Jim Dollar's Published Works

The 22-Acre Woods Project 02

11/23/2018 — A Walk in the Woods 2-18-11 07 Panorama — 22-acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, November 10, 2018

I repeat myself a lot
because I only have one thing to say:

Wake up!
Be quiet!
Seek solitude!
Revel in the silence!
Listen—particularly to yourself!
Listen to me when I say,
“Don’t Listen to Me!
Listen to You!”

See what you look at!
Hear what is being said—
Particularly when you are talking!
Especially to what you are saying
by the way you are living!

What are your symptoms saying to you?
Your loves and hates?
Your habits?
Your obsessions?
Your fears?
Your conflicts?
Your stuck places?
Listen to you!

Know what you are doing!
Know what you don’t know you are doing!
Know the difference between
Knowing something and knowing about something
and doing something about what you know!

Why don’t you do what needs to be done
about what you know needs doing?
What is stopping you?

That’s all the same thing.

Everything flows from waking up.

Once you start waking up,
everything you do,
see,
say,
hear,
think
becomes a threshold
to waking up in different ways
to different things,
and all those thresholds
become thresholds themselves
to waking up
in different ways
to different things.

And you can’t be quiet about
any of it,
but have to express it,
shout it,
say it,
to everybody—
whether they are interested
in hearing it or not,
because there is nothing but
waking up and living as though you are,
which runs counter to being quiet
and seeking solitude, etc.

and it is all ridiculously paradoxical
and contradictory,
which are additional thresholds
opening to new worlds
requiring exploration
and examination—
and discovery is everywhere you look,
leading to more insight
and realization
which flows from and leads to
the same thing:

Wake Up!

The 22-Acre Woods Project 01

11/15/2018 — A Walk in the Woods 2018-11 09 — 22-acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, November 9, 2011

Jesus did not tell anyone
what they expected to hear.

The True Believers
of his day
had the Temple
and 2,000 years
of traditional understanding of—
and faith in—
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And Jesus stood before them
and said, “You have heard it said,”
but I say unto you…”

That is always the end
of every theology
that has ever been
faithfully believed
and held to be true.

“You have heard it said,
but you don’t know a thing!”

Preachers tell us the Bible
is the foundation of morality,
and that we will never know what’s good
and do it
if we don’t believe
we are going to hell
if we don’t.
But they expect us to know what is right
when they tell us we are wrong.

We have always known
what is right and what is wrong.
So, when our children are hungry
and ask us for food,
we don’t give them
a plate of sand and gravel.

Lived experience correctly interpreted
is the source of ethics and morality.
A pack of wolves
and horses at the water trough
know what is right and what is wrong—
because they have lived and learned.

The Bible supported slavery,
witch hunts
and segregation.

And Jesus asked,
“Why don’t you judge for yourselves
what is right?”

Our life is in our hands.
We decide how to live it
by living it
and learning to interpret
our lived experience
in ways that direct our feet
to the path that is ours to walk.

We live and reflect on having lived
to the point of new realizations
and better ways of living—
and don’t take anyone’s word
for the right way to do something
without evaluating its value
in light of our own experience
and judging for ourselves
what is right for us—
even if they tell us we are going to hell
if we don’t listen to them.

The 22-acre Woods

When my wife and I retired, we moved to a half-acre lot “cornered into” the 22-acre woods, which is how I refer to the wooded buffer-land between us and the developments, shopping centers and highways about three-quarters of a mile away.

The woods are a mixture of hardwoods in the bottom land and pines in the high ground. There were deer here when we moved in, and coyotes, but they moved out as development encroached, and now we are left with a few squirrels and rabbits, a mated pair of Red-shouldered Hawks, and the usual assortment of songbirds and insects for company.

Arthritic knees and arthroscopic surgery in 2014 reduce my travels in search of photos from the exotic national parks and forests to local greenways and the 22-acre woods. I combine photography with philosophic wonderings in a way that is as haphazard as our life is–and I have gathered these together as an offering who whomever stumbles upon them as a treasure in a field, or a pearl lost amid the costume jewelry in the bin at the flea market, a real find to those who are looking for exactly what is here, and more meh for everyone else.

I expect this site to be “in process” over time, so return as you are able and see if its here yet, what you seek. I hope it will be.

–Jim Dollar, February 2, 2021

One Minute Monologues 59

September 21, 2020 — October 26, 2020

09/21/2020 — Portland Headlight 9/26/2005 — Portland, Maine

You don’t want to be living your life
with an agenda in hand
and a schedule at the ready,
with every day being another bout
at implementation.

This is not to be in accord with the Tao.

People who think they know best–
particularly with regard
to how their life ought to be
(and yours)
are highly medicated
just to get through each day.
Or the people who live with them are.

People who are structured to the limit
(If only there were a limit!),
and bound to the task
of imposing their idea
of how things ought to be
on everything and everybody,
are a threat to the possibilities
for life worldwide,
and a danger to themselves
and others.

Maintain a safe, healthy, distance
between you and them,
and by all means,
do not marry one!
And if you are one,
take yourself out of circulation immediately!

Trust the world to find its way without you,
and trust yourself to find within
what it takes to meet the disappointments
of each day
without issuing orders,
writing pink slips,
threatening law suits,
or calling up plagues,
droughts,
earthquakes
and floods.

When given an opportunity,
life generally,
and our lives in particular,
are quite capable
of finding the way
winding through all situations
and circumstances
to equilibrium and harmony,
balance and peaceful accord.

They do not flourish under the burdens
of schedules and expectations,
time frames and stop watches.
But do best with their own rhythms
and purposes,
timing and patterns.

The stream finds the sea,
in its own time,
in its own way.
09/21/2020 — Waterrock Knob Sunset 11/08/2006 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Maggie Valley, North Carolina

I am sure you have noticed by now
that everything we want
comes with something we don’t want attached.

There is no escaping it,
no denying it,
which leaves us with accepting it,
and letting it be
because it is.

There is nothing wrong anywhere in our life
that growing up some more again
won’t make better.

Growing up some more again
in this instance
means being able to say a wholehearted “YES!”
to what we want,
AND to what we don’t want!

“HELL YES!” To it all–
just as it comes right out of the box.

There is not a scalpel anywhere so sharp
as to allow us to cut out the good
and throw away the bad.
The good and the bad come to us as one thing.
We give up this to get that.
What is good for the lion
is bad for the antelope,
and can be bad for the lion
if the antelope is sick,
or staked out by hunters hiding in the bush.

YES! to it all!

Fran Tarkenton, the NFL quarterback
known for his scrambling ability,
was talking about his career on an ESPN interview.
“I loved it all so much,” he said.
“The scrambling around and finding somebody open
for long gains and touchdowns.
And getting tackled for huge losses.
The completions and the incompletions.
The fumbles, and the mud, and the grime.
The penalties, and the missed field goals, and points after touchdowns.
The wins and the losses
and every single aspect of the game.
I miss it so.”

That is saying YES! to it all!

Love your life the way Fran Tarkenton loved football!
All of it!
Every bit of it!
It is passing so fast!
And when it is gone, it’s gone!
09/22/2020 — The Hay Rake 12/16/2007 — Caswell County, North Carolina

It is amazing how bad it can get
just by moving away from the center
and imposing our will for the good
upon the situation–
any situation–
at whatever price,
no matter what.

When it is
“Our way at all costs,
and you can go to hell!”
We all go to hell.

There are always hidden costs
we do not take into account
when we say, “At all costs!”

This is why greed and folly
are always connected.
Greed is folly!
And when it is our way no matter what,
that is merely greed dressed up
in the finest motives,
taking the moral high ground
straight to hell
and taking everyone with it.

Beware of those who know best
and must be pleased,
particularly when they look back at you
from the mirror.

Seek the center.
Live from there.
Bear the pain
of integrating the extremes.
Balance and harmony
serve the greatest good
of all concerned
with everything taken into account.

Every parent worthy of the title
understands this
and incorporates it daily
in their work
to make things work.
09/22/2020 — Lake Haigler 11/17/2016 49–Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina

For things to be better
we all have to grow up.

Growing up is the solution
to all of our problems today.
Every day.

Growing up is sacrificing our good
for the good of the whole.

More than that–
Growing up is sacrificing our idea of the good
for the good of the whole.

Our idea of the good
is the only thing standing in our way–
standing in the way–
keeping things from being better.

For things to be better,
we have to change our mind
about what’s important.

Let me know when you are going to do that.
I want to watch you leave what’s important
for what’s important.

It happens all of the time–
never willingly.

Alcoholics give up what matters most
for what matters most.
But.
Not of their own accord.
Not because it is Tuesday morning
and they feel like a change.

People are always waking up
and exchanging their idea of the good
for the good.
Not because they want to.
Not because they are in the mood to do it.
Not because they feel like doing it.
Not because someone told them they should.
But because they have no choice in the matter.
It is forced on them
by the weight of their circumstances.

We have to get to the end of our rope
before we can change our mind
about what’s important.

The chances of all of us
getting to the end of our rope
at the same time
are too faint to be calculated.
So faint as to be nonexistent.

Things need to be better,
and we don’t have what it takes
to make them better.

We need to grow up,
and we don’t have what it takes
to grow up.
Except that we do.
But we can’t access it
until we have to.

AA says, “Attraction, not promotion,”
because it knows
until the student is ready,
the teacher is wasting their time.

We are not in control
of the things required
for things to be more like they ought to be
than they are
around the table,
across the board.

The one thing we can do,
is sit quietly
until we realize that
and allow realization
to work its magic.

Knowing it
and realizing it
are different things.
09/22/2020 — Little River at the Sinks 11-04/2006 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tremont, Tennessee

To eyes that see,
ears that hear,
and hearts that understand,
our fate provides us with exactly what we need
to fulfill our destiny.

Joseph Campbell said, “Love your enemies
and what you hate most about your life
because they are instruments of your destiny.”

We are pulled forth,
against our will,
and thrust into the trials and ordeals
that are necessary to produce and refine
the character and qualities
most needed to fulfill our destiny.

Campbell said,
“It took the Cyclops to bring out the hero in Ulysses.”

Lao Tzu asked, “Fame or integrity, which is more important?
Money or happiness, which is more valuable?
Success or failure, which is more destructive?”

It is clear that it is not at all clear
whether it is better to win or loose,
to be right or to be wrong,
to get what we want or to be saddled with
what we cannot stand.

This leads Lao Tzu to ask,
“Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?”
And, “Can you remain unmoving
until the right action arises by itself?”
And, to say, “A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition lead him
wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed herself
from concepts, and keeps her mind open to what is.”

Instead of railing against the way things are,
we might simply have faith in the way things are,
trusting that we are being led by
That Which Knows along
a curious and winding path
straight to the heart of who we are,
and into the service of what needs to be done—
and, in so doing,
fulfill our destiny
and compete the work
that is ours to do.
09/23/2020 — Falls Pond 09/26/2007 — Kancamagus Highway, New Hampshire

We are looking for the energy,
the enthusiasm,
the flow of life…

For what resonates with us,
attracts us,
calls us,
urges us,
compels us into its service.

How long has it been?

We have been making up reasons to live
for about as many years
as we have been living.
Finding things to live for.
Thinking up things we might like to do.
Trying all of the latest trends…
Hoping something clicks.
And lasts.

Dismissing,
discounting,
disregarding,
ignoring
every inclination
that can’t be justified,
explained,
excused,
defended.

Well.

Here is a suggestion that can’t be
justified,
explained,
excused,
defended.
Get used to such things,
and to living with the wind of the sprit
that blows where it will
forever in your hair!

Take up sitting quietly,
seeking the Source–
not out of desperation,
and with no pressure attached,
but with interest,
curiosity
and expectation–
wondering what might be
on the other side of silence,
and how you will know
if anything is.

Sit waiting,
listening,
watching,
wondering,
as often as you can
work it into your week.

Make a ritual of it.
Set aside a specific time of the day.
Sit in a particular place,
for an allotted amount of time,
with a good faith commitment
to the process
and to honoring what arises
in the silence
with a will for adventure,
and filial devotion to the cause,
and see what comes.
09/23/2020 — Mt. Rundle at Dawn — Banff National Park, Alberta

If we are going to take anything on faith,
let it be the actuality of the Unknown Knower within!
Take the Psyche we are unconscious of on faith!
And work to develop a relationship with her–
a relationship of mutual respect,
dependence,
and collaboration–
throughout the remainder of the time
left for living!

Consider the Psyche to be of another dimension,
and consider our conscious mind
to be the connection,
the contact point,
between the world of normal, apparent, physical reality
and the world of paranormal, invisible, spiritual reality
(We call it “spiritual” because it is invisible
and cannot be weighed, measured, counted
or willfully engaged,
and anything we say about the “spiritual dimension”
is something someone made up,
invented,
imagined).

I’m making-up,
inventing,
imagining this as I go,
but play along,
and live as if it is so,
and it will be evident that it is so
in a short matter of time–
which is exactly the same spiel
those who invite you to take their theology/doctrine/dogma
on faith
use to bolster their claim
to the reality of which they speak.

Experiential confirmation/affirmation
of things we take on faith
is characteristic of the species!
It is the grounding foundation of black magic,
voodoo,
superstition,
human/animal/vegetable sacrifice
astrology,
horoscopes,
religion,
and True Love.

We live as if something is so.
As if winning is better than losing,
for instance,
or being wealthy is better
than being poor.

We make up the importance
of everything we think is important.
We take it on faith
that we are right about the value
of what we call valuable,
that we know what we are doing,
that the good we call good is good…

We take tomorrow on faith,
and what remains of today.

So what’s the problem with Psyche
being a knowing source of guidance
and direction,
worth
and value?

And devoting ourselves
to learning her language,
attending her ways,
and living in accord with her purposes
and leanings?
09/24/2020 — Sandy Stream Pond Autumn 09/2007 — Baxter State Park, Millinocket, Maine

We spend our lives fighting life,
thinking it is about one thing,
when it is about another.
“Climbing the ladder of success,”
as the old one-liner goes,
“only to discover
the ladder is leaning
against the wrong wall.”

Chasing down
“Fortune and glory, Kid,
fortune and glory,”
with our soul’s true joy
languishing and dying
for lack of attention and devotion.

Munching on the Forbidden Fruit,
with eyes for the bright lights and action
of Gay Paree,
we miss the white rabbit
from another dimension
inviting us to the adventure of being alive,
and settle for shiny beads
and silver mirrors
while the hope of the gods for us
flickers and fades away.

We are never more than a shift in perspective
away from seeing, hearing and understanding.

But.

We don’t ask the questions that beg to be asked,
or hear the things that are crying out to be heard,
or say the things that are trying to be heard.

And.

Are too busy dying to realize we have never lived.

What’s it going to take?
All of the prophets and seers,
teachers and Bodhisattvas
are stumped by that one.

“When the student is ready,
the teacher appears,”
and in the meantime,
the teachers gather,
shaking their heads,
saying, “What’s it going to take?”

The Native Americans were savvy as hell,
and idiot sportsmen looking for a thrill
wiped out their buffalo/bison in ten years.

Stupidity wins and loses at the same time,
certain it knows what it is doing,
wondering what went wrong,
and who is at fault
for things not being
as they are supposed to be.

Who put the ladder against the wrong wall?
09/24/2020 — Path Through Fall 10/28/2007 Watercolor Rendering — Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Ambition,
incentive,
aspiration
are all over-hyped.

Who knows what to want?
Who wants what should be wanted?
Who can be forced to want
what they ought to want?

So, you spend your life
in the service of things
that don’t matter,
thinking they matter,
working for
prestige,
status
and stature,
dry as desert dust
where you heart should be
because you’ve never loved anything
more than money
for as long as you can remember,
with no mulligans to bail you out
and only regret for company.
Who wants that?
Who thought that was what they were getting?

It’s always going to be different this time.
How often is it really?

How many people are right
about what matters?
Ambition in the service of the wrong things
is worse than no ambition at all.

A life without ambition
is a life devoted to living
aligned with the Tao–
with the movement of the heavens
and the rhythm of the tides,
without contrivance
and with complete sincerity,
being in the moment for the good of the moment,
with nothing to gain and nothing to lose,
trusting ourselves
to find ways of being good for ourselves
and true to ourselves
in the service of the good of the here and now
of our living.

We walk two paths at the same time:
Paying the bills
and living the life that is our life to live,
that calls our name,
that fills our heart,
that is our soul’s true joy.

If you are going to aspire to something,
aspire to that!
09/25/2020 — Sandy Stream Pond Reflections 09/24/2006 — Baxter State Park, Millinocket, Maine

Sealing ourselves off from one thing,
opens us up to another.

We have to come to terms
with our vulnerability,
and settle for being
as safe and as secure as we can be
under the circumstances,
with all things considered.

Our life is a negotiated compromise
with “the facts of life,”
taking everything into account,
and being okay with our outcomes,
whatever they may be–
understanding “outcome”
as being just another event
on the unending road of turns
and how we respond to them
our entire life long.

Nothing lasts forever under the right perspective.

We give up this to get that,
and pay a price for being alive.
How creative and flexible we can be,
how accepting and open,
how pliable and resilient,
how generous and kind,
how patient and yielding,
how perceptive and aware,
how long-suffering and considerate,
how enduring and responsive…
will strongly influence–
if not determine–
how lucky, blessed, and graced we are
over the full course of our life.

Being lucky, blessed and graced
are a function of being trusting and confident
in ourselves
and our ability to respond appropriately
to whatever is happening in each situation
as it arises moment-to-moment,
day-by-day
without having to have things be otherwise.

If everything hangs on having everything just so,
we will have a hell-of-a-time receiving things
“thus come,”
and seeing what may yet become of us-in-relationship-wth
all things just as they are.

Which is the very foundation of–
and the door open to–
the wonder and glory
of the adventure of being alive.

No adventure is what we expect it will be.
Insisting and demanding that our adventure
be what we want it to be
rules out any possibility of adventure from the start.

We belong to the road.
The road rules.
Our place is to laugh and dance along the way.
How we respond to the gifts of the road
makes all the difference.
09/25/2020 — Pink Ladies — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia

Maintaining our focus,
remaining centered,
balanced,
in harmonious accord with the Tao
is all there is to it.

Only fear, desire and duty
stand in our way.

And the dust of the world.

And the 10,000 things.

It is amazing that we can even
consider focus,
centering,
balance
and harmony.

And it is not surprising at all
that we have such difficulty
finding our focus,
our center,
our balance
and harmony.

We only have two tools to work with:
Our breath
and the silence.

Focusing on our breathing
and seeking the silence
provide us with an oasis
in the wasteland.

Making regular returns
to our breath
and the silence
provide us with a sacred place
amid the heaving waves
and the clashing rocks–
all we need for regaining our focus,
finding the center,
being balanced
and in harmonious accord
with the Tao
and at peace with our life.
09/26/2020 — Sunset at Silver Lake Watercolor Rendering 10/28/2006 — Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina

We have to believe in the things
that keep us going.
That is the true test of our faith.
Can it–does it–will it–keep us going?

We go in the service of what we believe in.
People who have lost their faith
go mostly to bars and opioids.

The surest way to not lose our faith
is for it to be grounded–
not in theology or doctrine
or somebody else’s beliefs–
but in our own experience
with numinous
(So-called because it is unspeakable,
inexplicable,
un-say-able,
beyond words)
reality
that has grabbed us,
whammed us,
overwhelmed us,
claimed us
and made us its own.

We can’t think up something to believe in.
We have to be stunned into stopping mid-stride
by it.

If we don’t have an experience of the Numen
it’s because we have insulated ourselves
against it
by living loud, busy, regimented lives.

We have to stop. Look. Listen. Pay attention.
What’s the first thing we notice?
Something to make us want to escape
back into busyness most likely.

We run from the Numen
because it lives in a dimension
accessible only by going where we do not want to go.
Past things we do not want to face.
We had rather go to bars and opioids.

It takes the Numen to keep us going.
If we prefer to shut down and quit
that’s our business.
But, we need to know we have a choice.

We can sit in the silence,
listening, looking
for what is there with us
beyond the terrors of the darkness.

Trusting in what-we-do-not-know
to call our name
and transform our life.
09/27/2020 — Bow Lake Num-ti-ja Lodge 09/21/2006 Watercolor Rendering — Banff National Park, Alberta

Are you at peace with your circumstances?
Are you at-one with yourself?

Balance and harmony, Kid!
Balance and harmony!

We can gauge how well its working
by our degree of balance and harmony,
spirit, vitality and life.

When the Clashing Rocks
and Heaving Seas
disturb our inner rhythm and flow,
our outer life-in-the-world
will be at hell’s gate.

We think we have to get outer
all calm and peaceful
in order to bring our inner world
into tranquil accord.

That is to have things backwards
in a cart-before-the-horse kind of way.
First inner, then outer.

It’s the old story of the Taoist Master and the Drought.
The people of the drought-plagued district
asked her to come and bring the rain.
She arrived and shut herself into a hut in the village
and three days later it rained.
Asked how she did it,
she replied,
“When I arrived,
I found things to be out of accord
with the Tao
and in complete disarray.
So, I closed myself off from the village,
and sought to make my peace with the situation,
and to restore my own harmony with the Tao.
And then, the rains came.”
09/27/2020 — A View of the River Watercolor Rendering — Yellowstone Canyon/River, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Jon Kabat-Zinn
(And if you haven’t watched
his YouTube Videos
on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction–
the shortest ones first–
what exactly are you waiting for?)
said that mindfulness and meditation
are like riding a bicycle.

When you are learning to ride a bicycle,
you think about riding the bicycle.
When you learn to ride a bicycle,
you quit thinking about it.

The same thing applies to playing third base,
hitting a curve ball
(or throwing one),
cooking pizza or an apple pie,
and hitting high C.
We think about it until we get it,
and then we stop thinking about it.

Always thinking about it,
always thinking about how we aren’t doing it,
and when are we going to start doing it,
and who is doing it better than we are,
and why we aren’t good at anything…
gets in the way of doing it.

Practice until we get it,
then stop thinking about it,
and do it.

It’s like learning to walk.
09/28/2020 — Sanctuary 10/24/2006 — Big Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Waterville, North Carolina, Watercolor Rendering

What keeps you going?
You live in the service of what?
What is your shtick?
Your thing?
Your art?
Your genius?
Your gift?
What are you here to do?
To bring forth?
Exhibit?
Express?
Love with all your heart?
Who are you here to be?
No matter what?

Do not stray from that!
Do not wander away from the center!
The core!
The essence!
The qualities that constitute
your Original Nature!

Be you wherever you are!
Regardless of your circumstances!
Bring your perspective forth!
Dance your dance!
Love your life!
Love being alive!
Let your love for life show!

Why hold anything back?
Let your little light shine!
Let your little toes dance!
Let your little heart love what it loves!
While it can!
09/28/2020 — Jasper Wetlands 09/29/2009 03 Watercolor Rendering — Jasper National Park, Alberta

Friedrich Nietzsche said the goal of the maturation process
is to become “a wheel rolling out of its own center.”

I envision a gyroscope turning out of its own center
as it moves in a direction suited to its purposes,
stabilizing itself in tune with its own balance and harmony,
and serving its own Original Nature
with sincerity and compassion
in all that it does.

We are our own authority.
We govern our own actions.
We evaluate our own values.
We live to ask the questions that beg to be asked
in each situation as it arises.
To say what cries out to be said.
And to do what needs to be done
here and now–
without contriving
or deferring,
seeking to please
or fearing repercussions,
but living to express
our own heart and soul,
and being true to ourselves
in all times and places.

We stand on our own feet,
live out of our own center,
with loyalty and devotion
to our own nature,
and let the outcome be the outcome.

To do this,
we have to devote time and attention
to cultivating our relationship
with ourselves
so that we know who we are
out of our on-going experience
with what is deepest, truest and best about us
all our life long.
09/13/2020 — Reelfoot Lake 11/04/2015 50 — Reelfoot Lake State Park, Tiptonville, Tennessee

All religious wars are fought
between/among disciples
of a particular idea of religion.

They are fighting over their understanding
of theology, doctrine, dogma, creeds and catechisms.
Over words about their religion.

They disagree about what words are true
and what words are false.
They disagree about what they believe to be so–
to be factual, actual, real and, thus, true!—
because someone has said so.

All of this changes like that (snaps fingers),
when we shift from talking about belief
and start talking about experience.

Separate yourself from everything
you have ever heard about God
from all other sources including the Bible,
and focus exclusively
on what you have personally experienced of God
in your own life.
What do you know to be so
because you know it is so,
and not because you believe it to be so,
or have heard it to be so?

When we talk of our experience of God,
we do not speak of the God of theology and doctrine,
but of the Numen beyond all words and reason,
beyond all logic and intellect.
The experience of the Numen
sits us down and shuts us up.
Wonder and awe,
amazement and fascination,
do not lend themselves to words.

Lao Tzu said all that can be said:
“The Tao that can be said
is not the eternal Tao!”

There are neither wars
nor disagreement
among those who experience the Numen
in art, music and nature,
with childbirth and falling in love,
or being smitten by the encounter
with another human being,
all being as natural as nature can be.
09/28/2020 — First of Fall 01 09-28-2020 — 22 Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

I would like to sit down one-on-one with everybody,
and hear what they had to say.
I think that is all anybody needs.
Someone to hear what they have to say.

Everybody wants to tell people what they need to hear.
Nobody wants to hear what people have to say.
I would like to change that.
I’ve been doing it all my life.

I’ve also been saying what I have to say.
I don’t hold anything back.
I’m doing it here, now.
I do as good a job listening
and speaking
as anyone I know.

It’s what I do best.
Along with seeing.
Not that I don’t miss anything.
Yesterday, I moved the butter out of the way
looking for the butter.
And last week, I left a crutch at the nursery
(I was one crutching it–
I use crutches to get about because of osteoarthritis
in both knees,
but my left knee is worse than my right one,
so I can manage for short distances
with a forearm crutch on my right arm,
and got distracted with buying the plants
my wife and I purchased,
and left my crutch behind).
I didn’t miss it for a couple of days
(Don’t use it around the house),
and had no idea where it was.
So, today, it occurred to me to ask
at the nursery if it were there.
And happy the reunion was.
All of which is to say I miss things all the time.
Without thinking anything of it.
I keep looking and seeing,
and not seeing.
Listening and hearing,
and not hearing.
It’s what I do best,
and enjoy most.
And I look forward to continuing
to do it for long years
into the far distant future.

Holding the butter looking for the butter
was great.
I am very Zen-like some days.
09/29/2020 — First of Fall 09/28/2020 02 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

So much goes on behind the scenes,
unseen,
unknown,
it’s a travesty
and a betrayal of trust,
and we all should be ashamed,
and aware–
transparent to ourselves,
if not to everyone else,
and they to us.

At least, we could be sincere
about our lack of sincerity.

But who can risk absolute sincerity?
Who can be that vulnerable,
that known?

We hide things from ourselves!
How sincere is that?
We cannot bear the truth
of our own truth!
And other people know things about us
we do not know ourselves!

It is staggering–
the duplicity,
the deception–
and essential!
Necessary!
Unavoidable!

Because we need a double life
to have a life at all!

This is the other side of Yin/Yang–
the two sides have a second side apiece!
Hidden from themselves!

Our Shadow has a shadow!
This is getting fancy!
And we have no choice
but to bear our own complexity!

Our complexity is a compromise
enabling us to bear the strain
of the tension of competing needs–
financial, emotional, physical, spiritual, practical, creative…
how many aspects of us are there
that have to be taken into account
in order to balance the harmony of the whole?

However we look at it,
there is more to us than meets the eye!
Any eye!
And what you see–
what any of us see–
is the result of sanity management
undertaken to bear the pain
of getting through the day.

We have to kid ourselves
in order to play the game
of not kidding ourselves,
because otherwise it would be intolerable,
and too much of a stretch to keep it going.

It is what we don’t know
that upholds what we do know,
and makes it possible
to go on!
09/29/2020 — Sunset at Water Rock Knob 08/05/2007 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Maggie Valley, North Carolina

There is nothing like coming to terms
with how things are–
and also are
(Which is how things actually are)–
for enabling us to let things be
without emotional reactivity
that interferes with how things actually are,
and creates complexity,
upheaval,
disruption
and chaos
on all levels simultaneously,
wreaking havoc,
destruction,
devastation
and misery everlasting.

Here’s the deal:
We live on the boundary,
the border line,
the interface,
the pivot point,
the fulcrum
between how things are
and how things ought to be
in each moment
in each situation as it arises
day-by-day
all our life long.

And how we respond to what is happening
in that moment
makes all the difference.

The key to being able
to do right by the moment
that is at hand
in every moment that comes along
is caring enough about the right things
in the right way
to do what needs to be done
without interfering with what is happening
or getting in the way of what needs to happen.

The right kind of caring
is the difference between being helpful
and being intrusive,
between being engaged for the good of the whole
without being co-dependent
and overly invested in the outcome.

We have to live in each moment
as those who care enough about what is happening
to offer the best we have to give
in the service of the good of the whole
without being meddlesome,
over-wrought,
strung-out,
and personally in need of
things happening in a particular way,
to the extent that we try to will what cannot be willed
and force things to happen that cannot be forced.

We have to take things seriously enough
to do what is needed/necessary,
in the right spirit,
with the right frame of mind,
without taking things seriously at all.

This is called “maintaining working distance”
between ourselves and the situation.
Close enough to care
without having anything at stake.

Caring enough to give what we have to offer
with nothing to gain
and nothing to lose.

To live out of that place
is to be always “at the still point
of the turning world”
(T.S. Eliot).

The trick with that
is understanding there is no static way of being
in the daily interplay of life.

The “still point” is not stationary!
The still point that enables us to ride a bicycle
is within a range of controlled wobbles!
The same thing applies to the still point
of living in balance and harmony with our life–
and all of life!

Caring enough without caring too much!
Offering what is ours to give
to each moment of our living
without contriving to arrange
a particular result/end/outcome!
Letting things come and go
according to the rhythm
of their own timing,
and honoring, thereby,
the tides of life and living and being alive!

This is the art of being human.
09/29/2020 — Swift River 09/26/2007 Watercolor Rendering — Kancamagus Highway, New Hampshire

We are never more than a slight shift in perspective
away from having it made.
We are never more than that far away from Nirvana,
from illumination,
from awakening,
from enlightenment,
from Christ-consciousness
and Buddha-mind.

It all comes down to being right
about the way we see things.
To being right about what is important.
Seeing things with right seeing
makes all the difference.

How we see is a function
of how we look.
Of asking the questions that beg to be asked.
Of hearing the things that cry out to be heard.
Of saying the things that are dying to be said.
Of knowing what we know,
and what can be known,
and what cannot be known.

Instead of imposing our view of reality upon reality–
instead of imposing our ideas about how things are
upon how things are–
we wait in the silence to see,
to hear,
to know,
to understand.

When we reflect on what is before us–
upon what is happening
and what that means for us
and for the situation as it arises–
to the point of new realizations,
we are at the fulcrum,
being levered by forces quite beyond us
to seeing with new eyes,
which makes all things new.

And that is IT!
09/29/2020 — Teton Barn — Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, Jackson, Wyoming

Consistency, reliability, dependability…
Can we maintain our connection with the center?
Can we remain on the path?
Can we retain our focus
amid the Clashing Rocks
on the Heaving Waves of the Wine Dark Sea?

It is one thing to grasp the truth
of what is needed
in the silence of circumstances
that are routine and predictable,
but.

Enter the unfathomable.
Put the Gauls or the Visigoths at the gates!
Remove the norms and standards.
Introduce uncertainty.
Destroy the systems and institutions
that hold life together.
Or, just take to bed with a migraine for two days.
See how you do.

An old Zen adage applies:
“The ability of the archer to hit the bullseye,
varies in inverse proportion
to the size of the prize for doing so.”

“AUM” is the first thing to go
when the cat has diarrhea
and the electricity goes off
at 2 AM.

Where is the center then?
What happens to our focus then?
Who has time for the balm of realization then?

Then the time has come for action!
What directs our movement in the field of action?
What leads us there, then?
What becomes of us there, then?
Can we disappear there, then?
And become one with the action?

The dancer becomes the dance!
The singer becomes the song!
The musician becomes the music!
The Force is always with us, but.
Can we be one with the force?
Can we become the Force?
Can we become the Tao?
Dancing with Yin and Yang in the Here and Now?
Gracing the situation with exactly what is needed?
Spontaneously?
Improvisationally?
Without stopping to think,
“What would Jesus do?”?
Can we become Grace in Action?

That’s how illumined we are!
How enlightened we are!
How awakened we are!
Can we disappear
and be what is needed
in the time and place of our living
regardless of the circumstances?

That is the test of our connection
with the center and ground,
The Source and the flow
of our existence.
09/30/2020 — First of Fall 04 09/29/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Britain felt worse during the endless days of World War II.
And Rome during the forever-long collapse of the Caesars.
The people who have felt worse–
and faced worse–
through the bitter winds of time
from the beginning until now
would not fit within the confines of this country
or all countries on this planet.

So stop your whining.
Nothing is free.

We walked into the voting booths in 2016–
or didn’t vote at all–
thinking it didn’t matter what we did.
Has anybody ever been more wrong over the full sweep of time?

Our assumptions,
expectations
and the things we took for granted
have us here, now.
We did not know what we were doing.
We did not care what we did.
And we are looking for someone to fix it for us.
To make it go away.

“We did it to our ownselves.”
And it will be a long time gone.

So put your walking shoes on,
and step into doing what needs to be done,
one day at a time
for as long as it takes
to be at a better place,
individually and collectively.

Start by voting for Joe Biden.
And by being right about what’s important.
And being willing to go to hell for what is,
because we will certainly go to hell for what isn’t.

And knowing when your assumptions are invalid
and your expectations are groundless,
and when you are failing to tend your responsibilities
to democracy and all the values worth living for–
and being who we all need each other to be
for as long as life shall last.
09/30/2020 — The Cabin 10/05/2006 — Jesse Brown’s place, Blue Ridge Parkway, near West Jefferson, North Carolina

Safety, security, stability are the three foundational necessities
for life as we would like to live it.

They are as much an internal orientation
as they are an external reality.

Someone who has been physically/sexually/emotionally abused,
and place them in a safe/secure/stable environment,
and it will take them forever to feel safe/secure/stable.

Take someone who has been betrayed,
and how long will it be
before they can trust themselves to anyone?

This is where establishing,
deepening
and maintaining
a vitally alive relationship with our inner self
becomes essential.

What keeps us going
if not knowing who/what we can count on?
Who/what is the most reliable source
of helpful presence in our life
than the two million year old person within
who comes packed in the DNA
of each of us
to comfort and console,
guide and direct,
us on our way through
the contexts and circumstances
of our daily walk?

Why don’t we devote ourselves
to the care and tending of our relationship
with the Other within?

What do you think Marianne Moore meant
when she said,
“The cure for loneliness is solitude”?
Who do we find waiting for us
in our solitude but The One Who Is With Us Always?

Our “Two Million Year Old Self” (Anthony Stevens,
Carl Jung) is an aspect of our Unconscious Mind
(So-called because we are not conscious of it),
and is “The One Who Knows” within
who we experience as “A Very Present Help In Time Of Trouble,”
and is the origin of our “holy nudges,”
and “sudden inspirations,”
and “providential realizations,”
and “propitious interventions” in the form of things that occur to us
“out of the blue,”
and change our course to “save the day”
and more than that.

Where would any of us be
without our “invisible means of support”
(Bill Moyers)?

Each of us is born with all we need
to find what we need
to make our way through our life.
Why do we ignore that,
or despise it,
in favor of “blind guides”
and bad bets?
10/01/2020 — Mushrooms 01 09/30/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Happiness is not a function of circumstance or occasion.
Happiness is a function of perspective,
of evaluation.
Happiness is a way of seeing/being.

Why not be happy?
With things just as they are?
Why not say YES! to life just as it is?
Why not, as Joseph Campbell suggested,
“participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world”?

Campbell also said,
“The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: ‘yea’ to it all.”

And,
“We are not there until we can say ‘yea’ to it all.”

And,
“As you proceed through life, following you own path,
birds will shit on you. Don’t bother to brush it off.”
(Pay it no mind.
Live to do what you are doing!)

And,
“Getting a comedic view of your situation
gives you spiritual distance.
Having a sense of humor saves you.”

And,
“The very cave you are afraid to enter
turns out to be the source
of what you are looking for.
The damned thing in the cave
that was so dreaded
has become the center.”

And,
The path requires “the love of your fate.
Whatever your fate is,
whatever the hell happens,
you say, ‘This is just what I need!’
It may look like a wreck,
but go at it as though it were an opportunity,
a challenge.
If you bring love to that moment–
not discouragement–
you will find the strength is there.”

And,
“Nothing can happen to you that is not positive.”

And
“When we are on our own path,
what we need comes along just when we need it.”

And,
“Have a theory that if you on your own path,
things are going to come to you.
Since it is your own path,
and no one has ever been on it before,
there is no precedent,
so everything that happens
is a surprise and is timely…
Nothing is routine,
nothing is taken for granted.
Everything is standing out on its own,
because everything is a possibility,
everything is a clue,
everything is talking to you.”

Happiness is a function of perspective,
perception and evaluation.

Happiness is a function
of how we see what we look at,
of what we tell ourselves
about what we see.

We are either on the adventure
of being who we are,
where we are,
when we are,
how we are,
or not.

“The future is up to us!”
(Enola Holmes)

“Anything can happen,
if you let it!”
(Mary Poppins)

“Whose side are you on?”
(Jim Dollar)
10/01/2020 — Ace Basin Collage 01/29/2015 — Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Hollywood, South Carolina

We create the future
by the way we respond to our present.

Each present moment–
every here-and-now–
is a fulcrum,
a pivot point,
shifting how things are
into how things will be.

If things are to be different.
We have to think differently.
We have to live differently.
We have to see differently.
We have to interpret/evaluate/understand differently.

We have to be different.
We have to become different.
Here/Now.

We tend to think we are perfect as we are,
and it is our surroundings,
our circumstances,
that have to change.

If we want things to change
in relation to us,
we have to change
in relation to things.

It starts with us.

We are holding things in place
by the way we respond to things.
Until that changes,
nothing changes
(No matter how much it appears to change).

If things change
without our attitude changing,
nothing is different,
regardless of how much it changes.

The changes that make a difference
take place behind our eyes,
between our ears.
10/01/2020 — The Log in String Lake 09/23/2006

The Way doesn’t get any clearer than this:

Do your thing
with nothing at stake in the outcome.

In each situation as it arises.

That is all there is to it.
Or ever has been.
10/02/2020 — Valley View 04/26/2006 — Yosemite National Park, Mariposa County, California

We hide ourselves
and hide from ourselves.

We speak in code about ourselves
and to ourselves.

Dismissing.
Disregarding.
Discounting.
Denying.
Ignoring.
What is important
in favor of what is trivial
and essentially non-essential.

We only have to look a our life
to know it is so.

Our life conceals and reveals us.
Our choices disclose and obscure us.

We don’t like ourselves
and it shows.

Nothing is more apparent
than our refusal to be who we are.

We have what remains
of the time left for living
to turn the light around,
and redeem what needs redeeming
by serving the destiny
we abandoned shortly after birth.

We start by sitting down,
being quiet,
and meeting what meets us
in the silence
with nowhere to hide–
holding everything that comes up
in our awareness,
with compassion,
without judgment or opinion,
just seeing,
just knowing,
just looking,
just listening,
just being
with what is being with us,
waiting for the way
to open before us,
trusting ourselves
to know when it does.
10/03/2020 — Water Rock Knob 10/29/2014 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Maggie Valley, North Carolina

The old adage gets to the heart of the matter:
“It’s all grist for the mill.”
What are we milling is the question.
What are we working to get,
acquire,
amass,
attain,
achieve,
have,
do,
be?

What is it going to take
for us to be
at absolute peace
with the life we are living?

What are we milling?
Producing?
Manufacturing?
Making?
Constructing?
Creating?
Processing?
Assembling?
Putting together?

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

How we discern a favorable wind
from and ill wind?

A good place to be
from where we have no business being?

What is our business?
What are we about?
What are we milling?

Where are we going?
How will we know when we arrive?
Who are we trying to please?
How do we know what is pleasing?
Who says so?
How did they become the voice of authority
ruling over our life?
What makes us think they know what is pleasing?
Our life is based on what?

What is guiding our boat
on its path through the sea?
10/03/2020 — Goldenrod 01 10/01/2020–22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

We could make a list–
and probably should–
of the people who know the truth
when they see it,
as a source of encouragement
and motivation
in our own work
to see what we look at
and know what’s what.

George Carlin
Claudia Conway
Dolly Parton
Linda Ronstadt
Eddie Murray
Richard Pryor
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
Al Franken
…

Who stands out for you?
Let them be your soulmates,
your guides,
your gurus,
your spiritual family,
the people you turn to
in time of trouble.

Nobody can do it for long alone.
Not even the people on your list!
Live to be on somebody’s list–
and keep going!
10/03/2020 — Two Barns 08/10/2019 Panorama — Kershaw County, South Carolina

Our life forms itself around us,
reflecting our choices and decisions
exhibiting our preferences and inclinations,
expressing our degree of creativity and courage…

We are content seeking shape and form.
Our life becomes us so.

And we blame our circumstances.

“If we had had more of this
and less of that!”

If this! If that!
Well.
Easy to say.
Maybe. Maybe Not.

What we know is that
we are the one constant
through all of the times and places,
chances and opportunities,
contexts and circumstances
of our life,
and here we are now.

We are the content,
and this is the shape and form.

If we would prefer a different shape,
a better form,
we only have the content to work with.

How different can we be in the time left for living?

If you are serious about finding out,
sit before a mirror
and see who looks back at you.
Consider the content of you,
and what is revealed/concealed
by your appearance,
body language–
including posture
and facial expression–
tone of voice
physical shape
and overall demeanor.

Take up the practice
of changing your content
and seeing what shifts
your shape and form
take in response
to the shifts made in content.

It will be a game
you play with yourself
for the rest of your life.
10/04/2020 — Two Rocks 02 09/24/2004 –Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine

Abraham’s retort to God,
“Shall not the judge of the earth do right?”
is one Job should have used.
Instead, Job cowers before the “Might Makes Right” defense
God uses to justify leaving Job unprotected against the wiles of Satan.

And Baruch would have done well to use it
against God’s, “I’ll give you your life as a prize of war,”
excuse for refusing to be more of a
“very present help in time of trouble.”

The question is one we shun and ostracize
in the forlorn hope that God will make it up to us
if we are patient and faithful
in trusting ourselves to the ultimate triumph of “God’s Plan”
at work through inconceivable evil
to save the day and all the long-suffering True Believers
at the End of Time.

Habakkuk and Jesus stand out in having
the courage of their own convictions,
in declaring their loyalty and allegiance
to doing what is right in each situation as it arises,
no matter what–
with the outcome playing no part
in their ongoing and eternal devotion
to doing what needs to be done
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
their whole life long.

In so doing,
they point the way for us all.

Why something happens
or fails to happen
is irrelevant to the situation at hand.
Doing what is called for here and now
is our only concern.

“Here we are–now what?”
is our response to the times
all the time.
How we answer that question,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
sets the tone
and establishes the rhythm
of our life,
and shapes the future
better than any assortment of beliefs
and statements of faith
ever could.

Believe whatever you want,
but do what needs to be done!
Here and now and always and forever!
10/04/2020 — Muscadine and Sourwood 10/03/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Living from our own center
with nothing at stake in the outcome
is like singing in the shower,
or dancing in the rain.

It is a spontaneous,
impromptu,
improvisational
response to our situation as it arises
and opens before us,
calling us to dance with life
in becoming one with the moment
and the opportunity it offers us
to express ourselves
by offering what is ours to give
in response to the need of the moment
and the time that is at hand.

And this,
without contrivance
or agenda,
or any thought of what is in it for us,
or how we might seize the moment
for our benefit,
advantage,
gain
or profit,
and “come out ahead”
in any sense of the term.

We’re dancing, man!
“And there is only the dance!”
(T.S. Eliot)

The key to living well
is to live as though we are dancing.
When the music begins,
our cares drop away.
We don’t know who the President is,
or what our worries are,
or how we are going to manage
with “the wolf at our door.”
We dance.
And dancing brings forth
the joy of life.
The joy of being here, now,
alive in this moment
and able to dance.

The music is there in every moment,
waiting for ears that hear,
and toes that tap,
and hearts that can dance with life!
10/05/2020 — The Horse Barn 10/04/2020 01 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina

If you wait until you are drowning
to learn how to swim,
you make it harder on yourself
than it needs to be.

See how many places you can apply
this pithy little insight
throughout your life.

It will change your life.
10/05/2020 — Wildflower Grassland 01 10/04/2020 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina

What would it take for you to be at peace with your life
just as it is?

Which includes doing what it takes
to make your life more like it needs to be
than it is.

What does your life need to be
that it isn’t?

Where is your life deficient?
Where is your life excessive?
Where is your life being neglected/ignored?
Where is your life being restricted/confined?
Where is your life being overrun/violated/disrupted?

In what ways do you need help with your life?

To what degree are you aware
of your relationship with your life?

In what ways does your life reflect/exhibit/express/incarnate/reveal
who you are?

In what ways does your life inhibit/conceal/deny/oppose/repress who you are?

How would you describe your relationship with your life?

In what ways do you tend and serve your life?
In what ways do you expect your life to tend and serve you?

In what ways do you cooperate/collaborate with your life?
In what ways do you contend/clash with your life?

What do you need from your life?
What does your life need from you?
10/06/2020 — The Live Oak at Springer’s Point 10/17/2013 — Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina

Attending what I am doing,
moment-to-moment
is among the hardest things
for me to do.

Just knowing what I am doing now–
not generally,
vaguely,
“I’m driving.”
“I’m walking.”
But specifically.
Precisely.
“My turn is coming up.”
“Watch the kid on the skateboard!”

Being here, now, is the hardest thing.
Of course we are here, now.
We know that.
And we miss our turn,
and send the kid on the skateboard
to his heavenly reward.

All because we know what we are doing
without attending it,
without being aware of it,
without knowing what we know,
specifically,
precisely.

We live disconnected
from the time and place
of our living,
thinking about anything,
everything,
but the here and now.

So what?

How we answer that question
makes all the difference.

Here and now is all there ever is.
If we are not present and accounted for,
fully here, fully now,
when will we ever be alive?

We do not come to life
until something in our present moment
commands our full attention
and brings us to life.

Puppies can do it.
And kittens.
And babies/grandbabies…
We all can remember experiences,
good and bad,
that have grabbed us
and hurled us in to the Now,
but it takes something special.

We can’t be here, now,
for no reason.
We are shanghaied by other things,
fear,
desire,
duty
drag us off into endless walk-a-bouts,
meandering among the possibilities
and the impossibilities,
lost and unavailable
to turns coming up
and kids on skateboards.

But.
Any moment can be “transparent to transcendence”
(Joseph Campbell),
transporting us instantly
into the rapture of awe and wonder–
not because it is obvious,
not because we are whammed by it unexpectedly,
but because we simply sat,
looking,
until we saw–until we see–it.

We can be so present to any moment
that every moment has the potential
of being a portkey,
transporting us from this dimension
into the other dimension
of numinous, ineffable, unspeakable truth.

Bringing that dimension
into this dimension,
moving from this dimension
into that dimension,
is the gift of attentive presence,
bringing us to life
in the life we are living.

Eyes that see
are the same eyes that don’t see,
waiting us to open ourselves
to what is here and now
but turning the light around
and seeking within the switch
that turns the light on
and enables us to see what we are looking at
for the very first time.
10/06/2020 — Two Mushrooms 10/05/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

The old Taoists recommended
that we “turn the light around,”
and look inwardly
for what we are seeking externally,
which would be something worth living for.

Some reason,
some purpose,
some meaning
for it all.

Life is its own meaning,
but it takes realizing that
and living as though it is so
to turn the light around.

Living as though our life is meaningful
just as it is
is the shift
that opens us to the truth
of the immense value
of the here and now.

This! Is “the still point of the turning world”!
(T.S. Eliot)
This! Is the moment of our Illumination!
It only takes looking
to see that it is so!

Two mushrooms seen properly,
are the bell of awakening.
Any time can be the time of our realization.
How we see what we look at
is more important than what we look at.

Turn the light around!
10/07/2020 — Stump and Sourwood 10/05/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

When the light comes on,
everything/nothing changes.
Life goes on as it always does
and nothing about life is as it was
for the one for whom the light comes on.
Now, that one has to live
with a foot in two worlds,
and walk two paths at the same time–
living in this world
in light of that world–
with this and that world
informing and influencing
the way they live
in that and this world.

The two worlds interact/interface
in the one for whom the light goes on.
They cannot live in either world
as though the other does not exist.
The two worlds are not mutually exclusive.
They both are conjoint with the other
and create the “Mysterium Coniunctionis”
(Carl Jung’s term meaning
the “Mystery of the Conjunction”),
which is the ground of all of our dualities,
and which we live to integrate and express/exhibit
by the way we manage the challenge
of living in two worlds at the same time,
walking two paths at the same time,
and consciously realizing
and living in the tension
of the interplay between the worlds
(Which might be better thought of
as “dimensions” within the world of
normal, apparent, physical reality)
moment-by-moment
within all of the times and places
of our existence.

We are living within an optical illusion.
Now it’s this way,
now it’s that way.
Which way is is?
Both ways simultaneously!
How do we manage our life
living both ways at once?

Playfully!
Laughing and dancing all the way!

It is the Tevya dialogue in “Fiddler on the Roof”:
“But, this cannot be so if that is so!”
“You are right! That is also so!”
Laughing and living in the tension of all opposites,
of all dichotomies,
being so at the same time!

The two become one in us!
And we become one with all things!

Integrating what cannot be reconciled,
and bearing the agona, the agony, of the tension
playfully, laughingly,
every step along the Way,
by doing it the way it needs to be done,
the way it is being called for,
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

Sometimes we do it like this,
and sometimes we do it like that,
and sometimes we do not do it at all!

When to do what is our call to make,
lovingly, laughingly, playfully,
doing what is called for in each moment,
the way only we can do it,
moment-by-moment,
“singing and dancing in the rain.”
10/07/2020 — Afternoon Light 10/04/2020 — Black-eyed Susans, Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina

We cannot live one dimensionally in in a multi-dimension world.

This is the failure of Evangelical Christianity
and of strict religiosity world wide.

“Walking the straight and narrow”
is not about prudishly, puritanically, keeping the rules.
It is about walking gingerly, consciously, carefully
along the slippery slope,
the dangerous path,
the razor’s edge,
between the Clashing Rocks,
the Scylla and Charybdis,
the dualities, dichotomies, duplexities
of day-to-day,
moment-to-moment,
life in the world of normal, apparent, reality.

There is no static way of being.
Balance and harmony are about controlling the wobbles,
like riding a bicycle.

We have to live free in our soul,
like the spirit that blows where it will–
which is another way of saying,
“Not knowing what it will do next”!

Jesus lived that way,
raising the dead in one minute,
and leaving the dead to bury the dead in the next.
Forgiven the woman guilty of adultery one day,
and cursing the innocent fig tree on another.

Do not look for, expect, demand, insist upon consistency,
uniformity,
absence of deviation
from yourself
or one another!

Sometimes, we do it this way,
and sometimes, we do it that way,
as the occasion requires.
We dance with the music of the times.
We do what the situation calls for–
without being burdened
with having to “toe the line”
and “mind our p’s and q’s”
by doing what we are “spozed to do”
in all times and places
because we dare not “get out of line”
or express our own individual gifts and genus
in the way we go about our life.

Grant yourself the freedom of getting out of character–
because it is required by the circumstances,
or just for the hell of it!
Do things that are “not you”!
Expand your range!
Open yourself to the possibilities!
Live beyond your limits!
Outside your boundaries!
Live to find out–to discover–
what you are capable of!
Experiment with new roles!
Try out for different parts!
Explore!
Experiment!
Bring yourself to life
in the time left for living!

Why hold anything back?
10/07/2020 — The Horse Barn 10/04/2020 02 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina, Horse Barn Road Access

We live our way to the truth of who we are
coming to terms with the truth of how things are,
of how the world is,
of how life is,
of the way things work
moment-to-moment,
one situation at a time,
one day at a time,
over the full course of our life.

The Spiritual Journey,
is the Hero’s Journey,
is another term
for Growing Up.
Growing up is coming to terms with how things are
and how we are
and how best to deal with the contradictions/dichotomies
at work within and without
throughout our life.

We want things to be different than they are.
We want to be different than we are.
And how well we bear the pain of the difference
between how things are and how we want them to be
on all levels of life and being
is the essence of growing up,
of waking up,
of squaring up
with how it is with us
at various points in our life.

Our identity changes over the time of our living.
Living changes us.
Living requires us to change.
The people who refuse to change,
who live static, rigid, lives
are dead people.
They may be 98.6 and ambulatory,
but they have no life about them,
they haven’t been alive for years past remembering.

How we respond to our life
through all the stages of our existence
is the marker declaring our degree
of vitality,
interest in,
and enthusiasm for
our life and the experience of being alive.

Our life is naturally designed to bring us forth,
to show us who we are,
by requiring things of us
we do not know we are capable of.

We have to be fluid and flexible enough
to sit before what is being asked of us
and explore/imagine/consider how we might
best respond to it in the here and now of our living.

This is to say that new epiphanies,
recognitions,
realizations,
understandings,
visions
and additional illumination
are required–and available/possible–
at every point along the way
from birth to death.

And so, it is said that the awakening
of every enlightened being
requires a return to the state of unenlightenment.

We never out-grow the need to respond
creatively/imaginatively
to the circumstances and situations
of life here and now
throughout the times and places of life in the world.

The Spiritual Journey has no end.
The “Circumambulation of the Self”
(Carl Jung) is eternal and everlasting.
We are always becoming who we are.
And the longer we are conscious of the process,
the more we are able to laugh and dance
along the way.
10/08/2020 — The Dairy Barn 02/18/2018 — Louisiana Central Hospital Grounds, Pineville, Louisiana

We do not receive the help we need.
And if it is offered,
it isn’t what we have in mind.

Given the choice,
do you go for feeling better
or getting better?

When the treatment is worse than the disease–
or worse than the symptoms–
what do we do?

Where do we go with the pain
of damned if we do and damned if we don’t?
With the agony of endless agony?
In the meantime, what?

When there is no balm in Gilead,
where do we go for relief from our anguish?
For alleviation from our pain?

Where do we find what we need
to do what needs to be done
about any of it?

Therapy is found in the damnedest places.

The dairy barn at the Louisiana Central Hospital
brought people back to life
by giving them cows to milk and feed,
to pasture and tend.

What does a cow have to do with our problems?
Who would ever think,
“A cow is just what I need”?
How long would a physician last
who prescribed a cow to care for
to those seeking solace for the burdens they bear?

Don’t disparage cows!
Seek out their equivalent in your own time and place!
You who have needs,
lend yourself to the service
of that which has need of you!
You who languish for a lack of help,
provide help to that which languishes
for what you have to offer!
Be good for someone,
some thing!

The world will shift on its axis,
reorient itself in its orbit.
All because you dared
to love a cow!
10/08/2020 — Steele Creek Cascades 03/29/2014 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina

The most important commandment in the Old Testament
didn’t make the top ten,
though it lends itself to an interpretation
that makes it #1 even there.

Seeing “The Lord Thy God” in each of our neighbors
would put “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”
in the place of, as Jesus would say,
loving our neighbors as we love ourselves,
and as the most important commandment puts it,
“Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark.”

Honor thy neighbor’s right to themselves
and to all that belongs to them!
Do not mind thy neighbor’s business!
Do not violate thy neighbor’s boundaries!
Do not invade thy neighbor’s sacred space!
Do not denigrate thy neighbor in any way!
Respect thy neighbor as thou desireth to be respected!

Know where you stop and your neighbor starts
and do not step over the line!

How may ways did Jesus say that?
He made it the central element in what he had to say.
Everything comes down to seeing our neighbor
as equal to us in every way.
And to seeing everyone as our neighbor.
And everyone is Every. Single. One.
We are to be everyone’s neighbor,
treating them all as though they are our neighbor.

Why is this hard?
Why is it not being done?
10/09/2020 — Around Price Lake 10/17/2016 19 — Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Purity is the great enemy of truth.
Purity is truth to the far extreme.
Truth without contradiction.
Truth without contraries.
Truth without truth.
A mockery of truth.
An imposter of truth.
A pretender of truth.
A sound-alike.
A wanna-be.
A Lie.

Watch the flow of the game
over the next 10 to 20 years.
Keep your eye on the ball.
The truth is that
“extremes beget extremes.”

Those who remain steadfastly in the center
become the enemy
of the opposite poles.
Yet, the center is the fulcrum,
the pivot point,
“the still point of the turning world”
(T.S. Eliot).

The center is our only hope.
The cross of Christ
bearing the pain
of his own self-realization.

“You shall know the truth,”
he said,
“and the truth shall set you free.”

The truth of what?
Free from what?
Free for what?

The truth of the moment.
Of this moment.
of this here-and-now.

Free from/for what?
Free from denial/mindlessness/unawareness/blindness/stupidity…
Free for doing what needs to be done here and now,
in this moment just as it is.

Free for responding appropriately
to the moment as it is being lived
in seeing/hearing what is called for
and providing it,
doing it,
regardless of what you might have said/done
in the last moment,
or any previous moment–
or what you ever imagined that you would do
in any moment.

Freedom to be who you are,
living out of your own center
in response to the craziness–
the madness–
of a world gone to the extremes,
where:

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity”
(W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”).

Freedom to be what is needed
even there,
especially there,
in the heart of anarchy
amid the Clashing Rocks
and the Heaving Waves
of the Wine-Dark Sea.
10/09/2020 — Adventure Road 01 10/07/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Faith has nothing to do with belief.
Faith is faithfulness.
Keeping faith with oneself and one another.
Being faithful to one’s center, core, foundation–
in the company of those
who are being faithful to themselves,
to their center, core, foundation–
and to one another.

Faith as faithfulness is the center, core, foundation
of ourselves
and of the right kind of community.

It has nothing to do with what we believe,
and everything to do with what we know to be so
because it forms the ground of our experience,
and is the very essence of our being/doing.

“Thanks be to God I am who/what I am!”
(Paul of Tarsus)

“What I do is me/for that I came!”
(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Belief is a substitute for faith,
a surrogate for the lived experience
of ourselves in the world.

“Know Thyself!”
(The Delphic Oracle)

“To Thine Own Self Be True!”
(William Shakespeare)

Our faith is in who we are
and what is ours to do.
Our faith is our life.
Our life is our faith.

The content of our faith
is the body of work
we create/produce
as a testimony to who we are
through the way we live our life
and bring ourselves forth
within the context and circumstances
of the times and places of our living.

The content of our faith
is how we live our life.
10/09/2020 — Muscadine and Moss 10/07/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear,
it is important to exhibit
the kind of stillness
and confidence in the process
that creates the atmosphere
in which the mud can relax
and trust itself to gravitational forces
it cannot understand,
but can allow to work its magic
in assisting things seeking to find their place
and give themselves to doing
what they do best.

The forces at work in our own life
are not different from the gravitational force
at work in the service of clarity.

We belong to the things that stir us to life
and call us forth
to find what best suits our gifts
and interests,
and our deepest love–
a love we know noting of
until it claims us
and graces us with its call to service
in devotion and loyalty to its needs
and interests.

We find our way to what owns us
bit by bit,
allowing “one book to open another,”
and always listening for what calls our name
in each situation as it arises,
allowing ourselves to be led–
even when we don’t know we are being led–
to sacred places
“transparent to transcendence,”
with nothing special about they
that would set them apart,
or suggest the wonders hidden
from those who look without seeing
what we behold.

Swaddled in amazement,
we feel ourselves carried
from one wonder to another
in a life that is merely following the flow
from one day to the next,
without a plan in mind,
or an agenda directing the action.

All we need do is listen and look,
as we wait for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.
10/10/2020 — Muscadine and Sourwood 10/10/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Believe in what you are doing
and do it!

If you are going to believe in anything,
let it be what you are doing!

Why would we do anything we don’t believe in?
Yet, how many of us are doing things we don’t believe in?
Going through the motions.
Paying the bills.
So we can go through the motions.

Wait!!!
Time Out!!!
It’s one thing to go through the motions
to pay the bills–
but we can’t pay the bills
to go through the motions!
We have to pay the bills
to do what we believe in doing!

Are we doing anything we believe in?
Anywhere in our life?
If no,
that’s a problem.

How can we live without believing
in what we are doing?
Without believing in the life we are living?

We can’t just go through the motions!
Our heart has to be in something
we are doing,
else our life is a sham,
a lie,
an empty balloon on a stick
and we are dead people walking around
blank-eyed and soulless.

Sound like anybody you know?

The cure is to get our life back
by finding something we believe in
and doing it
while we pay the bills any way we can.

Where do we start finding something
we can believe in?
What was the last thing you believed in?
What happened to that?
What are some things you think
you might be able to believe in?
If you were going to believe in something,
what would it be?
What would it take to be able to do it?
If you can’t do it,
start dreaming about doing it.
Imagine doing it.
Watch videos about doing it.
Pretend to be able to do it.
Start collecting items that are related to it.
Read about it.
Write about it.
Build a fantasy life around it.
Believe in your fantasies!
If you can’t go to the moon,
make a life around studying everything
about going to the moon!

Work something you believe in into your life!

Without something to believe in,
we are just marking time until we die.

We may as well be in prison.

Do not die before you are dead!

Promise me you won’t!
10/10/2020 — Fence Post 10/07/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Martha Graham’s dance, “Lamentation,” says what words cannot
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgf3xgbKYko),
and in reflecting on her performance,
she said about it and all of her performances,
“The is always one person to whom you speak
in the audience. One.”

That took me straight to the one disciple of the Buddha
who “heard” his Flower Sermon.
Mahākāśyapa is in every audience,
as male or female.

Do not think,
“No one hears”
(Or cares).
10/10/2020 — False Fox Glove 10/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

The work is ours to do alone.
Sitting.
Listening.
Looking.
Seeing.
Hearing.
Feeling.
Trusting.
Risking.
Doing.
Being.
Becoming.

We grow up on our own.
Against our will.
Because it is called for.
And is the best
of all our available options.

All that we have been told
about how things are
is not how things are.
This is how things are:
There is the way things are,
and there is what we can do about it,
and that’s that.
And that is how things are.

Part of what we can do about it
is squaring ourselves up
with the difference between
how things are
and how we wish they were,
or how we want them to be.

Coming to terms with how things are
is being okay with things
not being okay.
And letting things be
because they are.

Within any context and all circumstances,
there is what we can do
and what we cannot do.
Refusing to let what we cannot do
keep us from fully exploring what we can do
is the creative response
to our situation,
no matter what it is.

Always the strategy is:
Ask all of the questions that beg to be asked!
Say all of the things that cry out to be said!
Listen to everything!
See what we look at!
Feel what we are feeling!
Know what we know!
Bear the pain
and keep on going!
10/11/2020 — Hammock Creek — Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina

Wanting what we have no business having
is the bane of our existence.

Desire,
Fear,
and Duty
burden us with concerns
that are not our concern.

Contriving to have something else,
something better,
something more
keeps us from the joy
of the day-to-day.

We are our own worst enemy.

Nothing can happen to us
that we can’t make worse
by the way we respond to it.

If we are ever going to be happy,
contented,
well-pleased
and at peace,
it is going to start right here,
right now.

The only thing keeping that from happening
is the way we think about things.

Our judgments.
Our opinions.
Our evaluations.
Our expectations.
Our default dissatisfaction.
Combine to prevent us
from being able to delight
in simple pleasures,
and dismiss
concerns that are not our concern.

An old Taoist self-help manual says,
“Noble people are calm,
joyful,
and not contrived,
without cunning or ulterior motives.
This means being empty and plain.”
And,
“Private interest is what corrupts the world.”
And,
“What is not one’s path is not taken,
even if profitable.”

2,000 years later,
they still ring true.
10/11/2020 — 22-Acre Woods 10/08/2020 — Indian Land, South Carolina

Trump is forever whining about how
unfairly he is being treated.

I take that to mean he thinks he should be
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,
and be accorded the honor and admiration
he thinks he deserves.

Whatever he thinks,
he recognizes the importance of fairness
and bemoans not being granted his share.
It is a justice issue.
Trump quickly recognizes injustice
as a recipient.
He has no awareness whatsoever of injustice
as a dispenser.

“I acknowledge no responsibility!”
That’s Trump’s trump card.
Trump trumps everything playing that one.

I wish I had a trump card like that.
It’s not fair.

But I recognize the absurdity of thinking that
wanting something has no necessary association
with receiving the thing.
That’s a blessing of wealth and privilege.
More wealth and privilege than I’m interested in.

An aside: Some people can’t get enough wealth and privilege,
others need only enough to get their work done.
The people who can’t get enough,
have no work to do.
Apparently, their idea is to avoid all work entirely,
and go through life wallowing in wealth and privilege.
As Jesus might say, “They have their reward.”

All I want is enough wealth and privilege to do my work.
Not enough wealth and privilege is a distraction,
and too much wealth and privilege is also a distraction.
The sweet spot, you might say,
is enough to buy the tools our work requires
but not so much that it gets in the way.

And we have to know what our work is,
what we live to do,
and be about it.
Joseph Campbell said the blessing of getting older
is the ability to refine what is truly important
down to the absolute essentials
and the time to spend your life with those things.
He was absolutely correct about that,
and I relish each day as another opportunity
to enjoy the presence of those things which matter most.

May you be blessed in a similar way
throughout what remains of the time to be lived
on your life!
10/12/2020 — Katahdin Panorama 10/09/2009 Watercolor Rendering — Sandy Stream Pond, Baxter State Park, Millinocket, Maine

We cannot impose our will for our life upon our life.

We certainly cannot impose our will for someone else’s life
upon their life.

These are the two fundamental/foundational principles of life
that must be honored and respected,
embraced and acquiesced to
by all people great and small
across all times and places
in order for life to be lived
the way life needs to be lived
for the true good of all concerned,
including ourselves.

These two principles are the center and ground of democracy,
and set it apart from all other ways of life together
throughout the universe and all dimensions
within which life might be lived.

They are the end of caste systems
and jihads,
discrimination
and injustice,
and require us to live together
in ways that are in accord
with the Tao of all sentient beings,
Tao being the name for The Spirit of the Times,
in the sense of there being a time and a place
for everything in its own time and its own place
over all times and places,
with the essential question being,
“What is it time for in this place,
here and now?”
in every time and place.

Balance and harmony,
spirit,
vitality,
virtue/character,
integrity
and sincerity
become the central features
of life together for all concerned–
and we all live in ways
that honor them
and call them forth
in our life and the lives of others.

The Buddha and the Christ
represent the end of all caste systems
and the imposition of dharma/duty
limiting people to prescribed places
in the social order,
and invite everyone to follow
their own sense of the Spirit
that is like the wind,
blowing where it will,
not knowing itself what it will do next
over the full course of their life.

The charge, “If you meet the Buddha/Christ
on the road, kill him!”
captures the essence of the matter.
Each person is responsible for their own life
and the development of their own potential
for realizing,
expressing,
incarnating who they are
and what they are to be about–
and no one can escape that
by doing what someone else tells them to do.

We are the Buddha!
We are the Christ!
And our life is the matrix
within which we work out the implications
of knowing and being who we are
and are capable of being/becoming–
the first order/obligation being
the creation and maintenance
of an atmosphere/environment
in which everyone realizes
what is expected of/incumbent upon them
and lives their life in accord
with the Spirit of the Times
in all times and places
of their coming and going.
10/12/2020 — Fence Post 10/07/2020 Oil Paint Rendering — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

We cannot impose our will for our life upon our life.

We “take our orders” from a source other than ourselves.
We align ourselves with “God’s will for our life.”
We put ourselves “in accord with the Tao.”
We seek to follow “the path that calls our name.”
We say “we are not our own to do as we will.”
Then we tell people they are going to hell
if they don’t do it like we do it.
Which way is it?

We shun people,
ostracize people,
have nothing to do with people
who don’t do it like we do.

We “say” in a thousand ways daily,
“I am the way, the truth and the life,
and no one comes to the Father but by me!”

All of the self-help books ever written
boldly proclaim:
“If you want to be happy,
you have to do it like I do!
And herein is the recipe!”

What outlandish arrogance!

Everybody finds their own way.
Everybody has to do their own work.

Joseph Campbell declares that the way
is a different way for every individual,
which is the meaning of the word “individual.”

Carl Jung says the same thing.

Campbell:

“The knights entered the forest at the point that they had chosen, where there was no path. If there is a path, it is someone else’s’ path, and you are not on the adventure. Now, what are you to do about instruction? You can get clues from people who have followed paths, but then you have to carom off that and translate it into your own decision, and there is no book of rules.”

Jung:

“It is the individual’s task to differentiate themselves from all the others and stand on their own feet.”
“The development of personality means fidelity to the law of one’s own being.”
“Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.”
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

Our burden is our glory:
Finding and living the life that is ours to live–
at the expense of the life we wish were ours to live.

This is the working out of those age old themes,
“From bondage to freedom.”
“From death to life.”
“Death and resurrection.”
“Darkness and light.”
“Asleep and awake.”

The ultimate duality
is created by those who declare
“There are no dualities!”

The ultimate illusion
is created by those who declare,
“Duality is an illusion!”

“No one is as blind
as those who declare:
‘I see!'”

Seeing is borne out by the way
in which we live our life.
If seeing sees anything
it sees all the ways in which
it does not see at all,
and does not boast of
the great clarity of its vision.

We find our own way.
We do our own work.
It is all up to us.
All of our problems
are simply doorways to realization,
pathways to the Land of Promise,
to the Farther Shore,
which is always beneath our feet
all the time.

Like the man on his ox,
searching for his ox.

Like the woman holding her car keys
looking for her car keys.

Like the person moving the butter out of the way
looking for the butter.

We don’t have to go anywhere
to find what we are looking for–
we only have to realize
that we are it.
Just as we are.
“The one thus come.”
“The father and I are one.”

Right here, right now.
10/12/2020 — 22-Acre Woods 02 Panorama 10-09-2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

We say what is ours to say,
do what is ours to do,
in the times and places of our living,
and are gathered to our ancestors,
and the world goes on
as it always does.

We speak truth to power
and power has the leverage
and the privilege
and does what it always does.

Nothing changes.
“The more things change,
the more they stay the same.”
The things Jesus and the Buddha said
in their time
still need to be said in our time.
What?

Here is the truth that is as true
as the truth has ever been:

The work does not depend upon the results!
We say what we have to say–
what we MUST say.
We do what we have to do–
what we MUST do.
And let that be that.
What comes of it is not our concern.
Our only concern is to be true to ourselves,
to what is ours to say and to do,
and let the outcome be the outcome.

We gauge success by the degree to which
our life incarnated/reflected/exhibited/expressed
who we are
and what is ours to say and to do.

What comes of it is just what comes of it.

Our task is to be true to ourselves
and to our work–
the work of expressing ourselves
in the life we live.
Beyond that,
it is out of our hands.

So, as Joseph Campbell said,
“Get in there and do your thing,
and don’t worry about the outcome!”
10/12/2020 — One Mushroom 10-07-2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

For those of you interested in
living out of your own center
in the service of the work that is yours to do
in the life that is yours to live,
Joseph Campbell has this to say
(From The Mythic Image, p. 178, hardback edition):

“There are three points of accord that make it possible to speak of modern depth psychologies in the same context with yoga.

First, there is the idea that the fate of the individual is a function of his psychological disposition: he brings about those calamities that appear to befall him.

Next, there is the idea that the figures of mythology and religion are not revelations from aloft, but of the psyche, projections of its fantasies: the gods and demons are within us.

And finally, there is the knowledge that an individual’s psychological disposition can be transformed through controlled attention to his dreams and to what appear to be the accidents of his fate.”

Our life is a meditation.

Asking the questions that beg to be asked
and saying the things that cry out to be said
enable the reflections
that lead to new realizations
and “create doors where we
did not think there would be doors,”
and opportunities for life
in what we took for a barren wasteland.
10/12/2020 — Lower Falls, Yellowstone River 06/17/2001 — Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Always the first response,
regardless of what happens:

“Well, now. What can we do with this?”

Everything about our life is given to us
so that we might play with it
and see what we can make of it–
of what we can become thanks to it.

Everything is a vehicle for our own becoming.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is worth nothing.
Nothing is for nothing.
Everything is going to impact us in some way.
Is going to make some sort of difference in our life,
in our way with life.

Our place is to oversee the impact,
to moderate the effect,
for the good–
using it to shape ourselves in ways
that enable us to better be who we are,
clarifying us,
if only to ourselves,
defining us,
refining us,
bringing us out,
bringing us forth,
showing us,
and others,
who we are.

Our life sets us up for the things that come our way.
We bring it on ourselves
as a gift from ourselves to us
to round us out,
complete us,
grow us up.

It is all a gauntlet, of sorts,
an initiation process,
an induction into the way of things,
a test of our mettle,
of our spirit,
to show us what we are made of,
and build our confidence in ourselves
and in our ability to deal appropriately
and successfully
with anything that comes our way.

Our role is to take meet what meets us
as though we welcome the challenge,
and are looking forward ourselves
to seeing what we will come up with next,
how we will handle this,
of all things,
and what it has to teach us about ourselves.

Practice the line until you can say it like you mean it:

“Well, now. What can we do with this?”
10/13/2020 — Sumac 10/09/2020 02 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Everything turns–for better or for worse–
on our being right
about what we call good.

How good is the good we call good
is always the question.

Our idea of the good
can be anything but good.

It is up to us to know what’s what
with the good we call good.

How do we evaluate our values?

What guides our boat
on its path through the sea?

Can it be trusted to know True North
from Due South?

How do we have our alignment checked?

What’s a valid plumb line in the arena of the Good?

Whose word do we take?

What makes us think they know
what they are talking about?

What is the source of our certainty?

How often is it calibrated?

Against what standard of accuracy is it measured?

Who does the measuring?

How good is the good we call good?

Who says so?

If you are going to assume something,
or take it for granted,
don’t let it be the goodness
of your idea of the good!
10/13/2020 — Summer Fern

We gather ourselves
and step into the day.

What do we mean by that?
What do we intend?
What’s the point?
What are we going to do with this day?

Each day is an addition
to our body of work.
What do we mean by that?
Intend?
What is the point of our body of work?
Who are we showing ourselves to be
in our collection of days?
What theme are we developing?
What is the nature of our life?
Who are we becoming?
Who have we become?

I look at the various segments
that make up my day
as mirrors reflecting me to me.
I see myself in the ways I respond
to what meets me in a day,
and evaluate my responses
in light of my Ideal Me–
the Me I wish I were–
the Me I live to be.

Each day is a practice run
toward the Me I would like to be,
one situation at a time.
It goes better
when I take my time,
embrace the silence,
remember my breathing
and know what I know.

When I step back,
and allow Me to lead the way,
surprising me with spontaneous
responses to the developing situation–
which is quite different from knee-jerk reactions–
things develop a flow
that I am proud to be a part of
even as I marvel at how this remark
or that action
could come from me.

Where did that come from?
is always a joy to find myself asking,
and I think I keep living
just to see what I will do next!

Coming to trust myself
to know what to do
has been the blessing
and the grace
of life through the years,
and I face the future
with the confidence gleaned
from having faced the future
into the fourth quarter
of my seventy-fifth year.
10/13/2020 — Last of Spring Watercolor Rendering– Above Tremont, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee

Martin Palmer said that the Tao
is simply getting things done in the right way–
the right way of going about doing something.
Anything.
Everything.

The only thing standing between us
and doing things the right way
is us.

Before we do anything,
we only have to stop and remember
to do it the right way,
the way it is to be done,
the way it needs to be done.

And do it that way.

This is not hard.

We only have to get ourselves out of the way.

Why wouldn’t we do that?
10/14/2020 — Sourwood 5-6 Panorama 10/09/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

You don’t have to want to do what needs to be done
the way it needs to be done.

You don’t have to feel like it.

You don’t have to be in the mood for it.

You don’t have to care about it.

Your heart doesn’t have to be in it.

You can explain/defend/justify/excuse
not doing what needs to be done
the way it needs to be done
in 10,000 ways.

You just have to do it.

Everything depends upon it,
flows from it.

You create the future in every moment anyway.
You may as well create the kind of future
that will be the way the future needs to be–
by doing what needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done
here and now,
moment-by-moment
for as long as you have to live.

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

And it is the only thing that matters.
10/14/2020 — No Photo

Here is the introduction to my WordPress site “The Church of What’s Happening Now,” because, why not?

Flip Wilson had a comedy routine built around “The Reverend Leroy and The Church of What’s Happening Now.” The name of his church captures perfectly the essence, scope and calling of every church since the invention of churches–to exist beyond theology and doctrine, dogma and creed, catechisms and systems of belief as the servant people of what’s happening now.

Jesus said “The Spirit is like the wind that blows where it will,” which implies that not even the Spirit of God knows what it is going to do next–and the people of that Spirit have no business codifying and systematizing commandments, rules and organizing principles governing the manner in which they are to go about their way of life and being in the world.

Jesus responded spontaneously to each situation as it arose. The woman taken in adultery, the question from the lawyer about “Who is my neighbor,” the crowd asking for a sign… Jesus did not had out tracts or ask people to memorize the books of the Bible in order, or give them catechisms, or tomes of doctrine to study and re-study.

Jesus said, “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?” and called each person to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” He expected people to be open to the moment of their living, and to do there what was called for with the gifts of their original nature as their tools to work with in the day-to-day events of their life.

Jesus, and the Buddha, and everyone who has known since the beginning of knowing have understood the essential nature of the importance of doing what needs to be done, the way it needs to be done, when it needs to be done–and doing it with sincerity and spontaneity–and letting that be that.

Which is, of course, called “living in accord with the Tao.” And it is never more difficult, or more important, than that.

The Church of What’s Happening Now is the only church there is, and the church all churches need to be. This page is a collection of supporting posts for becoming that kind of church in the daily happenings of our own life throughout the time left for living.

I am glad you have found your way this far. You can trust yourself to find your way all the way the rest of the way. You are all you got. You are all you need. And the ideal community consists of individuals just like you who are finding their way alone together.

Welcome to The Church of What’s Happening Now!
10/14/2020 — Moonset at Clingman’s Dome — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cherokee, North Carolina

Wanting is of the devil.

All of the plights known to human beings throughout time
have wanting at their core.

Wanting is the bane of human existence.

We can want what we have no business having–
and do.
All the time.
And this is what we get from it, for it
(Looking around, palms up).

We think wanting is our infallible guide
to happiness everlasting.
We think if we only could have what we want
everything would be perfection and delight without end.
We cast about,
moaning and wailing,
lose ourselves in addictions
and other forms of idiocy,
because we cannot have what we want,
or do not know what we want,
but this isn’t it,
and we are stuck with doing what we want
whether we want to or not.

And all we have ever wanted is happiness
at the end of Smooth And Easy Street.

Here’s the truth for you:
Happiness isn’t smooth
and happiness isn’t easy
and happiness isn’t all it is cracked up to be.

The sure path to happiness
is doing what needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
whether we want to or not,
whether we are in the mood for it or not,
whether we feel like it or not,
whether it is raining or not,
whether anything comes of it or not,
whether we gain anything by it,
or get anything out of it,
or not,
for no other reason than
because it needs to be done
right here and right now
and it needs us to do it.

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

The Tao is the right way of doing something.
Anything.
Everything.

Everything we do,
or fail to do,
creates the future.
We are creating some future in every moment.
Moment-by-moment we create the future
by the way we live in,
respond to,
the moment,
right here,
right now.

That being the case,
why not create the future that needs to be
by doing what needs to be done
right here,
right now?
Moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
all our life long
by simply doing what needs to be done
the way it needs to be done,
when it needs to be done?

That is all it ever takes.

Spontaneous sincerity
responds to the moment
the way the moment needs
to be responded to,
for no reason beyond
giving what is needed
to the time and place of our living.

Without seeking to gain from it
in any way,
the gain from it is immeasurable.

World wide.

You don’t have to believe it.
Just do it.
The cumulative effect of doing so
will validate the value of doing so
in undeniable,
irrefutable ways over time.

Everyone who knows anything
knows it is so.
10/14/2020 — Sourwood 10/09/2020 01 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

Our place,
as conscious egos,
is to live as guardians,
protectors,
defenders,
and servants
of the Source,
the Origin,
of our life and being.

If I asked you to “Go to the Source,”
where would you go?
If I asked you to describe the location,
what would you say?
If I asked you to rank the strength of your connection
with the Source,
what would it be?

When I contemplate the Source/Origin
of my life and being,
I can’t get closer than
what I think of as a symbol
of the Psyche/the Unconscious/the Soul-Self
the Hindus call “the Atman.”

That symbol, for me,
is a subterranean ocean
that would fill an infinite number of universes.
It is “deep and wide.”
It is dark there, but I can make out a shoreline
disappearing off to my right,
and ending at a rocky outcropping
extending into the sea to my left.
I can see and hear waves gently lapping on the shore
near my feet
as I stand looking out to what would be the horizon
but for my vision being limited by the darkness
about fifty feet from where I stand.
The Source.

I go there for sustenance and courage
and instruction in the form
of things stirring into my awareness,
things to do,
things to consider.
The Source is the source of ideas and images,
the source of imagination and visions,
the source of all that is.

Hindus think of the Atman
as the essence/true self/the is-ness/am-ness
of every living thing.

“The face that was ours before we were born.”

And Joseph Campbell says, “This power,
which transcends all thought,
is the very essence of your own being.
It is Transcendent and it is Immanent,
right here, right now, everywhere!”
We incarnate “the Father”
(We and “the Father” are one!)!
We are the Avatar!

And our role, our task, is to live
“transparent to transcendence”
(Joseph Campbell)–
by living consciously in accord
with our Original Nature
without contrivance,
and with sincerity and spontaneity!
That’s divinity!
That is who we are!

And, to get there, to this point,
we have to establish, maintain,
develop, deepen
our relationship with the Atman,
the Self/Soul,
the Source,
the Origin
of our life and being.

Seek the Source.
See where you go,
and what happens there.
10/15/2020 — Sumac 10/09/2020 01 Panorama — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

The Atman (A Hindu term meaning True Self,
the essence,
the is-ness of every living thing–
and I prefer to think of it as everything–
vital or inert)
is the connective tissue of the Universe
and beyond.
The atmosphere/environment
in which we live
and move
and have our being.

It is our place to develop,
deepen,
demonstrate
our connection–
our relationship–
with the Atman
through the way
we live our life,
seeking in every moment
to be who we truly are
within the context and circumstances
of our existence.

This is no problem for rocks and trees,
lions and grey hounds,
bald eagles and hummingbirds.
Only people come with the option
of not being who they are.

Joseph Campbell talks about our situation
in terms of the masks we wear.
The Primary Mask is handed to us
by the culture/society into which we are born.
Our parents tell us who we are
and how we are to behave.

When the authorities of Jesus’ day
called him “a glutton and a wine-bibber,”
they were using a term that meant
“beyond parental control.”
Jesus wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do.
He wasn’t being who his culture expected him to be.
He was wearing his Antithetical Mask.

That is Campbell’s term for who we are really.
Our True Self,
The Atman,
shinning through.

But we have more than one option.
There is an Antisocial Mask.
A Sociopathic Mask.
A Psychopathic Mask…
All representing different ways of being in the world.
There is a different face for every occasion.

The old Taoists had the ideal:
“Show us the face that was yours
before you were born!”
“Show us your version of The Atman!”
“Who you are ‘Thus Come’!”
“Before your Ideas got a hold of you!”

That is difficult because our Ideas are many,
and in the way.
We want to be anything but who we are.
We have aspirations.
Desires.
Ambitions.
Ideas.

And there is only one way with our name on it.
It is our place to find that way and walk it,
and in so doing,
exhibit the radiance of God,
of The Atman,
living within us
to all the world.

How do you think that’s going?
10/15/2020 — Golden Rod 04 10/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

What isn’t working for you?
Where did you get off the track?
What are you seeking?
What would make things right?
How are you kidding yourself?
What would it take to stop?

There has to be a reckoning.
A coming to terms with how things are.
An owning up.
A turning.

Carl Jung said,
“There is in each of us,
another,
whom we do not know.”

He was talking about the Atman,
the Self,
“the face that was ours before we were born.”
The One Who Knows
who we are
and who we were born to be.

Taking up the work
of developing a collaborative partnership
with the one whom we do not know
would put us on course
to realize the fullness
of all that might yet be.

We have all the help we need at hand.
All it takes is asking,
to turn things around.
10/16/2020 — Mt. Rundle Sunrise 09/27/2009 — Banff National Park, Alberta

The Buddhists have a saying:
“All is One.”
But they do not think it is all the same one.
And it helps to be able to discern
the differences between things.
Salt is not sugar.
Coffee is not corn meal.
And we get along better in the world
being able to recognize
and appreciate
the distinctions
that create the tensions
that allow life to exist.

“Without contraries is no progression”
(William Blake).
We dance with contradiction
all the way down.

Speaking of dancing,
there is no better symbol
of two being one
while remaining two
than a couple dancing
in perfect sync/rhythm/harmony.

In the presence of that kind of oneness,
we forget to breathe.

The same applies to the pair,
merged to the point of being inseparable,
of complete opposites known as
transcendence and immanence.

Take anything.
A shoelace.
In the right kind of light,
with the right kind of mood,
and the right kind of perspective,
which allows the right kind of perception
(How we see produces/creates what we see),
the shoelace–
and every other thing–
becomes “transparent to transcendence”
(Joseph Campbell).

Everything is a portkey,
transporting us into the field of wonder,
awe,
amazement,
fascination,
reverence,
veneration,
worship,
adoration,
speechlessness,
and we forget to breathe.

The world is an optical illusion.
Now we see it,
now we don’t.
Now we do.
Now we don’t.

Looking at anything reveals everything.
Looking at everything conceals anything.
Twoness is oneness.
No, it’s twoness.
Is it oneness or twoness?
Yes.
It is both.
At the same time.

“So what?” you say.
So at any moment in our life,
we are a simple shift in perspective
away from seeing the wonder of being able to see–
which transforms everything
and opens us to the experience
of the transcendence of immanence,
of the immanence of transcendence,
of the ineffable,
unspeakable,
irrefutable
reality
of the Numen
at the heart of existence,
and the very essence of life,
flowing in and through all things,
transforming everything
and making all things new,
like being high on mescaline
all the time.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear to us as it is–
infinite”
(William Blake).

We have no business saying anything
until we see everything in this light,
and then there are no words
with which to say a thing.
10/16/2020 — 22-Acre Woods 10/15/2020 03 — Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

If we want to see,
we have to see that we are not seeing.
And then,
we have to see what we are not seeing.

We do that best
by sitting quietly.

Silence is the source of The Source,
and the threshold to all seeing/knowing,
doing/being.

It all begins with silence,
and proceeds from there in silence
to silence–
because “The Tao that can be said
is not the eternal Tao.”

What more can be said than
“Sit quietly”?

Just sit.
And wait to see.

See?
10/17/2020 — Thus Come 03 –From my Symbols of Transformation Collection

The Buddha is recognized and revered
as “The One Thus Come.”
The Christ belongs in that category as well.

As do all who are just who they are–
with neither pretension nor aspiration,
just so,
just this,
just thus.

Which is to say, naturally exhibiting
“the face that was theirs before they were born.”

All natural things are Thus Come.

Rocks and waves,
wind and turkeys,
gold nuggets and porcupines…

The natural world is Thus Come.
Only human beings have the capacity
to be other than they are
in striving to create a future to their liking.

All humans Thus Come
are content with the way things are,
and have no need to transform things
into their idea of how they ought to be.

They do not walk around
with an agenda in hand
and a plan for everything in their life.

In trying to arrange a particular future,
we arrange ourselves in particular ways.
Terrible Twos are so called
because children at about that age
react violently when the way things are
is not the way they want them to be.

No puppy, kitten, bear cub or penguin chick
ever cried, kicked, screamed, bit their parents
or rolled on the floor
because things weren’t going their way.

People in their eighties
can still be in their Terrible Twos.
They are Thus Come in a way
different from the Buddha and the Christ,
and are avoided by everyone in their vicinity
for being the way they are.

Being our natural self
puts us in accord with the natural world,
and we live out our lives
smoothly choreographed with the movement
of life around us.

This is to be aligned with the Tao
and at one with the times and places of our life.

It is to say “Yea!” to life as it is,
and to find ways of folding ourselves into
our circumstances
and make a way for ourselves within the confines
of “what’s happening now,”
in a “Okay, now what?” kind of way–
while those in the Terrible Twos Stage
are going,
“NO! NOT THIS–THAT!”
NO! NOT THAT–THAT OVER THERE!”
all their life long.
10/17/2020 — Goldenrod 03 10/08/2020 — Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Where is your zeal in the matter?
Any matter?
What matter holds the most zeal for you?
Enthusiasm?
Heart?
Life?
What brings you to life?
Calls you to life?
Infuses you with life?
Begin there.
Go there.
Do that.

I’m better off walking around
looking for photos,
or sitting with my computer
processing photos,
or writing,
or reading,
or cooking,
or playing at playing my djembe drum,
than most any other where
in my life.

Those are the things that ground and center me
and restore my balance and harmony.
If I am away from them for longer than I like,
I drift over into crotchety and snarly
and people start saying,
“Why don’t you go find something to photograph?”

It’s important to know where our zeal lies,
and feed it what it feasts on as often as possible.
10/17/2020 — Adventure Road 03 10/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

You can lead a horse to water,
and if on the way you stop for a while
at the salt block,
you can pretty well guarantee the horse will drink.

What’s the equivalent to a salt block
on the spiritual journey?
What can we do to prepare ourselves
for the serendipitous moment of illumination?
How can we put ourselves in the way of enlightenment?
How can we assist seeing,
hearing,
realizing?
Satori hinges on what?

It often takes nothing more “spiritual”
than a dead end.

Come to the end of your rope,
and there is the light.

Joseph Campbell liked to say,
“Where you stumble and fall,
there lies the gold.”

And we’ve all heard the axiom,
“It’s always darkest just before dawn.”

All that we try that doesn’t work
is cleaning the windows of perception.
“Not this, not this, not this…
is all important knowledge
on the way to knowing “This is IT!”

It is all preparation.
Nothing is wasted on the path to realization.
We hurry up awakening
by doing everything with our eyes as open
to what’s what as they can be.

We can only see what we see,
but we can be conscious of looking,
and ask the questions that beg to be asked
about everything in each situation as it arises–
and say everything that needs to be said,
trusting the “click” to happen
in its own time.
10/17/2020 — Sourwood 02 10/09/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Joseph Campbell,
speaking about his college days
on the tract team at Columbia,
“I lost two races that were very important to me
because I lost the still place.
The race meant so much
that I put myself out there
to win the race
instead of to run the race,
and the whole thing got thrown off.”

When we lose the still place,
we lose the rhythm,
the dance,
the balance and harmony
of ourselves in this moment in time,
where we act out of the stillness,
sincerely and spontaneously
offering what is needed
moment-by-moment,
without thought of gain or loss,
without thinking anything,
just being in the moment,
free to be who we were being called to be
by the time and place of our living.

We lose that by trying to force a win,
by pushing our agenda,
by living from a motive of profit
and the desire to win.
That is to be out of accord with the Tao,
and it all goes south like that
(Snaps fingers).

We are here simply to run the race,
to live from the still place,
and offer what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

We are here to attend the moment.
To see what’s what,
and know what is happening
and what is needed,
and how we can help with that
out of the gifts/genius/daemon/character/talents
we have to offer–
remembering Lao Tzu’s advice,
“Do your work and step back,
and let nature take its course.”

That’s all it takes,
but it takes it day in and day out.
Forever.
We are in it for the long haul.
The Hero’s Journey never ends.

Get your game face on
and don’t take it off.
10/18/2020 — The Atman 04 – From my Symbols of Transformation Collection

The Atman is a Hindu term for our essential Self,
for the essence of who we are,
for the divine being at the heart of all living things.

If we were talking,
I would want to know about your life–
about the life you are living,
and about the life that is yours to live–
about what you do for a living,
and about what you live to do.

That is the dynamic
within which we work out who we are.

Working out who we are consumes our life.
By the time we figure out the basics–
if we do–
most of the time for living has been used up.

No one tells us early on
what the deal is.
Because no one knows
what the deal is.

Pleasing God and getting to heaven
gets all the attention,
or did through my growing up years,
not that I’m not still growing up,
but I could have spent my time in better ways
with better guidance
about how to spend my time.

When I was sixteen/seventeen,
I wanted a typewriter for Christmas.
Where did that come from?
When I was eighteen/nineteen,
I had an epiphany upon seeing
a 35mm single reflex camera
sitting on a table.
What was that about?
I could have used some pointers.

Carl Jung’s autobiography is entitled,
“Memories, Dreams and Reflections,”
mine would be,
“The Tao, The Atman and The Silence.”

I lived blindfolded looking for the Piñata,
with nothing to go on.
It takes a while.
But, the Tao, the Atman and the Silence,
do not go away,
do not give up,
but hang around like gravity
doing their thing,
and here we all are.

And if we were talking,
I would ask you about your life,
about what brings you to life,
about where your fascination is found,
about where your enthusiasm comes from
and where your hunger leads you.

And we could talk long into the night.
10/18/2020 — Pelicans in Flight 11/02/2008 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

No one gets anywhere
without changing their mind
about what is important.

Changing our mind about what is important
is the essence of the Hero’s Journey,
the Spiritual Quest
and Growing Up.

And it isn’t enough to just change our mind.
We have to be right about it.
About what is important.

That is the only thing worth knowing.
And serving with our life.

No one can tell us what is important–
well, they can, but we can’t hear them
until we discover for ourselves
what they are talking about.
Their words have to “click” with something within us,
something that knows the truth
of what they are saying,
in a, “So, that’s it!” kind of way.

We have to live ourselves into
knowing what’s important
when it is pointed out to us.
And it all starts with the realization
that “This isn’t it.”
10/18/2020 — Sumac 03 10/09/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

It helps to believe in what we are doing–
in something we are doing.

Joseph Campbell believed that
“devotion to one’s own inner work
is the beam that keeps us on the path”
(Phil Cousineau).

We cannot live as tourists
looking for something to like
and finding things to not like.
We have to be living out of our own core,
and doing the things that serve
that central thing that we are,
while we also are making ends meet
however we can.

It helps if our job can be somewhat kin
to our calling,
to the things that “electrifies
and enlivens our hearts and wakes us”
(Joseph Campbell).

And we have to always be mindful
of walking on two paths at the same time,
integrating consciously
(and regularly)
the opposites,
balancing the responsibilities,
dancing with the contradictions,
and working things out.

But the main thing is to have a main thing.
Something we love with all our heart.
Something we must do with our life,
something that we build a life around,
that we coalesce around,
orbit around,
that serves us as our anchor point,
our center point,
our still point
in the turning world.

Something that we would bear
all manner of burdens to do
in serving with all that is within us.

We have to know what keeps us going,
to know that we will go through anything
to be able to do.

If we have that,
nothing can touch us.
In light of that,
we can say, “Yea!” to life just as it is,
because having found the gold,
nothing can take that from us,
and we have nothing to fear from the clashing rocks
or the heaving waves of the wine dark sea.
10/19/2020 — Adventure Road 04 10/07/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Shamanism, you could look this up,
is the world’s oldest religion
starting up between 10,000 and 5,000 BCE.
Hinduism and Taoism come in next
from about 5,000 to 2,500 BCE.

From at least 2,500 BCE
Taoism is documented as saying
“It all comes down to doing the right thing in the right way”
(or words to that effect).

We have known what it takes–
all that it takes for 4,500 years!
And this is the best we can do
(Looking around, palms up, disgusted expression).

What?
It is only about doing the right thing in the right way
in each situation as it arises!
This is not beyond any of us!

It’s like litter.
It is a problem that is completely up to us
and totally doable.

About 500 BCE,
Lao Tzu grew disenchanted
and walked off into the woods
to live out his days in the company
of the birds and animals.

It hasn’t gotten better in 2,520 years.
I don’t know why.
10/19/2020 — The Atman 03 — From my Symbols of Transformation collection

Four statements say it all:
Promote the General Welfare,
Provide the Common Defense,
Insure Domestic Tranquility,
Preserve, protect and defend…
against All Enemies Foreign and Domestic.

These are not only in the Constitution,
but are either stated or implied
in all the oaths of office
taken by people holding office
as US Government officials.

These four statements provide the foundational
Constitutional authority
for declaring every act of the US Government
from its inception
that violates any of the four
to be unconstitutional
and therefore illegal.

Making the forthcoming appointment
to the Supreme Court
unconstitutional and illegal.

Making canceling the Voting Rights Act
unconstitutional and illegal.

Making Citizens United
unconstitutional and illegal.

Etc.

Making lobbyists
unconstitutional and illegal.

Etc.

Making all of Trump’s executive orders
and all of Congress’ actions
that violate any of the four statements
unconstitutional and illegal.

Etc.

Everything the US Government does
has to meet the standards
set forth by the four statements.

Environmental protection
is guaranteed by the four statements.

Individual human rights
are guaranteed by the four statements
(And where abortion is concerned,
life begins at birth with the first breath,
and has been held to be so
since the beginning of time,
so we celebrate birth days
and not conception days).

Health care, etc
are guaranteed by the four statements.

Etc.

These four statements provide
all the grounds needed
to oppose and invalidate
all US Governmental acts
that violate any of the four.

The Atman has been recognized
from the beginning of human history
as the Essential Self,
the True Nature,
the Original Nature,
Universally across all time and space
of every living thing,
and is violated,
desecrated,
dishonored,
blasphemed
and destroyed
when any of these four statements
are so treated.

Therefore, not only the Constitution,
but also the very essence of life,
are done grave damage
by the flippant disregard
of the sacred foundation
constituting our life together
as citizens of the United States of America.

And we are called forth
to resist,
repudiate
and repel
all attacks upon us
and our holy bond
with all living things,
now and forever.
10/19/2020 — Peyto Lake In the Snow 09/20/2004 — Banff National Park, Alberta

The future is fluid,
pliable,
capable of being shaped
and molded.
We create it in every moment
by the way we respond to
what is happening
and to what is being called for.

We bring the future on ourselves
by the way we live,
by the choices we make,
in each situation as it arises.

We influence,
impact,
create the next situation,
and all those following it,
by the way we act in this situation.

The present moment is a fulcrum,
and we lever the future into place
one moment at a time.

In every moment we make choices
that form the matrix
for all the choices we will be able to make
in all future moments.

Here is the organizing idea for ordering
your response to every choice you are offered
in all of your moments yet to be:

Ask of what is before you,
“What is the life-quotient for me
and/or others in the options before me?

What is the level of vitality,
enthusiasm,
zest,
excitement,
joy and delight
in each of them?

What is their degree of radiance,
transcendence,
rapture,
elation,
exhilaration,
inspiration?”

Go with what has life for you/others.
And if it comes down to a choice
between you and others,
be clear about the sacrifice
you are being asked to make,
and choose carefully.

Sometimes it will be you that is sacrificed
for the sake of others,
and sometimes it will be others
that are sacrificed
for the sake of you.

Do not hesitate to choose in your favor!
Just be clear of the choice you are making.
Sometimes you will “die” either way,
just “die” in the service of life every time!
10/19/2020 — Sourwood 03 10/09/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Allowing our life to take its own shape
around our interests
and our involvement with things that evoke
our vitality, zeal and enthusiasm
is a track different
from going where the money is–
and we have to make a decision
at some point
about what is going t0 be the central concern
that directs our choices
and rules our life.

We can have a “cookie cutter life,”
with the shape being determined
by our social group,
or by the group we would like to be our social group,
and we do all the things
members of our group do,
going the same movies,
eating at the same restaurants,
watching the same TV shows,
living the same life.

And we can live “a life apart,”
in the sense of not minding
that we are on the outside
of all social circles,
letting our direction in life
be determined by the things we like to do
regardless of whether anyone else cares
that they exist.

What guides our boat on its path through the sea?
What kind of boat are we riding in?
Whose idea is it that this is the boat we ought to be riding in?
What gives us our sense of direction?
Our idea about what is good and what is not?
Who are we living to please?
What do we need to be happy with the life we are living?
What kind of life do we need to be living
in order to be pleased with how things are?

The idea that “this boat won’t take us there,”
gives us some sense of how our life needs to change
to get us “there”
if “there” is some place we would like to be.

Or, if we like “this boat” so much
that wherever it takes us is perfectly fine with us.

Living the life that fits our idea of how life should be,
and what needs to change to have a better fit–
the life we are living,
or idea of how life should be–
gives us something to consider
as we work to blend happiness with our life
and how we are living it.

What is important?
How do we decide?
How do we know when we are right
and when we are wrong?
10/20/2020 — Maple Leaves 09/27/2014 — Cooperstown, New York

Lao Tzu may as well have been a contemporary
of Genghis Khan,
may as well have been his neighbor,
or his brother.

Mao tse Tung was well-versed in the Tao te Ching,
and knew about the Buddha and Zen.

What does the Tao have to say
Genghis Khan and Mao tse Tung can hear?

This is Yin/Yang come to life in our lives.

The ascendance of the masculine
over the feminine
begin with the advance of the hunter/warrior
who demanded immediate results now
and came to the fore
by stomping out the compassion
and the patience of the planter/harvester
in order to force their way upon the world.

The warrior’s way of doing things
was given philosophical/theological assist
by Zarathustra in Persia
and his separation of reality
into Darkness and Light,
Right and Wrong,
Good and Evil–
and giving impetus and permission
to the warrior impulse to destroy
what they did not like
and call their actions good.

The Tao is a different way of doing things.
Jesus expressed his Taoist heart
with his “seed in the earth,”
“yeast in the dough,”
“light on a hill,”
analogies,
and his model of dying
instead of killing,
and his call to “Do it like I’m doing it!”
“No one comes to the Father but by me!”
“By doing it like I am doing it!”

But the world has a better/quicker/faster way:
“Kill the Infidel!”
(With “the Infidel” being everyone
who doesn’t do it the way the world wants it done.

When Lao Tzu,
and the Buddha
and Jesus
come up against Genghis Khan and Mao tse Tung
and the United States Calvary riding over the hill,
it is going to be over like that (Snaps fingers).

And here we are.
“Right forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.”
What’s a body to do?
What chance does the Tao have?

This is the eternal duality/dichotomy/contradiction.

The Buddha would say,
“When you meet an elephant coming toward you
along the path,
get off the path!”

Zen would say,
“The law of the fishes states:
The big fish eat the little fish
and the little fish have to hide.”

Jesus would say,
“You have heard it said,
‘An eye for an eye!
A tooth for a tooth!
But I say unto you:
Do not resist evil,
and if someone were to strike
you on your right cheek,
turn to him the other also.
And if anyone would sue you
for your coat,
give him your cloak as well.
And whoever forces you to
go a mile,
go with him two miles.”

The Dalai Lama left Tibet
when the Chinese army invaded.
And the Dalai Lama’s bodyguards
carry automatic weapons.

What we do about Genghis Khan
and Mao tse Tung
in their present manifestations
is up to us
moment-to-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day—
with the tools of imagination,
creativity,
compromise,
acquiescence,
accommodation,
adjustment,
sacrifice,
resistance,
opposition,
warfare
and surrender
at our disposal–
doing what is called for
by the situation at hand
in each situation as it arises.

We live in a Yin/Yang world,
and must bear the pain
living on the interface,
on the borderline,
between irreconcilable polarities,
carrying in our body
the agony of this eternal cross,
dying again and again
to rise from the dead again and again,
to die again,
to rise from the dead again,
to die again,
to rise again…

For as long as time shall last.

Ours is the Sisyphean task
of doing what needs to be doing
moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises,
to do it again in the next situation
all our life long.

And what redeems this pattern
of being stuck between Yin and Yang
all our life long
is the attitude we take in regard to the task,
the spirit with which we go about our business
of living out our life
in a Yin/Yang world.
10/20/2020 — Sourwood 06 10/09/2020 — 22-AcreWoods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Our perspective is all we have to work with.

The journey we keep talking about–
the Hero’s Journey,
the Spiritual Journey–
comes down to growing up,
and growing up consists of
changing our mind about what’s important
again and again and again
over the full course of our life.

Changing how we see things
makes all the difference
in enabling us to deal with things
and do what needs to be done about things.

My most powerful personal experience
in how changing the way we see things
changes things
came in Ferriday, Louisiana in 1973.

Ferriday is in Concordia Parish,
and Concordia Parish is surrounded by water,
bounded by the Tensas River,
the Red River,
the Black River
and the Mississippi River.

1973 was the year of the 100-year flood.
The Mississippi River was threatening
to top the restraining levy,
and causing the other rivers to back up
and threaten the levies holding them in place.

The Morganza Spillway is on the Mississippi River
at the southeastern edge of the Parish,
put in place to prevent the Missisippi
from diverting course into the Achafalaya River Basin.

The citizens in Concordia Parish were as one
in beseeching the US Army Corps of Engineers
to open the Morganza Spillway
allowing water from the Mississippi to flow
into the Achafalaya and reduce the pressure
on the protective levies surrounding the Parish.

The Corps of Engineers sent a spokesperson
to address the issue at a public gathering.
He said, “You are thinking of the river as a bathtub,
and if you open the drain you will empty the tub.”
Heads nodded as one throughout the crowd.
“You have to see the river as a garden hose,
and no matter how many holes you poke in the hose
below a certain point,
the hose above that point is going to remain
full of water.”

A gasp went up from the crowd.
The anger left the room.
And people began in that moment
to come to terms with the truth of their situation.

Coming to terms with the truth of our situation
is all that is ever required of us
in each situation as it arises.

Changing how we see things
to enable ourselves to see things as they are
is the sine qua non of being able
to respond to our circumstances
in ways that are called for
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

We change the way we see
by changing the metaphors we use
to describe the circumstances we face.
Changing our base metaphor
changes everything.
Instantly.
10/20/2020 — 22-Acre Woods o9 10/20/2020 — Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

We all are the same,
and we all are different.

Why can’t we take that on faith,
and live as though it is so?

We take the craziest things on faith.
“There is no such thing as global warming!”
Why take that on faith?

“COVID-19 is a hoax!”
Why take that on faith?

“If you don’t believe in Jesus
and toe the line,
you’re going to hell!”
Why take that on faith?

Why don’t we take things on faith
that believing them to be so
makes an actual, tangible, difference for good
in our life?
In our own, personal, life?

Why take things on faith
that are going to make life difficult
for other people?
Why believe some people are inherently
better than other people?
More deserving?
Less deserving?

Why not believe that we are all different,
and we are all the same?
And grant everybody the benefit of the doubt
for being different,
and treat everybody like we would want
to be treated
for being the same?
10/21/2020 — Around Bass Lake 07 10/13/2014 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

What comes packed in our DNA?
How did it get there?

I talk a lot about our Original Nature.
What is constant in everyone’s DNA,
and what is inherited from our parents,
unique to us alone among all people on earth for ever?
How did it get there?
How often do new things get there?
What is the process of transmission?

How do innate releasing mechanisms
get into our DNA?
Can new ones ever come along?
When in the history of our DNA
did they first occur?
How does “experience” become “inherited”?

Does the idea of God
predate the experience of God?
Where do ideas come from?
Can we experience anything
that is not “expected” by our DNA?
What can we not experience?
Why not?

We are born into a culture
of assumptions and expectations.
How could we ever know
that a response to our environment
is inherited via DNA
or originates in the sea of cultural
assumptions and expectations
that immerses us at birth?

It feels (to me) as though
the Tao and the Atman
are explanations/grounds of experience,
but experience could just as easily
be based on the cultural
expectations and assumptions
of Tao and Atman.

Experience is created by expectation
and explanation.
That is the foundation of superstition,
horoscopes,
black magic,
voodoo
and religion.
If we take anything on faith
it is instant and everlasting
that whatever we take on faith
becomes an irrefutable fact
like that (snaps fingers).

We are susceptible to suggestion,
and cannot separate
culturally created expectation
from personally experienced reality.

How objective can even science be?
Isn’t that the very ground of the
“hypothesis not fact” presumption
that serves as the basis of all scientific endeavor?
We have to constantly check our own observations
because we cannot trust ourselves to see what is there
and not what we expect to be there?

How do our expectations have us where we are?
How can we free ourselves from our presumptions,
assumptions
and expectations
in order to see reality
separate from our presumptions,
assumptions
and expectations?

How do we know we aren’t just making up
everything we think we know to be so?

Truth and illusion are separated by what?
“The edge of the coin”?
(Ortega y Gasset)
10/21/2020 — Sourwood 07 10/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

There are eight tools
for getting us through anything/everything,
and for getting us in the center of the sweet spot
of where we need to be
in every time and place of our living.

They are:

1) Compassion –for ourselves,
and for one another
(that would be for all others)–
and for our circumstances/situation in life.

It begins with compassion
and flows from compassion,
and depends upon compassion.

Compassion is unconditional
and equally applicable to all things
everywhere,
any time.

It is the ground of our existence.
If we do it without compassion,
it won’t be worth doing.

If you are going to practice anything,
practice compassion–
for everything
throughout your day
all day long.

2) Awareness takes everything into account,
contains everything,
considers everything,
with compassion (of course),
and without judgment,
opinion,
or expectation.

All things are just as they are,
“Thus Come,”
“right out of the box.”

Awareness receives everything
in a “This is the way things are,
and this is what can be done about it,
and that’s that”
kind of way.

Awareness is without emotional attachment
or reactivity.

Awareness is the operational attitude
of emergency room personnel,
or emergency medical technicians,
triaging a situation
and responding to it
in ways appropriate to the occasion
in each situation as it arises.

Awareness is the primary
and absolutely essential attitude
for sizing things up
and dealing with them
as they need to be dealt with,
one after another,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
all our life long.

3) Acceptance greets everything
with Rumi’s warm welcome
expressed so well in his poem, “The Guest House”
(Googleit).

Everything is exactly what we need
to grow up some more again.
And growing up some more again
is “what it’s all about.”

Growing up some more again
is the essence of the Hero’s Journey,
and the Spiritual Journey,
and every other journey there is or may ever be.

We are never Grown Up.
We are always growing up.
Evolving,
becoming,
moving,
developing,
shifting,
changing,
showing ourselves who we are
and what we are made of.

There is more to us than meets the eye–
any eye,
especially our own eye!
And our life is exquisitely designed
to provide us with the experiences necessary
to bring us forth,
expressing,
exhibiting,
incarnating
who we are
in each time and place
(here and now)
of our living.

So, greet the day,
and make it welcome!

4) Silence is the sine qua non for
balance,
harmony,
spirit,
life,
vitality,
virtue,
character,
Original Nature,
and living centered
in the sweet spot of who we are
and what is ours to do.

Everything flows from Silence!
Imagination and creativity
are grounded in Silence!
All that we as a species
have ever produced
came right out of Silence!

Meeting what meets us in Silence
is the necessary ordeal
for meeting what meets us
in the world
of ordinary, apparent, reality.

The Silence is practice
for the Noise of the 10,000 things,
for the Dust of the World.

As we learn to appreciate,
embrace,
yearn for,
enjoy,
relish Silence,
we prepare ourselves for all that waits
in the situations and circumstances
of our daily life.

Silence is the source of all that we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done
and what needs us to do it
in each situation as it arises forever.

We cannot be anything worth being
until we can be quiet.

On a regular basis
throughout the time left for living.

5) Perspective is how we see
what we look at.

How we see determines what we see
when we look at what we look at.

How we see is conditioned/controlled
by the 10,000 things.
The way we see things
is determined by where we have been
and what has happened to us
from birth to here and now.

We all are at the mercy
of the way we see things.
Programming the way things are seen
is the aim of all propaganda,
and everything that has come to us
about how to see what we look at
is a form of cultural propaganda–
stemming from the people we hang out with,
socialize with,
associate with,
that form our culture-within-the-culture.

When the way we see things changes,
the people we spend time with is likely to change.
And if we change the people we spend time with,
we are likely to change the way we see things.

All of which is a result of awareness,
particularly as it relates to #6 below.

6) Self-transparency is seeing ourselves seeing.
Seeing ourselves thinking.
Feeling.
Knowing.
Acting.
Doing.
Living.
Being…

We do not move,
psychologically,
emotionally,
spiritually,
until we see ourselves moving–
until we know what we would
go to hell for–
until we know where we stand
and what we stand for,
“Without hope,
without witness,
without reward”
(Steven Moffat, Doctor Who).

Self-transparency is not kidding ourselves,
but knowing ourselves as we are,
“just so,”
“Thus Come.”
With the kind of compassionate
awareness
and acceptance described above.

This kind of knowledge
of our essential selves,
lends itself to a budding knowledge
of our Self–
The Atman within–
and positions us to live
aligned with ourselves,
with our Self,
and in accord with the Tao.

7) Sincerity (Non-contrivance) is the basic
requirement of self-expression.
We live to be who we are–
for no reason other than being who we are.

We do not live to get anything out of it
beyond the experience of being fully alive
by being who we are in the moment of our living
in each situation as it arises.

When we meet the moment
and respond to it
by offering/doing what is called for there
as only we can,
with the gifts/daemon/genius/virtue/character/grace
that are peculiarly ours to offer,
we have done all that anyone can do,
and that is being as alive to the moment as possible.

8) Spontaneity is acting without contrivance,
without agenda,
without motive,
without plans,
or schemes,
or strategies,
or intentions,
or purposes,
or ideas,
but simply rising to every occasion
by offering what is called for,
and letting that be that.

Live in the service of these eight tools for living,
and you will be
where everyone has been searching for
from the beginning of the species,
and, maybe, before.
10/21/2020 — Sourwood Leaves 02 10/21/2020 — 22-Acre W00ds, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

There are the Who, What, When, Where, How questions
to be answered.
The Tao and the Atman team up
for the them all,
with The Atman being
the essential Self/Soul/Essence/Being
(the Who)
within all living things,
and the Tao being
the Right way (How) to do What needs doing,
and When to do it.
And Where is always here and now.

Throwing or lot in
with the Tao and the Atman,
leaves us with only having to
develop our relationship
with both
in order to follow the flow
of life from beginning to in.

The only catch is
that we have to play our part
as it needs to be played
and get out of the way
in each situation as it arises.

It means sincerely being devoted
to serving the true good of the whole,
with no contrivance
and no interest in the outcome.
We just do what is ours to do,
with nothing to gain or lose,
and it all works out just peachy
for all concerned.

We have everything we need
to do what is called for
in all conditions and circumstances
of life.

What could be wrong with this plan?
10/21/2020 — 22-Acre Woods 02 10/15/2020 — Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Happiness is a natural by-product
of doing the things that make
our little heart sing
and our little toes dance.

Having our heart in what we are doing
is all there is to it.

How hard could that be?

When is the last time your heart was in
what you were doing?

Why did you stop?

What are the blocks,
the stops,
the barriers
preventing us from living
with our heart in what we are doing?

Conduct an inquiry.
Get to the bottom of it.
Why are we not living
with our heart in what we are doing?
What would have to happen
in order to be able to live that way?

What does our heart want
that we aren’t giving it?

Why are we holding out
on our own heart?

Whose side are we on?
10/22/2020 — Lows Lake Panorama 09/29/2014 — Adirondack Park, Tupper Lake, New York

We have time on our hands.
We are bored,
looking for a good time to pass
the time with,
and this isn’t it.
That is the human condition.

Marianne Moore said,
“The cure for loneliness is solitude.”
The very idea is off-putting.
The cure for loneliness is a party!

But until we meet what meets us
in the silence,
we are a broken record
(That’s a metaphor that has
outlived its usefulness),
“going nowhere fast.”

We don’t want to hear it.
Our fingers are in our ears.
We are going “Nah, nah, nah…”

Growing up is the province
of realization and acquiescence.
It is trumped by denial
and anything that will take our mind
off our problems.

Anything that will keep us from meeting
what meets us in the silence.

And here we are.
Waiting for some shift
in our modus operandi.

Nothing can change
until something changes.
But the silence is always there.
10/22/2020 — 22-Acre Woods 04 10/15/2020 — Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

Jesus had no impact upon
the political realities of his day.
Neither did the Buddha.

Politics is the arena
of “What’s in it for me
and my people.”
Of “How can I get the most
while giving up the least?”

Jesus and the Buddha were interested
in creating and maintaining
an environment in which
individuals were enabled/allowed
to incarnate
their full potential for self-realization
and self-expression,
while assisting and encouraging–
not limiting or restricting–
their neighbors’ self-development.

Their approaches were based
upon good faith,
sincerity,
and non-contrivance–
upon people being true to themselves,
aligned with their Original Nature,
and living in accord with the Tao
within the dynamic of opposites
constantly at work in the world.

A fluid state of being
which requires negotiation and compromise
on the part of all concerned–
has no chance of being realized
in a world where power and control
are in command,
where domination rules,
and a shaky status-quo
is the best that can be hoped for.

Disciples of Jesus and the Buddha
and the servants of Tao
are left with walking two paths at the same time–
realizing what’s what
and working within the givens
that govern their lives
in living aligned with their Best Self
(The Atman within),
and enabling others to do the same
to the fullest extent possible
over the entire course of their lives.
10/22/2020 — Wintergreen 01 10/21/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

The most important thing
is to be right about what’s important,
and do it
when it needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done,
for as long as it needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
with sincerity
and spontaneity,
without contrivance,
judgment
or opinion,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day
for as long as we live.

No one could do better than that.
10/23/2020 — Along NY Highway 30 06 09/29/2014 — Tupper Lake, New York

The Tao is not good for the economy.
The Tao is as counter-cultural as it gets.
The same can be said for any spiritual practice.
The aims and activities of spiritual practice
are contrary to those of the culture–
any culture–
even the culture that is created
by the spiritual practice!
The more the spiritual practice
promotes itself,
the less self-aware,
self-transparent,
it becomes
(Which makes AA unique in the field,
with its “attraction not promotion” slogan),
and self-transparency is the sine qua non
of spirituality,
and the essence of counter-culture-ism.

Seeing what we are doing
transforms what we are doing.
The culture–any culture–is unconscious
to the core
(Commercial advertisement depends upon
its “marks” being unconscious of the truth
being concealed by the hype they are hearing,
and religions that are self-promoting,
don’t allow questions they can’t answer).

Taoism stands apart here,
with it’s,
“The Tao that can be said
is not the eternal Tao,”
“The Path that can be discerned
as a path
is not a reliable path,”
“Darkness within darkness,
the gateway to understanding.”

That kind of language is no way
to make converts!

A self-transparent spiritual practice
sets up an immediate barrier
to cultural absorption,
and distances itself automatically,
spontaneously,
from the ends and means of the culture.

The more a practice embraces and serves
those ends and means,
the less spiritual it is.

The more we live out of our own heart,
grounded upon the source of our Original Nature,
and in tune with the drift of our soul,
the more we will distance ourselves
from the cultural practices
and assumptions
at work in life around us.

There will be a natural separation,
an “in the world but not of the world”
ambiance will surround us,
without any rules or guidelines
or effort being extended
to set us apart.

The ends are not the same ends.
The means are not the same means.
The way is not the same way.
10/23/2020 — Little River at the Sinks 11/04/2006 Watercolor Rendering — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Wealth, power and privilege seem to have it all,
until we see how it interferes with
seeing what needs to happen
in each situation as it arises,
and doing it with the gifts at our disposal.

Buying it done won’t do it,
when our destiny is calling us
to step forward
and rock the baby,
or clean up after the dog.

We spit on destiny
on our way to call someone
to do it for us,
whatever the “it” is
that is ours to do.

Money is a way of skirting
our responsibilities,
enabling us to devote ourselves exclusively
to making more money.

Our destiny knows Karma’s first name,
and has her phone number.

And the distance between where we are
and understanding
what is ours to do
and doing it
is called The Hero’s Journey.
It is also called Growing Up.

We think with enough money
we won’t have to bother with it.
With growing up.
And having money is better
than being a hero.
Buy them all a round or two.
They will love you just as much.

Lost in all of this
is the life that is ours to live.
The destiny that is ours to serve.
The emptiness that is ours
to try and outlive.

The truth is that money is meaningless
except as a means
to buy the tools we need
to do what is ours to do.

We learn that lesson a bit late in the game
to do much more than regret what we missed
in our effort to make up for lost time
before we die.

If we learn it at all.
10/24/2020 — Bog River Falls 09/29/2014 Watercolor Rendering — Adirondack Park, Tupper Lake, New York

One of the primary, recurring, experiences
of humanity is that of
Betrayal – Death – Resurrection.
We are born to be betrayed,
to die,
and to be born again.

We are all one with Jesus,
and repeat his experience
throughout our life,
learning, one would hope,
as we go,
so that Resurrection
increasingly means New Life
that takes the Old Life
into account,
knows what is coming,
and is ready for it
in the way of not taking it seriously,
and building a life around it
that is replete with good humor,
wisdom,
kindness,
compassion,
and all of the values
that are called forth
to meet the reality
of the human experience.

Meeting the reality of the human experience
in ways that deepen, broaden,
lengthen, heighten, enhance
that experience,
and make it truly,
unbelievably wonderful–
wonder-filled,
marvelous,
awesome,
fascinating,
sublime,
radiant,
resplendent,
transcendent,
“an awe inspiring mystery,”
worthy of our fullest possible participation
“in the sorrows of the world,”
is the story of religion
in the best and truest sense of the word.

Religion (and it’s precursor, mythology)
help–enable us–to meet the world
on the world’s terms,
providing us with the metaphors
(“Betrayal, Death and Resurrection”)
to make sense of it
and initiate us into it,
telling us,
in the words of the Native Americans,
sending their children off
to seek their fortune,
“When you live in the service
of your vision,
the birds of the air will shit on you–
do not stop even to wipe it off!”
And,”When you leave in the service
of your vision,
you will come to what appears
to be a great chasm.
Jump!
It is not as great as it seems.”
(Both stories related by Joseph Campbell)

We all need help squaring ourselves up
with the realities of our life.
Good religion is metaphor/mythology
that has not been concrete-ized,
made literal/historical
as Christianity has done
with the Christ myth.

We are all, each one of us is, the Christ
finding our way to the self-realization
of our calling.
We are all The Anointed One
come to wake each other up
to the truth of our destiny:
Being awake to the wonder
of meeting life head-on!
To the wonder of being alive!
Being awake to the joy
of perceiving the world as a portkey
to wonder, awe, fascination
and mystery beyond words!
Dying figuratively in the process
of realization and of life,
so that by the time our dying
becomes literal,
we are ready to Jump the Chasm,
knowing it is not as great as it seems.
10/24/2020 — Trekker Loop 01 10/22/2020 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina, Adventure Road Access

What does it for me are
reading/writing
seeing/hearing
looking/listening
seeking/finding
asking/searching
exploring/imagining
feeling/thinking
knowing/doing…

I just want to know what’s what
and what needs to be done about it
and what makes me think so
and who says so
and what makes them think so
and what does being right about something mean
and how long does it take before being right
becomes wrong
and how knowing leads to doing
and how doing leads to knowing more
and knowing more leads to doing differently,
and how far have we come actually
from living in the caves
and in the jungles
thinking fire was the coolest thing?

We’re playing the game as though it matters,
and what matters is playing the game
as if it matters,
because that keeps the game going,
and that’s better than not playing the game,
because that just leads to a quick death,
or to being dead a long time before we die,
and the game is fun when played knowing
we are playing the game of playing the game
as though it matters
because it matters that we don’t die
before our time
because it is a game we play through time,
and everybody who has ever lived,
or ever will lived,
has played/will play the game,
because the game is all there is.

Here we are.
What are we doing here?
Now what?
We all ask the same questions.
We all come up with the same answers.
Joseph Campbell said, “It’s all the same mythology!”
It’s all the same game!
“Working on mysteries without any clues”
(Bob Seger).

Everybody thinks they have the formula,
the angle,
the recipe,
the plan.
They are all playing the game,
being played by the game.
Gaming the game is being gamed by the game.
It’s a game.
How can we play it,
knowing we are playing it,
and play it really well?

“It’s not whether we win or lose,
but how we play the game”
(Grantland Rice).
We are not going anywhere,
we are not getting anything,
we are playing at playing the game
of seeing/hearing,
knowing/doing,
feeling/thinking
looking/listening…

Waking up and being here, now.
Doing what needs to be done here, now.
The way it needs to be done.
In each situation as it arises.
All our life long.

That’s all there is to it.

“Get in there and do your thing!
and don’t worry about the outcome!”
(Joseph Campbell’s summation
of the Bhagavad Gita).

Don’t even keep score.
Just play your heart out.
And when it’s done,
let it go.
10/24/2020 — Tickseed Sunflowers 10/08/2020 02 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina

We’ve been on the wrong track for so long
we will never get the light turned around
as a culture.
Only as individuals do we have a chance
of making the switch.

The switch I’m talking about
is the one Joseph Campbell preached
his entire life:
Symbols and metaphors are not facts.

Symbols and metaphors do not refer
to things Out There,
but to things In Here.

The betrayal, death and resurrection
of Jesus is symbolic/metaphorical
of our own personal experiences
with betrayal, death and resurrection.

To say, “The cup of suffering
is the cup of salvation.
The bread of affliction
is the bread of life,”
is to invite us to explore in our own life
places where suffering was the door to salvation,
where affliction was the threshold to life.

The question is always and forever,
“Where have you experienced the truth
of this symbol/metaphor
in your own life?”

That is the ground of true religion–
religion without theology/dogma/doctrine/creeds/catechisms
but with the ever-present experience
of life’s impact on us
and our path for dealing with it.

The place of true religion
is providing us with a perspective
for finding our way
to the life that is ours to live
and living it with joy
as full participants in “the sufferings of the world.”

Symbols and metaphors point us to ourselves!
We use symbols and metaphors as guides us,
as Campbell might say,
“To what electrifies
and enlightens your own hearts,
and wakes you up
to the work that is yours to do,
and the life that is yours to live!”

Symbols and metaphors do this for us
when we approach them as portkeys
into the Mystery from which we come
and into which we return,
ask of them,
“What can you show me about life
and how to live it?”

“Ah,” say the symbols and metaphors,
“I’m so glad you asked!”
And the light comes on.
And lights our way through the darkness
of “working on mysteries without any clues.”
(Bob Seger).

The symbols and metaphors are the clues!
10/24/2020 — Sumac 05 10/21/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

It takes active participation with–
intentional identification with–
the center and ground
of our original nature,
our life and being,
to live in accord with the Tao–
doing things in the right way,
at the right time,
in aligning ourselves with rhythms
and movement of nature’s energy
moving through and directing our lives.

Our bodies are natural extensions
of the earth,
as much as trees and streams,
oceans and whales.

We are one with the forces of nature,
and live best when we nourish and nurture
a faithful presence in the world of nature,
being with nature in a regular and recurring way.

And when there,
we are to listen,
feel,
attend,
be aware
of how our bodies react
to the allness of our experience.

We have to consciously “be here now,”
seeing what we look at,
hearing what is being “said”
around us, within us,
noticing what is happening,
and what we are “picking up on”
beyond the range of sight and sound.

Nature is pure intention
toward life and being–
toward realization,
incarnation
and expression.

Nature’s sense of what is
and what needs to be
is as true as the turn of the tides
and the orbits of the stars and planets.

Our lives are a part of that choreography,
of that orchestration,
and go so much better
when we consciously cooperate
with that which calls our name
and knows the time and place
of our presenting the gifts we carry
to the need that even now is in the making.

It only takes listening to our intuition
and paying attention to our instincts
to know that it is so.
10/25/2020 — Bog Stream Reflections 02 09/29/2014 — Adirondack Park, Tupper Lake, New York

Jesus said, “Why don’t you judge for yourselves
what is right?”
It all comes down to that.

The Tao is knowing/doing what is right–
what needs to be done–
the way it should be done
in each situation as it arises,
one situation after another,
all our life long.

Jesus was a Taoist.
He was much more a Taoist
than he was a Christian.

It is only knowing and doing what is right
time after time
throughout our life.

No theology,
no dogma,
no doctrine,
no creeds,
no catechisms–
just knowing and doing what is right.

Why don’t we judge for ourselves what is right?

I’m serious here:
Why DON’T we???
10/25/2020 — Goldenrod 01 10/22/2020 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina

The culture is a system of denial
based on entertainment,
distraction,
diversion
and addiction.

Money is the most obvious addiction.
Money isn’t For anything
but taking our mind off our problems.
What does thinking about money
keep us from thinking about?

None of the things we think about
have any kind of life about them.
They do not offer us life,
vitality,
radiance,
meaning,
purpose,
fulfillment,
completion…

They just help us feel better
about the life we are living.
The closest we get to life
is when our team wins the current game,
or we are sitting on a beach
drinking beer,
or partying with people we want to like us.

We need experiences that will open us up
to life
and the wonder of just being alive–
that will evoke in us
amazement and fascination
with the mystery of life and being,
along with a never-fading memory
of “This” being “IT!”

Being stunned into silence
with what James Joyce called
“aesthetic arrest”
is quite different from
the thrill of victory,
conquest,
accomplishment
that we generally think of
as “peak experiences.”

We put ourselves on a path to being alive
with encounters with
art,
music
and nature–
and by finding symbols and metaphors
which are meaningful to us
and can provide us with the questions
that fuel our inner search
for the source of that meaning.

Another exercise is that of
“reclaiming our projections.”
Whenever we are emotionally ensnared
by another person–
either in attraction or repulsion–
we need to stop/look/listen
to what just happened.
What attracted us about the person?
What repulsed us about the person?
List all of the characteristics
we can think of,
and examine the lists.

The attractive list contains
characteristics we admire
and need to work at bringing forth
within us.
We need to “become the other”
in the sense of living in ways
that we see the other living out.
And reflect on the list in a recurring way,
engaging in a “Meditation on Missing Virtues”
each time.

The repulsive list contains
characteristics we find to be abhorrent,
and lie concealed in us
hidden from our conscious awareness
(“We hate in others
what we hide in ourselves”).
So, we need to regularly engage in
the practice of self-examination,
becoming transparent to ourselves,
in finding evidence of our own abhorrence
in the ways we secretly feel about others,
or the resentments we harbor,
or the slights which slip out in word or deed.
This becomes a “Meditation on Hidden Defects,”
and opens us to the truth of who we also are,
providing a different path to self-awareness
and self-development.

Seeking life and living it
is on a different dimension
from denial/diversion/distraction/escape/addiction,
and “turns the light around”
by shifting out attention from things “out there”
to the things “in here,”
thereby giving us an entirely new orientation
and direction for our life.
10/25/2020 — Hickory Tree 03 10-24-2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo

There is no place to get to,
nothing to achieve,
no destination or end point
of the process.

Enlightenment is not a steady state of being.
There are no steady states of being.
Whether even death is or is not
remains to be seen.

Enlightenment is a process.
Illumination is the realization
that enlightenment is a process.
Meister Eckhart said,
“The ultimate and highest leave-taking
is leaving God for God.”

Even when we find God,
we have to leave God
for the God that transcends God!

God is not a steady state of being!
There is more to all of us
than meets the eye!
There is more to everything
than meets the eye!
“The Tao that can be realized
is not the eternal Tao!”

So, do not be trying
to “get there!”
Just strive to be here, now!
There is never anywhere to be
that is not here, now!
So, just be here, now!

See what needs to happen.
Maybe nothing.
So, do nothing.
Just be here, now!

Sooner or later,
something will come along
that needs to happen,
so do it,
being at one with the doing of it,
continuing to be here, now,
in the doing.

Just be here, now
like this forever!
That is all there is to it!
Waking up to here, now
is the only accomplishment.

Just be here, now
all the way to the end of the line.
(The line never ends!)
10/26/2020 — Lake Crandall 13 10/22/2020 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina

There is no right way to do it
as long as it brings you to life.
But.
There is a catch.
Coming to life means dying
to all that is not life.
Death, then life.
Adam and Eve would have had to die
either way.

Better to die in the service life,
than to live forever in the Garden of Bliss,
never having a life of your own.

Adam and Even chose wisely.

What would you go to hell for?

Ah, but. Again.

Life is a cruel task master!
Planting where it does not cultivate,
and reaping what it does not sow.
Demanding what it has no right to at all.

Ask an artist.
Or a dancer.
Or a musician.
Or a sculptor.
Or a poet.
Or a writer.
Ask them what their life cost them.

Ask Jesus.
Or the Buddha.

And who among the lot wouldn’t say,
“Of course, I would jump to do it all again!”?

It’s about the price we are willing to pay
to be who we are.
To live the life that is ours to live.
That is the question at the heart of
“What would you go to hell for?”

Those who hold back,
who refuse to step forward
to die in the service of their life,
do not live at all.

And here we are.
What about us?
What say we?
10/26/2020 — Hickory Tree 02 10/24/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, 10/24/2020

I find myself seeking
sincerity,
symmetry,
balance,
and harmony.

Every photograph I make
is a composition of these four elements,
an arrangement of what is most important to me,
a reminder of what I cannot get enough of,
a call to do what needs to be done.

I see it as a reflection
of where I come from,
of what was missing from the start.

I live–
and hunch that we all do–
to compensate for the deficits
at work in our life.

We live to be what we seek!
To bring it forth in our life.
To incarnate,
express,
exhibit,
what matters most to us.

I serve–however well,
however poorly–
sincerity,
symmetry,
balance
and harmony.

My photos are a reminder
of what I am to be about.
10/26/2020 — Bodhi 03 — From my Symbols of Transformation Collection

We can start anywhere,
in that there is no beginning
and no end.
We start where we are,
and allow one thing to lead to another,
on the ongoing journey called
“The circumambulation of the Self.”

Also called “The Hero’s Journey,”
and “The Spiritual Journey,”
and “Growing Up.”

Where I am at this moment, this now,
is with Symbols and Metaphors.
So, I will start there.
James Joyce said, “Any object properly regarded
can be the gateway to the gods!”
Symbols and metaphors are everywhere we look,
waiting for eyes that see beyond the fact
of what they are looking at
to all that is evoked in and revealed to
those who look deeper.

Joseph Campbell said,
“Someone once said to me, ‘Just think of a thing
as a Thou instead of an It,
and then our experience changes.'”

Campbell follows that with,
“Look at things not as them being the things
they are in themselves,
but as manifestations of a mystery.
The idea of a mystery is what it is all about.
And that mystery of all things is your mystery.”

Symbols and metaphors carry us into the mystery.
Do not look at the world as a huge collection of
assorted and miscellaneous facts,
but as an incredible gallery of symbols and metaphors,
through which we are transported
into the eternal dimension of mystery and wonder.

Sit with anything and see
what it has to show you
about everything.

It takes time, of course,
and requires attention.
Transformation is like that.
It doesn’t happen to people
who are in a hurry
and want to get to the point
in order to go on with their life,
as though life can happen
in some way other
than through symbols and metaphors.
10/26/2020 — Lake Francis 02 10/22/2020 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina

Too many of us do not have time
to be quiet,
to sit quietly,
listening,
looking,
waiting for something,
they know not what.

All of the important things
occur to us in the silence.
On the toilet.
In the shower.
The bathroom is the most
meditative friendly room
we are ever in.

Take advantage of that.
When you go in the bathroom,
and shut the door,
attend the silence!
BE quiet!
Present with the moment.
At one with the moment.
Listening to the things
that occur to you.
To the things that come to mind.

Instead of thinking about them,
just notice them,
and tuck them into your awareness,
and keep listening,
watching,
silently going about your business,
with your mind on your mind.

Introduction: An Old Preacher’s Manifesto

This is a blog post of my revised Kindle book available at Amazon.com for $2.99–and you can read it here for free. I used WordPress to revise the book, and am posting it here for people who don’t have a Kindle and don’t want to bother with a Kindle App for their PC or Mac or Tablet, or who just like things that come with no strings attached.

Manifesto is a companion volume to A Handbook for the Spiritual Journey, which is listed in the menu line above. All of the items there have a drop-down list of chapters, or sections, available by clicking on the respective titles. You can also keep up with additions as I post them by clicking on the “follow” button below.

Having done it for 40.5 years (In the Presbyterian Church USA), I developed an idea of how it ought to be done–the church as we need it to be. That idea includes what needs to go and what needs to come, and how we need to approach the idea of a community gathered–to do what?

Worship? Not!

Worship is not something a person can do when prompted–any more than you can prompt hiccups, or dreams.

And worship is not something a community can do without being high on some hallucinatory substance–and even then their worship experience would be individual and not corporate. Corporate worship is in name only.

Corporate worship has become the foundation of “church” because “church” has no foundation, and has lost its way, and tries to justify its existence any way it can.

The church exists quite apart from the experience of the Numinous Reality–the Ineffable heart of spirituality that is the ground of worshipful experience–and comes together to talk about the Numen that others experienced from 4,000 to 2,000 years ago, but no experience of the Numen more recent than 2,000 years (2,020 years now, and counting) is allowed.

We talk about “worship,” but we discourage, even prohibit, experiences with Numinous Reality. It is absurd, but that doesn’t stop us from doing what we do.

What do we need a church to help us do? What do we need ordained clergy to help us do? What can we do with church and clergy that we cannot do on our own?

The justification of church and clergy is to say that they “mediate the grace and presence of Almighty God,” and without them, we would be hard pressed to find our way into that grace and presence.

Well.

Historically and traditionally, “the grace and presence of Almighty God,” or, of Numinous Reality, has always been mediated by the experience of mystery, wonder and beauty in Art (including poetry and literature), Music, and Nature–with no hierarchy, or ecclesiastical structure, or organization to assist or direct. And without it being ordered and arraigned to happen at 11 O’clock each Sunday of the calendar year!

Left to our own devices, we are quite capable of being open to an encounter with the divine–every night, for example, in our dreams.

But the church would never support, much less encourage, such talk–and would see it, correctly, as a threat to its position of “mediator of the grace and presence of Almighty God,” apart from which, the church would have a problem justifying its continued existence at all.

Which is not the problem the church thinks it is.

The church is solidly positioned to exist into the far distant future as the mediator of, and guide to, a foundational experience with the ineffable, numinous, reality that is the spiritual ground of our heart and soul, mind, body and being.

The church just has to learn a new way of talking about what it does, and a new way of doing it. What is needed is a new way of thinking about the symbols that have always served as its core.

Theology is a matter of perspective. It is a way of looking at how things are, and saying what it sees. We are never more than a slight perspective shift away from seeing things as they actually are, as opposed to seeing things as we say they are (or as we wish they were and would like for them to be). That perspective shift is the difference between seeing and not seeing. As the church moves away from its theology into the field of ever-expanding perception, it opens the way for all of us to see what we look at with new eyes and open hearts–and numinous reality takes it from there.

Which is, of course, the program I am setting forth here, including what to throw away, what to rethink, what to keep, and what to receive and welcome in helping people live their life as spiritual beings in physical form.

I see this as an ever-evolving manual for new church development in the fullest possible sense of the word “new.” I present it here because it would have no hope of surviving Official Channels, and needs to be said, because it cannot be said.

This Manifesto is taking form and shape as I put it together, and it will not look at the end as it does at the beginning. Give it a chance, and do not break a tender reed or extinguish a dimly burning wick, and wait to see what comes of it–and offer your own take on things in the Comment Section of this site.

Introduction: One Minute Monologues

When I retired as an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 2011, I began writing a short, free-verse, daily exegesis of my experience of life. And here they all are! I have currently published 60 Monologues with 100 entrees per published Monologue, or 6,000 total, with more to come.

I offer these to you as springboards into your own reflections in the service of realization, insight, enlightenment and awakening, and trust that some of them will be useful, and that you will enjoy wandering among the words.

There is a drop-down menu under “One Minute Monologues” in the menu list at the top of this page, which will take you to the various listings to be found here. I am adding additional entries on a regular basis, so check back as the mood strikes you.

I am editing and updating these posts as time goes by, and the earlier ones will be more in need of than than the later ones, but if I live long enough, they all will appear as they should.

A live “up-to-the-minute” collection of daily posts can be found on my “Jim Dollar’s Photography and Philosophy” site on WordPress at: https://jimdollarsphotographyandphilosophy.com/

Thanks for visiting!

Introduction: Loose Change

This is a collection of observations and reflections that have been helpful in my own life, and I offer them to you, hoping they will be helpful to you in your life.

We have to look for what we need, without knowing what we are looking for, and being open to help from the unlikeliest of places at exactly the right time.

Good luck comes to those who are ready for it, which is not the same thing as wishing we had some good luck right now (And are lucky in the way we want to be lucky, which might not be good at all!).

Good luck with finding what you need when you need it (Whether you want it or not)!

Introduction: I Call This Poetry

This is the WordPress home of my Kindle eBook, I Call This Poetry available for $2.99 from Amazon, but here for free. I hope you find something here worth your time!

Introduction to Story Time

The nine stories in this collection originated as sermons in Amory, Mississippi. There were seventeen in all, before the congregation had enough and asked me not to do that anymore, but to return to the old comfortable way of telling them what they had already heard, and fully expected to always hear, as a confirmation of all they hoped to be so.

The fact that Jesus told stories and never said anything about doctrine, theology, creeds or catechisms did not deter them in their quest for these things. And so it was that I was led to other ways of shaking up the Just So world of my congregations in Amory and Batesville in Mississippi, and at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greensboro, North Carolina, and introducing them as I was able to a world waiting for them to live the life that they alone were capable of living, in redeeming, atoning for and transforming their world as those “thus come” to be “the way, the truth and the life” in their time and place as Jesus was in his.

My success rate in achieving that outcome was probably the same as Jesus’ was.

However that may be, here are nine stories for your consideration.

One Minute Monologues 058

August 10, 2020 — September 20, 2020

08/10/2020 — Coming to terms with how things are
is the unending task of life.

In every moment,
there is how things are now
and how we feel about how things are now.

If it didn’t matter to us how things are,
we would have no problem
with how things are.

That’s how the Buddha recommended
peace and serenity:
“Life is suffering.
Don’t let it bother you.”

Jesus advised something similar:
“Let today’s trouble
be sufficient for today.”
(“Don’t be looking for trouble
by trying to have it made tomorrow–
or in the next five minutes!”)

Here we are, now what?
One moment at a time.

Just recognizing the difference–
and the distance–
between how things are
and how we feel about it,
is a step toward reducing the burden we carry.

“This is how things are,
and this is what we can do about it,
and that’s that!
And that’s how things are!”

How we choose to feel about it
is up to us.

But, no one ever tells us
that we can choose our feelings!
We have to find out so many
of the important things
for ourselves!

It would help if there were a book,
and if we read it.

But, there is only the moment,
and we have to live it.

It helps to live it with our eyes open,
paying attention–
everything is improved through paying attention!
Awareness is the solution
to all of our problems today.

Coming to terms with how things are
is seeing things as they are,
doing what can be done about it,
and letting it be
because it is.

We can reduce our suffering
by refusing to add to it
while we seek solutions
that change the things
that can be changed.

Willing what cannot be willed
is the bane of human existence.
Being right about what can–
and cannot–
be changed,
and knowing when to take “NO!”
for an answer,
is the essence of wisdom,
peace,
sanity,
balance
and harmony.
08/10/2020 — Davidson River 10/13/2011 Panorama 01 — Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, NC — October 13, 2011

Look at everything
as a Rube Goldberg device
that your soul has put together
to wake us up.

Everything that has happened,
and is happening,
and will happen
is as it is to wake us up.
To shake us awake.
To stir us to life.

So that we might be consciously alive
in the time left for living.

It’s all about us coming to life
in the time left for living.

Our life is the Truman Show,
and the real point is Truman leaving the show,
leaving his life,
and stepping courageously into his life.

We are Truman.
Our life is waiting.
08/10/2020 — Hail Mary Full of Grace — Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Charleston, SC, April 21, 2014

The breakthrough to the other dimension,
from physical to metaphysical,
is only a slight perspective shift away
at all times,
in all places.

The visible world is everywhere
a doorway,
a threshold,
a portkey,
to the invisible world.
Anything can transport us there
at any time.

A brush by angel wings
is as easily arranged
as changing our mind
about what is important.

Always start there–
with what is important.
With what is so important,
right here, right now.

What’s so important right here right now
anchors us in this moment,
weights us down
like an albatross,
bears down upon us like a cross,
keeps us from breathing,
keeps us from living,
keeps us from being alive,
because it is so important
we cannot look away
or go on,
or change our mind about it,
and are anchored in place
by what we believe to be
hopeless,
useless,
futile,
empty,
pointless,
and absurd–
because IT IS!!!

Freefalling through the abyss,
we shift into bliss
with the blessed return
to the Source of our Original Nature
and the confidence that has grounded
our kind upon the eternal rock of the ages
through the ages
via the vehicle of the music of the spheres
across time:
“AUM!”

Anyway!
Nevertheless!
Even So!
“AUM!”

Opening the door,
walking through.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed
every thing would appear to man as it is,
Infinite.
For man has closed himself up,
till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”
— William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
08/11/2020 — Hatteras Sunrise 10/26/2003 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, October 26, 2003The word “occult” simply means “hidden,”
and is an aspect of our experience
that we label as “paranormal”
or “metaphysical,”
meaning that it lies beyond the range
of rational, logical, Aristotelian
(A is A and not Not-A) categories.

Religious and mythological symbols
bridge the worlds
so that when Jesus, for example,
talks about death and resurrection,
or dying in order to live,
or when Buddha talks about oneness
and the illusion of duality,
they are talking about the same experience,
using metaphorical language
to communicate something that cannot be said directly.

Sheldon Kopp said
“Some things can be experienced,
but not understood,
and some things can be understood,
but not explained.”
In the presence of those things,
we can use the approach of poetry and metaphor
to say indirectly what cannot be said directly,
implying “like,”
or “as if,”
or “as though,”
so it is “like/as if/as though”
we die yet live
or move from a world where duality
is the foundation of reality
and things are either/or,
and into a word where duality disappears
and things are both/and
and all are one.

Something can be true paranormally
that is false normally,
and it is a shift in perspective
that makes it so.

Walking two paths at the same time,
or living with a foot in both worlds at once,
is the task of the artists and poets,
the seers and prophets
who bridge the worlds,
and speak to us in this world of that world,
bringing the hidden things to light and to life
in this world of normal, apparent, reality.

What is true here is not so much true there,
and what is true there is not so much true here,
but to get the most out of this world,
we have to learn to live as if/as though
the other world is as real as this one is,
and bring the other world to life in this one
as fully as possible–
and that means laying aside the goals and values
of this world which lay waste to
the goals and values of that world.

Ancient people lived in this world in light of the other world.
Their sacrifices acknowledged their dependence
on the other world for balance and harmony,
but they were sacrificing the wrong things.
They killed their first born sons
and their virgin daughters
in order to live the way they wanted
and have what their hearts desired,
instead of sacrificing their wants and desires
and living in ways that honored oneness
and decreased duality.

We talk of equality and justice
and of living in ways that honor the natural world,
and we live in ways that destroy the natural world
and make a mockery of equity and justice.
And the other world is not to be mocked, or tricked, or fooled.

We are living in ways that work against the things
that enable us to live together,
enjoying one another
and all that life affords–
and our life is anything but joyful and abundant.
Because we try to create abundance
through buying, spending, amassing and consuming
instead of sharing and restraining our insatiable appetites.
And the other world is not to be mocked, or tricked, or fooled.

Balance and harmony,
spirit, energy and vitality
are the products of oneness,
not duality.
All of the old manuscripts say so.
They knew what they were talking about
in the old days.
No one was listening.
And here we are.
08/11/2020 — Cape Lookout 05/23/2009 01 Watercolor Rendering — Cape Lookout State Park, Tillamook, Oregon May 23, 2009

We are here to live our best life possible under the circumstances,
understanding that our circumstances are necessary
to bring us forth in utilizing all of the gifts/genius/daemon/spirit/virtues/character
that we bring with us from the womb,
because we are fundamentally lazy and lethargic,
and will opt for the course of least resistence
in all matters great and small,
and have to be challenged to bring forth our best
in all the times and places of our living.
So we are here to do what we can with our circumstances.
That is just the way it is.

Every time we want to quit
because it’s just not fair,
and besides that it’s hopeless,
pointless,
futile
and absurd,
we have to remember that we are born for this,
and cannot refuse to be–and go on being–
who we are
and do what is ours to do
just because it’s hard and we don’t feel like it,
or aren’t in the mood for it,
and are tired of it
and want to lie back and rest until we die.

And then, get up and do what needs to be done.
The way it needs to be done.
When it needs to be done.
For as long as it needs to be done.
Because it is our place to do it,
and if we don’t do it,
it won’t be done,
and we will have failed in our mission,
and everything depends on us doing our part.

(Whether it does or not doesn’t matter–
we have to live as if it does
and that it all goes to hell if we don’t,
in order to get up and go meet the day every day,
and it is important to those who depend on us
that we live like it matters that we live
because it matters to them!
And, besides, bringing our best to bear
on our circumstances gets our best out there,
and who knows what will happen
in response to that?)
08/11/2020 — Katahdin Panorama 10/29/2009 — Mt. Katahdin range, Sandy Spring Pond, Baxter State Park, Millinocket, Maine, October 29, 2009

We don’t have to be right about the meaning of life.
We only have to know what is meaningful to us about our life–
and live in ways which serve it
to the best of our ability.
And we have to be right
about it being to the best of our ability.

Doing our best in the service of what means the most to us
will put us on the path to what is truly meaningful.
Meaning has a way of leading us to meaning.
Meaning grows us up,
transforms us,
brings us to life.

Start anywhere with what is most meaningful to you,
and you will wind up somewhere else.
Actually, you won’t “wind up” anywhere.
You will always be “on the way” in the service
of what is most meaningful to you at the time,
and, over time that changes in the most amazing ways.

At one time, fishing was the most meaningful thing I could think of.
But, as the old alchemists would say,
“One book opens another,”
and fishing led to nature photography,
and nature photography led to experiences
with ineffable wonder,
and that led me to explorations into mythology
and religion,
and philosophy,
and meaning,
and now I am awash in things to explore.
All because I liked to fish.

We start somewhere,
with something,
and take off,
not knowing what we are doing,
or where we are going,
or where it will lead,
or what will be next.

It is an adventure that unfolds before us
as we start walking.

It is called “Being alive to the life we are living.”
If you can find something better than that,
do it!
08/12/2020 — Day’s End 10/27/2008 — Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, October 27, 2008

Facts are not always what they appear to be.
Seeing things changes things.
What was good in our grandparents’ day
may not be good at all today.
Truth itself is on the block.
What truth means changes with the clock.

Ortega y Gasset might say,
“True and false meet at the edge of the coin.”
Everything is relative to something else.
How we see things depends
on how we look at them.

Maybe yes, maybe no.
Time will tell.

In the mean time,
we have to go with
the time that is at hand,
even though the times are a’changin’
as we speak.

But, here and now are the operative concerns,
and what the situation calls for
here and now
may never be the same e’er again.

Here and now, we make our best guess
about what matters most,
and what needs to be done about it,
and do it.
And let that be that,
as we step into the next here and now
and repeat the process forever.

I wish I could do it all over again,
some days.
Other days I think I couldn’t make it
much better with 10,000 tries.
Because improving this,
worsens that,
and better is just a ratio
between good and bad.
And it takes time to tell.

And some people never learn
to tell time.
And no two people are going to
always agree about what’s what,
much less which is better
and which is worse.

People are funny that way.

Only you can make up your mind,
and only you can change it.
Even though no one changes their mind
by trying to.
If you don’t think so,
just try it.
But how we see things changes all the time.
And what determines that?
There is more to everything
than meets the eye,
and the hidden stuff
is just a perspective shift away.

We all are our grandparents,
saying, “This is good and that is not!”
And time will tell.
And more time will tell something else.

Time is funny that way.
08/13/2020 — Lotus Light —

Nothing is wrong with us
that growing up some more again
wouldn’t help.

Growing up some more again
is the solution to all of our problems today.
And every day.

Too few people world-wide
ever get beyond the third stage
of spiritual development
(As devised by the Yogis, Hindus, Buddhists of lore,
and which can be found a few days back here).
And it’s a problem because no one
can grow someone else up some more again,
or at all.
Jesus couldn’t do it,
and they killed him for trying.
They always kill you in one way or another for trying.

Growing up is our responsibility.
It is really all we have to do.
If we are committed to growing up some more again
for as long as it takes,
we have everything it takes
for our life-experience (and our life)
to be as good as it can be.

Our life is never as good as we would like for it to be,
and thus, the need to grow up some more again.
But we insist that our life be what we want it to be NOW!
And it will never be what we want it to be ever.
We have to grow up some more again about it.
Which we refuse to do.

And here we are.

The only “solution” (And it solves nothing,
just makes things as livable as they can be)
is for those of us who can
to grow up some more again as we are able
throughout our life
and let that be that.

Salvation is an individual accomplishment.

Nobody can save the world.

Nobody can “make disciples of all nations”
(And Jesus of all people would have known that,
so those words were put in his mouth
by those who felt they needed leverage
for what they were doing–which is how
the entire Bible got to be as it is,
but that is for another time).

Each of us is on our own.
Our life is our responsibility.
And growing up some more again
is all we have to do.
Everything will fall into place around that.

It is another term for the spiritual journey,
the Hero’s Journey,
the spiritual Quest.
And it waits for us to take it up.
Every day.
For the rest of our life.
08/13/2020 — Rockport Harbor 10/15/2009 02 —

The Hero’s Journey and the heroic task
await us all.

But we are always confusing metaphor with reality,
and think, “Oh, but there are no more dragons to slay!”

There were never any dragons to slay.

All that heroes ever did
through all the ages
was simply what needed to be done.
Simply what the situation called for.

Every moment has its dragon
and is desperate for its hero
to rise to the occasion
and do what needs to be done about it.

That’s where you and I come in.

To act as liege servants
with filial loyalty
in doing what needs us to do it
“Without hope,
without witness,
without reward”
(Steven Moffat).

Moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day,
all our life long.

Not what we have in mind.
We are here for bigger things
than mopping the kitchen floor
and taking out the garbage!

Come the words of Jesus:
“Those who are faithful in small things
are faithful in much.”
Those who can be counted on
with the mopping and the garbage
can be counted on.
Period.

Heroes are those who can be counted on period.

Come the words of Jesus again:
“The harvest is plentiful
but the laborers are few.”
We miss the metaphor again
and think that Jesus is talking about
saying what Jesus has done to everybody everywhere.
Jesus is talking about doing what needs to be done
in every situation everywhere.

Every situation cries out for something!
“The harvest is plentiful!”
And people everywhere
are saying, “Not me, not me.”

No one wants to do what is asked of them.
Everyone is looking for a dragon to slay
in order to make the headlines
and reap the rewards
and be accorded Hero Of The Realm!

Superheroes have better things to do
than mop the kitchen floor
and take out the garbage.

The things superheroes spit on
need real heroes to do them.
Somebody?
Anybody?
08/14/2020 — Stonington, Maine 10/12/2009 02–

What do you call a White Supremacist
who frequents tanning beds
and applies artificial tan
with lotions and creams?

Kidding ourselves is what we do best.
Self-deception in all its myriad forms
has characterized humanity
from the beginning.
We are always fooling ourselves,
looking in the mirror,
never seeing who is looking back.

If you are a member of an organization–
or a group–
larger than three people,
you are a danger to the rest of us.

There are Republicans who are convinced
that Democrats eat children–
literally, actually, in real time.

Witch hunts were conducted by conspiracy theorists.
Nazis and fascists were/are conspiracy theorists.
Qanon never met a conspiracy theory it didn’t like.
Everything is so much better with someone else to blame
for things being the way they are.

And hatred is at the bottom of it all.

“It is people like you
who make people like me
hate people like you!”

Try making peace with people like that.
With people who just want you dead.
After inflicting misery and suffering on you
forever.

What’s the fix?
How do people get to be
the way they are?
What is going on?
“Why can’t we just get along?”
How is hatred masking itself
in the things you believe?

If you aren’t self-aware enough
to see what you look at
when you look at you,
you are a danger to the rest of us.

Self-transparency–
with a particular sensitivity
to denial,
deception
and delusion–
is the solution
to all of our problems today.
And every day.

The fix is found in assuming our individual responsibility
for facing,
squaring up to,
dealing with,
handling
and managing the truth–
particularly, as it pertains to us personally.
08/14/2020 — Willow 04/06/2006 —

We have to be able to bear the pain
of seeing what we look at
and knowing what we know.

Bearing the pain of life as it is
is the foundational step
toward life as it may be.

The catch is that life as it may be
may be nothing like
life as we want it to be,
as we wish it were,
at least not in our lifetime.
And we have to bear that pain
in doing the work that needs to be done
to make things better than they are
for future generations.

How many generations out
are we
from life as it needs to be?
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that we do the work
in our time and place
toward life as it needs to be
in all times and places–
without keeping score
or caring what our chances are.

Democracy,
equality,
justice,
compassion,
human rights…
are worth living and dying for
across time and place.

And we have to bear the pain
of service to ends worthy of us
in every time and place,
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so–
because everything depends on that,
and flows from that.

Living as though,
as if,
this is so
makes it so!

And we take our place
in the long line of those
who lived in the service of a good
greater than their own, personal, good,
in light of all that life may yet be
for all who are alive
throughout the time left for living.
08/14/2020 — A Time for Shadows 02/12/2009 —

We are minding our own business,
going about life as usual,
all our plans are in place,
meeting our responsibilities
and carrying out our duties
in serving our own sense of The Good
to the best of our ability,
when along comes a war,
or a pandemic slams the door on one future
and opens the door to a starkly different one,
requiring us to adapt and adjust in mid-stride.

Transitions are tough to negotiate
even when we see them coming.
When they are thrust upon us
out of nowhere
we have to get our feet back under us
with the world spinning around us
while free-falling through a debris field
of all that once was the world we lived in
thirty seconds ago,
they are a monster,
eating our old life alive
laughing at our prospects
and mocking our chances.

When everything is blown away,
we have to connect ourselves consciously
with the one constant that remains steadily in place
through all the vicissitudes of time and space.

That would be us.
Carl Jung said, “We are who we have always been,
and who we will be.”

We remain constantly and continually ourselves
through all that comes and goes throughout our life.

We have to remind ourselves of that,
and breathe slowly and deeply,
as we recover our sense of our own being,
reunite with our Original Nature,
check to make sure our shadow is where it should be,
and remind ourselves of who we are
and what we bring to this moment
and every moment flowing from this one.

Our task is the same
across all conditions and circumstances of life:
We stop,
take inventory,
assess what is happening
and what needs to be done about it,
determine what is being called for,
in each situation as it arises
and respond to it
with the gifts/daemon/spirit/virtues/character
that came with us from the womb
and accompany us wherever we go
all our life long.

Our work is the same in all times and places.
We stand up,
and step forward,
rising to the occasion
and meeting whatever faces us
as only we can
moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-after-day,
time-after-time–
letting things fall into place around that
and adjusting to new realities as they emerge,
responding on the fly
as needed all the way.

Through all that comes,
we maintain our conscious connection
with the source and center
of our Original Nature,
being who we are
when we are,
where we are,
no matter what
every step of the way–
allowing the path to open before us
as we start walking,
and trusting ourselves
to the creative mystery within
guiding us through the choices and decisions
that are ours to make
as though we know what we are doing,
when in truth,
we are only doing what seems to be
the right thing to do at the time,
and letting the outcome be the outcome–
which will be just another situation
where we stand up
and step forward to meet
and deal with as best we can.

Resting and regrouping as we are able,
and doing what can be done
about what needs to be done
all the way.

Each of us is uniquely suited
for the adventure that is ours.
It only takes believing that
and living as if it so
for it to be so
in every day that lies ahead.
08/14/2020 — The Price Lake Variations V — Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, ca, 2004 (with Grandfather Mountain)

Do not have a plan.
Do not think you know where you are going.
Do not have to know where you are going.
Do not need to know where you are going.
Do not know where you are going.

Do not think you know what you are doing.
Do not have to know what you are doing.
Do not need to know what you are doing.
Do not know what you are doing.

Do not think you ought to contrive a future.
Do not think you can contrive a future worth having.
Do not contrive a future.

Do not try to figure your best move,
or seek to serve your advantage,
or strive to gain the advantage,
or think you know what the advantage is.

See what you look at.
Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
Say the things that cry out to be said.
Listen to what you hear
beyond what is said
to what is implied,
to what is meant.

Know what is called for
in each situation as it arises.
Respond with what you have to offer
out of your gifts/daemon/spirit/virtues/character
and let things fall out around that.

Let sincerity,
balance
and harmony
be your traveling companions.

Consult your creative center and source
of your Original Nature,
and allow them to lead you in acting
to incarnate your nature
in all of the times and places of your living,
in each here and now of your existence,
in doing what needs you to do it
within the circumstances that unfold before you.

Receive your life each day
as an adventure waiting for you to live it.

Dance with your contradictions
and bear consciously the pain that is your to bear,
always open to the joy and wonder of being alive.

And your life will teach you
all you need to know.
08/15/2020 — Crescent Beach 05/24/2009 10, Eola State Park, Canon Beach, Oregon

Forrest Gump is the metaphor for our time.
If you were going to advise Forrest Gump,
what would you tell him?
Sit with that.
Ponder it.
Meditate on it.
Play around with it.
What would you say to Forrest Gump?
What did/does Forrest Gump need to know?

Imagine that you are Forrest Gump.
What do you need to know?
What would help you the most?
If you could ask The One Who Knows
what you need to know,
what do you think he would tell you?

If you were Forrest Gump,
and I were The One Who Knows,
I would tell you,
“Forrest, be right about what you believe is so,
and live as though it is.
Live as if it were.
In every moment
of every situation as it arises,
all your life long.”

And, you being Forrest Gump,
would likely ask,
“But how do I know what is right to believe in?”
I would tell you,
“Your life will tell you what is right to believe in.
Live with your eyes open,
seeing what you look at,
looking at everything.
Your life will teach you all you need to know.”

And, you being Forrest Gump,
would likely say,
“Ah, I already knew that!”
And, I would say,
“Everybody does.
But only you are living as if it were so.”

And, you being Forrest Gump,
would likely say,
“Well then, what do I need you for?”
And, I would say,
“Everybody already has all they need
to find what they need,
to do what their life needs them to do,
but only you and I and a handful of others
know it is so,
and live as though it is.
We are all like you, Forrest.
But only a few of us know it.
And it is good for us to be together
from time to time,
and pal around.
Why don’t we find some popcorn,
or go for a run?”
08/16/2020 — Blue Ridge Pastoral 09/02/2004 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

The work is always the same
over time and place.

Wherever we are,
whenever we are,
there is the work to wake up,
be aware,
see what is happening,
do what is called for
in incarnating our Original Nature,
within the context and circumstances
of our life,
with sincerity,
balance and harmony,
energy, spirit and vitality,
in the service of justice and equality,
compassion and peace,
grace and kindness
all our life long.

The old saw goes,
“When Good stands up to be Good,
Evil stands us to be Evil.”
It is an unending cycle of life,
like the coming and going of the seasons
and the rise and fall of the tides.
It means Good cannot quit being Good
just because it is tired
and needs a vacation.
Evil doesn’t sleep.
Good has to be on its toes.
All the time.
08/16/2020 — Hammock Creek 10/23/2003 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

Our opinions are killing us.

We have opinions about everything.
If physicians allowed their opinions
to color their living
the way everybody else does,
everybody else would be better off
staying away from physicians.

Police are now partisan in New York.
If you don’t wear a MAGA hat,
don’t expect police to be much help there.
And if you wear a Black Lives Matter tee shirt,
you are soon to be in need
of a physician without opinions.

We got here by being asleep at the wheel.
By being Absent Without Leave from our life.
By not being aware of how our opinions
were carrying us away,
kidnapping us,
hijacking us,
commandeering us,
shanghaiing us
and making us captive
to their narrow point of view
and their absence of grace and kindness,
compassion and bigness of heart.

And we became snarly,
surly,
grouchy,
crotchety,
bad-tempered,
ill-natured
and unsafe to be around,
like that (snaps fingers).

All because we have opinions
about everything.
And, with us, opinions are facts.
The way we see things
is the way things ARE!!!
And everything SHOULD BE
the way we want things to be
RIGHT NOW!!!

OR ELSE!!!

You can look this up,
or trust me when I say,
opinions (ours and everyone else’s) are the cause
of all of our troubles yesterday,
today,
tomorrow
and forever.

And, if you think that is just my opinion,
well, that’s YOUR opinion.
08/16/2020 — Atlantic Moonrise 09/15/06 – Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina

Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell said two things (apiece)
that pertain to us and our work
of transforming our relationship with ourselves
and living a life in accord with who we are.

Carl Jung:
“There is within each of us another, whom we do not know.”

“We are who we have always been, and who we will be.”

Joseph Campbell:
“Where you stumble and fall, there lies the treasure.”

“What you seek lies far back in the darkest corner
of the cave you most don’t want to enter.”

These four statements constitute
the full scope of the work that is ours to do,
which is, transforming our relationship with ourselves
and living to incarnate/bring forth The Other,
who is our True Self,
The Face That Was Ours Before We Were Born,
within the context and circumstances of our life
in the world of time and space–
the here and now of our normal,
day-to-day, existence.

Your assignment is to meditate,
ruminate,
contemplate,
consider,
reflect on,
play with,
dance with,
muse on,
walkabout with,
live with…
these four statements
in your imagination,
and let them take on a life of their own,
leading you down paths you would never think
to explore,
showing you what they have to offer,
and what they have to ask of you–
just allow your thoughts to run off with you
and follow along,
not knowing where they are going…

Do this over a long period of time.
Come back again and again to these four statements
and what they have to show you
that you have yet to see.

The statements will not run out of things to say to you,
to show you,
to ask you,
to require of you.
And they will always be a doorway, a threshold, to you
through all the stages of your life.
08/09/2020 — Cove Morning 10/16/2003 Watercolor Rendering — Cade’s Cove, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Townsend, Tennessee

Transforming our relationship with ourselves
is our life-long task.
The Hero’s Journey.
The Spiritual Quest.
Our Opus.
Our Great Work.

We are seeking ourselves
along every path we take.
And, are running from ourselves
at the same time.

So comes to bear upon us
the words of Carl Jung:
“We meet our destiny
on the road we take to escape it.”

And the words of Joseph Campbell:
“We find what we seek
far back in the darkest corner
of the cave we most don’t want to enter.”

Damn if we don’t!
So why make it hard on ourselves?
Why not just cut to the chase?
And save ourselves the trouble
of getting all the way to the end of our rope?

“Okay!”
Why don’t we just stop and say,
“Okay! I know where this is going!
I understand inevitability when I
can no longer deny it!
What do you want with me?
What will it take to make you happy?”?

I can tell you The Four Things Required,
but it is up to you to put them in play,
and you are on your own from this point.

The First Thing is Sincerity.
How long has it been?
No contrivance.
No games.
No seeking your own advantage.
No looking for what’s in it for you.
No feigning interest when you couldn’t care less.
No duplicity.

Your heart has to be in it all the way.
No! Your heart has to be leading the way all the way!
If your heart isn’t in it,
you are wasting your time.

Liege Loyalty.
Filial Devotion.
Go and learn what these things are.
Require.
It is called “Sincerity.”
That’s The First Thing.

The Second Thing is like unto it: Good Faith.
No bullshit.
No chasing after something better
when something better comes along.
No quitting when things get hard.
No changing your mind.
No waffling.
No demurring.
No trying to re-negotiate The Deal.

You are owned by your Word.
You are bound by your Word.
Jesus said, “No one who puts their hand to the plow
looks back.”
Or to the left.
Or to the right.
Or up or down.
A Good Faith commitment to the task at hand
is The Second Thing.

The Third Thing is a Spirit of Play.
Playing is serious business.
Playing is getting yourself out of the way.
Playing unfolds according to its own direction.
Its own inclination.
Its own spur-of-the-moment urgency.

No one plays by the rules!
The Rules kill play!
And suddenly you are back at work.
Keeping the rules.
“All games have their rules!”
Okay, then.
The rule of this game is “No Rules!”

We play by playing,
and that means Getting Out Of The Way.
No winning.
No losing.
No keeping score.
No concern for how well we are doing.
No worrying about “Are we there yet?”
We are just lost in the game,
playing our way along the way.
That’s The Third Thing: A Spirit of Play.

The Forth Thing is The Third Thing.
The Forth Thing is not The Third Thing.
The Spirit of Play is the Third Thing.
The Forth Thing is a different Third Thing.
Play along here.

The Third Thing is a thing,
anything,
that is oblique to the Journey.
The Task.
The Quest.
The Third Thing
has nothing to do with what we are doing.

The other two things are You
and What You Are Doing
(Seeking to transform your life
by transforming your relationship
with yourself).

The Third Thing has nothing to do with that.

The Third Thing could be anything.

Oatmeal cookies.
Sit down with actual oatmeal cookies,
or with the idea of oatmeal cookies,
and see where it goes.
See what you do with oatmeal cookies.
Let oatmeal cookies take over your life.
Write an essay on oatmeal cookies.
Write a letter to oatmeal cookies.
Bake oatmeal cookies.
Experiment with the recipe.
Make the best oatmeal cookies
that have ever been made.
Play with oatmeal cookies.
See where they take you.
Watch how oatmeal cookies open doors
you never expected oatmeal cookies to open.
Doors you never knew existed.
Leading to places you would have never ever
gone on your own.
Oatmeal Cookies become your Guide.
Follow the leader.

The old alchemists had a slogan:
“One book opens another.”
Oatmeal cookies are that way.
The Third Thing carries you away like that.
To what, and what else, and where that will go,
you will discover in good time.

Oatmeal cookies don’t have to be your Third Thing.
Sit quietly and wait for your Third Thing to appear
in a compelling kind of way,
as if to say,
“Let’s play.”

Whoowhoo!
Hang on for the ride!
08/17/2020 — Day’s End 10/27/2008 02 — Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina

Joseph Campbell talks about
Carl Jung’s idea of “Active Imagination”
in Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor,
and says,” One way to activate the imagination is
to propose to it a mythic image for contemplation
and free development.
Mythic images…speak to very deep centers of the psyche…
without strict game rules defining the sort
of thoughts you must (think),
letting your own psyche
enjoy and develop (the image),
you may find yourself running into imageries,
experiences, and amplifications
that do not fit exactly into
the patterns (you expect or are comfortable with).
What are you going to do?
Are you going to let yourself go, following your own
activated imagination?
Or are you going to cut the run short
at some critical point?
…The world of life speaks within us
when we let the active imagination function.”

We can engage our Active Imagnation
with any image,
or any situation,
or any idea,
letting our psyche take over
and wander where it will.

For instance, you could imagine yourself
standing on a beach,
looking out to sea,
and just stand there,
watching,
waiting
to see what will happen,
that you don’t intentionally will into being.
Just look out to sea
and see what happens next…

At some point,
when your psyche takes over,
you may get to a thought or an image
that so shocks you,
you have to take control
and get yourself out of there now.

If you have ever frightened yourself
with some of the things that come to mind
over the course of a life,
and quickly assumed control of your thoughts
and changed the subject,
you know what Campbell is talking about.

Do we risk seeing what we have to show ourselves?
Say to ourselves?
Or will we dutifully follow the course laid out for us
by society and the culture
and the expectations and duties
that shape, form, limit and restrict
the kind of path we can allow our life to take–
to the point of not even allowing ourselves
to think thoughts that are prohibited by
and anathema to the time and place of our living?

What are we afraid of?

“That which you seek is found far back
in the darkest corner
of the cave you most don’t want to enter”
(Joseph Campbell).

What do we do?
08/18/2020 — Bass Harbor Moon 02 — Acadia National Park, Bass Harbor, Maine

Our meanings are the most personal things about us.

What something means to us
sets us apart
and makes us unique among
the rest of humankind.

Or disappears us entirely,
and renders us indistinguishable
from all the others
wearing our collective team’s colors
and cheering them on.

Where does meaning come from?
How do we know what is meaningful?
How do we decide “This is,”
and “That is not”?

Getting to the bottom of meaning
and what it does for us,
how it grounds us
and establishes us,
defines us
and gives us our place in the world,
opens us to the depths of existence,
and the doorways of realization.

What means the most to you?
Your life is formed and shaped by what?
Do you live for football?
Ice cream and apple pie?
Your children?
Daddy’s approving smile?

Make a list.
Add to it as things occur to you.
Call it your book of meaningful things.
Carry it with you through all times and places.
How long will it be by the end of the week?
How many meaningful things
do you count in a day?
What do you do that is meaningful every day?
What makes them meaningful?
What/who do they connect you with?
What/who do they protect you from?
What does your association with them
do for you?
What gives them their place in your life?
How do new things get to be added to the list?
What is the newest meaningful thing there?
What are your guides to new meaningful things?
What is your guide to meaning?
What does your collection of meaningful things
tell you about who you are?

Upon what does your life depend?
08/18/2020 — Mormon Row Barn 06/23/2001 — Grand Teton National Park, Jackson, Wyoming

There are:
our Original Nature,
the Source of our Original Nature,
and the Source of the Source.

When we connect with,
live out of
and express
our Original Nature
within the context and circumstances
of our life,
we are connecting with
and exhibiting,
the Source
and the Source of the Source.

We are one with all things.

In accord with,
aligned with,
in harmony with,
balanced by,
the rhythms
and flow
of nature and life.

What interferes with that,
prevents that,
sabotages that,
keeps it from happening?

Caring about the wrong things.
Not-caring about the right things.
Willing what cannot be willed.
Wanting what we have no business having.
Thinking the wrong things are important.

Our orientation and direction.
Having purposes at cross-purposes with our Purpose.
Living with too much noise in our life to hear.
Living opaque to ourselves.
Turning off, tuning out, shutting down.

What is the fix,
the cure,
the antidote?

Hitting the solid rock wall of reality sometimes works.
Getting to the end of our rope may do it.
Having nowhere to turn
and nowhere to go could do the trick.
Running out of answers might be the answer.
Seeing what we look at
and knowing what we know–
and what we don’t know–
is always a reliable path back to the path.

The catch is that no one can do it for us.

The return to our Original Nature
as liege servants swearing
filial loyalty and devotion forever
is up to us.
08/18/2020 — Zen Sun Poster — Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, September 03, 2010

Personality is the key to everything.
Who we are is how we respond to our life.
Is what we do in the here and now,
in the time and place of our living,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day.

And if it is not–
if what we do is not a reflection/expression/incarnation
of who we are–
if how we live is some twisted,
skewed,
distorted,
misshapen,
macabre,
perversion of who we are,
in the service of motives
and desires
that are devouring us
as we pursue them,
like some deranged Ouroboros
gorging itself on itself,
then we only have ourselves to thank
for abandoning our soul
to pursue dreams of everlasting glory.

Everlasting is our Original Nature
brought forth in response
to the circumstances of our life.

When our Original Nature is exhibited
by our personality,
we are a wheel turning out of its own center,
guiding itself by its own inner sense of direction
to ends worthy of its allegiance
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day.

Personality leads us all along the way.
Reveals us.
Unfolds us.
Expands us.
Develops us.
Brings us forth.
Establishes us.
Makes us known as the Real Human Being we are.

Our relationship with our personality
is our primary relationship,
enabling us to be who we are
in ways appropriate to the occasion,
and birthing us anew
again and again,
all along the way.
08/19/2020 — Peyto Lake in the Snow 09/20/2004 — Banff National Park, Alberta

The people who don’t care
about the impact of their actions
are a threat and a danger
to the people who do care
about the things the people who don’t care
don’t care about.

It takes caring about things working
for things to work.

But, there is a catch.

Just as we can care too little,
we also can care too much.

Caring is a tricky act
of balance and harmony.
Thin is the line
and fine is the balance
among not enough,
just right
and too much.

If we are going to care,
we have to care enough
to get it right.

That means monitoring the moment,
moment-by-moment.
Seeing the nature of our impact
on what’s happening
and what needs to happen,
and adjusting our influence
to moderate/adjust the effect
we are having
on the time and place
of our living.

We have to know what we are doing
and what that is doing,
and what we need to do about that.

We have to pay attention,
we have to be aware,
we have to be alert,
we have to know what’s what
and what has to be done
in response to it,
moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day.

And we learn as we go.

The way we live
will teach us how we need to live
throughout our life.

Throw away the rules and the recipes,
and simply see what you look at,
and know what you know,
and let that be your guide
as to how to respond to what is happening
over time.

It’s like learning to ice skate,
roller skate,
walk
and ride a bike.

We don’t find “the sweet spot”
and rigidly remain in place.
We wobble a lot.
Now we have it,
oops, now we don’t,
ah, now we do…
Controlled wobbles,
all our life long.

But.
We have to care enough
to care at all.
08/19/2020 — Zen Sun 02

Original Nature leads the way.

Relying on our Original Nature to guide us
is simply falling back on who we are
in meeting the requirements of each here and now–
after Carl Jung’s quote:
“We are who we always have been,
and who we will be.”

That is all we need to do
all we need to be,
wherever and whenever we are–
with this caveat:
“In ways fitting to the occasion.”

We cannot impose ourselves
on our circumstances.
We are here to honor Yin/Yang,
to bear the pain of our contradictions,
to bear the pain of the tension
of mutually exclusive opposites,
and incarnate the truth of who we are
within the hostile circumstances
of our daily life.

This is what Jesus did
and it killed him.
Whether we die literally as Jesus did,
or metaphorically as working parents do daily,
as working people do daily,
doing what it takes to pay the bills
in order to do what we pay the bills
to do.

It is a contrary that pushes us to the limit,
and William Blake reminds us,
“Without contrary is no progression.”
Dancing with our contraries
all along the way of life,
is the way of life,
and the way to life.

We live to be who we are
within the time and place of our living,
working to make where we are
more like it ought to be than it is,
becoming ourselves
more like we are than we are yet–
taking our place in the long line of our ancestors
who rose to the occasion every day of their life,
and made things better by the way they lived,
and were a grace and a blessing
upon all who came their way.
08/19/2020 — Spring Streams, Watercolor Rendering — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbriar District

Musing on our Original Nature,
our Virtues,
and our Character
opens up pathways of reflection
that lead to new realizations.

What are the things that make us us,
that separate us from the crowd,
that stand us apart
and identify us as distinct
from every other person–
that are to our psyche
as our fingerprints are to our soma?

Would you recognize yourself
if you heard someone else
describing you?

Would you say,
“Hey! That’s me you are talking about!”?

Do you know you well enough
to see you through someone else’s eyes?

How do you enhance,
deepen,
broaden,
expand,
your relationship with your psyche-side?

How do you come to recognize
the qualities you possess?

If you were to deliberately
act like yourself,
what would you do?
If you were going to over-emphasize
those things that are characteristically you
(The way you would
if you were doing your best John Wayne imitation),
what would you do?

What qualities,
characteristics,
virtues
are you particularly proud of?
How do you bring them into play
in your life?

Musing on our Original Nature,
our Virtues,
and our Character
opens up pathways of reflection
that lead to new realizations.
08/20/2020 — Mattamuskeet Moon 01 — Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, North Carolina

There is only one thing
standing between you
and having it made,
as much as anyone can have it made,
living in a world where life eats life,
and what we want prevents us from having
something else we want,
and our inner conflicts and contradictions
make it impossible for us to have our way
and enjoy our life.

The one thing missing is this:
You have to be able to bear the pain
of living in a world where life eats life,
and what we want prevents us from having
something else we want,
and our inner conflicts and contradictions
make it impossible for us to have our way
and enjoy our life.

You have to be able to bear the pain
of seeing what you look at
and knowing what is called for
in each situation as it arises
and having what it takes
to do what is needed
without worrying about
what it means for you personally
and letting the outcome be
whatever it is
and trusting everything to fall
into place around that,
and trusting yourself
to have what you need
to find what you need
to do what needs to be done
in the next situation that arises
all your life long.

If you can do that,
you have it made.
as much as you can have it made…
as long as you can bear the pain
of being alive.

If you can do that,
the rest is a snap.
08/20/2020 — Evening Light, Pastel Rendering — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Clingman’s Dome, Cherokee, North Carolina

The energy to be engaged
comes from tending our relationship
with the Source of Rapture,
Ecstasy,
Euphoria
Awe,
Wonder…
that characterize the impact beauty has on us
in art,
music
and nature–
though it also can arise from particular encounters
with The Tao of Grace and Synchronicity.

Whether there is such a thing as the Source of those experiences,
I do not know.
But I do know that if we live as if there is,
it makes all the difference in our life.

All people everywhere have experienced
these things
from the beginning of people,
and they have all seen what they have experienced
as issuing from God, or The Gods,
by whatever name they have called
“That Which Has Always Been Thought Of As God.”

“God” comes entangled,
enshrouded,
bound up in,
theology
and doctrine,
creeds,
dogmas,
beliefs
and assumptions
that go far afield from the Source of Awe and Wonder.

The Source of Awe and Wonder
is all we can say about the Source of Awe and Wonder.

Awe and Wonder happen to everybody everywhere.
No one has to believe any particular thing
or behave any particular way.
We all just go about our life
and are Whammed out of Nowhere by Awe and Wonder.

Positing that as evidence of a Source,
puts us in position to develop our relationship with said Source
by meditating on the experience of Awe and Wonder,
and tracking it to all of the occasions resulting in Awe and Wonder.

One of those occasions is simply ourselves,
and the fact that we could be moved by such experiences
as those which move us.
And the more we explore ourselves,
the more we are open to being moved
by the experience of being moved.

At some point,
we track onto our Original Nature–
“The Face That Was Ours Before We Were Born.”
Who is responsible for that?
How do we come to be who we are?
What an Awe and Wonder that is!

And all of this tracks back to the supposed Source of it all.
However, if we choose to stop here, fine.
We can recognize the Knower Within as The End of the Line.
If we track back to the Source,
the Source will also be recognized to be the Knower Within,
and we will be recognized to be One With The Knower AND with The Source.

So how do you want to count to ten?
By ones?
By fives?
By halves?
We can get to ten in ten thousand ways.
Well, a lot of ways anyway.

Same with the Source.

And improving our relationship with the Source
is a matter of realizing all of the things that bless us
with the Grace of Awe and Wonder–
and putting ourselves on the path to be so graced
on a regular and recurring basis.

Simple! As! That!
08/21/2020 — First Light on Pyramid Mountain — Patricia Lake, Jasper National Park, Alberta

There is nothing wrong with us
that changing our mind about what’s important
won’t correct.

But.
There is a catch.
We have to change our mind about what’s important
until we are right about it.

Being right about what’s important
is the solution to all of our problems today.
And tomorrow.
Forever.

Why is it so hard to be right about what’s important?
I was hoping someone would ask that question!
Simple.
It is because we want what we want
and not what we ought to want.
Hint:
What we want is not important.
I knew you were not going to like that.

Being right about what’s important
is not pain free.
But.
It is the right kind of pain.
It is the kind of pain that pain is all about.

Carl Jung said,
“Neurosis is always a substitute
for legitimate suffering.”
He also said,
“There is no coming to consciousness
(Waking up)
without pain.”

We experience pain by denying or escaping pain,
and we experience pain by embracing and accepting pain.
But.
It is a different kind of pain.

We have to bear the right kind of pain–
the pain of consciously bearing our pain–
the pain of knowing and doing what’s important,
no matter what.

Our life revolves around escape from pain.
Once escaping pain is no longer our primary diretive
and motivation,
everything changes for the better,
But.
We are not pain free.
Pain is just no longer important.
It is only the price we pay for being alive,
and doing what needs to be done.

People who are alive
and not doing what needs to be done
may as well be dead,
and are dead
to all that is life-giving
and vibrantly alive.

Now.
What you know needs to be done
will probably not be what your mother/father/etc.
thinks needs to be done.
And this is where we came in:
“Being right about what’s important
is the solution to all of our problems today…”

We have to be right about what is important–
about what needs to be done–
about what needs us to do it–
and do it.
No matter what our mother/father/etc. thinks.

Joseph Campbell talked about The Primary Mask
(The one our mother/father/etc. thinks we ought to wear),
and The Antithetical Mask
(The Face That Was Ours Before We Were Born–
the mask we are built to wear,
being right about what is important and doing it).

Being right about what is important
is not pain-free,
but it is the kind of pain that frees us
from the kind of pain that is killing us.

There is the pain of death and dying,
and there is the pain of life and living.
Bearing the right kind of pain
is dying the death that leads to resurrection
and life everlasting on this side of the grave.
Refusing to bear the right kind of pain
is being sentenced to “bear” the wrong kind of pain
(By trying to escape all pain),
and that is to be dead, dead, dead on this side of the grave.

Being right about what is important and doing it is life–
regardless of the price we pay.
We get to be alive all the way to the end of the line.

The kind of life we live
determines how alive we are.
How alive we are,
determines the kind of life we live.
08/21/2020 — Blue Ridge Moon

There is how things are.
And there is how we wish things were.
And there is how things ought to be.

Our place is to be right
about how things are
and how things ought to be,
put aside how we wish things were,
and work diligently at the task
of making things more like they ought to be
than they are
throughout our life.

We work with the tools we have–
our Original Nature,
the gifts/genius/daemon/spirit/virtues/character/vitality
that came with us from the womb–
with sincerity, compassion and good faith,
without contrivance or deceit,
seeing what we look at,
asking the questions that beg to be asked,
saying the things that cry out to be said,
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

Doing that much will change the world.

Prove me wrong!
08/22/2020 — Smoky Mirror — Clingman’s Dome Parking Lot, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cherokee, North Carolina

Faith-based religion is like an AA meeting
in which everybody declares they are not an alcoholic.

“I’m Jim, and I am NOT an alcoholic!”
“My father was an alcoholic and I wouldn’t touch the stuff!”
“I’ve been a tee-totaler all my life!”
And they pay the preacher to tell them they are all drunks.
Drunk on denial.
And they deny it.

Every church is a denial factory.
Churning it out.
Passing it around.
Giving it away.

You can’t make sense of it.
It defies belief.
The best you can hope for
is to walk away,
shaking your head,
muttering to yourself.

You cannot make people see
who think they see just fine.
Who think you are the one who can’t see.
People who see in the Land of the Blind
are crucified.
Or ignored.

There is no solution.
Leave the dead to bury the dead,
and go off into the west
to live out your life among the forests
and mountains.
At one with the natural world
that is just as it is.
08/22/2020 — The Sound at Sunset 11/01/2008 — Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

Faith-as-belief is another word for denial.
Belief discounts,
dismisses,
disregards,
ignores
facts
in favor of a different perception of reality.
We believe ourselves out of one world,
into another.

Keeping faith with ourselves,
on the other hand,
enables us to live in this world
exactly as it is,
as those who are not disabled by it,
but are focused on bringing ourselves forth,
on doing-right-by-ourselves,
within the context and circumstances
of each situation as it arises.

Keeping faith grounds us
in what is deepest/truest/best about us–
our Original Nature,
The Face That Was Ours Before We Were Born,
Who We Always Have Been
And Who We Will Be–
integrated/whole/at-one-within
in the work of incarnating
our gifts/genius/daemon/spirit/virtues/character/vitality
moment-by-moment-by-moment
day-by-day
throughout our life.

So, what do we mean by “faith”?
Something we believe?
The doctrines and creeds of organized religion?
Or something we do
in living faithfully to the core and purpose
of who we are?

What do we mean by “being faithful”?
Faithful to someone else’s idea of who we are supposed to be
and what we are supposed to do?
Or faithful to our inner nature
and true to our sense of what is called for
and what we need to do in response
out of our realization of what is asked of us
in the moment of our living?

The one thing Jesus did not do,
for instance,
was to stop and ask what somebody else would do
in the moment of his living.

Faithful to our own Original Nature,
we are free to live spontaneously,
extemporaneously,
improvisationally,
here and now
in light of what is happening
and what needs to be done about it
in the this time and this place of our living.

And that is the kind of faith
that transforms the world.
08/23/2020 — Green River Canyon 05/13/2020 — Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah

When too much comes at us
too fast,
too often,
we need to go “where the wild things are,”
or at least read “The Peace of Wild Things,”
by Wendell Berry.

We need to immerse ourselves in the natural world.

We were born into that world.
We are a part of that world.
We belong to that world.
And when the artificial world
we have constructed
to take the place of that world
and keep us comfortable and safe
becomes unlivable,
we have to regain our balance and harmony
by reconnecting with the rhythms and wonder
of the natural world.

Two things we will notice
are the silence and the noise.
The silence and the noise
transport us from the artificial world and its reality
to the natural world and its reality.
Step willingly into the silence and noise
of the natural world
and wait.

You are waiting to be enveloped by the natural world.
To make the transition.
To belong.

You are waiting for the shift in perspective
that opens your eyes
and makes all things new.

If we spend our time in the natural world
can’t waiting to get back to the Real World,
we are wasting our time
and our opportunity.
We have to learn the trick of being there.
It is the trick of being wherever we are.
Being there is the best trick in the book
(And one of the best movies in my experience,
but that’s for another time).

Being there/here transports us to the place of power–
to the pivot point between past and future,
to the fulcrum,
“the still point of the turning world”
(T.S. Eliot)
where everything waits,
holding its breath,
to see where it all goes from here
with everything hanging on what we do
and how we do it.

When too much comes at us
too fast,
too often,
it is because we have lost the perspective
of The Eternal Now,
where time is suspended
and nothing is happening
because we are present
with awareness and compassion,
seeing all,
and waiting.

Meanwhile,
the tide is coming in,
or going out,
or turning around.
And will continue to do so
until it finds itself doing what it is doing then,
coming in,
going out,
our turning around,
in its own time,
in its own way,
when it suits it to do so,
when the time is right,
and things happen as they need to happen
of their own accord,
with nobody doing nothing.

That is the way of the natural world.

Nothing happens there before it time,
or after its time,
or out of time,
out of sync,
out of place.

That’s the schtick of the Real World.
08/24/2020 — Lower Antelope Canyon 05/18/2010 — Page, Arizona

Sincerity is the core value–
the essence of being human.

Sincerity is non-contrivance.
We aren’t trying to get anything by it.
We aren’t trying to get anything.
There is nothing to get,
or have,
or own,
or possess,
or want,
or desire,
or do,
or be
beyond being sincere.

If you are going to be anything,
be sincere.

If you think there is anything more than sincerity
to achieve,
acquire,
admire,
aspire to,
go back to the womb
and start over.

If you understand
the central place of sincerity
in our life,
live so that everyone understands
that you understand that.

Sincerity is the basis of humanity,
the ground of both The Individual
and The Collective.
We cannot be an “I”
until we are sincere.
We cannot be a “We”
until we are sincere.

Most of the “We’s” we are a part of
require us to leave our “I” at the door.
We have to scrap our sincerity to join the commune.
We have to say “we believe” what everybody believes.
To be sincere is to be a heretic.
To blaspheme.
To “go rogue.”

Give me a We that is sincere–
particularly about not-knowing
what it doesn’t know.
“What’s best,” for example.
“What’s right,” for another example.
“How things ought to be,” for another.

Give me a We that doesn’t say,
or imply,
“Our way or the highway!”

Give me a We that says,
“You are welcome here!
We are a place where everyone listens
everyone else to the truth
of what they are saying–
which is the truth of who they are–
where everyone is glad to be in everyone’s company,
and to be blessed by everyone’s presence,
without telling anyone who they ought to be,
or what they ought to believe/think/do.
So, come in!
You will know whether you belong here
within five minutes.”
08/24/2020 — Left Behind 09/20/2010 — Stonington, Maine

Develop an intense curiosity
about what meets you in the silence.
And how you react to it.

Everyone who has thought about it through the ages has said
there are only three things
that impact us throughout our life:
Desire
Fear
Duty.

How we live is how we live in relation
to the mixture of these three elements.
Once we come to terms with them,
it is clear sailing
with “fair winds and following seas.”

In the silence,
you have ample opportunity
to study your response to
Desire, Fear and Duty
over the course of your life
to this point.
Therein lies the key
to living differently
over what remains of your life.

You will also get all the help you need
from your nighttime dreams.
Our dreams are always coming to our aid,
and we are always saying,
“Honey, you won’t believe the stupid dream
I had last night!”

And, stepping back into our traditional ways
of dealing with Desire, Fear and Duty.
Our traditional ways of dealing with them
has us exactly where we are.
Time for review and redirection, don’t you think?

That begins with you developing an intense curiosity
about what meets you in the silence.
And how you react to it.
08/25/2020 — Fishing Shacks 09/25/2008 Watercolor Rendering– Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia

“The human predicament” is what to do
with our time.

We are born without purpose or direction.
“Food, clothing and shelter”
take care of the basics,
but so does solitary confinement for life.

“Here we are, now what?”
is the perennial question of the species.

“Sex, drugs and alcohol”
seem to be perennially favorite answers.

Anything to take our mind off the problem.
Of time–
and what to do with it.

Here’s an all-weather,
ever-present,
option for you:
Take it to the silence.

Silence is the last place we would ever go.
Silence is reserved for the grave.
Until then,
all we care about is action.
Any kind of action.
Something quick to take our mind off the problem.

We don’t solve any problem
without bearing the pain of the problem.
Without bearing the pain.

BUT!
Pain IS the problem!
The pain of not knowing what to do with ourselves
in the time we have left to do it!

Nothing happens without bearing the pain
of nothing happening.

Sit in the silence,
bearing the pain,
and waiting.
Watching.
Listening.
Awake.
Aware.

The silence is the solution
to all of our problems today/tomorrow/ever and always.
Sit in the silence
long enough
aware enough,
and we find exactly what we need
to do what we need to do
right here,
right now.

Disclosure time:
The silence is not good for five year plans.
Long range solutions are impossible
given the chaotic nature of our circumstances,
with everything at the mercy of something else,
and nothing having any mercy on anything.

What to do with our time
depends on too much
for there to be much more
than provisional,
immediate,
answers.

The over-all purpose/direction of our life
is a function of our Original Nature
and Fundamental Attitude
toward ourselves and our circumstances–
and it depends exclusively
on our ability to face up to what is happening now,
and adjust ourselves accordingly,
in conjunction with our Nature and Attitude.

So.
We are going to spend a lot of time
in the silence
over the full course of our life.
Watching.
Listening.
Awake.
Aware.

If you cannot bear the thought of that,
sex, drugs and alcohol,
or some variation of that version
of escape, diversion, distraction and denial,
are all that is left to choose from.
08/26/2020 — Sunrise East Fork Overlook 05/30/2011 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

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

And, he said,
“We are who we always have been,
and who we will be.”

The Buddha died from eating bad pork
(How enlightened was that?).
He was betrayed by his disciple who served it.

Jesus was betrayed by all of his followers–
a trend that continues through all of time
and into the present moment.

Live with authenticity,
sincerity,
integrity,
and let the outcome be the outcome.

Do not live to serve your advantage,
corner some market,
cash in on your opportunities,
paint the town
and sit in the cat bird’s seat.

See what is happening
and do what is called for in response,
out of your own center,
with your own gifts/genius/daemon/spirit/virtues/character/grace.
Moment-by-moment.

And let that be that.
08/27/2020 — Thunderstorm at Sunset 08/11/2011 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, West Jefferson, North Carolina

As long as we are doing “this”
so “that” will happen,
“this” is contingent upon “that.”
And “that” is contingent upon 10,000 things.
None of which are in our control.

Doing “this” so “that” will happen
is called “Willing what cannot be willed.”

“Willing what cannot be willed”
is the source of all of our problems today.
Any day.
Every day.

Depression.
Anxiety.
Fear.
Addiction.
Hopelessness.
Helplessness.
The Wasteland and
The Void.

We will save ourselves a lot of pain,
suffering,
difficulty and
trouble
if
we will only
do “this” so “this” will happen.

Neverminding
what will happen next.
08/27/2020 — Great Blue Heron 08/04/2011 — Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

It would be GREAT if we felt like doing
what needs to be done!

Nothing would make the difference
that feeling like
living the life
that needs to be lived
would make in our life
and in the world.

“I don’t feel like it,” is all it takes
to make things exactly what they are.

We have to get over it.
Get over not feeling like doing what needs to be done.

If only we had the power
of Powder Milk Biscuits!

Well, we do.
It’s called “Overriding our feelings.”
We can do what we do not feel like doing.
No kidding.
It’s called,
“Faking it until we make it.”
It’s an old AA slogan.
It means doing what needs to be done
whether we feel like it or not.

Like not-going to a bar.
Not-taking a drink.
Not-buying a six pack…

What do our feelings know
about what matters most?
About what’s important?
About what hangs in the balance
in every moment
of each situation that arises?

We cannot allow our feelings
to guide our boat on its path through the sea.
To direct our actions.
To run the show.

There is more at stake in our life
than doing what we feel like doing,
and waiting to feel like it
before changing the baby’s diaper
or wash the dishes.
08/28/2020 — Road to Botany 12/01/2014 — Botany Bay National Wildlife Refuge and Preserve, Edisto Island, South Carolina

Joseph Campbell said
“Everyone gets the adventure
they are ready for.”

Which means no one can dial up their adventure.

Dialing up anything is the core problem
with human existence.
“Not This! That!”
Is the bane of humanity.

It is Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
The moral of that story is
“Humans think they can improve Paradise.”
Also rendered as,
“Humans can find something wrong with everything.”
And,
“Humans can’t be happy with anything for long.”
And,
“Dissatisfaction is the heart of being human.”
It goes on,
but you are already getting bored with it by now,
thinking
“This better pick up
or I’m out of here.”

All of which is to say that
no one is ready for the adventure
they are ready for.

Everyone scoops up the adventure they are ready for,
thinking they are on some other adventure,
the one they are ready to be ready for.
Which is the flip side of
“No one can dial up their adventure.”

Which opens the door to all manner of possibilities–
which means ANY door will do!
This is on the order of
“All roads lead to Rome,” and,
“All paths lead to the top of the mountain,” and
“We are never more than a perspective shift
from The Farther Shore.”

Ah, that perspective shift is what we are all seeking.
Thinking it is something else.
(Who would go around looking
for a perspective shift?
Yet, that is all every adventure is good for–
changing the way we are seeing.
Which is another way of saying:
Growing Us Up.
And, since we all grow up against our will,
that requires an adventure we aren’t ready
to be ready for.)

This is great.
I don’t know if you have picked up on that, but.
It’s great.
The paradox.
The contradiction.
The Yin/Yang.
The “We aren’t ready for what we are ready for.”
That’s great.
If you can’t appreciate the greatness of it,
you are exactly where you need to be, thinking,
“What am I doing here?”
And, if you can appreciate the greatness of it,
you are also exactly where you need to be:
On the adventure you are ready for,
when you didn’t know you were on an adventure at all.

The spirit of adventure
is knowing you are on an adventure,
and not-knowing anything else,
not-anticipating anything at all,
sitting on the edge of your seat,
waiting for what happens next,
knowing only that it will be exactly
the right thing needed
to take you on the next step
to wherever it is you are going–
which is only a slight perspective shift
from where you are right now.

The adventure is a journey of perspective shifts
all the way down.

Disclosure:
We are never done seeing all there is to see
the way it needs to be seen.

Which means we are never grown up,
always growing up,
against our will–
which eventually becomes merely surprising,
not shocking,
and certainly not traumatizing,
and more on the order of
amazing,
thrilling and
delightful–
all the way.
08/29/2020 — Coming In 02/08/2013 — Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

Serenity is a function of sincerity.

Sincerity lives in light of what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
and lets that be that.

No willing what cannot be willed.
No forcing anything out of time.
No pushing things past their limits,
or disregarding boundaries,
or ignoring what fits
and what does not belong.

Just knowing what is called for–
where
and when
and how–
and doing that.

And letting that be that.

Without looking for anything in return.

In a “This is the way things are,
and this is what can be done about it,
and that’s that”
kind of way.
08/29/2020 — Lotus Flowers 2018 10

Common courtesy and mutual respect
are hard to find these days.
That’s where we come in.
Exhibit it.
Extend it.
Expect it.
Be kind.
Let everything fall into place around kindness.
08/29/2020 — Spider Web 07/12/2014

Readiness is a function of time and place,
and disposition.

“When the student is ready,
the teacher appears,”
but.
When the teacher is ready,
the teacher waits.

Obi wan Kenobi and Yoda
spent most of their lives waiting.

“When the flower opens,
the bees appear,”
but.
When the bees are ready,
they send out the scouts.

Jesus cursed the fig tree
because it wasn’t ready when he was.
I know the feeling.
So do the bees.
As do the Obi wan Kenobi’s and the Yoda’s
of every generation.

But hurrying readiness is not ours to achieve.
We can send out the scouts
and open ourselves to the lessons
each moment is there to teach
those who are ready to receive
what the time and place of our living
have to offer.

The fig tree was Jesus’s teacher.
If he was ready for the lesson.
08/30/2020 — Moonrise 10/17/2013 07 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

We think everyone has to be doing it right
for anyone to be able to do it right.
That everybody has to be on the same page,
serving the same values,
working for the same ends,
or it’s all a waste of time and effort.

We waste a lot of time and effort–
our entire life–
trying to get all people to do it
like we think it ought to be done.
When not even we are doing it
like we think it ought to be done.

We get all depressed and mournful,
woebegone and undone
because They aren’t doing it right,
and we let that keep us from doing it right.

We play the
“Woe is me!
Ain’t it awful!
Everything is hopeless,
useless,
pointless,
worthless,
futile,
empty,
hollow,
senseless
and absurd!
So, so what?
Who cares?
Why try?
What good would it do?
What difference will it make?
Why go on with it?
I’m just going to lie down and die!”
game
without end.

Which lets us nicely off the hook,
and keeps us from having to do anything
we don’t feel like doing,
and who could feel like doing anything
in a world as sorry as this one is,
with no one giving a wet noodle about any of it?

We talk ourselves into doing nothing
beyond complaining about how foolish
it would be to make an effort,
given the nature of our circumstances
and the quality of our situation.

Let me explain:
It is all useless,
hopeless,
pointless,
futile and absurd–
and coming to a very bad end:
We all die!
And:
How we live in the meantime
makes all the difference!

It is all there is!
Ever has been!
Ever will be!

It matters how we live in each moment!

If you are going to believe anything
(And everyone is currently believing
“Nothing matters so why do anything?”),
believe it matters how we live in each moment–
all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding!

And pick yourself up,
dust yourself off,
and do what needs to be done
right here,
right now,
moment-by-moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day
throughout the time left for living!

Everybody does not have to be on the same page.
Everybody does not have to be doing it right
before anybody can do it right.
Do it right.
Starting right here right now.

If the dishes need washing,
wash the dishes–
the way the dishes need to be washed.
With the right attitude,
in the right frame of mind.
And so on to the next thing,
all the way to bedtime.
And do it again tomorrow.

Get your feet under you
and on the right track,
and start walking.

Don’t wait for someone else to go first.

Because how we live in the meantime
makes all the difference!
It only takes acting as if it is so
to make it so.
08/30/2020 — Eagle in Flight 11/05/2014 02 — James River, Roanoke, Virginia

A life without character development
is like a mayonnaise sandwich
without the mayonnaise or the bread.

Character development is the missing ingredient
in life as we know it.

Doctor Who lives 200,000 years with no character development.
Sounds about right.
The Honeymooners had no character development.
Alice would still be getting hers one day
if the show was still on.
Archie Bunker?
Same story.

All of our stories are the same story.

We don’t want our characters changing.
The Walton’s?
Still saying goodnight.
Nobody grows up ever in our world.

Star Wars?
How many episodes until no one is killing anyone?
Who ever grows up in Star Wars?
Yoda?
No growth whatsoever.
That’s because he’s perfect, right?
Perfect means nothing changes throughout time.
Perfect means nothing changes.

What is perfect about nothing changing?

We live to get everything right
and freeze it in place.
Or just freeze it in place.
So that one day is just like all the others.
“There will be no growing up today!”
Or ever.

But growing up isn’t something to achieve–
it is something to be doing forever!
We are never Grown Up.
We are (to be) always growing up.
But Never mind.
No one is ever growing up.

I was a Presbyterian (USA) minister for 40 years and 6 months.
I served 5 congregations.
Each one paid me to talk to them about God.
And none wanted me to tell them anything
they hadn’t already heard.
You can’t make any sense out of this.
And you can do it for 40 years and 6 months
only by refusing to take it seriously,
and telling them something new about God every week.

If anything needs changing it is theology!
Alcoholics Anonymous is the church of the future,
and the best thing it has going for it
is No Theology.
It’s steps need revision, though,
and a 13th step added:
“After Sobriety What???”
With everybody working on that individually
for the rest of their life–
growing up some more again day-by-day.
But this is for another time.

Today’s work is getting used to the idea
of tomorrow being different from today,
and doing what needs to be done today
to make it possible for tomorrow to be different–
and not just “another day.”

Character Development has to be the goal of our life!
The goal of our churches!
The goal of AA!
The goal of politics!
The goal of culture and society!

Can you imagine?
Nothing would be more counter-cultural than growing up.
Nothing would be worse for the economy.
Nothing would be less likely to happen.

Which means it is up to us to make it happen–
by refusing to make Arrested Development
the life goal we are told it should be,
and spend our life in the service of Character Development
By living to see that it happens,
determining to make it happen,
with liege loyalty and filial devotion
to the cause of growing up some more again every day–
and living the pledge into being one day at a time.
08/30/2020 — Mothball Fleet 10/12/2013 — North Carolina Maritime Museum, Southport, NC

The Christ returns again in each generation.

This is the meaning in Jesus’ declaration,
“This generation will not pass away
(Before the Christ returns).”

And this is what is wrong with theology in every form.
It locks things down.
It takes the metaphorical and the symbolic
and turns them into facts.
But they are not facts.

Ask a believer why they believe what they believe is so,
and they will say they take it on faith.
But.
They no sooner “take it on faith,”
than it becomes an absolutely rock-solid,
indisputable and actual in every way FACT
that everybody has to embrace or go to hell
(Which is also a literal FACT).

None of it is a fact.
God is not a fact.
But.
God is an experience that cannot be denied.
The experience is a fact.
Not God.
What is experienced is called “God,”
but it is only evidence of “More Than Meets The Eye.”
And more than that cannot be said.
Don’t try.
Stop talking.
Ditch theology.
Open yourself to the experience of being alive.

When you open yourself to the experience
of being alive,
you open yourself to yourself experiencing
being alive.
Being open to yourself experiencing
is to experience yourself,
perhaps for the first time.
Experiencing yourself experiencing
is the path to what has been called
“enlightenment,”
“awakening,”
“realization…”

Once we start seeing what we are looking at,
everything is transformed,
and “pickles are green.”
Wow.

Once we start seeing what we are looking at,
the way is clear for the Christ to return again
in each generation.

The Christ is the one who sees.
The one who is come
(Like the Buddha is “The One Thus Come”).
The one who is simply who he, who she, is.
The one who is sincerely,
authentically,
themselves.
In each moment,
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

That transforms (you could say redeems) the world.
Seeing the world transforms the world.
Start seeing what you look at
and you will see what I mean.

But this is the end of theology and doctrine,
catechisms and creeds,
because being yourself,
as “The One Thus Come,”
means being you responding to the moment
in its unfolding–
not as you are “supposed” to,
but as you are called to do by the moment.

No one can tell us what to do beforehand.
The moment calls us into being in that moment,
and the next moment may call us to be the opposite
in that moment.
Our Being is a spontaneous,
improvisational,
impromptu,
extemporaneous
exhibition/incarnation/revelation
of ourselves “thus come”
in that moment.

The freedom to live that way is complete freedom.
Which is the meaning behind Jesus’ word,
“You shall know the truth (of who you are)
and the truth shall set you free (to be who you are).”

The end of theology
is the beginning of life.
But you have to know what I mean
to understand what I’m talking about.
08/31/2020 — Ocracoke Lighthouse 10/20/2013 04 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

We have spent a lot of time over time
as a species
trying to control what happens to us.
Trying to make happen
what we want to happen,
and to keep from happening
what we don’t want to happen.

Considering that not one of us
intended to be where we are
here and now.

We are no more in control
of what happens and doesn’t happen
than we are in control
of what we will dream tonight.

“Acceptably in control most of the time”
is the best we can hope for.
But.
Acceptability is a floating point on a scale
that is, itself, dependent upon the situation.
We are more accepting
of “out-of-control-ness”
in some situations than others.

If we expanded our acceptability
across all situations equally,
we would be much more in control
of our reactions to our circumstances,
and much less controlled by
our obsessive/compulsive need
to be in control of everything.

Control is an illusion.
A delusion.
It is not what we think it is.

Pick a day in the coming week,
maybe Sunday.
Not much has to happen on a Sunday,
at a particular time,
in a particular way.
We can blow a Sunday off from time to time
and not miss anything important.
So you might try the next Sunday that comes along.

Get up and step into the day
without having to control anything.
Live entirely out of your whim-of-the-moment.
Do what you feel like doing
when you feel like doing it.
Ease into every moment wondering
“What is this moment calling for?”

Not doing anything here in order for anything to happen there,
or to not-happen there.
Live throughout the day
with no thought of doing this so that will,
or will not, happen.
Just do this so this will happen.
See how things go without being micromanaged.

Live for the entire day without contriving anything.
Not-knowing what you will do next,
or why you will do whatever you do.
Waiting to see what is called for–
like going to the l00.
What has an urgency about it
similar to the “call of the loo”?
Wait for that.
Do that.
Moment by moment.
The entire day.

It will shift your perspective of being in control,
put control in its place.
And give you more freedom to be yourself
than you have ever had
anywhere in your life.

You can trust yourself to know
when to go to the loo
and what to do once you get there.

Just so.
You can trust yourself to know
what to do when,
or when to do what,
throughout your life.

Simply wait for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.
And see what calls you to do what when.
If you dare.
And, if you don’t dare,
you might get to the bottom of that,
asking, “Who/what is in control of whom here?”
08/31/2020 — Going Home, Geese flying past the moon

Seeking the center,
returning to the source,
present in the moment,
alive to the time
that is at hand,
we are ready
to respond as needed
to the occasion as it arises
without anxiety about,
or interference from,
the 10,000 things
afoot in the world.
Like the moon in its course,
or geese in flight.
08/31/2020 — Garden Spider 08/13/2016

We find the anchor we seek
in the source of our original nature.
We are what we have to work with
in each situation as it arises,
in whatever circumstances
describe our station.

Returning to the Self
is remembering/realizing
the essence of who we are–
reaffirming our allegiance
and loyalty
to the service,
exhibition,
expression,
incarnation
of the grace,
genius,
daemon,
spirit,
character,
virtues,
and vitality
that have been ours
since before we were born,
and constitute our unique identity
among our kind.

Our identity “thus come”
(Which is what they said
about the Buddha,
“The One Thus Come”),
is who we are,
coming forth
to bless the time and place,
the here and now,
of our living,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day.

If we are living in light
of some other purpose,
in pursuit of some other goal,
we are on the wrong path,
and we need to redirect
by simply returning to the Self
and bringing our Self forth
to meet what faces us
every day.

It is not what would Jesus do,
but what would our Self do
within the occasions
and circumstances
that compose each day.

Let us commit ourselves
to living to discover
what our Self would do
with the day.

Let us live to allow our day
to bring us out
like the drum brings out the drummer.
09/01/2020 — Water Rock Knob 09/02/2014 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Maggy Valley, North Carolina

The more serious something gets,
the more absurd it becomes.

The Right To Life movement
has proven itself to be unworthy of the title
by embracing Donald Trump
and allowing him to kill as many people as he wants
as long as he makes abortion punishable by death.

“We know he is a snake, but he will make abortion illegal–
and anything else he wants to do is fine with us!”

The position is absurd,
and deadly serious.

We live on a continuum between serious and absurd,
and have to strike a balance
between being serious enough
without being too outlandishly absurd.
Life in the extremes is untenable,
no matter what the continuum connects.

“Live toward the center!”
is the wisdom wrung from the ages.
“Back to the center!”
is the lesson every generation
learns the hard way,
because extremes beget extremes,
and no one knows where the center point is
until well after it is past.

We find the center
by moving back to it,
not by realizing where it is
when we are there.

We are always looking for the center,
though we do not often realize
what we seek.

Joseph Campbell said,
“That which you seek
lies far back in the darkest corner
of the cave you most don’t want to enter.”

That would be the center he is talking about.
Particularly the center of ourselves.
The heart,
soul
and source
of our own being.

Knowing who we are
in a “This is who I am,
and this is what I stand for,
and this is what is most important to me,
and these are my gifts,
my genius,
my daemon,
my spirit,
my virtues,
my character,
my values,
my vitality,
my energy,
my life–
and who are you?” kind of way.

Knowing who we are,
and being who we are,
in relationship with others
who are knowing who they are
and being who they are,
with mutual respect and concern,
acceptance and compassion,
in recognizing and embracing
our differences
and allowing them to be
is the sine qua non of community,
and the single most essential requirement
for living together
in ways that honor everyone’s
right to be who they are
at the expense of no one else’s
right to be who they are.

Robert Frost observed,
“Good fences make good neighbors.”

Knowing where we stop
and our neighbor starts
is essential knowing.

Respecting/honoring the differences
that set us apart,
makes possible the attitude toward each other
that holds us together,
and makes life all it can be
for every one.

If the only way we can live together
is for you to do it like I do it,
or for me to do it like you do it,
we won’t be able to live together
for very long.

Honoring our right to be different
makes life possible for us all.
09/02/2020 — Goodale 11/04/2018 18 Panorama — Adams Mill Pond, Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina

We can make too much of anything.
Sincerity and authenticity, for instance.

What is called for is the question,
and “Always do it this way!”
is not always valid,
or fitting to the occasion.

“Always do what is called for!”
fits every occasion.
It is the only thing that does.

I have gay friends who are married
with children,
who feel as if they have betrayed themselves
and are being inauthentic and disingenuous,
are living a lie,
and should have come out early on
and been real from the start.

I ask them to look at the life they have lived,
and to imagine who they could have been
better partnered with,
and how the world would be better off
without their children in it,
and consider that “walking two paths at the same time”
is an eternal and everlasting
condition of life
and requirement for living,
and to shut up with their whining
until “the mud settles
and the water clears,”
and they know with unparalleled certainty
that their situation is calling for
them to come out and be real.

No one knows what will be called for.
Everyone lives with the burden of knowing
what that is in each situation as it arises
and of doing what is needed
when the time is right
and letting the outcome be the outcome.

We live moment-to-moment.
We do not know what will be called for
from one moment to the next.
Our responsibility consists of being clear
and courageous–
which is really one thing:
Clarity creates courage.

Clarity is all we ever need,
and it is rarely what we think it will be,
or ought to be.
We are likely to be shocked and surprised
at what is being asked of us.
And walking two paths at the same time
is frequently the best of our available options.

And, what that will mean,
and how we work it out in our life,
is one of the great challenges
and lasting adventures
along the way
of being alive.
09/03/2020 — Maine Moon 09/27/2012 — Deer Isle, Maine

We walk through scenes everyday
with eyes on something else.
Not looking at what is there,
not seeing what we look at.
Distracted,
allured,
captivated by,
lost in,
inseparable from,
the 10,000 things.

It has always been so for everyone.

It takes Buddha-mind–
Christ-consciousness–
to be here now.

It was realized at the time,
and through all of the ages since then,
that the Buddha was everyone
when they were awake.
It was said,
“If you meet the Buddha on the road,
kill him!”
As a reminder that we are to be the Buddha,
and not to worship the Buddha,
or think for a minute that the Buddha
is more special than,
or different in any way from,
the rest of us
and who we each are asked to be.

Jesus said, “I am in you
and you are in me!”
Which is to say,
“As I am, so you are!”
And, “Why don’t you judge
for yourselves what is right?”
Which is all Jesus did.
And, “Blessed are you
if you know what you are doing!”
Which means seeing what needs to be done
and doing it–
which is all Jesus ever did.

Being awake,
seeing what we look at,
and doing what needs to be done about it,
is all there is to it.

To make any more of it
is to miss the whole point of it,
and the importance of the relationship
we have with it,
with “it” being every moment of our life
through all times and places,
contexts and circumstances.

Seeing/doing what is right,
moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
all our life long.

We have to do something
all our life long.
Why not do what is right?
Here and now?

What is keeping that from happening?
09/03/2020 — Bamboo Impressions 03

What needs to happen here, now?
That is our only problem:
Here.
Now.

What is pressing in from outside here and now?

Make a list.
Pressure producing items
from near and far.

What am I going to do about the job,
about the relationship I’m in,
about not being in a relationship…
all the things that destroy our peace
and ransack our sanity.
You know the things I’m talking about.
The 2:00 AM things.
The entire list.

Now, find a quiet place
and sit in the silence with the list
becoming fully aware of the list.

Consider each thing one at a time.
Being fully aware of each thing
and how it is bearing down upon you
demanding answers you don’t have.
Become intently, intentionally, aware
of each thing
and tuck it away in your awareness.
You can keep it safe forever there.
Put it in your awareness for safekeeping,
and consider the next thing.
Do the same thing with it.
And with each thing remaining on your list.

Now, bring your awareness to rest
in the here and now.

What is this here and now,
right here, right now,
calling for?
What needs to happen right here right now?

Do it,
and move on to the next thing.
“Now what needs to happen?”
Do that,
and move on to the next thing.
And so on,
until it is just you and the silence.

Tell the silence
about the things in safekeeping
in your awareness,
and see what arises in the silence
to meet your discomfort.

May be an image.
A word.
A realization.
A feeling…

The silence is good for clarity.
A great place for letting the mud settle
and the water clear.
Clarity is the solution
to all of our problems ever.
And we cannot force the water to clear.
But.
We can allow it to clear,
and wait for it to clear.
And simply be with the silence,
off and on,
during the interim.

The silence is the source,
the origin,
of everything.
It is always with us.
Is always happy to see us.
Is always welcoming,
gracious,
benevolent
and kind.

Who wouldn’t want to be
in a place like that?
09/04/2020 — Rocks and Clouds — Tunnel View, Yosemite National Park, Half Dome and Yosemite Falls, April 26, 2006

We are never more than a slight perspective shift away
from the realization of the wonder and awe
of the mysterium at the heart of existence.

Joseph Campbell was fond of recommending
that we draw a frame around any scene,
or object,
or person,
and sit in its presence,
as one might contemplate
an optical illusion,
until the shift happens
and we are moved to amazement
at the astounding realization
that there is something,
and not nothing!
And we are present to know it,
honor it,
relish it,
rejoice in it,
and hold it as venerable and sacred forever!

From that moment,
we will never be able to look at anything
the way we once looked at everything.
The world will have shifted in its orbit.
Nothing will be what it was.
And we will be startlingly transformed for life.

And live as an agent of the mysterium
at the source,
origin,
foundation
of all that is
for as long as we shall live–
and perhaps beyond,
who knows?
09/04/2020 — Cone Manor 10/9/2018 02 — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

My friend, John Payne, died on August 26 from complications due to Alzheimer’s. He was 77 years old. John was a fellow Presbyterian (USA) minister, whom I met in 1984. John and I were within “coffee distance” when he was in Nettleton, Mississippi and I was in Amory, Mississippi, and again when I was in Batesville, Mississippi and he was in Nesbit, Mississippi.

John was a member of Mensa, but did not want it known, because, he said, “Then they will expect me to be smart.” He had a lot to say about “being smart.”

“Being smart gets a lot of hype, but between being smart and being lucky, take being lucky.”

“Being smart doesn’t know which person to marry, or when to take no for an answer, or what to do when you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

“Being smart doesn’t help a bit when you have to grow up some more again, and do what you don’t want to do even though it is clearly what needs to be done.”

“Being smart is not as reliable a guide to knowing what to do when as being silent and listening to the source of your own nature, and sensing what resonates with you, and following the drift of your own heart and soul.”

“We all drink from the same well when it comes to instinct and intuition, and that is a different kind of knowing than the kind that comes from being smart.”

“Being smart is no indication of our capacity for being kind–and being kind saves the world.”
The world was a better place with John Payne in it, and I am glad he will always be with me–because as Jim Hollis likes to say, “Death doesn’t end a relationship any more than divorce ends a marriage.”
09/04/2020 — Corn Field 11/12/2018 Panorama — Lancaster County, South Carolina

Dolly Parton is a current manifestation/embodiment/incarnation
of the Christ among us.
Dolly does Dolly the way Jesus would do Dolly
if we were playing charades.
And Dolly does Jesus the way only Dolly
can do Jesus–
which is what each of us is asked to do:
be Jesus, or the Buddha, or Dolly Parton
the way only we can do them.

We are asked to do them the way they would do them.
By being completely ourselves,
the way they were completely themselves.

The road opens up at this point,
branches off,
and we could go in 360 directions
(Yes, even back in the way we came,
because by now it would be new),
all of them equally interesting,
and all of the leading to the same destination:
The full realization and expression of ourselves in our life.
That is where we are all going.
There is nothing more to ask,
or want,
or seek,
or desire
than that.

Dolly’s on it.
So was Jesus.

But, back to where I’m going to go with this.
Playing.
Playing is the most important thing.
Playfulness.
Full investment in the game.
Total commitment to the game.
Complete awareness of the truth
that we are all playing the game.

Most of us (After R.D. Laing)
are playing the game of not playing a game.
We are serious.
What we do is serious.
Playing is what we do
when we take a break
from what we are doing.
To accuse us of playing
is to accuse us of playing around
and not giving our best effort,
of slacking off
and not trying.

Here, we are in need of Paul Watzlawick’s observation,
“The situation is hopeless,
but not serious.”

The more serious we are
the more immersed we are
in the game we are playing
(of not playing a game).

It is all a game.

“There is only the dance”
(T.S. Eliot).
Dance/game, same thing.

But.
Here’s the thing.
We have to play the game
with our whole heart.
We have to know what we are doing,
and do it completely,
wholly,
as if it were real!

It is as if we were actors playing the part
of ourselves in a movie about us.
We don’t win the Oscar
without being completely who we are!
Even though it is “just a movie,”
“just a game.”

And, comes to mind the Grantland Rice quote,
“It matters not that you win or lose,
but how you play the game.”
09/04/2020 — Lake Haigler Fall 11/03/2013 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina

If you are like everyone else,
you take the wrong things too seriously,
and the right things not seriously at all.

Growing up is learning to see with right seeing,
and to live accordingly.

All of our problems
that we live seeking to solve
fall into one, or more, of these categories
(Which have been identified as the source
of all ills
since the beginning of thinking people):
Fear
Desire
Duty.

We all are as we are
because we are afraid of something,
because we desire something,
because we think we ought to do something,
or be someone else.

We suffer from Inappropriate Assessment Syndrome.
It is a deficiency afflicting the entire species.
And is probably entirely responsible
for having us where we are today–
by driving us incessantly to be somewhere else.
Having something else.
Doing something else.

The Bane of Neanderthal
was being quite content to be where they were.

Without fear,
desire
or duty,
we would be completely at peace
with ourselves just as we are,
and with our circumstances just as they are.

Which would not be good for the economy.
09/05/2020 — American Crow 06/20/2018

The Christ is the Antichrist.

Growing up is dying again and again
our whole life long.

We grow up against our will every time.

The old ways of being have to die
in order that the new ways to be
may move in and set-up house.

The developmental tasks require us
to submit to the terror of death
in order to experience the wonder–
purchased with a price–
of new life without end
(Merely interrupted by the next sweeping out
and moving in).

The price is our death on the cross
(Metaphorical and eternal/everlasting)
at every transition point on the path.

“The path” is our passage way from
“The face that was ours before we were born,”
to “The face that was ours before we were born.”

We are The Christ becoming The Christ.
The Christ killing The Christ
so that we might become The Christ
by “Leaving God for God,”
(“My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?”)
and growing up some more again today
all along the way.
09/05/2020 — Bamboo Impression 01

Is it better to have things going our way
or not going our way?

Which way opens us to the way things need to go?
Which way shuts us off from the way things need to go?

There is being at one with our life,
and there is our life being at one with us.
Which way is the way of oneness?

No opinion.
No judgment.
Just this.
Now what?
Now what in light of what?
Now what in the service of what?
What are we living toward?
What are we living away from?

When our life is on track,
how is that different
from our life being off track?

I used to stalk photographs
the way a lion stalks an antelope.
I sought out photographs.
I went in search for photographs.
I got up early and stayed out late for photographs.
My life changed without warning.
With no explanation.
Now I take a photograph that happens along.
Why strive to do it like I used to do it?
I am disinclined to make the effort.
Why resist my inclinations?
Where am I better off?
Not getting up for a sunrise,
not staying out for a sunset.
Listening to my inner drift of soul.
Seeing what the situation calls for.
Adjusting to my changing ways.

I bought a drum because it was called for.
A beginner’s djembe.
I may be listening for my inner rhythms.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’m playing with playing the drum.
I don’t know why.

And I wish my point of origin
had included people who did things
without knowing why.
But.
My point of origin made it incumbent
upon me
to do things without knowing why.

Are we better off with our points of origin
as they are
than we would be with points of origin
as we wish they had been?

Here we are.
Now what?
Now what in light of what?
Now what in the service of what?
What are we living toward?
What are we living away from?

How do we decide “in light of what”?
“In the service of what”?
“Toward”?
“Away from”?

How do we know what to do?
How do we determine direction?
What is worth our time
and what is not?

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

What do you do without knowing why?
09/05/2020 — Jordan Pond 09/23/2012 — Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine

How do you bear your pain?
Everything tends to take shape around that.
Coming to terms with the pain of life,
the pain of being alive,
is one of the primary developmental tasks.
Get it wrong
and we are in a death spiral
until we get it right.

Denial,
escape,
distraction
is getting it wrong.

We have to find ways
of folding our pain into our life,
of allowing our life to be big enough
to receive it well,
make room for it
and learn from it.

Our pain calls into question
our sacred assumptions,
and requires us to come to terms with
unwanted realities that demand our attention.

Where do you turn
when you have nowhere to turn?
What holds you up?
Keeps you together?
Enables you to keep going?
Sees you through?

We have to develop a philosophy,
a point of view,
a way of seeing
that enables us to take
our pain and its source into account,
meet it head on,
square up to it
again and again,
and go right on living–
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so.

We have to tell ourselves something.
We have to tell ourselves the truth
in a way that boldly considers
how things actually are,
and enables us to deal with
what we face with courage and resolve.

What is the source of your courage and resolve?
What keeps you going?
What is the nature of your pain?
How have you managed it to this point in your life?

Pain management strategies abound!
Healing groups and communities.
12 Step organizations.
Compassionate Friends.
Chronic Pain associations.
Internet Searches…
We are not without resources.
Help is available, but.
We have to help people help us.

Putting pain in its place,
and honoring it and its place in our life–
with an appropriate degree of respect
and appreciation for what it can teach us
that will be of value for the rest of our days–
is a step on the way to healing and wholeness
in a world where pain does not sleep.
or take a day off.
09/06/2020 — Light Rays at Water Rock Knob 09/02/2014 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Maggie Valley, North Carolina

Being smart doesn’t mean you know
what’s worth going to hell for.
That knowledge is there for everyone
who has eyes to see,
ears to hear,
and a heart that knows what’s what.

Knowing what’s what is all we need to know.
And that is the first thing that goes in this culture.
This culture is grounded on
someone else being the authority
over our life.

“What would Jesus do?”

The one thing Jesus would never do
is wonder what someone else would do.
He did not pause to think,
“What would Moses do?”
“What would Elijah do?”
“What would Abraham do?”

Jesus just did what needed to be done
in the moment of its arising.

He knew if we think too much about anything,
the time for doing it is long past
before we act.

Jesus said, “Why don’t you decide for yourselves
what is right?”

That’s what Jesus would do!
Decide for himself what is right!

We have to become the authority determinng
what we do
in each situation,
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

And if we are wrong,
we learn from the error
and decide for ourselves
what to do about it.

Where do we go to commune with ourselves?
How often do we go there?
How long do we stay?
Who would be the authority over our life?
Who would tell us what to do when?
Who is interfering with our responsibility
for knowing what’s what?
Stay away from those people!
Find some new friends,
or relatives.
Decide for yourself what is right–
but not because I say so.
Because you know so.

And, if you don’t know that you know so,
go commune with yourself
and see what yourself has to say
about what’s what
and whose judgment you can trust.
09/06/2020 — Dockside 11/14/2017 14 — Port Royal, South Carolina

We do not know whom to trust–
so we trust ourselves to deal with betrayal of trust.
And, listening to our inner guides,
step into the day.

The key to trusting ourselves
lies in communing with ourselves.

When we “return to the source,”
we are returning to ourselves.
WE are the source of who we are!

In seeking “the face that was ours
before we were born,”
and living out of our Original Nature,
in each situation as it arises,
we live with sincerity
and authenticity,
meeting the moment
in search of what is being called for,
and responding
with the best we have to offer,
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

We make our best guess
(Call it “judgment,” if you like)
about what to do
based on the information
available to us at the time
and let that be that.

We make adjustments as necessary
and step into the next moment–
trusting ourselves to see and do
what is called for
throughout all of the times and places
of our life.

We dispel fear and anxiety
by trusting ourselves
to deal appropriately with each situation,
including the situations arising
from being wrong with our response
in any situation.

We have what it takes to meet what meets us
in a day.
Every day.

If you are going to take anything on faith,
let it be that,
and step into the day!
09/07/2020 — The Limb — Fire Tower Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

You have to know what I mean
before you can understand
what I’m saying.
Which means, of course,
that my only role in your life
is to articulate what you already understand
to be so.
But.
I recognize that as a vital part
of your awakening to, well, you.

We all have exactly what we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done–
what needs us to do it–
in the time and place
(the here and now)
of our living.

And.
The most important thing
anyone can give us
is ourselves.
When we wake up,
we wake up to the infinite value
of us.

And.
Start paying attention to our dreams,
and being aware of our thoughts,
urges,
inclinations,
reactions,
and all of the things
that make us us.

We devote time to nurturing
our relationship with ourselves,
and take ourselves out to lunch,
and listen intently to all we are saying–
cultivating,
nourishing,
nurturing,
our ability to know what we know,
see what we look at,
hear what we are saying
and what is being said to us,
asking the questions that beg to be asked
and saying the things that cry out to be said,
and knowing when we don’t,
and wondering why we didn’t…

The entire world and all of life
open themselves to our
unfolding,
unfurling,
deepening,
expanding,
unending
and infinite
curiosity.

And.
We discover that knowing what we know
leads instantly and directly
to knowing what we don’t know–
to knowing that we don’t know–
and doing the work of finding out,
letting, in the way of the old alchemists,
“One book open another,”
and we are off,
lost in the allness and the wonder
of everything.

And.
If it takes forever for us to wake up,
well, that’s what forever is for.

And.
Once we wake up,
we realize it will take forever
to get to the bottom of all of it,
and, that too, is what forever is for.

But.
Don’t slack up,
knowing you have forever!
There is not a moment to lose!
Not a second to waste!
The game’s afoot!
The chase is on!

And.
It all starts with knowing what you know.
And what you don’t know.

That’s all you need to know.
09/07/2020 — Lotus Flower and Koi Fish

If we work with our life,
our live works with us.
If we work against our life,
our life works against us.
We can gauge the degree to which
we need to adjust ourselves
in relation to our life
by the way things are going
with us and our life.

The old biblical adage applies:
“It hurts to kick against the goads!”

Our life will tell us
when we are out of accord
with our life.
The trick to getting back in sync
with our life is simple:
Sincerity Not Contrivance!

If we are trying to do this
so that will happen,
we are gaming our life.
If we are frustrated
because our ideas for our life
are not being realized,
we are pushing our life
to be other than it is.

Our place is to listen to our life,
and to align ourselves with it.

Our life has a mind of its own.
It is like any living thing.
A flower turns toward the sun.
A tree leans toward the light.
Our life has a built in cant toward
its preferences
and away from its aversions.
Our place is to learn what our life likes
and do that.

What are we built for?
Do that.
Let everything fall into place
around that.

We are made for our life
the way a stream is made for the sea.
If we are working against our life,
it is as though the stream decides
on a destination different than the sea.

Guess how that would work out.
09/07/2020 — Moonrise 10/17/2013 01 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

Religion died when it invented theology.
Theology is Substitute Religion.
It is somebody else’s Religion.
Theology is Second-hand Religion.
Theology is equivalent to what the people did
when Moses came down from the mountain,
and his face shone so
with the absorbed Glory of God
that the people couldn’t look directly at him,
and draped him with a cloth
to conceal the reality of God.

Carl Jung said that theology was created
to save people from the experience of God.

Religion is the experience of God.
God experienced as Other and as I.
Religion is the knowledge of Thou Art That.
Moses was one with God
and the people couldn’t handle it.

The Transcendent becomes Imminent
in this here this now,
becomes one with us–
so that we become “Transparent to Transcendence”–
and it is terrifying
and transforming.

It messes terribly with our life.

To save ourselves the trouble of Religion,
we invented Theology,
and we talk about God.

Keeping God at a safe distance.

It is much safer to talk about God
than to be carriers of God,
to be the embodiment of God,
to be the incarnation of God.
Just ask Jesus what it is like
to be able to say, “The Father and I are one.”

We talk about God.
We memorize the books of the Bible in order.
We have Sword Drills
to see who can find a scripture passage the fastest.
We memorize catechisms
and talk at length about our favorite questions
in our favorite catechism.
And read books of doctrine,
putting them to music
and calling them “Hymnbooks.”

It is all very inspiring.

It is almost like being alive.
09/08/2020 — Goodale 11/04/2018 40 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina

With us:

Which will be the last to go?
Joy or sorrow?
Jocularity or despair?
Laughter or wailing?

Why one and not the other?

They are only a perspective shift apart.

Jovial or deathly serious depends upon what?

What leads us to see the way we see?
To ascribe meaning the way we ascribe meaning?
To say “This!” and not “That!”?

What stands between us
and “The icy winds howling up from the Void”?

What is our solace and our comfort?
Our source of resolve and resiliency?

The way we see things
keeps us going.
Or stops us from taking another step.

What governs the way we see things?

How will we approach
“The end of the line”?
09/08/2020 — Mile Post 244 08/13/2018 04– Blue Ridge Parkway, Doughton Park, Laurel Springs, North Carolina

Here we are.
Caught up in a pandemic,
at the mercy of a crazy (As in certifiably insane) President
and a GOP majority in the Senate,
aiding and abetting his every move,
with the world as we know it
going to hell as we watch,
and nothing more effective to offer
than protest marches
and rants on social media.

The situation has exposed our lack of a foundation–
the absence of a source of guidance and direction,
comfort and confidence,
security and stability,
balance and harmony…

We are in free fall
with nowhere to turn
and nothing to orient us
or assist us in finding our bearings,
in order to make our way through a wasteland
of lost hope
and demolished dreams
to a better perspective,
and a more trustworthy life.

Joseph Campbell would say
there is nothing wrong with us
that finding a valid myth to live by
won’t fix.

He would also tell us not to look for someone
to tell us what our grounding myth is.
His two guidelines for discovering our myth are these:

“Where you stumble and fall,
there lies the treasure.”

“That which you seek
lies far to the rear,
in the darkest corner
of the cave you most
don’t want to enter.”

He would likely add,
“The treasure you seek
is nothing other than the self
you also are.”

Free-falling is a symptom
of being alienated from ourselves,
out-of-sync with our heart’s true purposes,
out of accord with the Tao
of our own spirit
and clueless as to who we also are
and what we are called (by ourselves)
to do with our life.

We have lost the way,
wandered away from the path,
and need to get back on track,
together with ourselves and our life.

The prescribed ritual for accomplishing
this return to ourselves/our life,
to find our myth and live it,
is to stop/look/listen.

To sit down,
be still,
and wait in the silence
“for the mud to settle
and the water to clear,”
and attend what arises/occurs to us/comes to mind there.

The silence connects us with the source
of our own Original Nature–
which is where we find all we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done
in the wasteland
of lost hope
and demolished dreams.

But.
It takes doing it
to know it is so.
And it takes trusting ourselves
to the inclination/urge-to-action
that occurs to us in the silence.

We do not think our way to a myth worthy of us.
We live our way there.
By looking/listening within–
by looking/listening to our body
and what it is revealing to us.
And by working with our nighttime dreams
and our flights of fantasy,
to discover what we are saying to ourselves,
hoping that we will pay attention,
and follow where we are being led.
09/09/2020 — Great Blue Heron 08/13/2013 — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina

Our idea of God is not God.

This is the foundational realization.

We can never get beyond our idea of God to God.

In order to approach God,
we must abandon our idea of God.

Theology has to go.

Meister Echart said,
“The final leave-taking
is leaving God for God.”

Our idea of who we are is not who we are.

The final leave-taking
is leaving ourselves for ourselves.

We become God.
God becomes us.

And that’s that.

In the end, we are all one.

All of our divisions are false divisions.

All of our dichotomies are false dichotomies.

All of our dualities are false dualities.

Our idea of reality is not reality.

It is all a joke we play on ourselves.

It all ends in laughter.

That never ends.
09/09/2020 — Eno River Spring 05/05/2011 — Eno River State Park, Durham, North Carolina

We have to know what moves us
and allow ourselves to be moved by it–
to be owned by it–
to belong to it–
to be possessed,
seized,
dominated and controlled
by the things that move us–
moved against our will–
“Without hope,
without witness,
without reward”
(Steven Moffat)–
to live in the service of,
with filial devotion
and liege loyalty to,
that which moves us!

In the spirit of the old alchemical formula,
“One book opens another,”
the thing(s) that move(s) us
will move us to the thing(s) that move(s) us,
and we will be carried all our life long
from one thing to another
on an adventure that never ends.

This is the Hero’s Journey.

Don’t be a sissy.
09/09/2020 — Eno River Reflections Panorama 11/09/2011 — Eno River State Park, Durham, North Carolina

Notice what catches your eye,
and look closer.
Move toward that which moves you.
Pay attention to the things
you are quick to dismiss,
discount,
disregard,
ignore,
and stop doing that.

The Most Important Things
are the cornerstones the builder dismisses,
discounts,
disregards,
ignores.

“Nothing good comes from Nazareth!”

The pearl of great price
lies in the bin of costume jewelry
waiting for one who sees
to take notice
and look closer.

Our destiny hangs in the balance,
dangling by the finest thread.
Our name is called
by the faintest whisper.
The first test is the hardest:
Will we see what we look at?
Will we hear what is being said?

Nothing of consequence
is the key to everything that follows.
The path that leads to awakening
and enlightenment
begins with the silliest choices.
Our future life hinges on–
and takes shape around–
our being open to the offerings
of the present moment,
and willing to trust directions
from the unlikeliest of guides.

Having expectations,
strong opinions
and harsh judgments–
being impatient,
insistent
and hard to please–
increase the internal noise level,
and make it difficult
to recognize the grace at work
in our circumstances,
or to allow impromptu shifts
toward uncertain outcomes.

We are always forgetting
that we did not intend to be
where we are,
or plan any of the steps
that led us here.
The future will be an extension of the past
in this regard,
and we can rely
on knowledge beyond reason,
logic
and intellect
to pilot our boat
on its path through the sea.

Those gifts are well-qualified to deal with How,
But.
What,
When,
and Where
are within the purview
of more than words can say.

Choosing the gifts and the giver
puts us in the position
of the moved in response to the mover.
Recognizing what is asked of us
and responding in ways
appropriate to the occasion
are all that is asked of us
in each situation as it arises.

All our life long.
09/09/2020 — Lake Haiger Fall 11/03/2013 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill South Carolina

Our life does not happen accidentally,
while we are in pursuit of our dreams.
It isn’t what occurs while we are doing something else.
Something more fun.

Our life is the intentional production
of the mutual collaboration
between the conscious
and unconscious
aspects of ourselves.

We are two selves:
Conscious
and Unconscious
(We call it the Unconscious because
the conscious side of us
is not conscious of it,
which makes dealing with it
a full-time operation
requiring our complete attention,
total devotion
and faithful allegiance).

When the old Chinese mystics talked of the Tao,
they were talking about the Unconscious self.
And being in accord with the Tao
was held to be the key to balance and harmony,
stability,
character,
wisdom
and peace.

It still is.

Our Conscious self is good for knowing
how to do something,
relying on intellect,
logic
and reason
to come up with the best,
most efficient,
way of getting things done.

But.
On its own, it has no idea of what to do.
Consciously, we know what we want
and don’t want,
what we like and don’t like,
what is pleasing
what is displeasing,
but we have no notion
of what we should want,
or of what we have no business
even thinking about.

Our Unconscious self is good
for what, when and where,
and has a knack for knowing
what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

When our Conscious and Unconscious selves
are communing with each other,
in full accord,
and on the same page,
our life has a radiance about it
and a flow to it,
that cannot be fabricated
in some other way.

Our duality is dancing
in a manner that declares our unity,
which is something to be relished
and enjoyed
as the purest expression
of the experience
of being alive.
09/10/2020 — Moonrise 10/17/2013 08 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina

We cannot help the way we see things.
Growing up means seeing things differently.
We grow up against our will–
against ourselves–
throughout our life.

Seeing things differently is like dying.
Growing up is dying.
This is the cross that is central to Christianity.
We die again and again
in the work to see things as they are.

I was standing in a cotton field
talking to a Mississippi Delta planter
about race relations and gay rights,
who was saying,
“Hell, Jim–
this ain’t how I see things!
This is how things are!”

Theology allows us to talk about the cross
without experiencing it–
to talk about growing up
without ever once dying to do it.

Take your cherished ways of seeing things,
your precious rites and rituals
that are central to who you are,
and throw them in the burning barrel.

That’s what Jesus meant when he said,
“If you are coming with me,
pick up your cross every day–
die every day–
to the way you see things,
that the way things are
might have a chance of breaking through!”
09/10/2020 — Cedar Rock Falls 10/13/2011 — Pisgah National Forest, Brevard, North Carolina

The straight and narrow
is the dangerous path
along the slippery slope
like the razor’s edge
between the dualities
that have to be integrated,
unified,
in a way that takes everything into account
and responds to what is called for
in each situation as it arises
with exactly what is needed at that moment
in that place
without thinking about it
or knowing what we are doing,
by moving in conjunction with time and place,
spontaneously,
improvisationally,
as a dancer dancing with an invisible partner
to music that cannot be heard,
carried away by synchronicity,
grace,
magic,
and transforming the world.

That is what we are living to be able to do.
Living like that,
moment-by-moment-by-moment,
is what life is all about.
How do we get there?
Isn’t that the question, though!

We live our way to the answer.
We do not think our way there.
But.
Thinking about our thinking will do it.
Watching our seeing.
Being intently/intentionally aware of
who we are
where we are
how we are
what is happening
what is happening in response
to what is happening
and what is happening to that–
within us
and outside of us–
receiving it with compassion,
without opinion,
without judgment,
“Just this, just that,”
and simultaneously,
holding it all in our awareness
and allowing it to sink into
our body
and our mind
so that we know what’s what,
and wait to see what we do about it
without consciously willing any response at all
beyond waiting and watching and wondering…
until BOOM! (As John Madden would say)
we find ourselves doing something
we never imagined ourselves doing.

Where did that come from?
That’s were we have to live from!
Call it The Center.
Call it The Still Point.
Call it The Source.
And let ourselves trust it
to be what is needed–
beyond knowing what is needed–
and live from there,
threading the needle
along the straight and narrow
forever.
09/10/2020 — On Roan Mountain 05/15/14 05 — Carver’s Gap, North Carolina/Tennessee

“It’s only in my (your) imagination,”
is as dismissive and as disrespectful
as we are capable of being.
Everything we have done as a species
came right out of the silence
into our imagination.

Our imagination is the greatest sense organ
at our disposal.
It connects us with dimensions
beyond those we associate with space and time,
and with our unconscious,
and our “other” self at the center of that world
(Carl Jung said, “There is in each of us another,
whom we do not know”–
whom we know through our imagination!).

James Hollis said, “Death does not end a relationship
anymore than divorce ends a marriage.”
And that relationship is maintained and deepened
through our imagination.

Our imagination creates possibilities
for our life in this world
of normal,
apparent,
reality
by enabling us to see things into being.

Writers and artists,
plumbers and carpenters,
musicians and quarterbacks,
scientists and teachers,
and all of the rest of us
regularly experience flashes of realization,
insight,
enlightenment
and creativity
that pop into our awareness
right out of our imagination.

When we meditate,
our imagination stirs to life,
and stirs us to life
with inspirations,
urges,
notions,
visions
and things that occur to us
“right out of the blue,”
and it doesn’t always wait
for us to meditate,
but stops us in mid-stride
with a seizure of “esthetic arrest,”
(James Joyce)
that transforms our life
and propels us into directions
and destinations we would have never planned
or considered on our own.

And Joseph Campbell was fond of saying
that none of us planned to be where we are.

Honor your imagination with the esteem
that is its due.
Devote time to deepening your relationship
with that aspect of yourself.
Serve it with filial devotion
and liege loyalty.
It is the most magical tool at our disposal,
and ‘twould be a shame
to deny it the opportunity
to show us what it can do.
09/10/2020 — Roaring Fork Falls 09/03/2012 — Pisgah National Forest, Burnsville, North Carolina

Chief Seattle and Black Elk did not have a PhD between them.
Or a Masters Degree.
Or a Bachelors Degree.
Or a high school diploma.

And they were brilliant men of soul,
fit for the company of Gandalf the Grey,
Albus Dumbledore,
Obi wan Kenobi
and Yoda.

Dolly Parton would belong to that group.
And Linda Ronstadt.
And Maggie Smith.
And Mary Oliver.
(The list is long of women who know what’s what)

All the people who know,
know the same things.
They know what counts,
matters,
makes a difference.

Chief Seattle said,
talking about putting himself
in accord with the reality of life and death,
“Why should I lament the disappearance
of my people?
All things end,
and the white man will find this out also.”

Joseph Campbell (also a member
of Those Who Know) said
that we can be at peace with all things
as they are–adding
“This doesn’t mean
that one shouldn’t participate
in efforts to correct the situation,
but underlying the effort to change
one must be ‘at peace.’”

At peace with the “is-ness” of things,
in a “This is the way things are,
and this is what can be done about it,
and that’s that,”
kind of way.

Those who know
know this is so,
and joyfully embrace the terms
governing the game,
giving themselves
to full participation in the game,
and, when it is done,
letting that be that.
09/11/2020 — Cullasaja River 10/21/2014 01 Panorama — Nantahala National Forest, Highlands, North Carolina

Extremes not only beget extremes,
they also become increasingly extreme over time.
Knowing when to stop and stopping
would be ideal,
but.

Diets go over into anorexia like that (snaps fingers),
and anorexia spins off into bulimia,
and knowing when to stop doesn’t mean stopping.

Having someone explain the danger of excessive
devotion to a cause
doesn’t immunize us against extremism.

Hearing someone advise us
to “Live toward the center!”
doesn’t enable healthy limits.

Vulnerability to being “carried away”
seems to be a human characteristic.
We cannot be trusted to know
where and when to draw the line,
and to draw it.

How often have we heard/said it?
“We are our own worst enemy!”
“No one can save us from ourselves!”
“It’s all up to us!”
“Our safety is our responsibility!”

And we remain a threat to ourselves and others,
walking through our life,
waiting for something to trigger
our Excessive Response Mechanism,
and propel us into action.

Which underscores the danger
of Russian interference in our elections,
and manipulative language exploiting
our tendency to be emotionally hooked
into an ideologically based reactive
way of living.

We are this close (crosses fingers) to being
swept up and away at all times.
Knowing it and being alert to it,
sensitive to,
and aware of,
the ease with which language
inflames and engulfs us,
may be our best defense
against the extremes,
and our best chance
of remaining grounded in the center.
09/11/2020 — Sanskrit AUM 02 — From my Symbols of Transformation Collection

“Freedom’s just another word
for nothing left to lose…”
I don’t know if Kris Kristofferson
knew what he was saying
when he wrote these words
(To “Me and Bobby Magee”),
or if he was just rhyming words,
but.
He is spot on.

We aren’t free until
we aren’t afraid of loosing anything.
Until we are free from trying/hoping
to gain anything.

Freedom is having nothing to hold onto.
Freedom is letting everything go.
Standing at “the still point”
(T.S. Eliot)
of that place,
there is nothing anyone (or anything)
can do to us.
We are grounded there in a way
that nothing can touch us.
Nothing can knock us off that spot.

We are the adamantine Buddha
seated under the Bo tree,
unmoved and unmovable,
at one with ourselves
and free to do what is necessary
to be what is needed
in each situation as it arises
all our life long,
unafraid of anything.

At that place,
we are our own authority
in determining what we do,
unafraid of going to hell even,
so confident we are in our own ability
to know what needs us to do it,
and free to follow our own sense of direction,
content to live with any outcome
no matter what it may be.

How do we get there?
We are never more than
a simple shift in perspective
from here to there.
We are going to die.
There is nothing to gain or to lose.
All we have is who we are.
And what is that if we do not
live so as to express who we are
in each situation as it arises
all our life long?

Why hold anything back?
What are we saving it for?
09/11/2020 — Bog River Falls 09/29/2014 01 Watercolor Rendering — Adirondack State Park, Tupper Lake, New York

We pretend it is going to last forever.
We do not look at the score.
We do not look at the clock.
We do not wonder “How much LOOONNNGGEEERRR
as though we need it to be done, NOW!

Our full attention is on the moment,
this moment,
the time and place of our living.
The moment that never ends,
but flows,
uninterrupted into the next moment,
and the one following,
on and on…

Though we will step out of the action,
the moment of our stepping out
will continue without end
through all of time
and beyond.

The universe can disappear
into a Black Hole,
but the moment of its disappearing
goes on and on…

Our place in this “great scheme of things,”
is to shine as brightly as we can
for as long as possible,
bringing ourselves forth
as a blessing and a grace
on all of the times and places
of our living.

Offering the gifts,
genius,
daemon,
spirit,
virtues,
character,
vitality,
energy
and life
that came with us from the womb
to the contexts and circumstances
of each situation that comes our way
over the full course of our life,
in ways that respond appropriately
to what is being called for–
“Without hope,
without witness,
without reward”
(Steven Moffat in “Doctor Who”),
as an expression/incarnation
of our Original Nature
because that is what we are born to do,
and it would be such a shame not to do it.

We discover who we are
in the act of standing up to meet the moment,
moment-by-moment-by-moment,
spontaneously,
improvisational,
naturally doing what needs to be done
as only we can do it,
surprising ourselves by showing everyone
how much more to us than meets the eye.

We begin living that way
by daring to not know what we are doing,
and being curious about everything,
playing at being who we are
as we reveal ourselves to ourselves
to our continuing amazement,
all our life long.
09/11/2020 — Sailboat Mooring 10/12/2013 Bath Harbor on Bath Creek, Bath, NC

Here is my version of the Chinese classic, “The Lost Horse Returns”:

Once there was there was a poor farm family in the high mountains of China who eked out a living on the slopes with one plow horse and much hard work. One evening the son forgot to fully close the gate of the corral and the horse wandered out and off during the night.

The next morning, the son was distraught. “Oh, Father,” he said. “We are ruined! We cannot work the farm without the horse to plow the field! We are lost, and it is all my fault!” The father replied, “We’ll see.”

The next day, their horse returned to the corral, bringing with him three wild mares and two colts. The son was ecstatic. “Father! We are blessed! Now we can work more land than we ever could before! We can sell a mare and a colt, and have money to buy new equipment! It is a wonderful day!” “We’ll see,” said the father.

The next day, as the son was training one of the mares, he was thrown from the horse and broke his leg. “Oh, Father!”, he lamented. “Now, I won’t be able to help you in the field, and you cannot do the work alone! I can’t believe how things can turn out so badly just when they were looking so perfectly wonderful!” “We’ll see,” said the father.

The next day, the Chinese army came to the house looking for conscripts to fight in its war with the barbarians. The son with the broken leg was passed over. “Oh, Father,” said the son. “If it were not for my leg, there is no telling what may have come of us! This is truly a blessed day!” “We’ll see,” said the father.

And so it goes… But. The one thing I want to make sure you do not miss is that on the day, when the lost horse returned with the mares and the colts, the father made certain that the gate to the corral was securely fastened that night,
and every night following.

It is one thing to “take things as they come,” and it is another to understand the importance of being right about what is important, and living and working in the service of what matters most through all of “the vicissitudes of time” over the full course of our life.

Get that down and you have it made. As much as you can have it made in a world where things are always coming and going, and you never know what you can count on, or what is going to happen next.

Be right about what you take seriously, and keep it to a bare minimum. And be right about what that is. He said, laughing.
09/11/2020 — Japanese Heart — From my Symbols of Transformation Collection

When people ask me if I believe in God,
I ask them if they believe in Grace.
Most say something on the order of
“Of course!”
I follow up with,
“Why do you believe in Grace?”
Most say something on the order of
“I have experienced it in my own life!”
And I say,
“That’s the difference between
believing about God
and knowing God as directly as we know Grace.”

And, I follow that up with,
“And when you have experienced Grace,
you have experienced That Which Has Always Been Called ‘God.’
And that is all we need to know of God,
and all we can say of God.”

When people ask me if I believe in Jesus,
or, if I have received Jesus Christ as my personal savior,
I respond by holding up my right hand
with my Pointer and Tall Man crossed,
and say, “Jesus and I are just like that!”
And follow that quickly with, “NO!
Jesus and I are just like THAT!“
Taking Tall Man down,
leaving only Pointer standing straight in the air.

At that point, there is nothing left to say.
09/13/2020 — Sandy Stream Pond Autumn 09/2007 Watercolor Rendering — Baxter State Park, Millinocket, Maine

I do not know where we go
to find what we are looking for
in terms of the best humanity has to offer.

Where would we have to do to surround ourselves
with kindness,
grace,
compassion,
wisdom,
generosity,
forthrightness,
integrity,
sincerity,
humility,
honesty,
truth,
and the rest of the list
we say we admire
and strive to be?

What strata of society
is best representative
of the way
we say
we are
supposed to be?

Where would we be
least likely
to encounter
contrivance,
conniving,
double-dealing,
lying,
greed,
duplicity,
cheating,
and the entire list
of things
held to be deplorable
and despised?

Or, narrow it down to stupidity.
Where would we go to be free
of the burden of stupid people–
with stupidity having nothing to do with
the amount of education a person has
or the degree of their intelligence?

Face it.
“We have met the enemy
and they are us!”
(Walt Kelly).

The people who talk the most about
the importance of
“expanding consciousness”
and “being awake to the moment
of our living,”
are as blind to their blind-side
as any other group of people on the planet.

Their arrogance,
hubris,
duplicity
and lack of self-transparency
(For all their talk about being transparent!),
is as high as that of any other
segment of society.

Where do we go to find
people like the people we say we want to be?

Do not spend much time
with this question.
It will only depress you.

Just devote yourself to the life-long work
of being more like you need to be tomorrow
than you are today,
and step into the day!
09/13/2020 — Japanese Truth 03 — From my Symbols of Truth Collection

We have to be right about what is important
and live as though it is
in each situation as it arises,
no matter what.

It is never more difficult than that.
It is always that difficult.

In order to pull it off,
we have to be mindfully aware
of what matters most to us
and whether it deserves its rank
in our life.

Are we right about the value
of what we value?

This requires intense self-examination,
objective scrutiny,
ruthless evaluation,
on-going introspection,
seeing what we are seeing,
hearing what we are hearing,
knowing how we are responding,
moment-to-moment-to-moment.
No sleeping at the wheel
for those who think being awake
to being awake
to the time and place of our living
is the most important thing.
09/14/2020 — Portland Headlight at Dawn 09/26/2007 — Portland, Maine

“Live with sincerity,
in the service of your original nature,
and follow your heart.”

This old adage from
the Age of the Taoists
sounds helpful
until it is read
in light of those stating:

“We grow up against our will.”

“The last leave-taking
is leaving ourselves for ourselves.”

“If you meet the Buddha on the road,
kill him.”

“That which you seek
lies far back in the darkest corner
of the cave
you most don’t want to enter.”

“It took the Cyclops
to bring the hero
out in Ulysses.”

“The only thing standing
between us and the treasure we seek
is us.”

“The people who don’t take the time
to appreciate,
honor,
and dance with
the contradictions
aren’t worth talking to.”

“The slippery slope,
the dangerous path,
the razor’s edge
require us to pick up our cross daily,
dying to ourselves again and again,
and bearing the pain of the journey joyfully
all the way to the end of the line.”

And the ultimate contrary
of them all:

“The Path that is discernible
is not a reliable Path.”

It is called The Hero’s Journey
for a reason.

Realization comes with a price,
paid only by those
who can laugh
shout “YEA!”
and participate wholeheartedly
in the wonder of it all,
seeing the incongruities
and dichotomies,
as antiphonies–
and joining in round after round,
all their life long.
09/13/2020 — Chinese Tao 05 — From my Symbols of Transformation Collection

People have been missing the point forever.
Thinking they/we are the point,
and that everything here is
for our benefit and enjoyment–
to “fill the earth and subdue it,”
party hardy
and pass a good time.

We plop out of the womb
figuring the angles,
calculating our chances,
contriving,
conning
scheming,
planning…
always with an agenda in hand
and an angle in mind.

God can’t get us out of his mind.
His day revolves around us,
who is in and who is out,
keeping score,
writing everything down in the Book of Life
(So he won’t forget?).

We are the point.
And, thinking that,
we miss the point.

How much silence can you take
before you have to find something
to relieve your boredom,
which is concealing something much worse:
Realization.

In the silence,
we catch the scent of emptiness
stirring in the darkness,
and must lose ourselves
in the noise of our lives
to avoid the truth of nothing.

We are afraid there is nothing there.

That comes with missing the point.

And that gets us to where we are:
Needing to face the truth of nothing to it,
of the Void
and the Abyss,
in order to find our way
to “the still point of the turning world”
(T.S. Eliot).
And know the Other within
whom we do not know
(Carl Jung),
and discover our place
as the Moved to the Mover,
the Seeker to the Knower,
and begin again,
this time in right relationship
with the Heart of Life and Being.
09/15/2020 — The Viaduct Fall 10/18/2015 03 — Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

Waking up is growing up,
growing up is waking up.
Everyone has a blind side
keeping them immature and unseeing.

If you are not laughing at yourself,
you are not growing up.
If the tone of your laughter is mean
and vindictive,
you are not growing up.

The quality and degree of our laughter
is a signature sign
of the quality and degree of our maturity
and wakefulness.

Seeing is laughing.
Dancing.
Celebrating.
Crying.
Mourning.
Dying.

Laughter and sorrow
have an antiphonal relationship
with each other,
singing the song of life
to each other
through the ages.
Best friends forever.

Life and death.
Death and resurrection.
It never gets old.
We never outgrow it.
We welcome it again,
and step into the day.
09/15/2020 — Mouse Creek Falls 11/08/2006 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Big Creek Campgrounds, Waterville, North Carolina

Our symptoms,
tics,
neuroses,
psychoses,
loss of purpose,
lack of enthusiasm for life,
ennui,
poor posture
and lousy disposition
are all attributable
to the sorry quality
of our relationship
with ourselves in general
and with our Original Nature in particular.

Our lot is not going to improve
until we realign ourselves with ourselves,
and live in accord with our nature.

This does not mean doing whatever we want.
It means doing what is ours to do
whether we want to or not.

“What is ours to do”
is not something someone assigns us.
It is not what parents,
society,
culture
or our desire to succeed and excel
impose upon us.
It is what is ours to do
from before we were born.

You could call it destiny,
but that sounds like achieving something.
It is more on the order
of simply being who we are–
doing what needs us to do it
the way we alone are capable of doing it.
Living our life the way only we can live it.
Whether anything comes of it or not.

The stream flowing to the sea
is fulfilling its destiny
by being what it is,
doing what it does
the way it would do it
in each situation as it arises.

Be the stream.
Flow to the sea.
It has never been
more difficult than that.
Never will be.
09/15/2020 — South Carolina Icon

What symbols are living symbols for you?
Which ones bring you to life?
Ground you?
Open you to the moment,
and to the wonder of life,
the mysterium tremendum,
the awe inspiring mystery,
at the heart of being alive?

What symbols enable you to face anything?
Serve as a guide through dark times?
A beacon calling us past waves crashing on the rocks
and heaving amid the howling wind
on the wine dark sea?

What symbols do you turn to
when there is no place else to turn?
What symbols are at the heart of your life?

Start with these symbols
and search them for the metaphors they represent.
What are the metaphors behind each symbol?
What are the meanings you attach to each metaphor?

One of my favorite symbols is a ceramic egg,
about six inches high and eight inches in diameter.
a section of the shell has broken away,
and a scaly foot of a baby dragon
has come out of the egg
into the light of day.

I have used this egg as a teaching metaphor
for Easter Morning sermons,
as a different kind of Easter Egg,
with the theme,
“The new life in Christ
will eat your old life alive!”
Using the text from Luke 9:24,
“Whoever wants to save their life will lose it,
but whoever loses their life for that which is greater than they are
will save it.”

What will we lose our life (Metaphorically speaking) for?
What are we willing to go to hell (Metaphorically speaking) for?

Our symbols take us to the truth of who we are.
To the truth of what our life is.

Ask the questions your favorite symbols beg to be asked.
See what they really have to say.
09/16/2020 — Cullasaja River 10/21/2014 02 — Nantahala National Forest, Highlands, North Carolina

Count the number of times
Jesus says the equivalent of
“To hell with you!”
Or, “To hell with them!”
In the Gospels.

And then take your idea
of “unconditional love”
to the burning barrel.

To love white supremacists unconditionally
is to BE a white supremacist.
To love police brutality unconditionally
is to be a member of the Brutal Police Officers’ Union.
Etc.

And don’t give me the double talk
of “Loving the Sinner
and Hating the Sin”!
Sin and Sinner cannot be separated
any more than Darkness and Light
can be combined.

And, while we are on the subject,
the only Sin is refusing to be who we are
because of our strong attachment
to who we also are.
And the only solution to that Sin
is to walk “the straight and narrow,”
which is “the dangerous path”
along “the slippery slope”
like “the razor’s edge”
between who we are
and who we also are
through all of the times and places
of our living
our entire life long.

Who we are is the Christ.
Who we also are is the Antichrist.

And our burden is the Cross
which connects Heaven and Hell (Earth)
with the crosspiece of the Here and Now.

Or the Star of David
with the apex of one triangle reaching for Heaven
and the apex of the other triangle straining for Hell (Earth)
and the meeting place of us
in the Here and Now of our life.

Or the Yin/Yang
with its border between the eternal opposites
being the individual integrating the opposites
in each here and now of their life
over the long course of time.

When we throw out religion
with its blah-blah about believing
this or that
and step into being who we are
and who we also are
in each situation as it arises
moment-by-moment
through each here and now of our life,
we know the truth whereof we speak
of Alpha and Omega,
Darkness and Light
Death and Life
working their way out
in the contexts and circumstances of our life
by bearing the pain of our contraries
for the joy of participating in the wonder/agony
of being
all our life long.
09/16/2020 — Dockside 11/14/2017 06 — Port Royal, South Carolina

We don’t know what is going to happen,
but.
We are here, now, because we have dealt
with everything up until here, now,
successfully enough to be here, now.

That is evidence enough for me
to trust myself
to deal with whatever happens
in a way that carries me on
into wherever this is going.

I’m interested in seeing what happens,
and what I do about it.
I’m not the least bit worried,
anxious,
fearful,
concerned.

Something is always happening,
and I am always doing something in response.
So are you.
And here we are.
What’s the problem?
09/17/2020 — Eno River Fall 11/9/2011 — Eno River State Park, Durham, North Carolina

Joseph Campbell said the Bhagavad Gita
could be summarized with:
“Get in there and do your thing,
and don’t worry about the outcome!”

The outcome is always messing with us.
We live from one outcome to another.
We are always trying to achieve some outcome.
Always invested in some outcome.
Always enamored by some outcome.
Always attached to some outcome.

We do “this” so “that” will happen–
or to keep “that” from happening.

Doing “this” so “this” will happen
is the whole point of playing.
Living is a serious matter
and can only be engaged in
by those who do “this” so “that” will happen,
or not happen.

Doing our thing
“without hope,
without witness,
without reward,
(Steven Moffat)
is, for us, the greatest absurdity.

But.

Doing our thing
for the sole purpose,
entire point,
and complete joy
of doing our thing
is the very essence
of being alive.

Alan Stacell said,
“I paint like a dog wags its tail.”

What do you do
like a dog wags its tail?
How often do you do it?
How long do you do it
when you do it?

Why not do it more often?
For longer periods of time?

Without ever having an eye on the outcome?
09/17/2020 — Six-point Star O6 — From My Symbols of Transformation Collection

The six point star,
with its two inverted triangles,
one pointing upward to the heavens,
light and enlightenment,
and the other pointing downward to the earth,
darkness and abject cluelessness,
reflects the eternal plight
of human beings,
living out our lives between
the best and worst
we can do, be, become,
in each situation as it arises,
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

“We have met the enemy,
and they are us!”
(Walt Kelly)
09/17/2020 — Around Bass Lake 10/13/2014 10 — Moses H Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

The fundamental duality,
dichotomy,
koan,
conundrum,
continuum,
polarity,
contradiction
at the heart of humanity
throughout time
is contrivance/sincerity.

Even when we are sincere,
we think we ought to get something out of it.
Sincerity should be good for us in some way.
And we are always shocked and chagrined
to discover that sincerity
means being good for nothing.

Because that is who we are.

Yet, how many of us are that way?
Good for nothing?

Everything is a ploy with us.
A device.
A means of getting something,
or somewhere,
or avoiding something,
of coming out ahead,
of getting what we want–
and what we want is never, ever,
being good for nothing,
for no reason,
“just because.”

Just because that is who we are.

From as long ago as the Bhagavad Gita (200 years BCE)
has come the call:
“Get in there and do your thing–
with no idea in mind of getting anything from it!”

You know,
like a child playing in a sandbox.
Like a dog wagging its tail.
Like a walk in the woods.
09/17/2020 — Atlantic Moonrise 08/08/2007 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

This isn’t a competition.
No one is keeping score.
We are not being graded.
Our work is not
to do or be better than anyone else
at anything.

Our work is simply
being as good as we can be
at being who we are.
At being ourselves.

Our work is developing
our relationship with ourselves.
Knowing who we are.
Living in accord with our Original Nature.
Being us.
Doing our life the way we would do it
if no one were watching.
What do we care who is watching?

What is our natural way of doing things
that we don’t do
because it won’t fit where we are?

What is so important about where we are
that our self wouldn’t be comfortable
if we brought him/her to meet our friends?

Whose side are we on?
09/18/2020 — Cullasaja River 10/19/2000 — Nantahala National Forest, Highlands, North Carolina

Alan Watts said, “When you want things
to be different than they are,
you are wishing for your situation to be different than it is,
and thinking that it should be otherwise.
When that is the case,
shut out any thought
that your situation should be otherwise,
and stop ruining the experience
you could be having
with your life just as it is.
Tell yourself:
‘This is it! This is life!
Look at it! Don’t miss a thing!’”
(Or words to that effect)

Joseph Campbell would add:
“The psychological transformation (here)
would be that whatever was formerly endured
is now known,
loved,
and served.”

Campbell goes on to point out:
“The aim of all religious exercises
is a psychological transformation.”

The “psychological transformation”
Campbell and Watts are talking about
is the slight shift in perspective
that is required
to see the optical illusion “click”
from the haggard old woman
to the beautiful young girl,
from the silhouette of a wine glass
to the silhouettes of two people facing each other.

Our life is an optical illusion.
What we see is a function of how we look–
of what we look for–
of what we expect to see.

Being fully With our life
in each situation as it arises,
moment-to-moment
is to know it is just so
and is asking for “just this” from us.

Why withhold what is being called for?
Why resist the moment
that is unfolding before us?
Why not take “NO!” for an answer to us
from the moment,
instead of declaring “NO!” to the moment?

This doesn’t mean lie down,
become a door mat,
allowing “the moment”
to walk all over us
and wipe its feet on us.
We can participate in the sorrows of the world,
in the agony of the moment
as we work to transform the world
and redeem the moment,
even as we do what is being called for
in any particular situation/moment.

This is dancing with the contradictions,
embracing the polarities,
integrating the opposites,
and bearing the pain of the world “thus come”
with the joy of doing “what is set before us”
in doing what must be done about things as they are.

Our work is the redemption and transformation of the world.
This doesn’t mean demolishing and destroying
the world “thus come.”
It means saying to the world “thus come,”
“Sit with me and tell me your story,
and I will tell you mine…”

The work of redemption/transformation
is the work of participating in the sorrows
of the world “thus come”
as we joyfully do what is called for
in loving that world into all it may yet be.

Our ability to do that
rides on our being capable
of not demanding that the world be otherwise right now!
That it not be different than it is instantly.

How soon things can change
and how quickly we want them to change
have to be seen for what they are.
We have to do what needs to be done
to enable things to be different than they are
without insisting that the world
be what we want it to be immediately.

The pain of transition must be borne consciously,
intentionally,
deliberately,
with awareness
and compassion.

How long has the world been as it is?
That is a lot of momentum!
A lot of inertia!
Do not despair that ours is the Sisyphusian task
of rolling the ball through time!
Put your shoulder to the wheel
and keep it turning!

Our work is to do the work
that needs to be done!
In each situation as it arises!
Waking up those who can be awakened,
without thinking that our prospects should be otherwise
from moment-to-moment-to-moment.
09/18/2020 — Dorys 09/25/2006 — Rockport Harbor, Rockport, Maine

Wait. A. Minute!
I see what your problem is!
You want things to be different than they are!
If things were just what they ought to be,
you would be fine!

That’s a problem.

We all live in the space
between how things are
and how we wish they were.

We all have the same problem.
How well we deal with it
is a matter of our individual idiosyncrasies.
And a reflection of our degree
of personal awareness
of our situation,
and of the possibilities that exist for us,
and of our opinion of our choices.

How long are we willing to wait
for things to change?
What are we going to do in the meantime?

Is there anything we can do to make things better?
How soon can we expect our actions to have an impact?

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

Coming to terms with our situation in life
and the options available to us
is the sine qua non of growing up.
Growing up is the Final Solution
to all of our problems ever.
When there is nothing we can do about it–
any of it–
any of the things that are Really Important–
we can always Grow Up Some More Again.
The Swiss Army Knife fix
for all that we don’t like about our life
and life in general.
09/18/2020 — Yellow Maple 11/28/2007 Watercolor Rendering

Our work is to respond appropriately
to what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

Each situation calls for something.
How we respond to that call
makes all the difference.

When we are more concerned with
what we are asking for from the situation
than with what the situation is asking for from us,
there is a problem.

Our place is to live in accord with the rhythm of life
in the moment of our living,
in harmony with the ebbs and flows
of the tides of life.

What is it time for here and now?
What is proper for this occasion?
What is happening?
What needs to happen in response?

What we want is irrelevant to what is needed.
We may not want to take
the terrible tasting medicine,
but if it is time to take our medicine,
that takes precedent over every other concern.

We may not want to go to work,
but if it is time to go to work,
that takes precedent over all of our wants and wishes.

Every situation has its needs.
Some of those situations allow for our wants
to be honored,
but not every situation.

Our place is to acquiesce to the needs of the situation
when that is required,
and to serve our own interests
when that is permitted
without damaging the situation.

We have to read the situation correctly
and respond as needed.
Our failure to do that
has things where they are
in all situations great and small
around the world.

As a species,
we are not reading situations correctly
or responding as needed
to what is happening
in each situation as it arises.

And here we are.

We could start turning things around
in the next situation that comes along.
How ’bout we do?
09/19/2020 — At Buttermilk Falls 09/30/2014 — Long Lake, New York

What is the nature of your pain?

What are you doing with your life?

I think one contributes to,
flows from,
the other.
Our pain forms our life,
our life shapes our pain.
We exist at the mercy of the two,
or as the meeting place of the two,
or as a collaborative partner with the two,
but the three of us are inseparable from birth to death.

Working out the details
of our relationship
with our pain and our life
is ours to do,
or not,
in the time left for living.

Why not?

I’m standing in complete darkness,
looking out at the sound of the surf.
The place has an underground feel to it,
if you can imagine infinity underground.

To my left is a rocky outcropping sloping down
to the water–
which I know without seeing.
I see only the sound of the surf.

I don’t know if the tide is coming in or going out,
or what would happen if I stood there long enough
(I think nothing),
or where I would go and started walking
with the sound of the surf to my back
(I think I would just walk forever).
I’m simply there waiting, watching, listening.

This is the place I go when I enter the silence
and seek the Source.
I think of this place as the interface
with my Psyche.
The water is my Unconscious.
I come there regularly
to receive “gifts from the sea.”

My gifts are in the form of realizations,
awareness,
the things that occur to me,
arise within me,
come to my attention…

As I stand there,
I am also lying in bed at 3 AM,
or sitting in my recliner,
or somewhere equally pedestrian
and nondescript
where I left for the silence at the Source,
to check in
and see whatsup.

Whatsup last night/early this morning
were the two questions I started with,
about the nature of my pain
and what I’m doing with my life.

The nature of my pain at this point is
mostly about regret–
regret mostly about being unaware
of my life and my place in it.
And what I’m doing with my life at this point is
mostly about being aware
of what’s happening
and what I’m doing in response
and what I might be doing in addition,
or instead.

Old age (I’m in the last month
of the third quarter
of my 76th year) for me
is mostly about reflection,
walk-a-bouts,
rumination,
in search of realization,
illumination,
making connections,
seeing/hearing/understanding/knowing/doing/being,
growing up.
Some more/still/again.

I frequently return to the silence and the Source
to see Whatsup,
and enjoy the peace and restorative qualities
of the oasis within.

I regret that I haven’t been doing it all my life,
and redeem that by doing it now.

What is the nature of your pain?
What are you doing with your life?
09/20/2020 — Curtis Island Headlight 09/19/2006 – Camden, Maine

James Joyce said, “Any object,
intensely regarded, may be a gate
of access to the incorruptible
eon of the gods.” (Buck Mulligan, Ulysses)

Joseph Campbell said, “Take, for example,
a pencil, ashtray, anything,
and holding it before you in both hands,
regard it for a while.
Forgetting its use and name,
yet continuing to regard it,
ask yourself seriously,
‘What is it’
(‘What is it good for?
What is its purpose?
Why is it here?’)…
Cut off from use,
relieved of nomenclature,
it dimension of wonder opens;
for the mystery of the being of that thing
is identical with the mystery
of the being of the universe–
and of yourself.”
(A Joseph Campbell Companion).

It is a simple meditative exercise
that takes you to the heart of the matter
“as straight as a Martin to its gourd.”
09/20/2020 — Lower Falls 04/25/2007 — Hanging Rock State Park, Danbury, North Carolina

Can you take “No” for an answer?

It comes down to that.

When is the last time you took “No” for an answer?

How often have you taken “No” for an answer?

Hold that thought,
and consider this:

Here’s the way Howard Thurman said it:
“Don’t ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive,
and go do it.
Because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.”

It can’t be said better.

It’s what those who know
have been saying
since the first one knew.

It’s what people have been waking up to
for as long as people have been waking up.

Life.
Living.
Being Alive.
That’s it.

Where is life found?
What does it take to be alive?
Where does your heart tell you “This is IT?”

You have to spend more time there,
doing that.
The future of the world depends on it.

And within that frame work
of you doing what brings you to life,
you have to know what you are going
to say “No” to
and what you are going to say “Yes” to–
and when you are going
to take “No” for an answer,
and when you are not going to be stopped,
or moved away from your own truth,
by anything in the world
or beyond it.
09/20/2020 — Monument Valley Sunrise 09/25/2007 — Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona

I transplanted an Oak Leaf Hydrangea
and a Pink Hydrangea,
and planted a Southern Wood Fern
this morning,
and Jesus couldn’t have done it better.
Jesus and I are one in that regard.

When Jesus said,
“The Father and I are one,”
he was saying,
“The Father couldn’t do it better
than I’m doing it.”

We do a lot of things as well
as Jesus and the Father could do them–
and that’s the idea with all that we do.
The only thing standing in our way
is us.

We get in our way
when we allow our preferences
and opinions
to interfere with our judgment
about what needs to be done
and how to do it.

When we are on the beam,
in the flow,
at one with the Tao,
centered on the path
and in tune with the moment
and what needs to happen there,
no one could do it better than we are doing it.

Jesus is a symbol for being conscious
of what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
and for stepping forward to meet the situation
with exactly what is appropriate
for the occasion,
in all times and places of our living.

When we are on,
nobody could do us better
than we are doing us.
We just need to be better
at getting out of the way.
09/20/2020 — November Maples 11/06/2005

The fulcrum–the pivot point–from past to future
is to live with nothing at stake in the outcome.

Giving our best to the moment
with nothing to gain and nothing to lose,
intent only on honoring the situation
as it unfolds around us
by responding to what is called for
with the gifts we have to offer
to each here and now,
and letting what happens
just be what happens
to create the next moment
in which we respond to what is called for
with the gifts we have to offer…

So that our life unfolds
situation-by-situation,
with us getting better
at being who we are
offering what we have to give
to each time and place of our living,
with nothing ever to gain,
and nothing ever to lose,
but always with another moment to shine
and show our stuff
by being who we are
to the best of our ability
just for the hell of it,
day in and day out.

What a life this is!
09/13/2020 —

1-208-867-5320 – Katie Payne

Hi John, This is Jim Dollar. I understand you’ve had better days, and I’m sorry things aren’t better than they are right now.

I want you to know I have enjoyed your company and have been stabilized, and remained upright because of your presence and influence. You have that kind of righting and making right demeanor, and it is a joy to have been a part of your life. I haven’t been more a part of your life, because I took a vow of solitude and silence about 5 years ago, and haven’t had a conversation with anyone outside of my immediate and extended family for that long, or longer. It has been good for me in terms of finding my balance and harmony, but not good for my relationships, so I apologize to you for withdrawing without notifying you, but I didn’t talk and I knew you didn’t type or email, so here we are.

One of the things I always admired about you is your love for people, and the fact that you truly enjoy all people of every variety. It is a beautiful thing, and one of the things those of us who know you love about you. It is wonderful. I also have taken comfort in the fact that you didn’t want anyone to know you were a Mensa member because they might expect the wrong things from you. I’ve kept myself somewhat secluded with your model in mind, and it has served me well.

I’m going to leave you with this story of an old shaman in the Siberian tundra in the 1850’s. He was interviewed by an explorer and made what I believe must be the earliest declaration of faith on record. He spoke the words of a song of his ancestors, going back to 2 to 3,000 BC, and said, “The gods have told us to tell our people, ‘Do not fear the Universe—there is nothing to harm you there.’” I think that same core belief is to be found in the heart of every religion that is or has ever been on earth, and I share it with all those who have shared it through the ages. There is something deep within us, within our Psyche, that resonates with that conviction, and knows that it is so. And with that I can leave you with “Peace be with you, now and forever, John.” I love you. Amen.