is also called the Spiritual Journey, which is also called Growing Up. The tools for the work are awareness, compassion, humor, playfulness, kindness, and the right kind of conversation with the right kind of people. We do not get far in this work without the help of a community of the right kind of people. I call this kind of community a “community of innocence,” because it has nothing at stake in us—it does not seek to exploit us, or any of its members, in any way. It simply receives us well, listens to us attentively, asks us questions that enable us to say what we have to say, and tells us what it has learned through its experience that may be helpful in our situation. That’s it. What we do with all of this is up to us. Progress along the path cannot be hurried. We proceed at our own pace, in our own time, waking up as we are able. The community of innocence does not try to hurry us along, but accompanies us kindly, with compassion, having nothing to gain and nothing to lose. 07/09/2011
Sunrise, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We only have to find our life and live it while doing what it takes to maintain, sustain, our life in the world of normal, apparent, reality. Life is lived on two levels. Physical and spiritual. Life on the physical level is food, clothing and shelter. Life on the spiritual level is meaning and purpose. We have to live on both levels at the same time. As it stands, life on the physical level gets all the press and life on the spiritual level is thought to be what we do in church, with the praying and the Bible study and the rule keeping and the “Our God is better than your God” putdowns to all the other ways of thinking about God. We gotta grow up. Spiritual is connection with the truth of who we (also) are and what we (also) are about—with our destiny, with the life we are born (destined) to live—within the world of physical reality. It is what we are here for. One way of cluing into what that might be is to ask for a dream. No kidding. Before going to sleep, ask for a dream: “What area of life is my genius/gift best suited for?” Take what the dream gives you. See where it leads. The basic strategy for the “spiritual journey” (which is finding and living the life that is ours to live) is to see where things lead. Start with the area of life your genius, or gift, is best suited for. See where that takes you. In so doing, you launch yourself on the adventure of your life. Happy trails. 07/10/2011
Below the Beaver Dam, Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—There is the way things are, and also are, and there is what we can do about it, and that’s that. Either we can take it or we can’t. The hero’s task is to do all that can be done about the way things are and also are and let that be that. Squaring ourselves up with life’s inevitables and refusing to allow the things we cannot do anything about stop us from doing what can be done about the things we can do something about is the high calling of being human. Anybody can say, “No, I am not going to live on these terms.” Everybody can imagine a world that is better than the one they live in. We are asked to live in this world just as it is and work to make it better for our being in it. What say you? 07/10/2011
Lewis River Valley, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We don’t have to worry about what we should do to become more spiritual or make progress on the spiritual journey. We only need to do the next thing well and see where it leads. We only need to attend the next situation as it arises and assist its coming forth in ways that are unique to us, that come natural to us. The work that is ours to do, the life that is truly ours to live, are commensurate with the gift, with the genius, that are ours to use in the service of the good of all. The work finds us as the wand chooses the wizard. We don’t go in search of what is ours to do, maybe this, maybe that. We simply do what needs to be done here and now in ways that utilize the gift we have to give and see where that takes us. The gift, genius, work, life will be a boon to all, but their real import is to wake us up, bring us forth, introduce us to ourselves. We are here to be who we are and also are for the true good of all, and we live our way to this end by doing the next thing that needs to be done as we can do it and going where that takes us. 07/11/2011
Hayden Valley, near Canyon Village, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We are on our own here. It is all up to us. And we cannot do it alone. We need the right kind of help from the right kind of company. We need the supportive presence of the right kind of community to have a chance. All of the heroes have help. Where would Harry Potter be without the people who keep coming forward to assist him along the way? Or Frodo? Or Luke Skywalker? Or Jesus? But the right kind of help is hard to find. We increase our chances of finding the right kind of company by being the right kind of company ourselves. The kind of company I have in mind is a community of innocence with no interest, investment, or stake in its members—it doesn’t need us, we need it. We need it to listen us to the truth of who we are, to hear what we have to say and to ask the questions which lead us into the struggle of articulation and deepen our own understanding of what we have to say by helping us make conscious what is true and what is also true about our situation in each moment of our lives. Awareness, consciousness, is our only tool in the work to be who we are (and also are), to see what needs to be done and to do it. Communities of innocence are our hedge against the darkness. We create them as much as find them by being what we need and attracting those who are looking for what we are looking for, so that we help each other along the way. 07/12/2011
Before sunrise, Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We live too much in the pursuit of some idea of what life has to offer and too little in the service of what life needs us to do. We are trying to get “our fair share” instead of simply offering what is ours to give. We have lived all these years with little or no sense of our gift, our genius, our life, our destiny. It’s time we got to work on these things and find our life and live it in the time left for living. Let’s start with destiny. Destiny is not fate. Fate is how things are. Destiny is what we do with how things are. Fate is all we cannot change about our lives—when and where we were born, who our parents are, our genetic makeup, the “facts of our life.” Destiny is what we are called to do within the terms and conditions, the “facts,” of our life. Our destiny transforms our fate. If we turn our back on our destiny, all we are left with is our fate, and who wants that? So. How do we get to our destiny? Eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart that understands. We intuit our way there, feel our way along. We don’t buy a ticket, or a map, or a book of instructions. We begin by believing we have a destiny, a path with our name on it, a life that is our life to live. If you can’t believe that, I won’t be much help to you. You have to help me help you by believing in yourself and your life and your ability to come alive in the time left for living. Think about it. I’ll get back to you. 07/13/2011
Lodge Pole Fence, Buffalo Valley, WY—There is a problem with aligning ourselves with our destiny, finding the life that is our life to live and living it in the time left for living. None of this is a left brain pursuit. The culture is a left brain culture. Our fundamental assumptions are left brain assumptions. It is though we only have one brain and it is the left hemisphere. Spirituality and destiny are right brain matters. This means that there are no formulas, recipes, directions, instructions, etc. that proceed in a linear fashion, with a step by step outline from kindergarten to a graduate degree. There are no black footprints on the spiritual journey. We don’t find the life that is our life to live the way we find Wrigley Field. We have to learn a new approach. The first thing we will notice is that there is no way to measure progress. There is no way to gauge success. There is no way to rank us according to our level of achievement in developing an affinity for our destiny. The first will be last, you know. This is no way to run a business. This is not a business. You cannot market Destiny Finders, Inc. like it’s preparation for the SAT. All of which leaves us up in the air and in the dark about what to do and how to do it. Well, not quite. I have some ideas. For now, get used to the idea that the search for our destiny and the life that is ours to live is a great walk-a-bout in the Outback. Signs are everywhere, pointing to something. We have to learn to read them and remember how to play. 07/14/2011
Cunningham Cabin, Grand Teton National Park, WY—The Hero’s Journey and the Spiritual Quest is the trek to the Land of Promise and the Search for the Holy Grail. We are looking for the life that is ours to live in the time left for living, and the courage to live it. If you were looking for “fortune and glory,” this is as fortunate and as glorious as it gets, living the life that is ours to live. There are no shortcuts (Long is short, short is long)–it is a lifelong process that is interesting and meaningful all the way, and provides us with just what we need to do what truly needs to be done in each situation as it arises. Don’t think in terms of outcome and arrival and getting there. Think in terms of vitality and movement and the dynamic flow of life. There is no static mode of being. Death is the only steady state. Living is like taking “a ride on the wall of death” (Check out the Richard Thomas song), but it is not being dead. And hints, clues, signs are everywhere. Everything is a key that opens some door. The Way meanders and winds and wanders, loops, reverses itself, covers the same old ground so that we might see what we missed before, so there is no hurry and there is no time to waste—and here is as good as there, now is as good as then. The path opens before those who are open to the path, and it starts when you open your eyes. 07/15/2011
Linville Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—The Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest, leads to you, to who you also are, to the Invisible Twin within. We cannot get there directly. It is a round-a-bout and curious way that leads us home. We have to leave home to find home. This sounds like doubletalk, like I’m being deliberately abstruse and obscure like some ancient text. This is because poetry is more appropriate than direct discourse when we are talking about soul stuff. We talk in seeming circles because the left hemisphere cannot comprehend what words cannot say, and this is a right hemisphere journey—a round-a-bout and curious way—all the way. We circle around the center like a 3 D labyrinth. There is no straight path. Carl Jung said “We are who we always have been and who we will be.” We already are who we are and who we also are, the trick is waking up to that, knowing it. It takes a lifetime of living with our eyes open to master the trick. It’s like growing up. We don’t grow up just because our parents tell us, “Won’t you please grow up!?” We don’t grow into who we also are just because we are in the mood for something different and think we’ll try spirituality for a while. There is a lot of coming to terms to do on the trail that winds to the center of the Self. We have to set ourselves aside to find our Self. Oops. I did it again. 07/16/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Rough Ridge Bridge, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—Waking up is squaring up is growing up. Waking up to how things are is waking up to how things also are. Recognizing the opposites without denying them or pretending they don’t exist is living in the tension, the polarity, of contraries, and to live there is to integrate the opposites, to reconcile them—if not to each other, then to ourselves. WE adjust, WE adapt, WE accommodate ourselves to the oppositional facts of life. This is squaring up, growing up. Carl Jung says none of the important problems in life can be solved, they can only be out-grown. Growing up is another name for the Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest. Enlightenment is coming to terms with how things are and how they also are—which is not how we wish they were. William Blake said “Without contraries is no progression.” We grow through our agony over the contradictions that block our way to how we want things to be. The agony is the price we pay to wake up, square up, grow up, get up and do the things that truly need to be done in spite of what we wish we were doing instead. This is the cross we pick up daily in the work to be like the master by following no master. 07/17/2011
The Lower Beaver Pond, Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—We grow up against our will. We do not easily accommodate ourselves to a life that is not on our terms, or we accommodate ourselves too easily—handing ourselves over early on, surrendering compliantly to the dictates of Those Who Know Best, going where we are led, doing what we are told to do, all our lives long. For the sake of peace and harmony. we make no waves, rock no boats, just go along. To grow up we have to have a will and have to experience the agony of setting our will aside in the service of a greater will, which is, strangely enough, also our own. The struggle is within, with ourselves, over which good we will serve with our lives. This is the Transforming Ambivalence out of which we are born into the life that is our life to live, acquiescing in a “Thy will, not mine, be done” kind of way. Who is the “Thy” we experience as “other”? My theory is the “Thy” is “Also Us,” our Invisible Twin within, the unconscious part of ourselves who knows more than we do about who we are and what is ours to do. It is our place as conscious ego to reconcile our perspective, our take on things, with that of unconscious psyche/soul/self—physical with spiritual—and live in this world in full partnership with that world. What enlightenment is all about. 07/18/2011
Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park, WY—The way that is our way competes with the 10,000 ways hawking happiness, promising prosperity, boasting of bliss and everlasting ease of living. It’s the story of the Garden of Eden. We think there is something better than paradise, and will trade what is ours in a flash for what we had rather have. What keeps us on the way that is our way past the Sirens’ song offering so much more? Eyes that see. Ears that hear. A heart that understands. How many times would Adam and Eve be fooled again before they wise up, having heard the serpent’s spiel enough to know better than to listen? We wake up over time. It takes every step we have taken to be where we are. If we could be somewhere else, we would be. And when we awaken, the task is the same: To be alive as we can be in the time left for living. And, now we know more about what it means to be alive than we ever knew before, so we won’t make all those wrong turns and have all those false starts. The path to where we are going always begins under our feet. We only have to see things as they are (and also are), be clear and correct about what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, and have the courage to do it. It will be great. Let’s go! 07/19/2011
Barn on Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, WY—In finding our way back home, to the treasure, which is our self, we have to set our self aside. Your left brain should be flipping out about now. We get to us through us, past all the resistance and obstacles we put in our own way. We are our best friend and worst enemy, and our work is to integrate, to reconcile, to live aligned and in harmony with ourselves. Our two tools for the work are awareness and compassion. Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” is a wonderful synopsis of the work that is ours to do. The path to peace with ourselves requires us to develop the gift that is ours to give (It is not the one we wish were ours to give) and develop our sense of what truly needs to be done now in each situation as it arises (It is not what we have been told should be done or what we want to do). In doing these things, we will be developing our relationship with our Invisible Twin and finding our joint way together to the life that is our joint life to be lived in the time left for living. This is epic stuff we are about and has close parallels with all of the adventure stories about the Hero’s Journey. It is our own Odyssey we are embarking upon. It will not be like a quick trip to the grocery store. 07/20/2011
Used in Short Talks On Contradiction, etc., Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We have to grow up, and the longer we wait to begin the work, the harder it gets. Growing up is waking up, facing up, squaring up to how things are and how things also are and how we wish things were. It is seeing clearly what truly needs to be done in each situation as it arises and having the courage to do it. It is knowing what our gift is, our genius, the thing(s) we do best that no one can do quite like we can do it (them), and offering that, presenting that, as our gift to the world no matter how often the world refuses to acknowledge or receive it. It is living in ways that do not try to exploit our advantage but seek to serve the good of the whole—which includes our own good, but not at the expense of everyone else’s. It is drawing lines where they need to be drawn, knowing where we stop and others start, and refusing to do for others what they have to do for themselves. It is living amid the opposites and contradictions without trying to erase them, but working to integrate them, reconcile them, while respecting them and understanding the role they play in deepening, expanding, enlarging us all and, yes, growing us up, even against our will. This is our work to do. No one can do it for us. It’s up to us. Now is as good a time as any to step into it and see what we can do. 07/21/2011
Sunrise, Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—At some point, we have to let our life come to us. “Here I am! If you want me, come get me!” Of course, we have to mean it. This is no game we are playing. We are in or we are out. What’s it going to be? Our life is not lived on our terms. This is the hinge upon which our future turns. Are we up for it or not? Don’t be flirting with your life with eyes on some other, finer, life. Shirley, you’ve lived long enough by now to know you don’t know what you’re doing—even if your name isn’t Shirley. Your best bet is trusting yourself to your life and seeing where it leads. So, when you say, “Come and get me,” you have to be ready to go wherever it takes you no matter what. Whose side are you on is the fundamental choice. Be clear about it. Our life is as responsible for finding us as we are for finding it. It is not all up to us—to run here and there, “Maybe this, maybe that!” We wait and watch for that which resonates with us, winks at us, calls our name—and ask when it does, “Are you the life that is mine to live, or shall I wait for another?” And, perhaps we won’t have to ask. Our life may grab us by the neck and hurl us into living it. It’s hard to say anything definitive about The Mystery of Being. 07/22/2011
Summer Wetlands Panorama, Guilford County, NC—Photography is mostly waiting. We wait to get to the scene. We wait to see what is to be seen. We wait for the light. We wait for the tourist to get out of the way. We wait for the wind to calm. We spend very little time clicking the shutter. Life is that way. We spend lots of time between innings, between plate appearances, between homeruns and no hitters. We wait to see what needs to be done and what we are going to do about it. We wait for inspiration, for revelation, for insight, for motivation, for encouragement, for direction… One of the toughest things about photography is to be burning the right light looking for a tripod position. At some point we have to take the picture that’s there in the light that is right whether it’s the right tripod position or not. The right light makes a bad photo a good photo. The right tripod position is nothing in the wrong light. Life is that way. When the time for acting is upon us, we can’t wait to be sure that we know what to do. Do something NOW! when the time is right without having everything all figured out, planned to a “T,” polished and in place. Who knows what is going to happen next? We live to see where it goes, where it leads! When the time for acting is upon you ACT! Take the picture that is there when the light is right! See where it leads! 07/23/2011
Before Sunrise, Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park, WY—If you start with whatever is important to you and honor that with your time and attention, it will lead you to something else that is important to you. Keep serving what is important to you and allow yourself to be passed along from one important thing to the next. One important thing will lead to another, and you are just along for the ride in the service of what is important. Over time you will develop your ability to rank things in their order of importance and increasingly serve things of greater importance. Serving what is important will also grow you up by forcing difficult choices on you. You cannot do what is right for you and what is easy for you. What will it be? A word of warning: This exercise fails if you remain stuck with things you like to do but are not important, that do not call you out of your “comfort zone” into doing what needs to be done in the service of what is important. If you think being comfortable is more important than doing what is important, you may be live out your life with the sofa and TV. 07/24/2011
Sunrise, Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—Jesus came asking, “Who do YOU say that I am?” and “Why don’t YOU judge for yourselves what is right?”, but we let THEM tell us what to think, believe, say and do. Those Who Know Best direct our lives. No one directed Jesus’ life. Jesus thought and acted out of his own authority all the way to the grave. Jesus did what he thought needed to be done in each situation as it arose, healing on the Sabbath, associating with the wrong kind of people, touching the Unclean. We go where we are led and carefully color within the lines. What do we know to be true—what do we know to be right—that we did not hear from someone else? What is it about our lives that is OURS? We even allow THEM to tell us what questions we can ask, and get permission before we do any new thing. How alive is that? Never risking disapproval? Never taking a chance with our own preferences and interests? Never trusting ourselves to what resonates with us? Never going where THEY tell us not to go? Who shame us with, “What would Jesus think?” What would Jesus think of THEM shaming us in his name, and in so doing desecrating all that is holy and untamed? 07/25/2011
Canon Village, Yellowstone National Park, WY—We are over 4,000 years removed from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and over 2,000 years removed from the God of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus sets the tone for us by seeing God with his own eyes and not with the eyes of traditional religion. Jesus’ God was alive in the moment with Jesus, and that God’s spirit was like the wind, blowing where it would. There is no nailing that God to the wall, locking that God into a cold cell of dogma, chaining that God to doctrines and decrees. Jesus introduces us to the God of our own experience, our own perceiving and calls us to have the courage to wake up, open our eyes and see—and live toward as much as we can intuit of God in each moment of our living. To do this, of course, we have to live truthfully. We cannot be kidding ourselves about who we intuit God to be, and asking us to be, in the here and now of our living—and kidding ourselves is what we do best. No, telling ourselves what we want to hear is what we do best. No, letting ourselves off the hook is what we do best. No, shooting ourselves in the foot is what we do best… We are the work that is ours to do. May we have what it takes to do it as it ought to be done! 07/26/2011
Cunningham Cabin, Grand Teton National Park, WY—We don’t find the path with our name one it, or live the life that is our life to live without taking chances. This is a problem. We fear being wrong worse than we fear dragons and giants. Our fear of being wrong IS a dragon and a giant with whom we must deal. All of the old epic themes are a part of our work to be who we are, where we are, when we are, what we are, why we are, how we are (and also are). This is heroic stuff we are about, so we can’t let the fear of being wrong, of looking stupid, of everyone knowing we don’t know what we are doing, etc. stop us from taking chances. We make our best bet about what is our business, and what is not our business, and live toward (and away from) that guess and see what happens—see where it leads. Here’s the all-weather rule: Notice what catches your eye and look closer. Always look closer at what catches your eye. See where it leads. And don’t be in a hurry. This is your LIFE we are talking about, finding and living the life that is truly your life to live over the course of the rest of your life. Just do here and now what you can do here and now and tomorrow will take care of itself. What are you thinking? That you can find out what it is you are here to do, get it done and retire? You are here to DO what is yours to do! Not to get it done! “Are you picking up what I’m laying down here?” (Linda Cohn). 07/27/2011
Sunrise, Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—We are on our own in doing something about our lives, and we are not alone, but we have to avail ourselves of the right kind of help. The wrong kind of help is everywhere. It is up to us to choose our advisers and supporters. It is up to us to attend the helpers and guides sent to us by our Invisible Twin (If you are going to have an invisible friend, make her or him a really good one, I say). We are on our own in finding our way through the truth of how things are to the truth of how things also are. Everything is exactly as it seems and nothing is as it appears to be. (Your left brain can’t handle that, so you are going to have to learn to see and hear and understand with your right brain—but bring your left brain along for when you need what it has to offer.) In learning to discern the helpers who are helpful, you are creating for yourself a community of innocence who can receive you well and listen you to the truth of how things are and also are and what you need to do about it—without telling you what to do! There is no advising or criticizing or sympathizing (or proselytizing) in a community of innocence, just very deep listening with the right kind of questions and a good bit of the right kind of laughing. It’s a very safe place without answers, except for those you come up with on your own. Just what you need for the work that is yours to do! 07/28/2011
Barn on Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, WY—The Hero’s Journey, Spiritual Quest, Search for the Promised Land and the Holy Grail, and the Work that Is Ours To Do (These are all the same thing) depend upon our learning the language of the invisible world, of our Invisible Twin, of the Psyche/Soul. This world speaks to us through our body, in our dreams, by way of coincidence and Synchronicity, and calls to us with white rabbits and strange notions. We have to be alert. The foundational rule of the Hero’s Journey, etc. is: Pay Attention! If we are going to be alive in the time left for living, we have to be awake. We have to look until we see. Listen until we hear. Ask questions that lead us to more questions. It’s by our questions that we are saved. If you don’t have any questions, you are walled in, closed off, sealed up, and may be dead—but there is hope for you if you are still reading this. Read on. We have to Pay Attention, Be Awake, Ask Questions and Take Chances all along the way. Start with your body. Listen to it. Let your physical sensations, headaches, shivers, sneezes, pain, etc., lead you to listening to what they have to say. A good guide for this kind of exercise is “The Power of Focusing,” by Ann Weiser Cornell. A tool for the journey. 07/29/2011
Lewis River Valley, Yellowstone National Park, WY—The help we receive from the invisible world does not make things easy. It makes things possible, doable. It enables us to do what is hard. The Hero’s Journey (the Spiritual Quest—it’s all the same) isn’t about doing what is easy. It would be called the Slacker’s Stroll, then. The Hero’s Journey is about doing what is hard. The help we get along the way helps us do what is hard—not avoid it, dodge it, escape from it and hide. Doing what is hard grows us up (What the Hero’s Journey and the Spiritual Quest are all about). No one ever grew up doing what was easy. No one ever produced anything that has never been—which is exactly what the life that needs you to live it does—by doing what was easy. Easy is out of the picture. Hard is everywhere you look. But that isn’t a problem, because you have all the help you need to do it. You just have to wade into it. When the water reaches your upper lip, it will begin to part just enough to allow you to survive while you deal with what is hard. It isn’t all that bad, once you get used to it. Doing what’s hard is what you’ll do best before it’s over. And the world will be transformed by your work, and your life will be interesting and meaningful—which it would never have been if you had lolled poolside the whole time, ordering fruit smoothies. 07/30/2011
Arrowleaf Balsamroot, Jenny Lake, Grand Teton National Park, WY—We grow up against our will—if we grow up at all. Growing up is another name for the Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest. It is the only thing standing between us and life as enlightened, compassionate, healed and whole human beings. Don’t let the terms “healed” and “whole” fool you. We walk with a limp and carry the scars of those who have been through hell to be where we are. Jesus in the wilderness and Gethsemane and on Golgotha, you know. We find our equivalents in a thousand places. But. Don’t let that scare you. The alternative is much worse for everyone. The refusal to grow up is the source of all of our problems today, any day. We have to do our part for there to be any hope at all. Our part is waking up, facing up, squaring up to the conflict within over not wanting to do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. Our cross to bear is doing what needs to be done whether we want to or not. If the dog throws up on the carpet, you clean it up. You don’t wait to want to. Your life is like the dog throwing up on the carpet. Get the paper towels and the bowl of water and go to work. There is work to be done that only you can do. The real work is recognizing that and saying, “Okay. Let’s go.” The first step on the Hero’s Journey. 07/31/2011
Buffalo Valley Road, approaching Grand Teton National Park, WY—You are the magic you seek. You want help with your life, direction, courage, stability… The list is long. You are the source of all that you need. All you have to do is trust it to be so and, this is the hard part, GET OUT OF THE WAY! The conflict is within. We are Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort but our situation is more difficult because in our case, neither must die. In our case, we have to work it out—not in a once-and-for-always kind of way, but in an ongoing, unending, constant and continuing kind of way. We do that by making the conflict conscious and bearing the pain of negotiation and compromise all the way. The key ingredient is good faith on the part of all parties. Rumi said, “If you are not here with us in good faith, you are doing terrible damage,” or words to that effect. We negotiate, not for what we want to happen but for what truly needs to happen. We seek the truth of how things are and how things need to be. We lay aside everything that interferes with the search for and service of truth—the truth of how things are and the truth of what needs to be done. We acquiesce and let it be. “Thy will, not mine, be done”—with the “Thy” being the Transcendent Reality beyond our personal good, gain, benefit, perspective and ideas of how things ought to be. It’s a trick to pull this off, but when we do, magic happens. 08/01/2011
Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park, WY—When we reach the end of a rope, we always cast about, anxiously wondering, “What am I going to do?” This, believe it or not, is a very good place to be. At this moment, our lives crackle with possibilities and are as magical as they will ever be—because comes the answer to the question we don’t expect to be answered (the “what am I going to do” question): “Whatever you want, honey.” Sometimes this is phrased, “Whatever you say, honey,” and sometimes, “Whatever your little heart desires, honey.” “Honey” seems to be always there. In a pickle, we make the call. We do what seems to us to be the best of all our options and, here is the important part, we see where that leads. We are always being led. This is what we have to realize. We think we are here to settle down, to get cozy and comfortable and enjoy our life. No settling down. No getting things just right, propping our feet up, and smoking cigars. Life is movement. We live on the move, being led along, passed along from one thing to the next. So, in a pinch, we decide what’s next. Here’s the good news: We don’t have to know what we are doing. Everything leads somewhere. We do what seems like the best thing to do under the circumstances and that will lead to different circumstances, and we do what seems like the best thing to do there, and magic begins to happen. Things we could not predict or imagine carry us along to waypoints (not destinations) we would not have chosen, and it’s awesome, wonderful, magnificent, better than anything we could have ordered off the menu, and we couldn’t be more alive. Amen! May it be so! 08/03/2011
Dugger’s Creek Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—It’s always safer and more comfortable to stay stuck. We may be depressed and empty, but we know what to expect. There is nothing unknown and anxiety-producing about our situation. The future is the past forever, and we don’t have anything to worry about that we aren’t well practiced in worrying about. No new worries is worth every sacrifice. So embrace those dull routines! Nail shut those doors! Repeat the mantra: Nothing New Or Out Of The Ordinary Ever And Ever Amen! Otherwise, the risk will be unbearable. Open the door to your future, step over the threshold and “Beyond This Point There Be Dragons,” or worse. Stay with the drudgery and the boredom. Do what is expected of you. Do not have a fresh idea. Do not flirt with the possibilities. Do not imagine a better world. Do not wonder what you could do if you tried. Do not dream of flying. And, above all, do not under any circumstances follow the white rabbit anywhere. Living to be alive in the time left for living will jeopardize the life you have worked so hard to order and arrange. What would all those plastic people, with their worn script of clichés and platitudes, do without you to play your part in their world? Go back to your duties. Find your place. Read your lines. Be safe. And if it begins to feel a little like being dead, well, that’s a small price to pay for the everlasting peace predictability provides. 08/03/2011
Linville Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—What we see is a function of how we look, and where we look and what we look at. We have to be looking if we want to see—not looking for anything in particular, but looking at everything, open to what may be hiding there. There is more to everything than meets the eye. The entire world is an ink blot, concealing and revealing at the same time—reflecting our projections back to us, laughing at us, saying, “Can you see me now, Mr., Ms., Know It All?” When I tell people “Christ is a metaphor,” they hear me say, “Christ is JUST a metaphor,” as though metaphors aren’t real and that I’m taking something away from Christ by suggesting the image is a metaphor. Metaphors are more real than real. Metaphors are the heart of reality itself. Metaphors are divine. Holy. Sacred. But. We’ve lost the ability, the art, of seeing beyond the thing we are looking at to what else, to what all, is there. We go for explanations, eschew mystery, and our lives are too shallow to splash. We look but we do not see. To see, we’re going to have to change the way we look. See? 08/04/2011
Fern on Black, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—We can be no more gracious and compassionate than we are mature. Grace and compassion are the hallmarks of maturity, indicators of our having what it takes to bear what must be borne and to deal with what comes our way. May it be so with all of us in time! 08/04/2011
Summer Grass 01, black and white, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—How we do it makes all the difference. If you get the how down, the what will come around in time—and if it doesn’t it won’t matter. The teachers you remember you remember for how they were with you, not what they taught you. Give the people in your life a how they will never forget. 08/04/2011
Summer Grass 02, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—If you play second base, you spend a lot of your time waiting for the ball to be hit or thrown to you. Most of your doing is waiting. Your life is like playing second base. You are waiting to offer what you have to give to the situation as it unfolds around you. It helps to be clear about what you can do and cannot do so that you don’t try to play all the bases, and the outfield, and pitch just to prove your value to the team. 08/04/2011
Summer Grass 03, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—One of the things photography has taught me is that the moment does not last, or return. The moment is precious and fleeting. We cannot be flip or casual or think that one time is as good as another. The sunlight on the summer grass will not last long. Do not let the good leave unacknowledged, unwitnessed, unwelcomed. 08/04/2011
Summer Grass 04, the Bog Garden, Greensboro, NC—When we are “in the groove,” we meet the moment with exactly what the moment needs and live without effort toward ends all recognize as worthy. Then something shifts and we are back into pushing and pulling and resisting being pushed and pulled, and live with the memory of “the groove,” and the dream of its hoped-for return. 08/04/2011
Hidden Falls, Grand Teton National Park, WY—No one can tell us what our work is. We find it for ourselves. It is a solitary quest made in the company of unlikely helpers and guides. Our life has a drift about it, a flow, toward some things, toward something, and away from others. I’ve never been interested in engine repair. Carl Jung said, “We are who we have always been, and who we will be.” The themes are there, the tune is familiar, a thread runs through it all. What are the recurring themes in your life, the abiding interests, the things you find yourself doing in each stage of life? You’ve been living the life that is yours to live all along. Live it consciously now, intentionally bringing it forth as fully as you’re able. Everything you need to know is in the moment with you. It only takes waking up to know that it is so. There are no secrets. All is in the open, waiting to be seen. What’s to be seen is a function of seeing, of how we see, of how we look, of what we are thinking when we look, see. What’s to be seen is a function of our degree of openness to what is to be seen, of our receptivity to what all is there. To see properly, we have to be able to play well, to dance well. Seeing is dancing, is playing, with life. Those who don’t laugh can’t see. 08/05/2011
Peach Orchard, Springs Farm, Fort Mill, SC—May we be open to the presence of truth flowing through our lives, coming to us out of nowhere, when we least expect it, showing itself to us in the most unlikely places, beckoning to us from people who would never be type-cast as those where truth resides, undoing everything we have ever thought to be truth, saying, “These old wineskins can’t hold the new things I have fermenting for you!” May we risk everything in the service of truth that is nothing like anything we have ever heard, and live in the wonder of the surprising nature of truth as those who have nothing to lose, with the wind of the Spirit that blows where it will forever in our hair! Amen! May it be so! 08/06/2011
Peach Orchard, Springs Farm, Fort Mill, SC—We think we have to get it right, but we have no idea what would be right, so we take ourselves out of the picture and follow the lead of those who sound like they know what they are talking about. We do what Those Who Presume To Know Best tell us to do. And miss the point. The point is not being right. The point is putting ourselves on the line. The point is saying and doing what WE think is right. The point is making OUR best guess about what is right and doing that and seeing where it leads. Seeing where it leads is the point. Don’t worry about getting it right. Do what you think is right and see how right you are. And see where it leads. If you are wrong, it will lead to being right next time or the time after that. Let them say about you as they say about me: “Anybody that guesses as much as Jim Dollar does is bound to be right some time!” We are practicing finding our own way, hearing our own voice, reading our own intuition, following our own instinct. So what if we are wrong? It’s practice! We’ll get better at it with time, and we’ll learn to trust ourselves along the way. 08/07/2011
Looking Glass Falls, Pisgah National Forest, near Brevard, NC—Taking the photos that have been taken 10,000 times is good camera practice. The scenes are worthy or they wouldn’t be popular. They draw us back because that intangible “something” is in the air there and they are good places to be with, or without, a camera. But. We cannot settle for them. We cannot think photography is nothing but them. They open our eyes to what else is to be seen. They sensitize us to the numinous all around, winking at those who have eyes to see. May it be said of us all that we did! 08/07/2011
Flame Azaleas, Roan Mountain, Carter County, TN—There is here, where we are now, and there is there, where I was when I took this photo. Within the shifts and spins of our here there is the same kind of recurring “there” that exists on Roan Mountain every second week in every June that rolls around. Within upheaval and change there resides consistency and regularity—constancy amid chaos. There is something calming, centering and grounding about the return of flame azalea blossoms in June on Roan Mountain, like the swallows at Capistrano and the Buzzards at Hinckley Reservation (Who could make that up?). There makes here a better place in a number of ways. 08/07/2011
Pisgah National Forest, McDowell County, near Little Switzerland, NC—The best we can do is rarely the best we can do. Generally, it’s the best we want to do, the best we feel like doing, the best we are in the mood to do. We get by with less than our best nearly always. We have to disappear for our best to come forth, to get out of the way, to stop interfering with our spontaneous response to the situation as it arises. Once we start thinking, willing, scheming, planning, strategizing, weighing our options and looking for the most advantageous route this situation to the destination of our choice, our best goes on the back burner or out the window. Our best comes forth when we live instinctively, intuitively, without an eye on what’s in it for us. Ah, but. How do we get ourselves out of the picture? That’s the best trick in the entire Book of Tricks. To live without ourselves in mind, beyond awareness of our good, our gain, our advantage, our interest, our desire… How do we get to the point of living in light of the good of the situation as a whole, in light of the good of the whole? Slowly, I would say, incrementally, over the long sweep of our lives, if we get there at all. 08/08/2011
Skinny Dip Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—You look at the desert menu or you stand before a display of best sellers at the local bookstore. You are pulled toward some selections and pushed away from others. Think of your life as a desert menu or a list of best sellers. Some things have a positive charge, others have a negative charge and the rest don’t move you either way. Notice the charges, positive, negative, neutral, as you go through your day. See if you jam or override the signals, resisting, forcing, criticizing, interfering, insisting on what you are supposed to do, like, feel, think to the exclusion of your inclinations. Observe the extent to which you mess with your life. Live as a hidden observer of your own living. See where it goes. 08/08/2011
The Path Around Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—If money were manna and we gathered just enough for our needs of the day, how much would it take? Of course, money is not manna and we don’t know how many days there will be, so we have to pile up as much money as we can imagine while we can against the time when none is coming in and all is going out. But. The question remains: How much does it take? Food, clothing, shelter, lights, water, gas, entertainment… It all adds up quickly. To how much? How much do we need to meet the demands of life in the world AND do the work that is ours to do? The research I’m familiar with suggests around $75,000 a year for a family of four. Teachers average around $35,000. Two teachers married with kids have to have a second job to make it. You see what the economy and culture are doing to us. The stress of not having enough money even though we are gainfully employed to meet the legitimate expenses of running a household robs us of our perspective and burdens our soul. The cumulative impact of not having enough money to meet all of the needs we are responsible for meeting weighs us down and keeps us from being alive. Something else to square up to. Another Cyclops in our path. How do we make more and spend less? How do we find the financial resources we need to do what is truly ours to do on the two levels of life (Food, clothing, shelter and soul)? The first task is to find the help we need to live the life that is ours to live. Do not stop looking! 08/09/2011
Beaver Pond, Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC — We quit too easily, we stop too soon in the work to bring forth our gift, our genius, in the service of our destiny, the work that is ours to do. “It’s too hard!” we say. “We don’t have enough help! We can’t do it!” Heart is the easiest thing to lose. The questions that stop us, which we always us as an excuse to not do what is ours to do—So what? Who cares? What’s the point? What difference does it make? Why try?–have to be answered with questions that set them on their heels and send them running: So what if I can’t say so what? Who cares if no one but me cares? What’s the point of having a point? What difference does it make if nothing makes a difference? Why not try? Then we pick ourselves up and turn back to the task of finding what we need to do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, offering our gift for the good of the whole, anyway, nevertheless, even so! 08/09/2011
Mud Cracks at the Mud Volcano, Yellowstone National Park, WY—Things are not what they appear to be. The work is getting past appearances to the heart of the matter. What we see are reflections of projections of how things are with us that we cannot admit to ourselves. The old saw applies: We hate in others what we cannot see in ourselves. It also works like this: We love in others what we cannot see in ourselves. Attraction and repulsion are indicators of projection in action. Something in here is projected out there and reflected back to us with an emotional charge, positive or negative, that stirs our emotions and gets our attention. Anything with a charge to it requires a closer look. Where are we hiding in the object of our affection/aversion? Let’s say you fall in love. We are always falling in love it seems. Falling in love is what we do best. When we fall in love it is not about the honey or the hunk we fall in love with. It is about us, ourselves. What do we see in the other that is hidden, lying latent, in ourselves? What are the qualities we admire in the other beyond her or his physical charms? Those are the qualities that are missing from our repertoire and are the very ones we have to work to bring forth in ourselves. We have to become like the other is in these ways. The same strategy works with repulsion. Those are the qualities that are hidden in us, that everyone knows is there but us, and it is up to us to become conscious of the ways they are seeping through to taint our relationships. The world is an inkblot. In seeing it, we see ourselves. Then the work begins. 08/10/2011
Dugger’s Creek Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—We live too loudly to listen. Listening requires being quiet. Finding the center, the space with enough distance from what is happening to consider what is happening in order to hear what is to be heard and filter through the range of available responses to find one most appropriate to the situation as it arises. Those of you old enough to remember the TV show The Honeymooners know the non-stop loudness of the dialogues between Ralph and Alice that kept things in a rolling boil and ruled out any possibility of kindness, compassion, understanding and wisdom coming to the fore. Our lives are like their dialogue. It is our responsibility to slow down the pace, to turn down the volume, to create the space necessary for the reflection and perspective that are required to make appropriate response to what is going on in our lives. We have to sift things out. We have to think things through. Our life is not a ping pong game. It takes consideration and inquiry, exploration and examination, to get to the bottom of things, see what’s what, and develop a healthy and insightful sense of what is happening and what would be a helpful response. Living lives that are loud and fast is no way to find the way with our name on it and the life that is truly our life to live. You control the speed and the volume. Ease off on the accelerator and turn things down. 08/11/2011
Blacktail Ponds, Grand Teton National Park, WY—There is no correlation between how things are and how we want things to be. We can imagine a better world than we can live in. This is good in that it propels us beyond the world wolves or ostriches are capable of creating but. It’s bad in that we have a very difficult squaring ourselves with the world as it is because we wish it were different in 10,000 ways. This how things are. Good is bad and bad is good. Wolves and ostriches don’t have to work things like this out, and most of us refuse to but. It’s ours to do, to square up with how things are, like it or not. To make our peace with it and go on with our lives as well as we are able toward ends worthy of us. Values have nothing to do with what we like or don’t like or how we wish things were or how we want things to be. Good faith, for instance, requires us to live in good faith whether we feel like it or not, want to or not, are in the mood for it or not. So does compassion, and kindness, and generosity, and civility, and every last one of the rest of them. Values require us to live in certain ways no matter what—something else wolves and ostriches don’t have to worry about but. Living aligned with the high values make true human beings of us all and that redeems how things are no matter how they are. Put a true human being in the fat smack middle if the worst situation in the book of terrible situations and that situation is immediately improved. A true human being doesn’t bail, or quit, but lives forever aligned with values worthy of her, of him, to the true good of all, no matter what. 08/12/2011
Little Switzerland Tunnel, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—The things we hate about our lives are the things that bring us forth, bring us out, unfold us and require us to be who we are—against our will, in spite of ourselves. We rise to the occasion—to the occasion we despise—and do what needs to be done, and are deepened, expanded, enlarged in the process. We are better people for the things we have had to accommodate, adjust to, fold into our lives. So. The next time you find yourself resenting this, deploring that, look closer for the qualities this or that brings out in you, requires you to exhibit, express, in response—and how those qualities are your deep strength, existing as a blessing and a grace upon all who come your way, making the world a better place for your being in the world, wishing you were disappeared from this world and plopped into another, better, world, where you didn’t have to do anything you didn’t like to do. 08/13/2011
Path to Cone Manor, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—We find the way by wandering around, looking closer at the things that catch our eye, noting when we are on the beam and when we are off of it, letting what has life for us draw us from one thing to the next, until the realization dawns that this approach doesn’t lead to the way, but is the way, and has always been the way. 08/13/2011
Flow of Fog, Sunrise at Thunder Hill Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—When we live tight, fearful, grasping, forcing lives we miss the things that must be seen with a relaxed, open, presence—and we wonder where this “beam” is, this “path” is, we are supposed to be finding. Frantic to find what must be found, we are like the woman wearing her glasses looking for her glasses.
Country Road, Blue Ridge Parkway near Fancy Gap, VA—We think religion, enlightenment is the way to better, smoother, easier lives. How easy did Jesus have it? Or the disciples? Religion, enlightenment doesn’t do anything for us in terms of lightening our load. Religion, enlightenment, helps us carry our load. It does not make our life easy. It helps us do what is hard. If it doesn’t, it isn’t real religion, enlightenment. Ask anyone who knows. They will tell you real religion, real enlightenment, helps you live your life the way it needs to be lived. It doesn’t give you some easy, soft life that anybody could live, that nobody would need religion or enlightenment to live. Your life needs you to live it the way only you can live it. It doesn’t need you bailing out of it in favor of some life anybody could live, blindfolded. 08/14/2011
Two Apples, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—We are here to live our life, the life that only we can live, the life that needs us to live it. The problem is that we want to live a different life. How do we want what we ought to want and not what we want? This is the Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest, the Search for the Holy Grail and the Promised Land. And, it is the task of maturity—what growing up is all about. Get this one down, and you have it made, as much as you can have it made, being saddled as you are with what you ought to want and not what you really, truly, naturally want with all your heart. But that’s it. Your life is never any more difficult than coming to terms with what you don’t want. This doesn’t mean that what you have (which you don’t want) is what you ought to want. We can have some terrible things to deal with that nobody would ever ought to want. It does mean, however, that what we ought to want is tied up somehow in this unwanted situation. Like, for instance, we ought to want to get ourselves up and into dealing with the damn thing we don’t want to deal with, instead of running, hiding, denying, pretending, making believe in a Delta Dawn Kind Of Way that we can have the live we want if we can only find the magical recipe, formula, secret to immunity against all that is unwanted. We have to wade into the Unwanted and do what we can with it. This is the Hero’s Task, the Spiritual Journey, Growing Up: Living our life in the midst of the unordered, unasked for, unwanted stuff that comes our way. May we all have what it takes to do what is ours to do every day all our life long! 08/15/2011
Electric Peak, Gallatin Range, Yellowstone National Park, WY—The way things are includes our emotional reaction to the way things are. We take it ALL in and decide what can be done about it, and do it, and let things play out as they will, which creates a different configuration of how things are, all of which we take in and decide what can be done about it, and do it… In this ongoing dance with life, how well we do our part makes all the difference. 08/15/2011
Leaving Roosevelt Lodge (on the way to Mammoth Hot Springs), Yellowstone National Park, WY—I would love to have someone tell me what to do and be right about it, wouldn’t you? To lift the responsibility for decision and outcome from my shoulders so that I would know I had done the right thing, the thing that truly needed to be done, the thing that was without doubt the thing to do? That would be great. And, there are those who rush to fill the bill. Who believe they know what’s best for all of us. And, because they are convinced, they are quite convincing, and we would love to be relieved of the burden of knowing which orange juice to choose, for example. So we lean toward handing ourselves over. There’s a test I propose these people pass before we trust them with our lives. Have them choose your dessert for you. Have them make your coffee. That should tell you something about how much they know what they are doing. If they cannot be trusted in small things, they most certainly cannot be trusted in large ones. Like it or not, our lives rest squarely upon our shoulders. And if the cumulative weight of decision making wears us down, we have to find the things and places that restore our soul and allow ourselves to enjoy them often. What are they for you? How long since you availed yourself of them? How regularly can you work them into your life? You have to be the help you need. The care and tending of your own soul is the chief responsibility on that long list of responsibilities. Soothing your soul lightens your load. This is the best advice you’ll get the entire rest of the day. 08/15/2011
Price Lake Morning, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC—Soothing our soul is a gentle art seldom practiced and in great need of being revived. Addiction is the fast tract to distraction, diversion, denial—which hides us for a while from the press and stress of life, but does nothing to help us live amid the maddening swirl as a calming influence, a blessing and a grace. We can only live that way in the service of soul—tending to the needs of soul and the affairs of soul in an environment that is a soulless wasteland. Our first order of business is becoming an advocate, a champion, of soul. Where in our lives are the places soul loves? How often do we go there? How long do we stay? What are the grounding, centering practices that we pursue? When are we most attuned to soul? How conscious are we of the presence of soul—the drift of soul—the preference of soul—throughout our day? In what ways do you honor, revere, love soul with the way you live your life? What are you thinking? That you can live any old way at all AND enjoy the company of a healthy, vibrant soul? 08/16/2011
Thunderstorm at Sunset Panorama #2, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC—Carl Jung said, “We are who we have always been, and who we will be.” We aren’t working to become who we are not, but who we are. Joseph Campbell said that the wasteland is where everyone is being someone else’s idea of who they are supposed to be and no one is living her, or his, own authentic life. The search for the Holy Grail and the Promised Land—the Hero’s Journey and the Spiritual Quest—is the search for our own voice, our own life, so that we do our own thinking and feeling and deciding and doing and believing—and the life we live is not what we are told to live but what comes forth from our own heart and soul. The Path is the path of True Human Beinghood. Human beings who are true to themselves is as true as it gets. 08/16/2011

The Good and the Void

How good is the good we call good?

Whose good is served by the good we call good?

These questions call into question

the glib and easy way we think of The Good and do it.

We cannot rush to answer these questions.

And thinking is futile.

Reason and logic mean nothing here.

We are on new ground–

which is groundless–

here.

We have to sink into the Void to find what we need,

and the Void is the last place we want to go.

Nevertheless,

there lies the treasure,

buried beyond all hope,

and courage beyond hope

is required to take us there.

Such courage is formed from melding

mindfulness and compassion

together in the heat of knowing what’s what

and what has to be done about it.

With seeing, hearing and understanding,

the options are despair and courage without hope.

But courage without hope

is the only courage there is.

Who needs courage when there is hope?

Hope is its own reason for being,

and courage is unnecessary.

Without hope,

courage is our only hope.

When the alternative is despair,

opt for courage,

anyway,

nevertheless,

even so–

and do whatever it takes

in the service of what must be done.

Those who know,

and have always known,

know that it is

hopeless,

useless,

pointless,

futile

and absurd–

and coming to a very bad end–

and that what we do in the meantime

makes all the difference.

So.

Sit quietly with the options,

the choices,

the possibilities and impossibilities,

and the consequences–

and allow the Void to call you home.

We come from the Void,

and to the Void we return,

and in between,

we have occasion to visit often.

But, there is a catch.

We have to visit in good faith.

We can’t get there in bad faith,

and it would be a mistake to try.

But good faith,

and a sincere desire to do what needs to be done

and do it,

work every time.

What is happening?

What needs to be done about it?

Who stands to win?

Who stands to lose?

Whose good should be served?

Whose good should be sacrificed?

Whose good is always served?

Whose good is always sacrificed?

What is The Good beyond all

relative,

temporary,

partial,

good?

We sit with the questions,

with the complexity,

the mess,

the unavailable,

and hold it all in awareness,

bearing the pain of its weight and reality

in the heart of the Void,

and wait there

for what realizations may arise.

This is known as the Travail of Transformation,

or Death Unto Life,

and is the way of serving the good

that is as good as good can be

given the context and circumstances of its advent

in each situation as it arises.

And those who have the heart for it

do it in each situation that arises.

But.

We are so exhausted by the lack of acceptable options—

by the absence of quality choices

from which to choose,

we ignore the Void

and throw the beer can in the recyclable bin,

or the paper towel in the trash

because there is no good to be had

when all the possibilities

are equally bad

for everyone and all things,

so what the hell?

And The Good doesn’t matter to us.

It is too far-fetched and out of reach.

We do what has to be done

without feeling,

or seeing,

or hearing,

or knowing,

or caring,

and numb ourselves

to the reality of our being and doing

because examination

is too painful,

and futile,

to consider.

And that’s where we are,

and where we must begin.

Take that to the Void.

Sit there in the silence

aware of the absurdity

of waiting,

and wait—

without prospects or point,

letting the end of hope

be the beginning of hope

on another level,

in a different way,

past madness

and despair,

a gift of vision

and life

from the Void.

And rise as the Phoenix from its ashes

to do what needs us to do it

in the service of a Good beyond believing,

because we must.

The Meaning of Life

If anyone ever asks you,

“What is the meaning of life?”

Ask them, “What is the meaning of your question?”

If they say, “What do you mean?”

Answer: “Are you asking ‘What is the meaning of life?’

like you might ask, ‘What is the meaning of a rock?’

If they say, “Yes!”

Ask them, “Are we talking about the meaning of a particular rock,

or a rock in general?”

If they say, “Rocks in general,”

say, “Things don’t mean anything in general.

They only have specific, concrete, here and now, in this very moment meaning.”

If they say, “I don’t understand.”

Reply, “A large number of vastly different items fall into the general category of Rocks.

A gold nugget could be thought of as a rock by someone who didn’t know what gold is,

and the same thing could be said about a diamond.

Gold and diamonds mean something quite different from granite, gravel and field stones.

And even if we limited our discussions to wave-tossed pebbles of granite,

worn smooth and sized almost identically by being ground down

through water action over time,

still one of those rocks would mean one thing to a boy with a slingshot,

and another thing to the bird, or the bull, he had his eye on

when he picked up the rock.

What something means is always what it means to someone—

and what it means to them is specific to the time and place,

moment and mood of the person in question.

For example, the question, ‘What is this thing called “Love”?’

means one thing to a college sophomore the second week in April,

having just been smitten by the encounter with his roommate’s sister

on the parade ground beneath balmy skies on their way to lunch.

He folds his hands over his chest, lifts his eyes to the heavens,

and proclaims in a wonder-struck way, ‘What is this thing called love?’

A thrice jilted lover, just told by another, ‘There is someone else,’

might look aghast, and wonder from his depths, ‘What IS this thing called love?’

A philosophical cynic, having been wounded at too many times,

asks of every expression of love, ‘WHAT? Is THIS THING called Love?’

And a new bride fresh home from the honeymoon,

asks of her husband’s first effort at grilling steaks, ‘And what is this thing called, Love?’

Putting this all together, we can say ‘The meaning of life’

is that life is a matrix

in which each living thing works out for itself the meaning of its own existence—

what it means for it to be alive—

by living in light of,

living toward,

living to express and serve—

by living in ways that have meaning—

are meaningful—for each living thing.

The meaning of your life is what your life means to you—

is what is meaningful in your life for you.

What is meaningful is your ground,

your bedrock,

your center.

It is YOU.

Find that center point,

and live to express it,

exhibit it,

and serve it in what you do,

in how you live.

Do what it takes to pay the bills,

but know that you are paying the bills

in order to do what is meaningful to you in the life you are living.

That’s the meaning of your life.”

There is Grace and there is Karma. Karma is Grace kicking butt. When Jesus said, “Father, Forgive them, they know not what they do,” he was being Grace in action, compassionate and kind–on a cross: the inevitability of goodness crushed beneath the weight of power lusting for power, and, also, the power of unrelenting Grace at work in the way Grace works.

Jesus died, and nothing changed. Everything remained tightly in place with the mighty running roughshod over the helpless, and the people playing their games to gain the advantage over one another and get ahead. The milieu, the sitz im leben, the matrix, the umwelt, the gestalt of the social order was what it had been, and would be, across time and place.

And, within that environment, Karma was at work making weal and creating woe. The general welfare was depressed and desperate. Kings were being poisoned by their close advisors. Coups were overthrowing rulers. Deceit and deception were being broadcast throughout the land in every land. Nothing was what it appeared to be, and everything was exactly what you might expect, given the universal discarding, dismissal and denial of the good on all levels.

Yet, all the while, something was stirring in the darkness–as it always does. Grace was about. The idea of justice was coming to the surface of consciousness.

From close to the beginning of human existence, the soft values have been sown among the people–all people, every people–along with the hard values. Justice, mercy/compassion, peace, kindness, gentleness, beauty, goodness, love, generosity, etc. have always been mixed in with ruthlessness, cruelty, meanness, littleness, pettiness, greed, hatred, vengeance, vindictiveness, lying, duplicity, etc.–with the hard values having the upper hand by virtue of their propensity to destroy everything in sight. But, the soft values are the most determined and pliable of things, and cannot be eradicated, even though they suffer silently out of sight, always looking for an opening to break out and come forth as boon and blessing upon all of life. Grace is forever at work in everything that happens everywhere, whether it is apparent or not.

One of the manifestations of Grace is in the idea of a better life in a better world that will not be silenced or forgotten. It is the work of the soft values rising like yeast in the dough of hard values, to alter, transform, demolish and replace the old world with the new. The hope is old past remembering: “The old has passed away! Behold! The new has come!” Grace is Karma’s way–Karma is Grace’s way–of balancing things out and giving the heart at the center of life and being a chance to shape life after its own image.

Karma is the force of Grace in the service of life (And the Tao is the force of Karma/Grace, Grace/Karma seen as One, The Way of Tao is the Way of Grace/Karma, Karma/Grace in action). “You have to pay the piper.” “You can pay me now or you can pay me later.” “What goes around, comes around.” “You reap what you sow.” “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” “Your chickens will come home to roost.” “There is always a day of reckoning.” “There are no free rides.” “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” These are all ways of talking about Grace using Karma to kick butt. They say nothing about the Grace of forgiveness, or any of the other soft values.

Karma is a natural force working within the framework of life so that things become just what they are. Forgiveness (and all the soft values) work also within the framework of life to create a space for possibilities that could not exist without the nurture and cultivation of “something more” than the hard values can conceive or produce.

The Grace of Karma and the Grace of forgiveness, etc., work to produce a world that is more than the world is capable of experiencing on its own. On its own, the world is rocks smashing into rocks, where “every action creates an equal and opposite reaction” world without end, amen. But there is more to Grace than that. Within that scheme, Grace brings the soft values into play, and introduces what we might think of as a spiritual level of complexity in the world of physical matter.

“Spiritual” is a felt reality that is invisible in a different way than physical matter can be invisible. The invisibility of physical matter is dependent upon us devising mechanisms to “see” what we cannot “see” with instruments that are currently available, depicting wavelengths that are beyond our present perception. We may well develop ways of “seeing” spiritual realities (like “heart,” “soul,” “mind,” “meaning,” and all of the values, principles and character traits), but my bet is with things remaining in the “felt sense” spectrum of human experience and not coming into the “hard-and-fast facts” spectrum.

The spiritual is the felt sense of the Way of Tao being Karma/Grace, Grace/Karma at work in our experience of our life and our world. It has to be “taken on faith,” “believed” in order to be seen, to the extent that it can be seen, heard, to the degree it can be heard, understood to the level that it can be understood. With the entrance of the spiritual into our life experience, we enter into The Mystery of more than we can know, of more than can be thought, grasped, comprehended, explained, expressed, communicated. It is an experience of wonder, of Grace, of what we cannot say.

And, in this way, the spiritual, The Mystery, is like dark matter. We posit it as being “there,” but we cannot prove it, or know more about it than “it is.” So we fold it into our ever-expanding theory of existence, and await further reflection, realization, insight and understanding. This is where theories based on “belief” and “taking things on faith,” depart from theories that are doctrines and theology, and form the ground of religion. A theory that is open to further experience, experimentation and reflection is quite different from a theory that closes itself off from those things and seals itself into a world where the future must be the past forever, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable through all eternity.

Long before Jesus was born, and in the centuries following his death, the idea of democracy was coming to life in the collective mind of human beings, being tested here and there, being refined and clarified, and burst forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States–continuing to be further refined and clarified to this day. Soft values imposing themselves in a world run by hard values. Grace coming forth through Karma.

Karma exhibits the value of the soft values. History is a reckoning of life preferring soft to hard. Look at the places where hard values have ruled and at the places where soft values held sway. Where has life languished and suffered? Where has life excelled and thrived? History favors the soft side. Karma does, as well.

We Have To Be Right About What Matters Most

We have to know what matters most and be right about it–and serve it with our life, in each situation as it arises, all our life long. That is, as they say, “all there is to it.” It is like this:

Whatever you love, cherish, adore, revere, honor, prize, esteem, treasure, value, acclaim…you know, like that,
about your life–
about the experience of being alive–
deserves your loyalty, fidelity, allegiance, devotion, dedication, worship.
And it is the only thing that does–
the only things that do.
But, there is a catch.
It has to be the right kind of thing.
It has to truly warrant, justify, vindicate, call for
the place of highest veneration in your life.
You can’t get by with worshiping
money, power, drugs, sex, alcohol, entertainment, escape, distraction, diversion, denial…
The thing/things you love with all your heart
has/have to serve life,
offer life,
be life,
and not some substitute for life,
not some proxy life,
not some surrogate life,
not some pseudo life
not something to compensate you
for failing to love anything
with the abandon
and courage
and vulnerability
required to love what you love
that deserves to be loved.
It has (they have) to be the Real Thing.
Whatever you love has to connect you to life,
attach you to life,
bring you to life,
so that you positively vibrate with the joy of living,
with the wonder and delight of being alive.
And, here’s the other catch,
it has to
enliven, vitalize, awaken, enthuse, reorient
the world,
or at least the representatives of the world
whose lives contact/connect with your life
and reverberate with the “music of the spheres,”
which is the love of life,
pouring over,
spilling out,
from you to them
and transforming their life forever.
What I’m saying here
is that you have to re-think religion,
and make its center and focus
what you love,
and not what someone tells you to love
because if you don’t
you are going to hell.
The truth is
if you don’t love what is right for you to love,
you are already in hell,
and if you do love what is right for you to love,
you are already in heaven–
and no one has to tell you that.
It is as self-evident as anything ever has been
or will be.

Being right about what we love being the right thing to love–being truly worthy of our love–is the best trick in the entire book of tricks. Who can be so sure? Who can do it? It is asked of us all, and none of us can escape having to answer, or having failed to answer.

Codex Bezae contains a verse from the Gospel of Luke that is not found in any other source material for the Bible, and, for that reason, was not considered to be canonical when it came time for the Church to declare that “These, and these alone, are the Books of Holy Scripture, and none other need apply!” It is interesting to me that this verse constitutes a warning against the very thing the people who “closed the Canon” were doing, and they acted without any evidence of concern about their actions.

The buildup to the “non-canonical” verse are the first five verses of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Then comes this verse found only in Codex Bezae:

“The same day, seeing someone working on the sabbath, (Jesus) said to him, ‘Man, if indeed you know what you are doing, then you are blessed. But, if you do not know, then you are accursed and a transgressor of the Law.’”

The difference between knowing what you are doing and thinking you know what you are doing is what? Who can be certain? Only experience can clarify the matter, and even then, some things have to be designated “To be determined.” Having to know what cannot be known is is called “The paradox at the heart of life.” And, it can be borne only by those who bear it consciously, knowing that it requires them to live transparent to–and in good faith with–themselves. Not kidding themselves about what they can know and not know, and living in search of a resonance they feel in their body with that which “calls their name” with a compelling urgency that must be obeyed, regardless of the implications for them personally. That is as close as we can come to knowing (in our body) what we love and what we must do in its service.

Carl Jung speaks to this “curse of the Call,” when he said: “Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument.” And, “The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose within him.” And, “The artist can only obey the apparently alien impulse within and follow where it leads, sensing that his work is greater than himself.” And, “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.” And, “As a pioneer, you must be able to put some trust in your intuition and follow your feeling even at the risk of going wrong.”

On those occasions when it becomes clear that we have “gone wrong,” we can only “Return to the center and look into our heart. Put our trust in our intuition and follow our feeling at the risk of going wrong” again. We cannot hope to be right without trusting ourselves to be right eventually, and, in the meantime, allowing ourselves to be wrong again and again in the service of our truest and best sense of what we need to do–of what needs us to do it–in each situation as it arises. “Tomorrow’s right is rooted in yesterday’s wrong and in today’s reflection and realization.”

“Reflection on experience leads to new realizations.” Joseph Campbell said this in talking about the importance of silence spent in examination, inspection and introspection. We have to work these meditative times into our life in regular and recurring ways, and permit the realization that leads to self-correction through repentance, redemption and atonement.

We have to be right about the importance of what we say is important–and keep working, striving, to be right in every context and circumstance of our life. The importance of knowing what is important demands the unrelenting practice of evaluating our evaluations, inspecting our judgments, investigating our conclusions, probing our convictions, examining our assumptions and recognizing that our opinions and theories are no more than opinions and theories. We are forever seeking what matters most–while serving as much as we know of it, and striving to expand our knowledge of it throughout our days on the earth.

To return once more to Carl Jung: “Aging is not a process of inexorable decline, but a time for the progressive refinement of what is essential.” This the path we all are to walk with mindful, compassionate, awareness of the process. We are living to get to the bottom of things–to know what is important, not because somebody told us so, but because we have lived our way there, and worked our way through a host of claimants to the title that turned out to be not so important at all, and know whereof we speak. And seek to know more, and live in ways which express it, each day of our life.

The Limits of Religion

Every institutional religious expression from Shaman rituals to high church–whether it is church or masque, temple or synagogue, or anything beyond or between–dirges and celebrations, everything said and done are aligned with what the people expect to hear and see. The limits of religion are the expectations of the people and the tolerance of the people for having those expectations stretched/expanded/exploded/denied.

The new religion of Christianity had to explain itself in terms of the expectations of both Jews and Gentiles. No religion can stray far from the expectations of the people and have any chance of being the religion of those people. The people will not pay to hear what they do not wish to be told.

The kind of politics that plays well in a local congregation is the only kind that will play well there–or, better perhaps, the only kind that will play at all there. Different congregations will be open to different political positions. Gun control and abortion are out of the question in certain churches, and Confederate flags and racism are out of the question in certain other churches, and no politics of any kind is welcome in still others.

Ministers in those churches play to the whims of the people. “The freedom of the pulpit” is only as free as the people in the congregation are willing to be disappointed/offended. There is a line beyond which a congregation will not go. The same thing applies to seminaries and denominations.

New ideas can only be “just so new.” You can’t take anybody where they do not want to go. Religion is always a compromise between what people need to hear and what they can be told. “Jim, why don’t you talk to us about things we can understand?” remains an apt summation of my career in the ministry. The person who asked that was asking, “Why don’t you tell us what we expect to hear–what we have always been told?” That’s what people look for. And that’s what keeps the church from being the church.

Every outward expression of the experience of “the inward spiritual grace” that is the encounter with the Numen, the ephemeral reality at the heart of religion, and which has always been called “God,” or “Shiva,” or “Tao,” or “Buddha,” or “Great Spirit,” etc. becomes locked into the words that are used to say what cannot be said. The church, when it is being the church, is connecting people with the experience of the Mystery that is more than words can say–and, it has to use words that leave the Mystery intact.

It does that by talking about the symbols at the center of the church’s heritage and life, and connecting them with the lives of the people–re-interpreting the symbols in ways that bring the experiences of the people to life for them, and bring them to life in their daily experience of being alive. Religion connects people to life, to vitality, to wonder and to mystery. When has the church of your experience done that?

The church that is being the church does it all the time. It does it by engaging the people with their experience. By teaching them the art of mindfulness–which is the practice of compassionate, non-judgmental, awareness of themselves and their present situation (what is happening within and without, and of what needs to happen in response, and what would be appropriate and proper to the situation) in each situation as it arises.

The church that is being the church teaches the people to seek out experiences with the Numen in art, music and nature–and to seek to know themselves and the validity, wonder, and authority that comes from self-reflection, self-examination, self-exploration, and self-expression, which form the center and ground of their own being, and is the bedrock which anchors them through the ebbs and flows of life in the world of space and time–and is itself an encounter with the Numen beyond space and time.

The church that is being the church calls people to spend time in silence and solitude, reflecting on their life-experience and forming new realizations. The silence before, during and after, “AUM” says all that can be said–or that needs to be said–about the religious experience at the heart of mystery and wonder. But we can’t build a religion around that. Religion requires sutras, doctrines, dogmas, creeds, rituals, prayers, orders of the day, holy books, and hierarchies without end–all held together with words about words which everyone expects to hear.

The Structure of Spiritual Reality

Jesus is an ink blot, and God is an optical illusion. So is the Tao—an ink blot, and an optical illusion. So is the Buddha. What we see depends upon how we look. Now you see it, now you don’t. Now it’s like this, now it’s like that. Sometimes it’s this way, and sometimes it’s that way. Everything is a mirror, showing us ourselves. Or not. Projection, reflection, it’s all the same to eyes that see. Eyes that see, see into the heart of things, and know how things are and how they also are, and what is happening, and what needs to happen in response, and what we need to do to assist with what needs to happen in each situation as it arises—which is what knowing what’s what is good for, that is: Doing what needs to be done.
Prayer is the soul’s expression of, response to, the truth of its own experience, the truth of the way things are and the way things also are, its experience of the oppositional nature of truth, of what it is to be alive in the time and place of its living, of the experience of life, living, and being alive.
Don’t think that you can say anything about Truth that won’t be opposed—and deepened, enlarged and expanded—by something else you say about Truth.
Truth is true only so far as it goes. Nothing is so true that it never clashes with a contradictory truth. “Yes, but…” is always the response by those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that understands. And, if you are one of those people, you are saying “Yes, but,” about now.
When our heart is in what we are doing, we are one with the center. But, perspective shifts with time, and we see things with new eyes, and do things differently in time. There is more than one way to see things, do things. Things do not stay the same forever. We do not think the way we have always thought, or do what we have always done. Those who see things clearly, see things differently over the course of their life. Changing our mind about what is important is one of the skills we have to develop on the spiritual journey.
To see what needs to be done, and do it in the way it needs to be done, at the time it needs to be done, is to be “on the beam,” and “in sync with the Source.” We may do things differently next time. The beam is not rigid, unchanging. “The spirit is like the wind that blows where it will.” The Source is fluid, dynamic, alive.
We interfere with our ability to see by having plans and agendas, and imposing them on our life—by willing what we want, by wanting what we have no business having.
When we enter into, or create, situations that have never existed before, we have nothing to guide us in knowing what to do, and avoid the discomfort of not-knowing by making up rules and policies that don’t fit, and saying what nice rules and policies they are, and forcing everyone to abide by them. It takes time to figure out what is required in response to the impact of a new thing. There has to be leeway for flexibility, and making things up as we go.
There is “in sync,” and there is “out of sync.” There is a catch, however: Out of sync may well be in sync with ultimate sync-ness, and it will take time to see that it is so. A child growing up can be out of sync with her, or his, parents’ ideas of how she, or he, should be. The child has to be willing to be seen as out of sync in order for ultimate sync-ness with the child’s own heart to shine through. Harmony, oneness, is everywhere. It just takes a while for it to be apparent sometimes.
The art of life is knowing when to give ourselves over to the Great Sea of Life, and allow it to carry us where it will.
The sage does things as they should be done. Which is to say that things are usually done as they should not be done. Which is to say it is better to do things as they should be done, than to do them as they should not be done. We are partial to the sage. Wisdom is preferred over folly. Why then do we persist in folly?
Don’t worry about it, just live your life, the life that is yours to live, and let that be that. Let your detractors be your detractors, and your critics be your critics, and your supporters be your supporters, and your fans be your fans. Let those who are against you be those who are against you, and let those who are for you be those who are for you, and don’t be undone, or impressed, or distracted by any of it.
We know enough. We don’t have to know everything. Live toward the best you can imagine based on what you know right now. What more you need to know will become apparent over time.
We work with the givens in doing what needs to be done, which is perceived by those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that understands, in each situation as it arises.
It takes a lot of looking to be able to see, a lot of listening to be able to hear, a lot of asking, seeking and knocking to be able to understand. It takes a lot of living to be able to be awake, aware and alive. Don’t wait until you have it down. You won’t live that long.
Stepping aside, and letting life have its way with us, is a test of faith, of our capacity to trust ourselves to life unknowing, confident only that stepping aside is the right thing to do at that point in our life.
Oneness is the fundamental presumption. As is emptiness. As is nothingness. Quick! Which is it?
It is said, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” What isn’t said, but is also true, is that those who don’t live by the sword, die by the sword, or by those who wield the sword. Existence is violent. “Life eats life.” Peace hinges upon the cooperative, unilateral, good will of all concerned in the work to produce and maintain peace. If you think that’s easily arranged, try pulling it off in your family of origin.
What is this “No!” to violence from those who say “Say Yes to life!” and “Everything moves in oneness,” and “Nothing in the world is separate, unworthy, or lost”? Violence, harmony, impartiality, indifference—all is a part of the path. When to be violent, and when to be non-violent, is the question. Both violence and non-violence have their place in the field of action. To embrace all is to embrace ALL. It is to say, “Yes!” to “No!”
The sage doesn’t worry about it, but the sage knows about it.
Respond to your circumstances by doing what is called for in the situation as it arises! That’s the plan for the rest of your life.
What do we want? What is it that we cannot get enough of? What is the need that goes unmet, and sends us forever crashing into the limits of our life? What are we after? How does that interfere with what is being asked of us? With what is important? With what needs to be done?
Trying to have more than we can have—or have any business having—ravages the countryside, and rends the hearts, in every country.
When do we have what we need? When can we be content, satisfied, rest easily, not worry, trust ourselves to our life, assured that we will always have what it takes to deal appropriately with our circumstances?
The way that is the way is not the way to what we want.
To have all that we want is to have more than we have, always.
Harmony is not the highest value. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. We live in the service of what needs to happen without preconceived notions of what that might be. Sometimes disruption. Sometimes chaos. It is ad-lib all the way, and we are surprised to find ourselves doing what we do, having done what we have done.
The sage doesn’t have to have things be different than they are, but has eyes to see what is possible, and assists in the movement-to-the-good that is a potential in every moment. We live toward the best we can imagine in the situation as it arises, and let nature take its course.
Some futures are better than others. Some things are to be preferred over others. All states of being are not equal. It matters how we live.
Those who are alive, are alive to the time and place of their living. They see what is possible, and do what needs to be done in the service of a good that is greater than their own good. They do what is theirs to do without thinking about what they stand to gain or lose, or who is watching, taking names, keeping score. Whose advantage is served in doing what is right, now? It doesn’t matter. “Just do it.”
Some things have no business being. The child molester cannot be allowed to be himself, herself. The alcoholic, the psychopath, cannot be allowed to be who they are, as they are. Control and interference have their place, else why try to control the controlling power of those in control, or to interfere with the interference of those who interfere?
The trick is that each thing has to be itself in caring relationship with each other thing being itself. We are to be true to ourselves in caring relationship with others. We are to meet our own needs and express who we are, without interfering with anyone else’s ability to meet her or his own needs and express who she, who he, is. This does not make for peace and harmony, and easy living around the table. The Yellowstone caldera blows, being true to itself, spewing discord and chaos for thousands of miles. No one thinks, “How wonderful the smooth accord of natural things.”
The catch is that all things must be themselves in relationship with all other selves. That’s the rub that results in the mess. The fox’s way of being clashes with the rabbit’s way of being. Everything has its own idea of how things ought to be. Everything has to make its own peace with how things are, and respond in ways appropriate to the occasion.
Whose good is served by the good we serve? Whose good should be served? How good is the good we call good?
Once virtue becomes desirable, it ceases to be virtuous and becomes destructive. Seeking some end, we no longer listen to the moment, or offer what is being called for in the situation as it arises. We serve our agendas, follow our plans, assume the outcome will be what we want it to be, wonder what happened, where the mess came from, and look for someone to blame.
We are free to do what we want—to live like we feel like living—as long as we can get away with it. When we can no longer get away with it, we have to adjust our living to take the limits into account. All paths walked with awareness lead to the center. Awareness leads to the center, not the path. Awareness is the path.
Receiving what comes without judgment, conditions, expectations, or agendas opens us to the possibilities inherent in each situation, and enables an appropriate response.
Live with direction and preference, and without judgment, will or opinion.
The inner stillness permits perception into the heart of things. Knowing how things are enables us to understand what is called for within the situation as it arises, and allows us to offer what is needed in the moment of our living.
To be in accord with what is needed in the situation as it arises, we only have to get out of the way with our judgment, will and opinion.
Those who know, know they cannot say what they know. They don’t know, did not come to know what they know by hearing it said.
Live the contradictions! Dance with the contradictions! Embrace the contradictions! Reconcile the contradictions! Integrate the contradictions!
The “transcendent function of the Psyche” (Carl Jung’s term) is also the transcendent function of the conscious ego in sync with the Psyche. The conscious ego recognizes the fact of co-existent, and mutually exclusive dichotomies, and bears the agony of “this” and “that” (the polar opposite of “this”) being true at the same time—and transcends the awful truth of contraries at the heart of life, by acknowledging that truth and choosing to live in light of it, by acting in ways that lean toward one extreme “here,” and toward the other extreme “there,” as the situation and the circumstances dictate. We decide which values will be served as is appropriate to the occasion, and do not decree “this” to always be Right, and “that” to always be Wrong.
Step into your life with your eyes open. What’s hard about that?
Keep the horse from stopping to eat grass, and it finds its own way home.
There is no nice little trustworthy formula for living, “If you do this, that will happen.”
The essence of bad religion is, “If you do this, that will happen.”
What does it mean to “live successfully”? Who is to say? You are! But you can only say it about your own life. And you will have to change your mind over time.
The sage has to insert herself, insert himself, between the strongly opinionated, the powerful, the influential—those who know how the people should be living—and the people. And the sage has to protect the people from themselves. And protect himself from the people. Crucifixion is always in the hands of the people, who never know what to do with it.
We are to do what needs to be done in the situation as it arises, in every situation that arises, as long as there are situations that arise.
There is that which needs to be done which needs you to do it—which needs you to bring forth who you are, and what you have to offer. Do not withhold yourself from that which needs to be done. Trust yourself to it. It will lead you to life.
Turn yourself over to your life—to the circumstances of your living—and see where it goes. Relax yourself into the moment, and trust it to guide you along the way. We do not benefit from the help that is at hand, because we do not open ourselves to it.
“Leave them alone and they will come home, wagging their tails behind them.” Or not. Either way, you avoid the pitfall of making things worse by trying to make them better by the time you think they should be better.
There is that which is to be desired, and that which is to be avoided. There is the way of doing things, and the way of not doing things. There is right, and there is wrong. And, wrong is a step on the way to right. The wrong way leads to the right way. And, there is no absolute right or wrong. And, “everything moves in oneness.” But we can’t sit in the shade, and passively let the movement happen without us. And, the movement happens whether we participate in its happening or not. So, don’t waste your time trying to make sense of things. Strive to perceive what needs to be done, and do it, what needs to be not done, and don’t do it.
Living roots that are set deeply in solid ground provide a foundation, a connection, which allows us to be constantly open to the flow of opportunities and follow them wherever they go. It is a fluid, being-in the-way-of-things, which is not the same thing as being in the way. We have to get out of the way to be-in-the-way.
It is all hopeless, pointless, useless and coming to a very bad end—and how we live in the meantime makes all the difference.
An eye for the lights and life of Gay Paree disrupts the natural order! And, yet, everything is a part of the path, even Gay Paree.
Governing a large country is not like cooking a small fish, in that the fish doesn’t have to cooperate with—and has no voice in—its cooking. The willingness of the people to be ruled in accord with what needs to happen in the situation as it arises—and not have the things the people of neighboring nations have—makes it possible to govern a large country like cooking a small fish. But where do you find citizens who are like small fish?
We live best when we don’t know how other people are living. We live best when we know how other people are living.
What is there to gain? What is there to lose? What is more important, gaining or losing?
Ordinariness is another term for emptiness, for the kind of nothing that is the source of everything. Just being ordinary transforms the world without doing anything.
What is the value of doing what needs to be done in the situation as it arises? What is the value of seeing things as they are, taking what is available and doing what can be done with it? What is the value of not seeing? Not doing? Not knowing?
Misfortune, success, euphoria and dismay are part of the nature of things. Our experience is our experience, and our response to our experience is our response to our experience, and none of it means anything beyond what it means to those who are impacted by it, and how their response impacts life as it is lived about them. And it is all a part of the path.
Regarding everything as difficult means understanding that there is no effortless way, and that we are called to expend our effort in the service of what needs to happen whether we want to or not. If you think that’s easy, hop in the saddle, and tell them to open the chute.
Midwives assist in birth as it is happening. They do not beat virgins into delivering.
The sage does not expect anything to be easier than it is.
What are we trying to make happen? What can happen? What needs to happen? What is happening? How can we assist what is happening in the direction of what needs to happen?
In any situation, 10,000 futures are possible. How we live reduces the likelihood of some possibilities and increases the likelihood of others.
One thing’s doing is another thing’s undoing. One thing’s ordered grace is another thing’s traumatic disruption. Dinner for the lion is not something the antelope would bless.
Live without worrying about succeeding or failing, gaining or losing. Let come what’s coming and let go what’s going. Enjoy what is to be enjoyed. Grieve what is to be grieved. Do what needs to be done. Come to terms with how things are. Let your life be your life. Let your options be your options. Let your choices be your choices. Let your future be your future.
Cleverness knows how to manipulate means to achieve its ends. Simplicity observes what is happening, perceives what is trying to happen, and assists what needs to happen. Offering the right help in the right way at the right time is the essence of wisdom. You can’t improve on that.
Cleverness does this so that will happen. Simplicity does this so this will happen because this needs to happen whether that happens or not.
What can be done about what needs to be done is all that can be done, which is not the same as what has always been done. It takes the vision of a sage to see what can be done in any situation in order to do the work of redemption and transformation and bring the new into existence out of the old, one step at a time.
In remaining below, the sage receives what the situation has to offer and brings forth the baby struggling to be born.
In any moment, the sage simply offers what the moment needs out of what she, what he, has to give.
The sage does not calculate, strategize, manipulate, control. The sage observes what is happening, asks what needs to happen, and how she, how he, might assist its happening. You wouldn’t want a sage running your business. Do not hire one as a CEO. Making the share holders happy is not the sage’s concern.
We have to know what we are trying to do, and whether it can actually be done, and whether it really needs to be done.
Of what does life consist? Where is life to be found? What brings us to life, makes us alive? What do we need in order to be alive? What’s with all this other stuff in our life?
Some things are clearly better than others. Every living thing prefers one thing over another. The lion’s life is the buffalo’s death. There is no happy state in which everyone has exactly what is needed at no one’s expense. But, compassion keeps things reasonably tolerable much of the time.
Compassion lets things be, and lets things become what they might be, and says, “No!” to what should not be, and “Yes!” to what should be—in each situation as it arises.
To see what needs to be done and to do it—to be right about what is important and to serve it: That is all there is to it. Anything else is just talk.
The resistance can come from without, or from within. Don’t let your principles, or your interests, keep you from doing what is important, what needs to be done!
We want more than we can have, more than we have any business having, and cannot adjust ourselves to living within the limits of our life, within what our situation in life allows. “Our reach must exceed our grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” “You’ll never keep them on the farm once they’ve seen Gay Paree!”
The meaning of life is to be alive in the time and place of our living. What does it mean to be alive in the time and place of our living? Answer that question correctly, and you have it made. On the other hand, you may be crucified.
What is our life asking of us? What does the moment require? At times, our life is at odds with the moment. The flow is not always smooth. Disruption and chaos are also part of how things are. We take it all into account, and do what needs to be done.
Are we right about what needs to be done? Time will tell. We may be wrong. Maybe something else needs to be done. We may blow it. Life is like that. We can blow it. When we blow it, we need to do what needs to be done about that, and the cycle repeats, perhaps with a better outcome.
Sometimes we are punished for doing it the way we do it. Sometimes there is a price to be paid for doing it our way, and a price to be paid for not doing it our way. Whose way is going to be the way for us? Whose way is going to be the way we do it? Who is going to live our life? If not us, who?
The roots of tomorrow’s right are grounded in yesterday’s wrong.
Trusting the inner knowing, and letting things have their own mind is the essential act of faith. If you are going to believe in anything, believe in the power of things to become what they need to be, particularly when assisted by those who do nothing to force their will on the way things are, but constantly look for what needs to happen, and help it come forth in the right kind of way.
We are to our life as an artist is to the canvass. If you think the artist is the source of the painting, you should talk to an artist. Or become one. Wait! You are one!
What is to be gained by being the favored one? What is to be lost by being the disfavored one?
People are not afraid of dying, either because life has no value, and they do not care if they live or die, or because they know what is truly important, and are willing to sacrifice their life in the service of that good.
We have to carve wood the way we carve wood, not the way someone else carves wood. We have to live our life the way we would live our life, not the way we think our life ought to be lived—not the way we think someone else would live our life, or have us live it. We take the photo we see, not the photo someone else sees.
With nothing to live for, there is no reason to live. Therefore, finding value in life is the foundation of life. The spiritual quest is the search for what is important, for what counts, matters, makes a difference—has meaning—in our life, if no one else’s.
How much can we put up with, and still be who we are? Where do we draw the line? I don’t know how much time you think you have left to live, but how much of it are you willing to spend being not-you, doing what is not-you, associating with those who are not your kind of people? Where, and how, and how often are you drawing lines, saying “No,” and giving yourself to the things that have your name on them?
We have to know when who we are is running afoul of who we must (pretend to) be. We have to play parts, assume roles, do what must be done—and we have to be true to ourselves. We have to be who we are. We have to know when something is a role, a part, and not-us—and we have to compensate ourselves for all of our not-me roles by stepping out of the part as often as possible, and giving ourselves to the things that are us all the way.
Who knows why? Why this and not that? It doesn’t matter why. We have to step into the What and deal with the way things are, regardless of why they are that way, or of why we have to deal with it, or of why we have to live with all that we have to live with, or of why this and not that… What is required, here and now? What is being asked of us? What needs to be done? What next? What now? It is enough that we answer these questions without being lost in the questions that cannot be answered. Choosing the right questions to ask is the path of wisdom and life even before we answer them.
Creating intentional communities of innocence—innocent in that they have no agenda to serve, no need of us, no interest in us beyond existing to help us see, hear and understand who we are and what is being asked of us by the time and place of our living—enables us to find what we need to do what needs to be done within the context and circumstances of our life, and helps us be fully alive in the time and place of our living.
Where are we most alive? How often do we go there? Where are we mostly dead? How often do we find ourselves there?
How often do we do the things that bring us to life? What prevents us from doing those things more often?
How often do we engage in the things that please us? How conscious are we of being pleased when we are being pleased? How often do we deliberately give ourselves the gift of life, the pleasure of being alive?
It is the way of things to think that the way we do it is the way it is to be done. Every living thing has its idea of how it is to be done, of how to do it. We all think it is better to be this way than that way. It is better to do it like this than like that. We all think we know what we are doing, and that the others should do it our way.
We achieve balance by being connected with all things, and caring about all things equally—with no agenda, will or opinion, but with direction-that-can-be-changed and preference-that-can-be-laid-aside. Thus balanced, we are able to go in any direction, and do anything, in order to assist what needs to be done.
We can make too much of balance, and erect it to the position of unquestioned status quo. In so doing, we lose the balancing influence of subversive vitality. Creation and birth are chaotic upheavals, and disruptions of balance and order, which maintain balance and order.
Symmetry, harmony, balance, order and stability are ways of talking about opposition, dichotomy, contraries, conflict and contradiction. The difference lies in perspective. Things are what we perceive them to be—what we say they are.
Joseph Campbell said, paraphrasing the Bhagavad Gita, “Get in there and do your thing, and don’t worry about the outcome!” That is as succinct a summation of the task before us as you will ever find.
There is no highest good. Sometimes, we are the water. Sometimes, we are the rock. There is a place for the softness of water and the hardness of rock. We are to be what is called for in the situation as it arises.
There is no highest good. It is a circle. A mess. Everything impacts and influences everything else. Different goods come to the fore in different circumstances.
It all comes down to being alive in the time and place of our living. Alive is all there is to be.
Chaos is order from a different perspective. Order is chaos. All is one. Everything moves in oneness, and there is winning and losing, joy and sorrow, resentment and resistance, disillusionment and despair, hope and resiliency. Opposites. Contradiction. Extremes. Symmetry. Harmony. Balance. Dichotomy. One.
Oneness is duality, polarity. Yin, yang. Oneness is Twoness.
Those who are impartial cannot be partial to being impartial, and must be able to be partial as the occasion requires. We have our preferences, our chosen way of being in the world. Only the dead don’t care. And the dead can also care too much for their idea of what is important, and refuse to consider other options, even though they may need consideration. Preferences, not agendas, is the key.
Desire-less-ness is not the highest good. If we don’t care what happens, one thing is as good as another.
Impartiality is not the highest value. Life requires investment, caring, living in the service of that which matters.
Live the contradictions! Eschew certitude! Embrace conundrum! Relish paradox! Honor ambiguity! Keep everything in solution! It is the way of life!
Order or upheaval, it all depends on your point of view. Harmony is only harmonious from a particular perspective. How foxes and rabbits relate is a beautiful way of maintaining the harmony of balance within the food chain. Rabbits can be excused for failing to see the beauty of it.
People are easily bored, and create their own excitement by fighting to the death over things that don’t matter.
See into the heart of things, and live like you want to!
Carl Jung said, “There is no ‘how’ of life, one just does it… Follow your nose! That is your way!” And the KISS motto of Alcoholics Anonymous applies: “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
We are not after a steady-state of tranquility and contentment with the way things are. We are after dynamic, vital, engagement with the way things are—not passive acceptance and bland acquiescence! Passionate engagement! Active resistance! Viva Revolution!
There are those who resist resistance. “What we resist, persists,” they say. That is a dictum that applies to unconscious symptoms. We have to assist, accept, and embrace what comes from the unconscious, get to the bottom of it, reconcile ourselves to it, and consciously integrate it into our life. On another level, the status quo needs to be resisted, and the tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot—even as we work to understand what is behind our tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot!
Nobody is where they are. Everybody is on the way to somewhere else. Where would you like to be right now?
What is there to be upset about? How things are is how they have always been. Something is always coming. Something is always going. Nothing lasts. We assist this and resist that without knowing what is best, or how it is going to work out. We live toward our best guess of what needs to happen, and let that be that.
The more we try to make something like we want it to be, the less there is to like about the way things are.
Nothing is the origin of all that is—but it is a special kind of nothing, filled with possibilities.
There is no lasting advantage. We live toward the best we can imagine, doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, and let that be that.
We would always be better—or worse—off somewhere else, in some other situation. But, here we are, now, and something needs to happen. What will we assist? What will we resist? What will we do, here, now?
We do not know where the line lies until we cross it. No one can be so wise, so careful, as to know when the line is coming up before it is crossed. Wisdom is living with our eyes open, and stopping when we go too far.
Settle into your life. Assist its unfolding, and allow it to carry you where you need to be. Trust yourself to the next step, with everything hanging in the balance, and always on the line.
There is only life, living, and being alive. There is only seeing, and hearing, and understanding. When we see, and hear, and understand, we see, and hear, and understand what needs to be done in the moment of our living. When we do what needs to be done, the way it ought to be done, when it ought to be done in each moment of our life, that’s it. You’re done, take a nap. If that would be appropriate for the moment.
Right seeing, right hearing, right understanding, right knowing, right doing, right being arise in the moment of our living, when we are open to the possibilities contained in each situation. Sometimes, right action is no action at all. Sometimes, nothing can be done but to wait for another situation to develop in which something can be done.
Doing is the source of being. When we do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, we become who we are born to be, who we are called to become.
Grace and disgrace, fortune and misfortune are the functions of perspective, of selecting aspects of our experience, emphasizing this, and dismissing that, and failing to take that over there into account. What we see is the result of how we look. So, look for “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, whatever is excellent and worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8). Look for what is joyful, and open yourself to the wonder of the experience of being alive.
There is no right way of seeing. Everything is unimportant, without value, from some perspective. The idea that only the constant and eternal matter is just an idea. Sex is great, though it does not last. So is ice cream.
When we stop looking at things as steps on the way to something else, and can be content with simply being where we are, doing what needs to be done just because it needs to be done—watering the flowers, for instance, or feeding the birds—the world is not threatened by us, nor we by the world.
Power, wealth, privilege and honor are not the highest values. There is no advantage to having all of the advantages.
We seek enlightenment, thinking it is going to do something for us.
We make it all up. When it seemed that sacrificing bulls and virgins worked, we sacrificed bulls and virgins. We have to trust something even if it is nothing—the great emptiness from which everything arises. So, we make up what is trustworthy, and trust ourselves to it. Of course, it works for a while. When it stops working, we have to make up something else.
We perceive the mystery, the magic—and having done our part, can relax into its presence and trust ourselves to the wonder of its unfolding.
May it be said of us that we danced beautifully with what life brought us.
May it be said of us that we did what needed to be done in the moment of our living—that we offered what we had to give to each situation as it arose.
It takes a revolution, or the threat of one, to move things along.
Throw yourself into doing what needs to be done as well as you can make those things out, and take the next step as well as you can make it out, and so on, all the way. Don’t worry about the rest of it.
Those who are into seeing constantly call into question what is seen. Makes them a pain in the collective neck. Often, they are dismissed, discounted, or ignored. Sometimes, they are crucified, or burned at the stake.
Everything is equidistant from perfect union with the Divine, bliss, oneness, transcendence, absorption in the Absolute—whatever it is that we think we are after. If you leave here and go there, or there, or there, you are no closer to “it” (however you think of it). “It” is right here. Right now. Seeing it or not seeing it has nothing to do with its proximity or its availability to be seen. See?
One thing leads to another. If we stick with what we think is important, it will lead us to what is important. We can begin with anything because everything is equidistant from what is important, and everything will lead us there if we live with our eyes open.
Where do we get those open eyes? Now they are open, now they are not. Are. Not…
Sometimes things work out like we want, and sometimes they don’t. There is no strategy for having our way, or for knowing what should happen, or how things should be. We live, as we are able, toward the best we can imagine within the givens of our circumstances, and let that be that.
There is no strategy for having it made.
We are always confusing what is with what seems to be. We are always talking about what seems to be as though it is.
Things are what they are, and what they also are. Everything comes with everything else attached. Nothing can be taken at face value. All is one. But, as they say, not the same one.
“You can’t keep them down on the farm—or on the path—once they’ve seen Gay Paree!” The farm/path has so little to commend it. It is so plain, so commonplace, so mind-numbing, tedious and dreary. It’s more of the same old same old. Today is like yesterday and tomorrow. We get up and do what needs to be done. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the life in that? Show me a sage who ever had a good time! Show me a saint who knew how to live! The sage is the most boring, lifeless human being in the history of human beings! May as well be a rock, or dead! The saint does not have a life, and is afraid to be alive. Emptiness is the sage’s companion. Fullness of life and joy of living are the friends of fools. So. We have to be a different kind of sage. A saint of an unusual hue. Bring on Zorba the Greek, or Tevya from Fiddler on the Roof! Or Chauncey Gardner. They can teach us a thing or two about sage-hood and saintliness—about farms and paths!
There is a time and place for everything. It’s all a part of the path. So don’t rule out Gay Paree. Jesus was called a glutton and a winebibber. Don’t be afraid to eat and drink. No one is taking names. Who are you trying to please? Whose side are you on? It is your life to live all the way. Who do you think knows better than you how to do it, or what needs to be done?
The requisite attitude is one of attentiveness, awareness, openness—to the possibilities, to the circumstances, to the situation as it arises, to what is happening, and needs to happen, and can happen. From right seeing comes right doing and right being. And, of course, from right being and right doing comes right seeing. It’s a circle, you know. It’s all one, with one thing leading to and flowing from another. World without end. Yin/yang forever. Amen.
Right being comes from the center, and is not a steady-state (death is the only steady-state), but a momentary alignment with the heart of being, from which right action (and right seeing is an aspect of right action—it’s a circle, you know) springs, flows.
Right being, right doing, are not steady-states. Life is not a steady-state of being, but a fluid, moving, interchange between the dynamic core, center, heart of being, and the moment-to-moment experience of life, which is the experience of the requirements and possibilities of existence in this moment right now.
How much life is exhibited in our living? How alive can we be in the time left for living? How in sync with the dynamic heart of being can we be within the context and circumstances of our life? The answer changes as each situation presents us with different options and possibilities. We can be more alive in some moments than others. Being alive is not a steady-state of being.
How do we know what to do, what needs to be done, when to do it and how? How do we make sense of our life? Of life? How do we know what is truly valuable? In light of what—toward what—away from what—do we live? How do we evaluate the validity of what we hold to be valid? We answer these questions, again and again, over the course of our life, over the course of the life of the species, in conversation with one another, out of our experience with life. The answers change with the time and place of our living.
We have to recognize and honor the stages of development at work in each age of our life. We have to live in ways appropriate to the time and place of our living. Young adulthood is different from middle adulthood, is different from old adulthood. We have no business living at 60 as we did at 20 or 45. We have to do what needs to be done in each stage of life, and move on to the next stage, letting go what’s going and letting come what’s coming. This is the natural order of things.
It is not enough to do “what happens naturally.” It was “natural” to own slaves and treat women and homosexuals as inferior. What is “natural” is not always so good. What the fox does to the rabbit is natural, but not good for the rabbit. What is good on one level, from one perspective, is not good on another level, from a different perspective. Whose good is served by the good we call good? Whose bad?
Good is not a steady-state of being. Being is dynamic. Vibrant. Alive. There is no steady-state of being.
We can hope to be guided by a sense of the ought-to-be-ness of things which leads us in responding to the circumstances of our life, if we approach our circumstances with eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand.
It is the arrogance of those who think they know in the service of their ideas of how things ought to be that obscures the good, and violates the sacred nature of what truly ought to be.
Those Who Know Best And Must Be Pleased screw it up for everyone.
Whom can we trust to know and do what truly ought to be done? We bring it forth out of the communal search for the good in conversation, reflection, realization, and experimentation over time.
There is no harmonious accord in the natural world. Planets collide. Stars explode. Volcanoes erupt. Earthquake, fire, flood, famine, you know. Dinosaurs become extinct. People wage war… Uncontrolled chaos is more apt a description for what passes for “the way things are” than “harmonious accord.” It’s a mess out there. We bring what peace there is to life through the quality of our engagement with life—by the way we live.
The sage lives the contradictions, and does not try to reduce things to a harmonious whole. There is no static, steady-state, of being.
We give up this to get that. One thing rules out another. Trade-offs and compromises characterize the work of life. The way things are live in tension with the way things also are. We live on the boundary between yin and yang. Sometimes this, sometimes that.
Negotiation and compromise, kid. Negotiation and compromise.
Some things must be forced, like a nail into wood. Some things cannot be forced, like the ripening of a peach. It is important to know what we are dealing with.
The oneness, the wholeness, is not harmonious but contradictory, oppositional, dynamic, discordant and interdependent. Yin/yang at the core.
You cannot “follow your bliss” without caring about your bliss—without being attached to your bliss. Detachment is not a steady-state. Attachment to the right things, detachment at the right time.
Pace and timing, Kid, pace and timing. And luck. Don’t forget to be lucky.
Negotiation and compromise, Kid, negotiation and compromise.
What excites you? What stirs you? Calls your name? How often do you do those things?
Look closer at whatever catches your eye.
Notice every time you dismiss or discount something that catches your eye.
The way is the way of being in relationship with the way things are, not the way of achieving things or having what we want.
Joseph Campbell said that primal societies always understood that the invisible world is the foundation of the visible world. Grounded in the visible world, we have no support, and are left to our own devices. Grounded in the invisible world, we are at one with our life, and able to offer what we have, in doing what is called for in every situation as it arises.
There is no static way of being, no steady-state. Everything is on the way to something else, somewhere, else. We cannot make things what we want them to be for long.
All paths walked with awareness lead to the center, where all are one (“But not the same one”).
There is nothing to do but wake up, nothing to be but awake, nothing to have but awareness.
In any situation, what we need for living appropriately in the situation and offering what is called for by the situation is available to us. Help is available if we open ourselves to it, and avail ourselves of it. It may not be what we want, or have in mind, but it will do quite nicely.
Our task is to know what is important and to do it. That is the Great Work. Everything else will fall into place around it. Or, as Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all that you need will be yours as well” (or, words to that effect).
When your emotions are aroused, positively or negatively, delay your response. Take a long walk. Think things through—wait to be settled, centered, clear.
Do not allow the world to create your response to the world. Live in the world out of your attachment to, and awareness of, the core of what matters most. Respond to the world out of that attachment.
Of all the possibilities for response to the situation, which is on the beam for you? What does it mean for you to live on the beam in this situation? The beam runs through all situations, though we may be distracted and lose the way in any situation.
Doing what we think is important with awareness is the only way to get to what is important. Knowing what is working, and what isn’t working leads us to the center. If we want to find the path, we only have to be sensitive to the difference between what works and what doesn’t work.
“It works.” “It isn’t working.” That’s all we need to know. We find what works by knowing what doesn’t work. We find the way by knowing what is not the way.
If we don’t know whether something will work, we only have to give it a spin. Everything becomes clear with time, even to those seeped in denial.
We can wake ourselves up or, if we live long enough, our life will do it for us. We can always opt for dying in denial. It’s always easier to be dead than alive.
There are two worlds, the visible world and the invisible world. Within this world, there is that world. Within that world, there is this one. We live in this one on the basis of that one. We pull that one into this one. We find what we need to live in this one on the strength of our association with that one. This is called Walking Two Paths At The Same Time.
All of the epic hero stories are about us, our gift, and our life. We struggle to bring forth our gift (our art, our genius), within the context and circumstances of our life the way Ulysses struggled with the Cyclops. The context and circumstances of our life are the Cyclops standing before us in each situation.
Five synonymous terms for “Gift” are “Art,” “Genius,” “Work,” “Life,” and “Destiny.” Our Gift is our Art is our Genius is our Work is our Life is our Destiny. The world around us has no conception of Art, Gift, Genius, Work, Life, Destiny. Wealth, Prosperity, Profit, and Money are the things it understands. We are not here to convert the world, to wake the world up. We are here to be awake, to be alive, and to do our work. If the world wakes up, fine. If not, fine.
Live as much of the Life that is yours to live as can be lived—share as much of the Art, the Gift and the Genius that are yours to share as can be shared—within the context and circumstances of life as it is, and let that be that.
It comes down to this: Wake up! Grow up! Square yourself up to the difference between the way life is and the way you wish it were! Get up and do what needs to be done! In every moment, each situation as it arises, whether you want to or not, whether you feel like it or not, whether you in the mood for it or not. And let that be that.

Your Totem Animal

If you were an animal, what particular animal would you be? If nothing comes immediately to mind, wait for it to come when you call for it. Bring the animal clearly into focus in your mind’s eye. Consider this to be your Totem Animal. For the remainder of this exercise, allow yourself to become the animal. The following questions are directed to you as the animal. Answer them as the animal you now are.

Do not force any of the answers to these questions. Simply wait, allowing them to arise within, to emerge from the silence, to come to you from “out of the blue.”

What kind of animal are you?
What is your name?
What do you like best about being this animal?
What do you enjoy doing most as this animal?
Where do you like to spend your time?
What are your ambitions—what do you want for yourself?
What are your hopes and dreams about?
What are your greatest fears or concerns?
Upon what does your happiness depend?
What do you need most as this animal?
Where do you go to be nurtured and strengthened?
What motto do you live by?
What burdens do you carry?
What gifts are yours to give the world?
What do you think of the other animals?
What do the other animals think of you?
What would you like to tell the other animals?
What do you think the other animals would like to tell you?
What strengths do you have as an animal that you could use in your life as a human being?
What message do you have for your human side?

As this exercise comes to a close, become yourself again and thank your animal for its presence and its place in your life. Your animal has a gift to offer you. Receive the gift from your animal, and present your animal with a gift in return. Promise your animal, if you mean to keep the promise, that you will invite her or him to visit you again in the near future. Say goodbye for now and return to your life in apparent, normal reality. What did your animal give you? What did you give your animal? Spend some time this week considering the gifts and what meaning they might have for you.

You might decide to make your Totem Animal a part of your life by purchasing, or painting, or creating a likeness of your animal. Perhaps a stuffed toy, or a pottery sit-about for a shelf or a table top. An ever-present symbol of the animal that is ever-present within your Psyche, and always has been.