December 23, 2019 — January 29, 2020

1. 12/23/2019— 
   
   It is easy to feel as though
   nothing we do matters.
   This is called,
   being in the trough,
   which is the low point
   of a wave.
   
   When we are in the trough,
   we have to recognize it,
   and wait it out.
   The trough is the turn-a-round
   between crests.
   
   The tide comes in
   and the tide goes out,
   and, in between,
   the tide turns around;
   
   The wave goes up
   and the wave goes down.
   The point between up and down
   (Crest and Trough)
   is called “Sea Level.”
   
   Waves are in constant motion.
   There is no steady state
   to a wave.
   A trough is just a trough.
   A crest is just a crest.
   Sea level is just a point
   between the two.
   
   What a wave does
   at every point
   is the work of being a wave.
   
   The next time we find ourselves
   thinking that nothing we do matters,
   that it is all useless,
   pointless,
   hopeless,
   futile
   and there is not reason to go on,
   we have to say,
   “Aha! These are the signs
   of being in a trough!”
   And keep on doing the work
   of being who we are
   even in a trough.
   
   The work of being a wave
   is what a wave does,
   without thinking it is
   a wondrous wave at the crest,
   and ought to end it all
   in the trough.
   A wave doesn’t give
   stuff like that a second thought.
   It just goes on doing the work
   of being a wave.
   
   Take a lesson from the wave,
   and go on doing the work
   of being you,
   without giving how you feel
   about your work
   a second thought.
   
   Our work is why we are here.
   Our work is who we are.
   We do our work best
   when we aren’t stepping away
   from it to grade it,
   judge it,
   opine about it,
   grouse and whine,
   moan and complain.
   
   We have to believe in our work
   even in the trough,
   and do it through all the stages,
   in each situation as it arises,
   all our life long.
   As though it makes all the difference,
   even when the evidence
   seems to suggest otherwise.
   
   We are to do our work
   the way it ought to be done,
   no matter how we feel about it,
   because it is our work,
   and where would it be with out us?
   
   What would the ocean be
   without waves?
   
   
2. 12/24/2019—  McAlpine Creek 12/23/2019 01 Panorama — McAlpine Creek Greenway, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 23, 2019, after 2.5 inches of rain in less than 24 hours. There is a foot bridge somewhere under there. Maybe. Still.
   
   We all operate under
   the illusion/delusion/conviction
   (And where *does* that line lie?)
   that we know what’s best for us,
   and that we would be better off
   somewhere else,
   with something else.
   
   The United States had its beginning
   with a small group of immigrants
   thinking they would be better off
   not being economic slaves
   to their British “owners.”
   
   Members of every caste system worldwide
   feel this way.
   
   Our ancestors went from
   being better off not being slaves
   to being better off having slaves
   in no time at all–
   not bothered a bit
   by the incongruous nature
   of that shift in logic.
   
   “There is nothing incongruous about it!”
   our ancestors–
   and many of their descendants–
   would say,
   “It isn’t slavery that is bad.
   It is *being* a slave that is bad.
   *Owning* slaves is great!”
   
   This “blind spot,”
   reflects a basic motivating principle
   operating within the species
   (Which all people sufficiently sensitive
   and aware
   are increasingly ashamed of–
   the species,
   I’m talking about–
   over the course of their life),
   namely:
   We don’t care if what is better for us
   is worse for someone else.
   We know what is better for us,
   and we are going to die in its service!
   
   And sex slavery
   (AKA “Human Trafficking”)
   and the drug business
   (Legal and illegal)
   are booming businesses
   these days.
   
   As a species,
   we never reach a place
   or a stage in life
   where we wouldn’t be better off
   somewhere else,
   with something we don’t have
   and without something we do have.
   
   The quest to have this
   and be rid of that
   keeps us going.
   And we are certain
   we know what we are doing.
   
   Say what you will,
   you will never talk us out of it.
   
   Striving to get
   and to get rid of
   is the fundamental thrust of life.
   And we think we are going to be,
   not only serenely happy,
   but also completely satisfied and content,
   in heaven
   for all eternity.
   
   There are two chances of that happening,
   as the old saying goes,
   “fat and slim.”
   
   
3. 12/24/2019—  December Shoreline 12/14/2012 — Lake Brandt from the Lake Brandt Greenway, Bur-Mill Park access, Greensboro, NC — December 14, 2012
   
   We have gotten away from
   relishing our food,
   liking our clothes,
   being comfortable in our ways,
   and enjoying our work
   (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching).
   
   And the way back
   is lost in the dust of the world
   and the noise of the 10,000 things.
   
   Cultivate silence.
   Keep faith with yourself
   and with one another.
   Wait for right action to arise
   and follow where it leads,
   without trying to guide things
   to serve your ends,
   or to impose your agenda
   upon any situation.
   

12/25/2019—  Lake Haigler 11/24/2019 08 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, November 24, 2019

In each situation,
there is
how things are,
how we think things are,
how we pretend things are,
how we want things to be,
how things ought to be,
how things can be.

How we respond to it
tells the tale.

• 12/25/2019—  Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 03 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Lake Abbot, MP 86, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Everybody should spend one day annually
  being totally dead,
  from Midnight to 6 PM.
  Then come back to life.
  
  Let go completely
  of all the things you tend to in a day,
  that keep you wrapped up in the drama of life,
  that demand your attention
  and your care.
  
  When you are actually dead,
  you will not tend those things,
  or anything else.
  
  All of your obligations,
  duties,
  responsibilities
  will disappear then,
  so disappear them now
  for 18 hours.
  Once a year.
  
  What you do about
  eating and drinking
  is up to you.
  
  Let your family and friends
  know what you are doing.
  Invite them to join you.
  
  Spend 18 hours in silence,
  paying attention to everything
  in each moment.
  Write down your thoughts,
  describe what you experience,
  record all of the questions that occur to you,
  note all of the things that arise in your imagination,
  that come to mind,
  that emerge,
  arise.
  
  Reflect on these things
  and note what occurs to you
  in your reflections.
  
  Take walks.
  Silent walking meditations.
  Notice everything.
  Notice your responses to everything.
  Attend what is happening
  and what you do in response.
  
  Come to life in your death.
  See what being dead
  has to teach you
  about being alive.
  
  Be dead for 18 hours
  once a year.
  
  
• 12/26/2019—  Parkway Overlooks 10/28/2019 04 — Blue Ridge Parkway near Roanoke, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  Insight is the child of conflict,
  contradiction,
  paradox,
  anomaly,
  pain,
  agony,
  anguish,
  opposition,
  limits,
  boundaries,
  dead ends,
  grief,
  loss,
  sorrow…
  
  We don’t just sit quietly
  in the comfort
  of soft reflection
  and gather insight.
  
  Insight is pounded into us
  by circumstances beyond
  our control,
  or our imagining.
  
  We wrestle with demonic powers,
  struggling for life against unseen forces
  and rise up
  with only realization
  to show for our effort.
  
  Nothing changes but our perspective,
  and that transforms everything.
  But not without extracting
  a terrible price.
  
  Every new way of seeing
  eats our old way of seeing alive.
  
  

12/27/2019—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 06 — Lake Haigler Falls (Spillway), Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019

Helping people find what they need
to do what needs to be done
is keeping faith with ourselves
and with one another.

Using anyone to get what we want
at the expense of troth,
truthfulness,
transparency,
goodwill,
and common decency
is breaking faith with ourselves
and with one another.

Treating anyone in ways that demean,
disregard,
disrespect,
dishonor them
is a betrayal of trust
and a failure of our inherent duty
to do right by all people.

And our refusal to call each other out
in this matter
and demand the best we have to offer
to all others
in each situation as it arises
is why we are where we are
as a nation
and a planet.

Demand the best of yourself
and each other,
and don’t let anyone get by
with less than that,
under any circumstances,
ever.

• 12/28/2019—  Boat House 12/26/2019 01 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  Jesus pissed people off.
  
  Not only that,
  but also, Jesus pissed the right people off.
  
  At one point,
  or another,
  in his life,
  Jesus pissed everybody off.
  
  The moral of this story
  is that if you call yourself a Christian,
  and are not living in a way
  that pisses people,
  especially the right people,
  and occasionally all the people,
  off,
  you have no business calling yourself a Christian.
  
  Of course, it follows here
  that being the church
  and paying the bills
  is more than a little bit iffy.
  
  Throughout my 40.5 years
  of ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA)
  I could never figure out
  how to be the church
  and pay the bills.
  
  Jesus paid very few bills.
  
  He did not pay his disciples,
  he had no administrative expenses,
  he never paved a parking lot,
  or repaired a roof,
  or painted a building,
  either inside or out,
  he never bought an organ,
  or a baby grand piano,
  or any piano…
  
  The list is long of expenses
  Jesus never incurred.
  
  Jesus could afford to piss people off.
  
  Pissing people off is the sine qua non
  of being in the business
  of being the church.
  
  The church is in the business of growing people up.
  Of squaring people up
  to the reality of what needs to be done,
  and of what they will have to give up
  to do it.
  
  No one ever–
  you could Googleit–
  grows up
  without growing up
  against their will.
  
  It is forced on all of us
  by our circumstances
  and our values.
  
  The people who choose to please
  their circumstances
  over their values
  never grow up.
  
  The people who choose to please
  their values
  over their circumstances
  grow up through the agony
  of their choices
  over the full course
  of their life.
  
  You can’t be the church
  as the church needs to be the church
  without growing up.
  And that means pissing people off.
  
  So if you are a member of some church,
  no matter how large,
  that is paying the bills,
  you aren’t doing it correctly.
  
  You cannot be the church–
  as Jesus was the church–
  and pay the bills.
  
  You are already splitting hairs aren’t you?
  “Jesus didn’t have a CHURCH!”
  A little accommodation here.
  Jesus didn’t do it the way it needed to be done
  and pay the bills.
  How’s that?
  
  If you are going to do it like Jesus did it,
  you are going to piss people off.
  If you aren’t pissing people off,
  you aren’t doing it like Jesus did it.
  
  How many people,
  particularly the right kind of people,
  have you pissed off today?
  Or even, recently?
  
  Try growing yourself up
  and see if you can’t improve your numbers.
  
  
• 12/28/2019—  Boat House 12/26/2019 02 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  What can we legitimately expect from God–
  or from That Which Has Always Been Called “God”?
  
  The answer is not going to sit well with you:
  
  “Exactly what we need
  to do what needs us to do it
  in each situation as it arises
  all our life long.”
  
  No more.
  No less.
  
  What we get from God,
  or from TWHABCG,
  is the ability to rise to the occasion
  on every occasion,
  and offer there
  what needs to be offered
  for the good of the occasion.
  For the good of the Whole.
  
  PERIOD!
  
  Who is going to be content with that?
  Only those of us who recognize what’s what
  and make their peace with it,
  taking it on faith
  that they will be able to make out
  with no more than that
  all their life long.
  
  The rest of us are strictly on their own.
  
  
• 12/29/2019—  McMullen Creek 12/28/2019 01 Panorama — McMullen Creek Greenway, McMullen Creek Flood Plain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  *Don’t build houses, offices, shops and deli’s in a flood plane! Build Greenways!*
  –0–
  
  The right to self-determination
  shall not be infringed!
  
  This is the foundational ground
  to all democracies.
  
  Our liberty is limited only
  by the Constitutional rights of others
  (Barack Obama).
  
  Until we all get behind this fundamental premise,
  we struggle with how to be free and bound
  at the same time.
  
  Freedom is binding.
  The right kind of bondage is freeing.
  
  We bind ourselves to one another
  by our pledge to serve the true good
  of the situation as a whole.
  
  It all rides on good faith–
  on our keeping faith with ourselves
  and with one another.
  
  The bondage of freedom
  is knowing where the lines lie,
  and living within the limits
  imposed on us
  by the rights of others.
  
  The single most important commandment
  in the Old Testament is:
  “Thou Shalt Not Remove Thy Neighbor’s Landmark!”
  In the New Testament it is:
  “Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.”
  
  Stay on your side of the line!
  
  It is as simple as that.
  
  
• 12/29/2019—  Cascades 04/22/2011 Panorama — The Cascades, E.B. Jeffress Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 272.5, Wilkes County, North Carolina, April 22, 2011
  
  There is how things are,
  and there is what we can do about it,
  and that is how things are.
  
  Coming to terms with how things are
  is called growing up.
  
  Growing up is all that is left to us
  more often than we want to admit.
  
  Carl Jung said
  “None of the important problems of life can be solved.
  They can only be out-grown”
  (Or words to that effect).
  
  Part of growing up
  is waiting for the shift to happen
  that allows us to do more
  about our circumstances
  than the present situation
  allows us to do.
  
  We bide our time,
  sit in the stillness,
  wait in the silence,
  watching/listening,
  for the Way to arise,
  emerge,
  occur to us
  and call us to action.
  
  What needs to happen
  to allow us to do what needs to happen
  about the circumstances
  we are facing?
  
  Too often, we have no idea,
  and have to wait to see even that,
  trusting ourselves to know
  the right idea when it comes,
  and act spontaneously in its service
  when the time for action arrives.
  
  Waiting,
  watching,
  listening,
  is doing what can be done
  in situations that allow nothing more.
  
  “When the flower opens,
  the bees appear.”
  “When the student is ready,
  the teacher appears.”
  “When the tide turns,
  the water rises or recedes.”
  
  Until then, we wait.
  Watching.
  Listening.
  
  When the door opens,
  we walk through.
  
  
• 12/29/2019—  Earth Shadow 12/18/2012 01 — Lake Brandt, Bur-Mil Park, Greensboro, NC — December 18, 2012
  
  It is no accident
  that Donald Trump
  is the architect
  of hatred,
  ruthlessness,
  violence,
  brutality
  and inhumanity.
  He is perfect for the role.
  
  Insecure,
  impotent,
  ignorant,
  terrified,
  alone,
  unloved
  and unlovable,
  he must lash out
  at everyone
  he perceives to be threatening.
  
  Trump must demean and attack,
  or better,
  torment and kill,
  the media,
  his political opponents,
  the helpless,
  the marginalized,
  the disenfranchised,
  the destitute
  and depleted–
  in order to experience
  the thrill of potency and power–
  the power of vindictiveness and destruction.
  
  He is at the mercy of his own vulnerabilities,
  and cannot bear the truth
  of his inability to face the just-so-ness
  of who he is.
  
  And he speaks to,
  and attracts,
  and is attracted to,
  those like him.
  
  He was elected by those
  who feel what he feels,
  who fear what he fears,
  who hates what he hates,
  and want nothing more
  than to kill what he wants killed.
  
  Which leaves the rest of us
  to devise strategies
  and implement them
  in the service of defending
  and protecting
  the victims of his rage–
  by taking up their cause,
  speaking out in their behalf,
  denouncing and condemning
  his intolerance
  and his inflammatory tweets
  and orations.
  
  And working against his re-election
  and that of Republicans.
  in all levels of public office,
  to bring an end to the insanity–
  the inhumanity–
  and restore the institutions
  devoted to effecting and enhancing
  liberty and justice for all.
  
  
• 12/30/2019—  McMullen Creek Slough 12/28/2019 07 Panorama — McMullen Creek Greenway, McMullen Creek Flood Plain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  Truth is always right there,
  waiting to be seen
  by those open to its presence
  and ready to do its bidding
  no matter what.
  
  That’s the catch.
  
  “Eyes to see,
  ears hear,
  hearts to understand”
  depend on
  not having to have things
  a certain way.
  
  Seeing how things are
  and knowing what’s what
  ask hard things of us,
  and require us to do what needs to be done.
  
  In each situation as it arises,
  all our life long.
  
  Everything that can be known
  is right there waiting to be known.
  
  There are no secrets.
  
  The information is quite available
  “to the mortal man,”
  and woman,
  and anyone else who cares to look.
  With their eyes open to what’s there,
  unafraid of what that might mean,
  or ask of them,
  in every situation that arises,
  every day of their life.
  
  We all access to the same data.
  All of the time.
  
  Step into a moment,
  look around.
  It is all right there.
  
  Where do you get your news?
  You are choosing to not-know
  what is going on
  by not getting your news
  from multiple sources.
  
  You are closing yourself off
  from what’s to be seen,
  heard,
  known,
  understood,
  comprehended,
  assimilated,
  used as grist for the mill.
  
  We are milling ourselves here.
  Bringing ourselves to life
  to meet the situation,
  and handle the circumstances,
  of our living
  all our life long.
  
  We need to know all there is to know,
  and know what to do with it,
  about it,
  and know what needs us to do it,
  and know how to go about doing it,
  in each moment
  of every day.
  
  But we want to glide along
  Smooth And Easy Street,
  following the cows
  from the barn
  to the pasture
  back to the barn.
  
  So, we are careful
  to not ask the questions
  that beg to be asked,
  and to not say the things
  that cry out to be said,
  and to not know the truth
  that sets us free,
  and breaks our heart,
  and binds us to the service of truth
  in every moment
  of every day
  forever.
  
  What kind of freedom is that?
  We want to be free
  to not do a damn thing
  we don’t want to do.
  Ever.
  
  And that keeps us
  from seeing how things are,
  and knowing what’s what,
  and living in light of that,
  with all it implies
  every day
  for the rest of our life.
  
  What are we not seeing
  that is right there
  waiting to be seen?
  Right here.
  Right now.
  
  
• 12/30/2019—  High Falls 04/12/2011 01 Panorama — DuPont State Forest, Transylvania County, near Brevard, NC — April 12, 2011
  
  Let’s start with this fundamental premise:
  
  I love you.
  
  I take that to mean
  I have no interest in you
  beyond connecting you with your life
  and getting out of your way.
  
  Anything more than that,
  other than that,
  is messing with your life.
  Is sabotaging your life.
  Is destroying your life.
  
  The most loving thing
  anyone can do for us
  is to enable us to live our own life.
  
  Everything we need is right there
  in our life–
  the life we are responsible for living.
  
  Whatever bumps us off that track
  interferes with our ability
  to follow our own hunches,
  rely on our own intuition,
  listen to our own guide,
  and live our own life.
  
  It is appalling how easily distracted we are,
  how easily un-tracked we are,
  how easily we drift off the path,
  lose the way,
  and wander through the wilderness
  wondering how we got there
  and what do we do now.
  
  We are responsible to ourselves,
  for ourselves,
  and have to listen intently
  for what we have to say,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  We cannot do that
  with someone else talking to us,
  directing us,
  telling us what to do and not do,
  or just offering us options
  that are not compatible
  with the interests
  and directions
  we need to be following.
  
  Here is the best advice
  you are ever going to receive:
  Listen to what resonates with you
  without thinking it is forever and always.
  Be alert to the way
  “One book opens another,”
  and dance with the music
  only you can hear.
  
  I love you, but.
  What your life needs of you,
  I do not know,
  and I have to get out of your way
  so that you will know–
  and trust yourself to the guidance
  tuned to the frequency of your particular life.
  
  
• 12/30/2019—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 01 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  The tide comes in and goes out,
  and the world is just as it is
  
  And if we were who we say we are
  over the generations,
  instead of saying one thing
  and doing another,
  pretending,
  posing,
  posturing,
  playing games,
  and serving a hidden agenda,
  we could add a measure of stability
  and balance to the wild swings
  of extremes over time.
  
  Harmony and equilibrium
  are evidence of
  virtue and integrity.
  
  Has anyone seen either of those of late?
  
  We do what we can
  to restore lost peace
  by returning to the silence/stillness
  and putting ourselves in accord
  with the source of life and being,
  one person at a time.
  
  Peace is not imposed from without,
  from above,
  but arises from within.
  
  Who can be at peace in these times?
  Be that person!
  Each of us–
  be that person!
  
  
• 12/31/2019—  McMullen Creek 12/282019 02 — McMullen Creek Greenway, McMullen Creek Flood Plain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  “Oz never did give nothing
  to the Tin Man
  that he didn’t,
  didn’t already have…”
  (America, lyrics)
  
  And we can’t be looking
  for somebody else
  to give us what is ours
  to do and to be.
  
  There is no one
  to deliver us.
  We have only ourselves
  to call upon
  to get us out of the messes
  we make
  and allow to be made
  by failing/refusing
  to be what the situation
  is calling us to be
  in the time and place
  of our living,
  in ways appropriate
  to the occasion.
  
  It takes practice,
  and believing in ourselves.
  
  Having faith in anything but ourselves
  is delusional
  and a failure of nerve.
  
  But that doesn’t mean
  I could sing at your wedding,
  or dance in even a poor
  rendition of the Nutcracker.
  
  The Renaissance Man/Woman
  is a fiction.
  There is what we can do,
  and what we have no business doing.
  Ours is to play the roles
  assigned to us
  wearing the face that was ours
  before we were born.
  
  Donald Trump is no President.
  And I couldn’t play
  centerfield for the Yankees
  or the Mudville 9.
  
  When we try to rise above
  our rightful place,
  and live beyond our means,
  we create a disturbance in the flow
  that takes years to abate.
  
  History is the story of the world
  trying to right itself
  from the impact of roles gone wrong,
  with singers trying to be golfers,
  and doctors wanting to be lawyers,
  and mechanics pretending to be CEO’s.
  
  It goes back to seeing and being who we are,
  and resisting the attraction
  to be who we are not.
  
  Living aligned with ourselves,
  in accord with the gifts
  and genius
  that are ours to serve,
  in harmony with the frequency
  that resonates with our soul,
  is a blessing and a grace
  upon our life and the world.
  
  Being out of tune
  is the discordant chaos
  of an orchestra in warm-up mode.
  
  
• 12/31/2019—  Scrapping Fall 12/10/2019 04 — 22-acre Woods, Indian Land, South Caroling, December 10, 2019
  
  If kindness,
  compassion
  and integrity
  are your guiding principles,
  you will be able to trust yourself
  to respond spontaneously
  to the situation as it arises
  in ways appropriate to the occasion,
  without having to delay your response
  in order to think carefully
  through your checklist
  of should/shouldn’t,
  ought/oughtn’t
  must/mustn’t
  and be able to defend your action
  based on what is normal,
  prudent
  and expected
  within the circumstances,
  while missing the door that opened
  and closed
  while you were being distracted
  by your work to be pleasing.
  
  Be improvisational!
  Take your chances
  with doing right by the moment
  even if what you do
  has never been done before,
  or may never be done again.
  
  Life is improv,
  dead is safe.
  
  
• 12/31/2019—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 03 — Spillway Falls, Anne Spring Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  What needs you to do it?
  How long have you been avoiding it?
  What is at work here?
  
  There is nothing but your life to live
  as it needs to be lived–
  not as someone else thinks it needs to be lived,
  but as your life knows it needs to be lived.
  
  Our life is not ours to do with as we please.
  We belong to our life to do its bidding.
  
  When I write these words,
  or any words,
  or all words,
  I am only endeavoring to write
  what needs to be written.
  
  When I live my life,
  I am only striving to live what needs to be lived,
  what needs me to live it.
  I go where I am led,
  I do as I am directed–
  as I intuit,
  feel,
  perceive where I am being led,
  how I am being directed.
  
  It is like the “Hot/Cold Game”
  we played as children.
  “Now I’m getting warmer,
  now I’m getting colder…”
  
  I wait for an impulse,
  for something to catch my eye,
  for something to draw my interest,
  to announce my next mission–
  which could be nothing more
  than what to have for lunch.
  
  I wait for clarity,
  direction,
  inspiration,
  motivation–
  for the next thing to call my name.
  
  How do you do it?
  Pay attention to how you determine
  what is next.
  How do you know what you need to do?
  How do you know your life needs to be lived?
  
  
• 01/01/2020—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 10 Panorama — Anne Spring Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  If we do not do what can be done
  about any situation that arises,
  we deserve exactly what we get
  from the fallout
  and aftermath.
  
  If we are failing to oppose Donald Trump,
  Stephen Miller,
  Mitch McConnell
  and the rest of the Republican/Fascist coalition
  that is in charge of Congress
  and the country,
  and refusing to vote Trump
  and all Republicans
  out of office in 2020–
  and to never vote for another Republican ever,
  we are sitting tight
  with our fingers crossed
  and our eyes closed
  hoping for the best
  while the very worst is happening
  all around us
  and is quickly becoming
  long past turning around–
  and we are likely telling ourselves
  the GOP mantra
  over and over,
  “No matter how bad it gets under Trump,
  it would be unimaginably worse
  under the Democrats.”
  
  That is Fascist propaganda jargon!
  You have been deafened and blinded
  to the reality that is destroying the world,
  and if you do not wake up
  and get to work
  opposing what must be opposed
  and voting it out of control of the country,
  you bear full responsibility
  for the destruction of the climate,
  the destruction of democracy,
  and the end of life as we know it
  in this country
  and around the world.
  
  
• 01/01/2020—  Fort Buhlow 01/25/2017 13 Panorama B&W — Fort Buhlow Spanish Moss 2017 13 B&W — Alexandria, Louisiana, January 25, 2017
  
  We are seeking ourselves.
  What attracts us in others
  are aspects/reflections of ourselves.
  What repels us in others
  is what must be recognized,
  resisted,
  and integrated within ourselves.
  
  Our reaction to others
  is a doorway to meditation
  on who we are
  and what we are to be about.
  
  Other people
  are mirrors reflecting
  our own soul
  back to us.
  
  When we look at them
  we see ourselves.
  They show us who we are
  and what is ours to do.
  
  Without them,
  where would we be?
  Without understanding this,
  where would we be?
  Seeing this is seeing all we need to see.
  Knowing this is all we need to know.
  From this point on,
  everything is up to us.
  What we do about it/with it
  tells the tale
  we are composing
  with the life we are living.
  Where we go from here
  makes all the difference.
  
  
• 01/01/2020—  Tree Tops 12/10/2019 03 B&W — 22-acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, December 23, 2019
  
  My work as a servant
  of hermeneutics
  (From Hermes,
  the Messenger of the Gods,
  the God of Meaning and Interpretation)
  is to get to the bottom of things,
  to see what’s what
  and what that means,
  and what it calls for for us
  in terms of an appropriate response,
  one proper and fitting the circumstances,
  in rising to the occasion,
  doing what needs to be done
  with the skills, talents, gifts, genius, etc.
  that we bring to the moment
  in each situation as it arises
  all our life long.
  
  I did not set this as a goal,
  or pick this out as what I wanted to do
  with my life,
  it has been my life from the beginning.
  It is who I am,
  what I do,
  in Gerad Manley Hopkins sense of,
  “What I do is me,
  for that I came.”
  
  Our work shines though.
  Our work is what we find our selves doing
  without intending to,
  without trying to,
  just automatically,
  spontaneously,
  responding to our circumstances.
  
  Our work is what we can be counted on to do,
  what people expect us to do,
  what people make fun of us for doing,
  what people see as characterizing us
  and our life,
  what they mean when they say,
  “That is so like you,” or,
  “That sounds just like you.”
  
  Thinking about these things,
  and looking back over your life,
  what stands out for you about you
  that could be classified as “Your work”?
  
  
• 01/01/2020—  Woods Stream 12/26/2019 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  My bedrock principle of interpretation,
  assessing/ascribing/understanding/declaring/stating
  meaning is this:
  “Do not ever think you have said anything–
  and never, ever, under any circumstances
  think you have said the last word about anything–
  and always, always, remember
  there is always more to say about anything
  that has been said,
  or can ever be said!
  
  Taking this as your own bedrock principle
  will put the Bible
  “as the absolute word of God,
  never to be questioned,
  certainly never to be expanded,
  or questioned in any way ever”
  in its place.
  
  And, it will put those who proclaim
  the absolute truth of the Bible,
  and claim that designation
  for all they say about the Bible,
  and anything else,
  in its place.
  
  And free you to make your own determination
  about the Bible,
  and those who talk about the Bible,
  and all other aspects of reality as it is,
  or may ever be,
  perceived to be.
  
  You are free to think your own thoughts,
  and think about your thinking,
  to see what you see,
  and think about your seeing,
  and decide for yourself
  what you think is right,
  and re-evaluate that in light of
  what else you think is right,
  or will, in time, think is right…
  
  Always, always, working to say
  what needs to be said
  about all aspects of experience.
  And to ask the questions that beg to be asked
  about all aspects of experience.
  And never, ever, thinking you have said anything,
  certainly not the last word,
  about anything.
  
  This is the most wonderful,
  and tantalizing,
  aspect of life,
  living,
  and being alive
  that I know of–
  and I relish it with all my heart,
  and mind,
  and body,
  and soul.
  
  This is the path that never ends!
  The stream that always flows!
  The song that goes on and on!
  
  
• 01/02/2020—  Springer’s Woods 10/28/2011 02 — Springer’s Point, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina
  
  Trial and error, Kid. Trial and error.
  
  Shirley, by now,
  you have had plenty of time
  to watch the Jon Kabat-Zinn
  YouTube videos
  (the shortest ones first)
  on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
  (MBSR),
  and are practicing being intentionally
  present in and aware of the current moment,
  here and now
  without being engaged with,
  or kidnapped/hijacked by,
  anything that is there,
  just noticing everything
  and holding it in your awareness,
  breathing slowly and deeply,
  and when your mind wanders
  into some area of memory or imagination,
  you simply become aware of that,
  and bring your focus back to the moment
  without judgment or opinion,
  and continue to be aware
  of what is here, now.
  
  And all the rest of you have surely
  joined Shirley in her watching the videos
  and practicing being present in this moment
  right now.
  
  And all of you know that patience
  and compassion are the keys
  to being present with the present
  and what is happening there
  without involvement or engagement,
  just watching,
  just listening,
  just seeing,
  just hearing,
  just knowing,
  just being,
  at the pivot point of perceiving
  what is happening
  and what needs to be done about it
  and being called spontaneously to action
  at the right time in the right way
  when your intervention is most necessary
  to the unfolding of events
  within the circumstances you are observing
  for the good of the situation as a whole.
  
  And that all of this is an eternally continuing
  matter of trial and error,
  learning as we go
  in the dance with the circumstances
  of our living
  in the time and place of our life.
  
  Shirley (etc.), I am right about that.
  Right?
  
  
• 01/02/2020—  McMullen Creek Slough 12/28/2019 06 Panorama — McMullen Creek Greenway, McMullen Creek Flood Plain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  The old Taoist and Zen masters
  understood enlightenment to be
  realizing “the face that was ours
  before we were born,”
  and living in ways that aligned
  ourselves with it,
  exhibiting our “original nature”
  and being in accord with who
  we are built to be.
  
  Carl Jung saw “individuation”
  as the process of aligning
  ourselves with ourselves
  over the full course of our life,
  and said the goal
  was to live so that
  “who we are is who we always have been
  and who we will be.”
  
  Jung and the Taoist/Zen masters
  would agree that the Way
  to who we are/have been/will be
  consists of “stopping and seeing”
  throughout each day.
  
  Being aware of the moment
  to the fullest possible extent,
  transparent to ourselves
  and clear about what is happening,
  within and without,
  and what needs to happen,
  and offering what is ours to give
  to the work that needs to be done,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment–
  without concern for,
  or interest in,
  our advantage,
  our gain,
  our good,
  but solely for the good of the whole
  of which we are a part.
  
  Bringing ourselves forth,
  birthing ourselves,
  and being who we are
  is what’s in it for us.
  There is nothing beyond
  knowing and being ourselves
  to want,
  or have,
  or be.
  
  Enlightenment is knowing that,
  and doing it.
  
  
• 01/03/2020—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 07 — Spillway Falls, Anne Spring Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  We are only safe with ourselves,
  and we are not safe at all with ourselves,
  and therein lies the problem.
  
  We want to be safe.
  
  In order to be safe,
  we have to change our mind about safety.
  And security.
  And learn to love living on the edge.
  Free-falling.
  Not knowing what is going to happen next
  or what we are going to do.
  
  We have to trust ourselves
  to find what we need
  to do what needs to be done
  in rising to the occasion
  on every occasion
  and dancing with
  our circumstances
  no matter what they are.
  
  It’s like this.
  Look around.
  You cannot deny the fact
  that here you are–
  here we all are!
  
  We came from nowhere
  with nothing,
  not one thing,
  and through the years,
  over time,
  we have violins
  and grand pianos.
  Hiking boots
  and cellphones.
  How did that happen?
  We did it.
  Everything you see
  came right out of our own imagination.
  
  We have nothing to be afraid of.
  
  We are afraid
  because we do not trust ourselves.
  And because we are lazy.
  And want Mamma
  or some Mamma substitute
  to take care of us forever.
  
  We are on our own.
  It is up to us.
  Our life is our responsibility.
  
  The way we do it
  is the way
  of establishing Right Relationship
  with ourselves.
  
  We have all we need
  to find what we need
  to do what needs to be done.
  It only takes believing it is so
  to know that it is so.
  It only takes faith in ourselves
  to know that we can deal successfully,
  appropriately,
  with whatever comes our way.
  
  My proposal is that
  we stop and look into
  the proposition
  that we have what we need
  and are what we seek.
  
  And all this time
  we have been riding the donkey
  looking for the donkey.
  Holding the keys,
  searching for the keys.
  Wearing our glasses
  wondering where our glasses are.
  
  
• 01/03/2020—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 07 — Spillway Falls, Anne Spring Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  We are only safe with ourselves,
  and we are not safe at all with ourselves,
  and therein lies the problem.
  
  We want to be safe.
  
  In order to be safe,
  we have to change our mind about safety.
  And security.
  And learn to love living on the edge.
  Free-falling.
  Not knowing what is going to happen next
  or what we are going to do.
  
  We have to trust ourselves
  to find what we need
  to do what needs to be done
  in rising to the occasion
  on every occasion
  and dancing with
  our circumstances
  no matter what they are.
  
  It’s like this.
  Look around.
  You cannot deny the fact
  that here you are–
  here we all are!
  
  We came from nowhere
  with nothing,
  not one thing,
  and through the years,
  over time,
  we have violins
  and grand pianos.
  Hiking boots
  and cellphones.
  How did that happen?
  We did it.
  Everything you see
  came right out of our own imagination.
  
  We have nothing to be afraid of.
  
  We are afraid
  because we do not trust ourselves.
  And because we are lazy.
  And want Mamma
  or some Mamma substitute
  to take care of us forever.
  
  We are on our own.
  It is up to us.
  Our life is our responsibility.
  
  The way we do it
  is the way
  of establishing Right Relationship
  with ourselves.
  
  We have all we need
  to find what we need
  to do what needs to be done.
  It only takes believing it is so
  to know that it is so.
  It only takes faith in ourselves
  to know that we can deal successfully,
  appropriately,
  with whatever comes our way.
  
  My proposal is that
  we stop and look into
  the proposition
  that there is more to us
  than meets the eye,
  our eye,
  any eye,
  and we have what we need,
  and are what we seek.
  
  And all this time
  we have been riding the donkey
  looking for the donkey.
  Holding the keys,
  searching for the keys.
  Wearing our glasses
  wondering where our glasses are.
  
  
• 01/04/2020—  Four-mile Creek Greenway 12/23/2019 01 Panorama — Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 23, 2019
  
  Democrats are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Republicans are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Black people are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Gay people are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Mexicans are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Muslims are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Evangelicals are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Liberals are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Fascists are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  White Nationalists are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Rich people are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  Poor people are _______(fill in the blank)_______
  … And so on, like that,
  with everything.
  Every. Thing.
  
  Now, look deeply into everything on the list.
  Every. Thing.
  See all of the things you did not see
  about everything.
  
  See everything completely,
  just as it is.
  
  See all of the things about everything.
  Every. Thing.
  
  Look into everything
  until you can see all things
  about Every. Thing.
  
  Do not talk about anything
  until you can say all things
  about Every Thing.
  
  Look into
  everything,
  everybody,
  you look at.
  
  Do not say anything
  about anybody
  until you have looked into everything
  about everybody.
  
  If you are not going to see everything
  about anybody,
  why look at all?
  
  Look into why you look
  without seeing all there is to see
  about what you look at.
  
  Look into why you talk
  without being able to say
  what else there is to say
  about the things you talk about.
  
  If you aren’t seeing everything,
  you aren’t seeing what you look at.
  You are only seeing what you want to see.
  You are not even looking at
  what you don’t want to see.
  
  Your seeing is partial.
  Minute.
  You don’t see half of all there is to see
  about anything.
  Yet, you sound off like you are an authority
  about everything.
  
  Look into that.
  What do you see?
  
  
• 01/04/2020—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 02 — Spillway Falls, Anne Spring Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  If you aren’t going to say everything
  about anything,
  why say anything at all?
  
  Why stop with what you have to say about it?
  Why say only what you have to say?
  Why say what you have to say?
  Why say that what you have to say
  is all you need to say about it?
  What makes what you have to say about it
  the only thing that needs to be said about it?
  
  What are you up to?
  What are you doing?
  What are your motives?
  What moves you to say what you have to say,
  and only what you have to say?
  
  What ends are you serving?
  Who are you trying to please?
  Who would be happy to hear what you have to say?
  Who would be happy with you for saying it?
  Whose favor are you courting?
  Who are you afraid of displeasing?
  
  What possesses you?
  Controls you?
  Limits you?
  Restricts you?
  Insists, demands, that you only say “this”
  and not “that”?
  
  Look into it.
  Explore it.
  Examine it.
  Make inquiries.
  Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
  Say the things that cry out to be said.
  About why you see what you see
  and only what you see
  about the things you look at
  and refuse to see anything else.
  
  Look into it.
  
  
• 01/04/2020—  Tree Tops 12/10/2019 02 B&W — 22-acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, December 10, 2019
  
  Enlightenment is simply
  seeing what we see,
  hearing what we hear,
  knowing what we know
  and being transparent to ourselves.
  
  What are we looking at and not seeing?
  What are we blocking out and not hearing?
  What are we knowing but not knowing that we know?
  Where are we kidding ourselves?
  Where are we not paying attention
  to all that is going on?
  
  When we wake up,
  we wake up to all of that.
  
  
• 01/04/2020—  Helping Hand 07/03/2009 — Crabtree Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Little Switzerland, North Carolina, July 03, 2009
  
  Our favorite way of dealing with the truth
  is by distracting ourselves
  from having to deal with it.
  
  Reality is not where
  we want to spend our time.
  
  The 10,000 addictions exist
  to take our minds off reality.
  
  We think about the things we think about
  in order to keep from thinking about the things
  we don’t want to think about.
  
  We fill our time with attractive diversions
  to avoid the dreadful realities.
  
  Opioids “save” their users
  from lives they cannot bear to consider,
  only to wallop them with a “fix”
  that is worse than the horror
  they were trying to escape.
  
  The truth of reality
  is that we all have to pay up eventually.
  “We meet what we cannot face
  on the road we take to avoid it.”
  
  Bearing the pain
  and doing what must be done
  is the two-pronged strategy
  for dealing with the unwanted.
  
  Make reality your best friend.
  Run to meet it
  as it makes its rounds.
  Learn to look forward
  to its daily deliveries
  and what they can show you
  about yourself,
  and the skills you can develop
  in letting come what’s coming
  and letting go what’s going.
  
  We grow up against our will,
  in the work of coming to terms
  with the conflicts and contradictions,
  the adversity and opposition,
  the grief, loss and sorrow
  that shatter our world
  and break our hearts.
  
  Joseph Campbell said,
  “Where you stumble and fall,
  there lies the treasure.”
  
  Learn what he means
  by standing your ground,
  welcoming the moment
  and opening yourself
  to all it brings with it.
  
  Campbell also said,
  “It took the Cyclops
  to bring out the hero in Ulysses.”
  
  Invite the unwanted into your life–
  it is going to be a part of your life anyway,
  be glad to have it
  and receive it as a gracious host,
  looking forward to seeing
  what it brings forth in you,
  what it has to show you about yourself,
  and to discover what you are made of.
  
  And, if it overwhelms your coping ability,
  forget the lonesome hero approach,
  and see what help is available–
  ask for it!
  Be thankful for it!
  And see where it takes you.
  
  And take your time with recovery.
  Spend your time seeing everything,
  asking the questions that beg to be asked,
  and saying the things that cry out to be said.
  Notice what emerges from the silence,
  and take note of what occurs to you unbidden.
  
  We are often led by unseen hands
  to where we most need to be,
  and find help where we wouldn’t expect
  anything helpful to be.
  
  You are learning to trust yourself
  to find what you need
  to do what needs to be done.
  
  You are growing up,
  against your will,
  and joining the great body
  of those who have walked
  the path you are waking.
  And they have all
  walked with a limp.
  
  
• 01/04/2020—  Fall on Little River 11/10/2006 01 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tremont, Tennessee, November 11, 2006
  
  Carl Jung said,
  “The reason for evil in the world
  is that people
  are not able
  to tell their stories.”
  
  The reason this results
  in evil being in the world
  is that in telling our stories,
  we hear them ourselves
  for the first time.
  
  In saying what is so,
  we hear what is so,
  we realize what is so,
  we recognize the truth
  of how it was with us,
  of how it is with us,
  we know what’s what
  and how things got to be
  the way they are.
  
  We wake up to the truth
  of the life we lived,
  the truth of what we have done
  and the truth of what was done to us,
  and come to terms
  with the nature
  of what we have had to work with.
  
  Telling our story is redemptive,
  and cathartic,
  and enlightening.
  We see how we have lived,
  how we might have lived,
  how we might yet live,
  and may,
  with the right kind of audience,
  find the courage
  to live toward the best we can imagine
  in the time left for living.
  
  Without being able to tell our stories,
  we are alone with the weight
  of unexamined experiences,
  with only moods and emotions
  we do not understand
  to direct our actions
  and shape our lives
  in the service of seeking release
  and acting out any way we can.
  
  
• 01/05/2020—  McMullen Creek Slough 12/28/2019 05 — McMullen Creek Greenway, McMullen Creek Floodplain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  All we need is a sounding board.
  Someone to tell our story to.
  Someone to listen us to what’s what,
  what it takes
  and what to do about it.
  
  Once we are clear about what’s what,
  what it takes
  and what to do about it,
  we are free to live,
  or to not live,
  the life that is ours to live
  in the time left for living.
  
  Jim Hollis says there are two things
  keeping us from doing that:
  fear and lethargy.
  We are afraid of what might happen,
  and we are lazy–
  and our situation is not quite bad enough
  to motivate us past knowing what’s what
  into doing what needs to be done about it.
  
  Finding excuses is what we do best.
  No! Telling ourselves what we want to hear
  is what we do best!
  No! Kidding ourselves is what we do best!
  No! Shooting ourselves in the foot
  is what we do best!
  No! Letting ourselves off the hook
  is what we do best!
  No! Changing the subject
  is what we do best!
  No! Looking the other way
  is what we do best!
  No! Doing what it takes to feel better
  about not doing what it takes to get better
  is what we do best!
  No! . . .
  
  It is “a long and winding road,”
  a “slippery slope,”
  a “dangerous path,”
  “like a razor’s edge”
  from knowing to doing.
  
  Just because we see the way
  is no guarantee that we will
  actually take it.
  And pay the price
  of growing up
  some more
  again
  all the way along the way
  to being who we are
  where we are
  when we are
  how we are
  no matter what.
  
  It’s called the Hero’s Journey,
  after all.
  
  
• 01/05/2020—  Yellowstone Falls 09/06/2001 — Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park, Canyon Village, Wyoming, September 6, 2001
  
  Today is the first day of my 76th year.
  Since we can never be sure
  of how many of those
  we have left,
  we cannot afford to be flip
  and casual
  and careless
  about how we live any day ever.
  
  No matter how many may remain,
  there aren’t enough,
  and our place is to make the most of–
  by doing right by–
  each one that dawns
  and invites us to step into it
  and do what we do best throughout it.
  
  So, we begin each day
  listening for what needs to be said
  the way only we can say it,
  looking for what needs to be done,
  the way only we can do it,
  facing what needs to be faced,
  the way only we can face it,
  and being who we need to be,
  the way only we can be it–
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  throughout it.
  
  Creating karma,
  serving dharma,
  in accord with the Tao,
  at one with Kairos,
  wearing our original face,
  expressing our original nature,
  looking into everything along the way,
  awash with the wonder of it all
  every day.
  
  May it be so with us all
  all the way!
  
  
• 01/05/2020—  Trail to Triple Falls 10/14/2011 01 — DuPont State Forest near Brevard, North Carolina, October 14, 2011
  
  There is more to everything
  than meets the eye,
  and so the need
  to look into
  whatever we look at
  in order to see what’s what,
  what’s there,
  and what else is there,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  every day
  for the rest of our life.
  
  And then,
  the matter of doing what needs to be done
  about it
  with the gifts,
  genius,
  daemon,
  spirit
  of our original face
  and our original nature
  no matter what.
  
  When we get that down,
  we have it made,
  not that that matters
  to those who know what’s what
  and are doing what needs to be done
  about it
  (Having it made
  just means we keep doing
  what we are doing–
  seeing and doing–
  forever,
  being brought forth
  by our circumstances,
  and growing up
  some more,
  again,
  all the time).
  
  
• 01/05/2020—  The Swimming Hole 11/06/2006 — Midnight Hole, Big Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Big Creek Campground, North Carolina/Tennessee, November 06, 2006
  
  There is no time to lose!
  Not a second to waste!
  So.
  Do we hurry up
  in order to not miss anything,
  or,
  do we slow down
  in order to not miss anything?
  
  Sometimes one,
  sometimes the other.
  
  We make the call
  across all times and places.
  
  What we say, goes.
  
  Oh, we have to be right about it.
  
  Try threading that needle!
  Try walking that slippery slope,
  that dangerous path,
  that razor’s edge,
  all the way.
  
  That is where we are,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  Damned if we do,
  and damned of we don’t,
  at all points along the way.
  
  What to do?
  Be damned and be done with it!
  Listen in the stillness
  and watch for what arises
  in the silence
  to point,
  however faintly,
  out the way,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  And, if it becomes apparent
  that you chose poorly,
  listen in the stillness
  and watch for what arises
  in the silence,
  to point,
  however faintly,
  out the way,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  
• 01/05/2020—  The Pond 10/28/2006 — Cypress trees, “down east” North Carolina, October 28, 2006
  
  We are not in charge
  of the way we see things,
  and cannot change how we see
  by an act of will,
  reason,
  logic
  or determination.
  
  Yet, the way we see
  is subject to change
  over time.
  
  We grow into seeing differently,
  or not.
  
  We can remain immature indefinitely,
  immune to the impact of time,
  stuck in a worldview impervious
  to circumstance
  or experience,
  believing,
  thinking
  and doing
  what has always been believed,
  thought
  and done
  by everyone we know
  forever.
  
  Growing up,
  some more,
  again
  means seeing things differently
  over time.
  
  If the way we see things
  isn’t changing,
  we may be 98.6 and breathing,
  but we are dead to the world,
  waiting on some undertaker
  to make it official.
  
  
• 01/06/2020—  The Watchman 09/22/2006 — Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah, September 22, 2006
  
  What’s wrong?
  What would it take
  for things to be right?
  
  What do you care about?
  Who cares about you?
  
  Where do you belong
  on the list
  of those who care about you?
  
  In what ways do you make clearly evident
  the fact that you care about you?
  
  What do you care about about you?
  
  What’s wrong with you?
  What would it take for things to be right
  with you?
  
  How is money a distraction
  helping you avoid
  coming to terms
  with your relationship
  with yourself?
  
  Helping you take your mind off
  what is wrong?
  Off what it would take for things to be right?
  With your life?
  And with you?
  
  What would it take
  for you to like yourself?
  For you to be able to like yourself?
  
  Look into these things over time.
  Keep an eye on them.
  Study them.
  Be aware of them
  as you go through your life.
  See what comes to mind.
  See what memories you stir up.
  How did things get to be the way they are?
  How does the way they are need to be changed?
  
  These aren’t questions to be answered
  and put aside,
  but questions to be wondered about,
  observed.
  Lived.
  Catch yourself in the act
  of answering them
  by the way you live,
  and look into that.
  
  No judging.
  No fault-finding.
  Just observing.
  Just noting.
  Just noticing.
  How “this” is related to “that.”
  
  It is all grist for the mill.
  We are milling ourselves,
  over the long course of our life.
  “We are the sculptor,
  and we are the stone”
  (Alexis Carrel).
  
  
• 01/06/2020—  McMullen Creek Slough 12/28/2019 04 — McMullen Creek Greenway, McMullen Creek Floodplain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  Look at any photograph I take,
  have taken,
  will take,
  and you will see
  harmony,
  symmetry,
  balance,
  beauty.
  
  I live in the service of these things.
  
  I am always balancing,
  harmonizing,
  situations and circumstances.
  
  I soften things.
  Take the edge off things.
  Help things fit,
  blend,
  merge,
  belong.
  
  I work to smooth
  your relationship with yourself
  and other people
  by helping you be aware
  of your relationship with yourself
  and other people.
  
  I think awareness smooths things out,
  fills things in,
  reduces disparity,
  and discord,
  and chaos.
  
  I think if we see how things are,
  we will spontaneously
  shift our relationship with things
  toward reconciliation,
  peace
  and harmony.
  
  I think we are not naturally belligerent,
  hostile,
  mean
  and ornery.
  
  And, when we are those things,
  it is because we are more interested
  in having our way
  than in having harmonious relationships
  with ourselves and others.
  
  It is because we have lost sight
  of what is important.
  We are out of harmony,
  out of flow,
  out of sync,
  out of accord with the Tao.
  
  And that impacts all of life
  in ways that do not support
  the fundamental requirements of life.
  
  And that means,
  “The harvest is plentiful,
  but the laborers are few,”
  and I will always have work to do.
  
  
• 01/06/2020—  Lake Haigler 12/26/2019 12 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 26, 2019
  
  We do not come into the world
  automatically knowing what to do
  with our life.
  
  And when we are born
  into a society and culture
  that doesn’t know any more than we do,
  we have a problem:
  What to do with our life?
  
  In an ideal environment
  we would have what we need
  to nurture and nourish us
  into the life that is ours to live.
  
  There would be Yodas
  and Obi-wan Kenobis everywhere,
  talking to us about the Force,
  about the Source,
  about the Flow,
  about being in accord with the Tao,
  with the Dharma,
  with Kairos
  and Grace.
  
  We don’t get any of that.
  We get, “What do you want to be
  when you grow up?”
  
  No one ever tells us
  that no one ever grows up,
  but that we are all
  always growing up–
  into the face that was ours
  before we were born,
  into our Original Face,
  into our Original Nature–
  the ones that were taken from us
  shortly after birth
  by a society/culture that thinks
  we come into the world
  as a blank slate
  and have to be taught right from wrong.
  
  We know what is right for us
  and what is wrong for us
  from the start.
  We need to be taught
  how to listen to ourselves,
  how to trust ourselves,
  and how to walk two paths at the same time,
  honoring ourselves
  and our own bedrock,
  our own North Star,
  while fitting into the structure
  of society and culture–
  how to stand out,
  and how to fit in–
  how to be an individual
  within the group.
  
  The right kind of group
  would make that possible,
  even joyful.
  We are born into
  the wrong kind of group.
  
  And do not receive the guidance
  we need to consciously
  connect with who we are
  and what is ours to do
  from the beginning,
  but have to find our way there–
  if we are lucky–
  through trial and error
  over long stretches of time.
  
  And here we are–
  growing ourselves up together,
  at last.
  
  Welcome to the Delivery Room!
  
  
• 01/06/2020—  The Fire Pit 10/12/2019 01 — Union County, South Carolina, October 12, 2019
  
  Our Original Face
  and Original Nature
  come with us into the world
  as 100 proof potential,
  able to bring us forth
  within the context
  and circumstances
  of our life
  as authentic,
  genuine,
  real
  human beings,
  creating karma,
  serving dharma,
  in accord with the Tao,
  at one with Kairos,
  and agents of Grace.
  
  But.
  We are separated from all of that
  soon after birth,
  and pressed into the mold
  prepared for us by the culture
  which received us from the womb.
  
  The entire society is arrayed
  to tell us who we are
  and what life is ours to live.
  We get our marching orders
  from parents, priests, ministers,
  teachers, friends, commercials,
  movies and media.
  This is who we are supposed to be.
  This is what we are supposed to look like.
  This is what we are supposed to do…
  
  So much for our Original Nature
  and our Original Face.
  
  And yet.
  They never go away.
  They never give up.
  They wait in the silence
  for our eventual return.
  
  Just as a tree
  is just what it is.
  Just as a lion
  is just what it is.
  Just as a hummingbird
  is just what it is
  so each of us
  is just who we are.
  
  Nature’s advantage
  is that no one is telling an oak tree
  to be a pine,
  or a washing machine.
  
  Our advantage
  is that we have a brain
  and can think for ourselves.
  
  We all know what is right for us
  and what is wrong.
  We only have to know what we know,
  and what we don’t know–
  see our seeing,
  think about our thinking,
  and teach ourselves to be aware
  of the present moment
  and all that meets us there,
  paying attention,
  on purpose,
  to this moment right now,
  without opinion,
  or judgment,
  holding everything
  in compassionate awareness,
  and receiving what arises
  in the stillness
  as something to look into
  for its connection
  with the face that was ours
  before we were born,
  and the life that goes with it,
  even now,
  even yet,
  even still.
  
  
• 01/07/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 07 Detail — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  Carl Jung said,
  “There lives in each of us another,
  whom we do not know.”
  
  It is up to us to make acquaintances.
  To open ourselves to the presence
  of The Other.
  To make ourselves available to The Other.
  To make room for The Other.
  To establish,
  nurture,
  nourish,
  and maintain
  a vital relationship with The Other.
  To consult
  and collaborate with The Other–
  as best friends would–
  throughout our time together
  in the life we are conjointly living.
  
  The Other comes to us in dreams,
  in jolts of recognition
  and realization,
  in nudges,
  urges,
  whims,
  chance occurrences,
  premonitions,
  experiences of harmony,
  balance,
  serenity
  and peace–
  and their polar opposites.
  
  One way of realizing the reality
  of The Other
  is through The Animal Projection Exercise,
  which I call “Your Totem Animal”
  in a blog post on my WordPress site
  (https://jimwdollar.com/2019/07/10/your-totem-animal/).
  
  We are not alone.
  Yoda lives within us all
  as The Other within.
  
  It only takes believing it
  to know it is so.
  
  
• 01/07/2020—  McMullen Creek Slough 12/28/2019 03 Panorama — McMullen Creek Greenway, McMullen Creek Flood Plain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, December 28, 2019
  
  My idea of having it made
  is Tevya in *The Fiddler on the Roof.*
  Then, circumstances inserted themselves
  into his life situation
  and Tevya joined the rest of us
  in the work to have it made.
  
  That is how it is
  with having it made.
  We work to have it made
  for longer periods of time
  than we have it made.
  
  How did Tevya put things back together?
  My hunch is that
  he ran out of time.
  And if he didn’t run out of time,
  his circumstances would have flipped again,
  and he would be back
  working to put things together again.
  
  That is the rhythm of life.
  
  We no sooner get things in place
  than we have to
  get things in place again.
  
  And, sometimes,
  we never get things in place.
  And, have to make our peace with that.
  
  Having it made is completely out of the question
  with most of the world’s population.
  Most of us don’t have a chance.
  
  How many opioid addicts have a chance?
  How many children in the grip
  of poverty and hopelessness
  have a chance?
  How many people in nursing homes
  have a chance?
  
  A chance at what?
  A chance of life lived fully to the end.
  
  My idea of the end
  is as idealistic
  as my idea of having it made–
  dying with cookies in the oven
  and crumbs on the plate.
  What are the chances?
  
  And the catch here is
  that we cannot let our chances stop us.
  
  Tevya never considered his chances.
  He simply did what was his to do
  in the time and place of his living,
  and let his circumstances change
  with the times.
  That’s the way to do it.
  
  Our circumstances give us choices,
  and our primary choice
  is to not let our chances
  impact our choices.
  We make the best of each situation
  that comes up in a day,
  doing here and now
  what needs to be done here and now,
  and letting nature take its course.
  
  Aligning ourselves as best we can
  with our life as it needs us to live it,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  and letting our chances be our chances–
  in light of the over-riding fact of life
  for every living thing:
  Our circumstances
  are out of our control.
  And our chances depend on our circumstances.
  
  I’m living as well as I can imagine living,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  hoping for crumbs and cookies,
  and not allowing my chances
  to show me down.
  
  
• 01/07/2020—  McAlpine Creek Greenway 01/05/2020 01 Panorama — Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, January 5, 2020
  
  Having it made
  cannot be dependent
  on our circumstances.
  
  Let that sink in.
  
  Having it made transcends circumstances.
  Is immune to circumstances.
  Is beyond the reach of circumstances.
  
  Independent of circumstances,
  we are free to live our life
  moment-to-moment-to-moment
  on the basis of our relationship
  with our Original Face,
  our Original Nature,
  and what is available to us
  in each here-and-now
  of every day.
  
  We are capable of living beyond
  our circumstances,
  no matter what they are.
  If they are favorable,
  they are just favorable.
  If they are unfavorable,
  they are just unfavorable.
  
  We are capable of responding
  to all of our circumstances
  in ways that are appropriate
  to the occasion–
  in ways that serve virtue,
  harmony,
  balance,
  integrity,
  compassion
  and the true good of the whole.
  
  Nothing can happen to us
  that destroys our ability
  to respond by asking,
  “What are these times
  calling for?
  What is being asked of me,
  here and now?”
  
  Kairos,
  Tao,
  Dharma,
  and Grace
  are present in every moment
  (Carl Jung quoted the Delphic Oracle,
  saying, “Invoked or not invoked,
  the God is always present”)
  to call us into their service,
  and to guide us in the way.
  
  Our work is not to despair
  because things are happening
  that we do not want to happen,
  but to align ourselves
  with what is happening
  and what needs to happen in response
  that we can initiate
  our of the gifts,
  daemon,
  genius,
  spirit
  that are ours to bestow
  upon the time and place
  of our living.
  
  And we can do that much
  in any time and place.
  
  Being true to ourselves
  in response to our circumstances
  is having it made in that
  being who we are,
  where we are,
  when we are,
  how we are,
  in light of what
  is being asked of us–
  no matter what–
  is all that is ever asked of us,
  and no one could do better than that.
  
  
• 01/07/2020—  McAlpine Creek Greenway 01/05/2020 03 — McAlpine Creek Floodplain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, January 5, 2020
  
  Each situation demands a response
  fitting to its needs.
  
  If we spill the milk,
  we clean up the milk.
  
  If the dog needs to go outside,
  we take the dog outside.
  
  The situation does not wait for a time
  convenient to us
  to impose its will.
  It doesn’t wait until we are in the mood.
  Until we feel like it.
  Until we want to.
  
  And we aren’t allowed to negotiate
  a different response,
  or the proper response
  at a different time.
  
  We get to say yes or no.
  
  We rise to the occasion
  or we walk away.
  We do what is asked of us,
  or we fail to be
  who we are asked to be.
  
  We grow up one situation at a time.
  If we grow up at all.
  
  
• 01/08/2020—  McAlpine Creek Greenway 01/05/2020 02 Panorama — McAlpine Creek Floodplain, Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, January 5, 2020
  
  Rachel weeps for her children
  with shrieks of loud lamentation,
  and will not be consoled or comforted
  for she has lost them
  and is beyond consolation.
  
  So are we all.
  
  The consolation of Israel
  is said to ride with the Messiah,
  because,
  where else could it come from?
  We certainly are incapable
  of generating it among ourselves!
  So we long for the one
  who will bear our griefs
  and carry our sorrows,
  and take on himself
  the chastisement
  that makes us whole.
  
  Look into that.
  
  What does that tell you
  about our inability,
  our refusal,
  to bear our own pain–
  to grow up?
  And our rejection
  of the very idea,
  of bearing our pain
  and growing up?
  
  There is no growing up
  without bearing the pain
  of being alive.
  
  You will look in vain
  among the pages of the Bible
  for anything remotely reminiscent
  of Odysseus’ declaration:
  “I will stay with it and endure
  through suffering hardship,
  and once the heaving sea
  has shaken my raft to pieces,
  then I will swim!”
  
  In the Bible,
  we get waiting for Godot.
  For somebody to do it for us.
  For somebody who has to be appeased,
  and placated,
  bought off
  and mollified,
  soothed
  and won over.
  
  You can’t read the Bible
  without concluding,
  “These people have to grow up!”
  
  It is tough everywhere we look.
  Where do we get the idea
  that we should be consoled?
  
  We have to bear our own pain,
  and stop adding to the cumulative pain of life.
  The most brutal people I know
  are the people seeking some form
  of consolation,
  and taking it out on everyone else
  when they don’t find
  what they are looking for.
  
  Enough, already!
  We have everything we need
  to find what we need
  to do what needs us to do it.
  
  Pick yourself up
  and step into the day,
  every day,
  and do there what needs
  to be done there.
  
  And when the heaving sea
  has shaken your raft to pieces,
  swim!
  
  
• 01/08/2020—  Curves 10/28/2019 02 — Puckett Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 189.9, Hillsville, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  We dream of being presidents and princes,
  but.
  What do presidents and princes dream of?
  Apparently, tripping to Jeffery Epstein’s private island
  and passing a good time or two.
  
  Everybody, it seems,
  would be happier somewhere else.
  
  What is with escaping this
  to get/have that–
  which soon becomes this,
  and really needs to be that?
  
  What does life have to offer?
  Where is fulfillment to be found?
  Who are we kidding?
  Why do we settle so often
  for drugs, sex and alcohol?
  And settle so rarely
  for settling down with this,
  just as it is,
  forever?
  
  What is it about us
  that keeps us casting about
  for something more?
  
  What are we seeking?
  And how is where we are
  different from being adrift
  on the high seas,
  or wandering through
  the trackless wasteland?
  
  What is at the bottom of our lostness?
  Why do so many suffer
  “from the general aimlessness of life”?
  
  Look into it.
  Probe about in your own dissatisfaction
  and disenchantment.
  Why is happiness always somewhere else?
  See what you come up with.
  
  
• 01/08/2020—  Otter Lake 10/29/2019 05 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 60.9, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  The summation of nearly 5,000 years
  of Taoist and Zen instruction in the art
  of enlightened living
  can be summed up as so:
  
  See clearly.
  Respond appropriately.
  
  That is all there is to it.
  But.
  That begs the question:
  
  What prevents us from seeing clearly?
  What keeps us from responding appropriately?
  
  Enter the world of 10,000 things
  (10,000 is the Taoist/Zen equivalent of infinity).
  
  The work of enlightened living
  is the work
  of seeing past,
  over,
  under,
  around
  and through
  all of the things that interfere
  with seeing clearly,
  responding appropriately.
  
  One of the source books
  of Taoism/Zen
  (Zen is what happened
  when Buddhism met Taoism)
  is the I Ching.
  The translation I am most familiar with
  is by Thomas Cleary.
  There, we find these comments:
  
  “Receptivity to reality
  is achieved through emptying the mind
  of its conditioned subjectivity,
  stilling personal predispositions
  so that unbiased understanding and action
  may take place.”
  
  “Application of the I Ching is accomplished
  simply by openness and tranquility.
  When open, one takes in all;
  when tranquil, one perceives all.”
  
  Seeing clearly
  is knowing what’s what
  and what needs to be done
  about it.
  Appropriate action follows spontaneously.
  
  It takes a lifetime of looking
  to be able to see.
  
  
• 01/09/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 17 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  I have a strong hunch
  that the autobiography
  of every human being
  who ever lived
  could be titled,
  “Betrayal, Deceit and Abandonment.”
  
  Who doesn’t have to fight
  their way through those experiences
  to a life worth living?
  
  Every living thing
  has to live
  in the service
  of what it thinks
  is worth having.
  
  The percentage is not high
  of those who have
  all the help they need
  in that work.
  
  Too many are thrown back
  on their own devices–
  and too many of those
  are not told or shown
  what their own devices are,
  or how to access them
  and help themselves.
  
  How have you experienced
  betrayal, deceit and abandonment
  in your own life?
  How have you dealt with it
  all along the way?
  In what ways have you been
  guilty of it along the way?
  What do we owe ourselves
  and one another
  from this point forward
  in dealing with what has been done to us
  and what we have done to others?
  What inner resources
  do we not know we have?
  How might we begin to find out?
  
  Here is my favorite way
  of finding the way forward
  in any here and now:
  
  1) Begin with looking into the situation.
  
  Here, that would mean
  looking into the matter
  of betrayal, deceit and abandonment
  as you have experienced it,
  perpetrated it.
  
  2) Ask all of the questions that beg to be asked
  about it–including the questions
  that beg to be asked by the questions
  that beg to be asked.
  
  3) Say all of the things that cry out to be said
  about it–including the things
  that cry out to be said in light
  of the things that cry out to be said.
  
  You might find it helpful
  to begin a journal
  and write all this down.
  
  You will be accessing inner resources
  you don’t know you have,
  and learning to find your way
  along the way
  by listening to the guides
  who reside within.
  
  We are not as alone as we think we are.
  We are not as helpless as it would seem.
  We would be wise
  to consult the guides
  all along the way.
  
  
• 01/10/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 18 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019, an iPhone Photo
  
  We are born without knowing
  good from bad,
  right from wrong,
  yes from know.
  
  Morality has no meaning for us.
  We cannot tell one thing
  from another.
  We only know what we want
  and what we don’t want.
  
  You wouldn’t want us running the world
  in that state of being.
  Though, a lot of people *do* run the world
  in that state of being,
  or try to.
  
  What they want is good.
  What they don’t want is bad.
  What they want is right.
  What they don’t want is wrong.
  What they want is YES!
  What they don’t want is NO!
  
  Never mind what any other concerns
  or considerations
  may be impacted.
  From their point of view
  there are no other concerns
  or considerations
  to take into account.
  
  What they want is all that matters.
  
  We call that immaturity.
  
  With enough wealth and power,
  you can get away with it.
  Otherwise, you end up dead
  or in jail.
  
  Reality is set up to force us
  to take other people into account.
  Morality is civilization’s way
  of creating stability,
  security
  and predictability
  in a natural world run based
  on “The Law of the Fishes”
  (“The big fish eat the little fish,
  and the little fish hide”).
  
  The Rule of Law
  is humanity’s contribution
  to the process of life,
  and a welcome improvement
  to the natural order.
  But.
  Wealth and power
  are always at work
  to nullify,
  ignore,
  dispense with,
  transcend
  The Rule of Law.
  
  And that is one of the dialectics
  that shape our life:
  Who is governed
  by the Rule of Law,
  and who is not?
  
  Another dialectic is also at work here:
  Morality vs. Individuality.
  We are personally responsible
  to one another
  and to the culture which receives us
  from the womb and shapes our life.
  And we are bound to the inner drives
  and urges which direct us
  beyond what we want to have
  and to do,
  to what we MUST have
  and do.
  
  And Fraser Snowden chimes in
  at this point
  to remind us,
  “The only true philosophical question
  is ‘Where do you draw the line?’”
  
  It is the task of maturity
  to answer the question
  in each situation as it arises
  and draw the line,
  assuming full responsibility
  for the outcome
  (Which, of course, creates
  another situation in which
  we are responsible
  for drawing the line,
  and being right about
  where it is to be drawn.
  Etc. Forever).
  
  The task of maturity
  is to grow up
  against our will
  forever.
  
  
• 01/10/2020—  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 13 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Holes Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  We walk two paths at the same time
  all of the time.
  
  We are the peacemakers,
  reconciling opposites,
  integrating polarities,
  dancing with contradictions,
  making peace,
  every step of the way.
  
  We honor the way of our soul
  with the way of Tao,
  Kairos,
  Dharma,
  and Grace,
  and balance that with the way of the world,
  the way of the culture,
  the way things are
  in the context
  and circumstances
  of our life,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  It is easier to say,
  “To hell with it,”
  and do what we feel like doing.
  
  The obesity rate
  and the popularity
  of alcohol,
  tobacco/vaping,
  opioids
  and pot
  indicate that we do
  what we feel like doing a lot.
  
  Bearing the weight of our conflicts
  in light of what needs to be done
  in each situation as it arises,
  is a necessary aspect of growing up
  that we neglect
  at every opportunity.
  
  Not doing what needs to be done
  is what we do best.
  
  How we move from here to there–
  to doing what needs to be done?
  Awareness, awareness, awareness.
  
  The first thing to be aware of
  is how strongly opposed we are
  to being aware of anything.
  
  
• 01/10/2020—  Otter Creek 10/29/2019 03 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Big Island, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  One of my core beliefs
  is that of the crucial importance
  of the developmental tasks
  in our work to grow up
  into being who we are,
  doing what is ours to do.
  
  We cannot skip a task.
  We cannot decide
  we have had it with growing up,
  and will not submit to another transition,
  will not run through another gauntlet,
  will not rise to meet another occasion,
  will not pay the price of doing
  what needs to be done one more time.
  
  Every stage of our life
  comes replete with tasks
  appropriate to that stage.
  And they are hell.
  They ask things of us
  we don’t know we have to give.
  They ask us to do things
  we cannot imagine doing.
  “I’m not ready!”
  “That isn’t ‘me’!”
  “I can’t do it!”
  
  We walk into each stage of life
  with excuses at the ready
  for not progressing into it
  or any of the remaining stages.
  
  Buck up
  and buckle down.
  Life is a mean horse
  and the ride lasts all the way
  to the end.
  
  Adjustment and adaptation, Kid.
  Adjustment and adaptation.
  
  
• 01/11/2020—  Peaks of Otter 10/28/2019 14 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Abbot Lake, MP 86, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  How good is the good you call good?
  
  Whose good is served
  by the good you call good?
  
  Whose good is not served
  by the good you call good?
  
  Who does your idea of the good
  allow you to dismiss as undeserving
  of the good?
  
  How good is the good you call good
  in light of the Sermon on the Mount,
  the Parable of the Prodigal Son,
  the Parable of the Good Samaritan?
  
  How good is the good you call good
  in light of the Eightfold Path?
  
  How good is the good you call good
  in light of the Dalai Lama’s teachings?
  
  Who stands in agreement with you
  about your idea of the good?
  
  Who disagrees with you
  about your idea of the good?
  
  How do you determine
  the goodness of the good
  you call good?
  
  
• 01/11/2020—  Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 25 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Abbot Lake, MP 86, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Although our original face,
  and our original nature
  can appear to be “lost and gone forever,”
  they are never far away.
  
  The Hero’s Journey is the quest
  for who we are,
  and it is exactly the distance
  from our head to our heart,
  or from the left side of our brain
  to the right side.
  
  From logic, thinking and reason
  to intuition, sensing and feeling.
  
  We are led along the way
  by our imagination,
  not by deduction and analysis.
  
  We catch a glimpse of the white rabbit
  and “the game’s afoot!”
  
  The catch is that we cannot think up
  the white rabbit.
  It appears of its own volition
  when the time is right.
  
  In the meantime,
  we practice
  being still and quiet,
  centering on our breathing,
  counting breaths,
  completing body scans,
  being aware of,
  and attentive to,
  the present moment,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment…
  
  Preparing ourselves to see what we look at,
  to hear what we are listening to,
  and to know what’s what
  here and now.
  
  And, when a door opens,
  we walk through
  into the wonder,
  marvel,
  and mystery
  of the rest of our life.
  
  
• 01/12/2020—  Road Through Fall 10/28/2019 04 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  We want to be able to
  sit back
  and enjoy the ride
  through fall,
  and winter
  and spring
  and summer
  and all the way through life.
  
  We don’t want anything
  getting in our way.
  Smooth and easy
  is our idea of how things
  need to play out.
  
  Nothing out of its time.
  No surprises.
  Certainly no shocks.
  And definitely no calamities ever.
  
  Just one beautiful landscape after another.
  All our life long.
  
  Our life has other ideas.
  Our life has a mind of its own.
  Our life wants us to live it
  the way only we can live it.
  Our life wants us to be fully
  present and engaged
  in the present moment
  every step along the way.
  Alive to the moment.
  Engaged by the moment.
  Invested in the moment.
  None of this,
  “Not now!
  I don’t feel like it!
  I’m not in the mood for it!
  Maybe later,
  when I’m ready.
  Maybe tomorrow.
  We’ll see.”
  
  Our life knows us better
  than we know ourselves.
  Our life knows we will never be ready
  for what it has in store for us.
  So it is always throwing things at us
  to get us ready
  for all that is coming
  ready or not.
  
  Our life needs us to be ready for anything.
  At any time.
  Sharp.
  Alert.
  Attentive.
  Aware.
  
  Our life doesn’t want us missing anything,
  because everything matters.
  “Everything is grist for the mill,”
  and we are milling ourselves.
  We are growing ourselves up.
  We are learning to trust ourselves,
  to rely on ourselves,
  to discover ourselves,
  to find ourselves,
  to be ourselves
  by becoming who we are,
  and also are.
  
  And every single thing
  is a step on that journey.
  Particularly the things we hate.
  Especially the pain
  and agony.
  We grow up against our will,
  and that means doing
  what we do not want anything
  to do with.
  The right way.
  Time after time after time.
  Bearing the pain.
  The way it needs to be borne.
  
  Learning to separate who we are
  from what we want.
  Knowing that wanting doesn’t know a thing
  about what needs to be,
  about what needs to happen,
  about what needs us to do it
  like we can do it.
  
  Our life is bringing us into focus,
  sharpening our edges,
  our boundaries,
  separating us from not-us,
  revealing us to ourselves,
  showing us who we are
  and what we are capable of,
  one step at a time.
  
  We could never get that out of a book.
  No one could ever tell us that.
  We live our way to who we are,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  Situation-by-situation-by-situation.
  
  Growing us up
  against our will
  one day at a time.
  
  
• 01/12/2020—  James River 10/29/2019 05 — Big Island, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  It doesn’t matter what we do.
  It matters that we find ourselves
  through doing it.
  
  Finding ourselves
  by being who we are,
  knowing ourselves
  by consciously,
  deliberately,
  intentionally
  being who we are
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  situation-by-situation-by-situation,
  day-by-day-by-day
  is all there is to it.
  
  There is nothing more than that
  to ask, or seek, or imagine.
  
  We can start anywhere,
  do anything–
  as long as our eyes are open
  to seeing,
  to finding,
  where WE are in it.
  
  What are WE doing here, now?
  How did WE get here, now?
  What does this have to show us
  about who WE are?
  Is this more ME,
  or more NOT-ME?
  Where am I in this?
  What am I going to do about this?
  What does this say about ME?
  What am I trying to show me
  about ME?
  
  We are all on the path to who we are.
  And we all can expect to meet ourselves
  along the way.
  The question is whether
  we will recognize who we are meeting
  and let everything else fall away
  in becoming who we are
  and living in full accord with ourselves–
  consciously,
  deliberately,
  intentionally–
  more and more
  the rest of the way.
  
  

01/12/2020—  Curves 10/29/2019 04 — Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 88, Virginia, October 29, 2019

Oneness with our life,
being in accord with “the other” within,
expressing our original face
and our original nature
in all that we do,
living in sync with the Tao,
with Kairos,
with Dharma,
with Grace,
is a matter of not thinking about what we are doing,
and listening only
to what needs to be done,
to what needs us to do it,
moment-by-moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation-by-situation,
day-by-day-by-day.

That kind of listening
is characterized by
being present in the time and place
of our living,
being wholly here, now,
being attuned to,
aware of,
fully attending
the context
and circumstances
of our life
as we are experiencing them
in the umwelt of “the eternal now.”

It takes practice.
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s YouTube Videos
and Ann Weiser Cornel’s
PDF downloads from her web site
offer excellent practice material.

If we just know what needs to be done
without applying ourselves
to the work of doing it,
we are only lying on our backs,
watching the clouds
as our life runs out of time
and we think “Maybe tomorrow
we will get started.”

• 01/12/2020—  Eastern Bluebird 01/12/2020 01 — Scenes from my Camp Stool, Zen Glen, 22-acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 12, 2020
  
  Things I desire include:
  
  Silence.
  
  Seeing what I look at.
  Seeing things as they are.
  
  Hearing what is being said,
  verbally and behaviorally,
  in all situations
  and circumstances.
  
  Knowing what’s what,
  and what needs to be done about it,
  and what can be done about it.
  
  Getting to the heart of the matter.
  All matters.
  
  Not being fooled by appearances.
  
  Not being led,
  or swayed,
  by my opinions,
  judgment,
  interpretation,
  evaluation,
  or what I stand
  to gain or lose
  in any situation
  or circumstance.
  
  It’s a great wish list.
  If the Grantor of Wishes
  ever drops by,
  I’m ready.
  
  How about you?
  
  
• 01/13/2020—  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 07 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Holes Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  I think the old Taoists would say
  that it all comes down to
  timing,
  virtue (Which they understood to be
  alignment with our original nature/face)
  energy
  and spirit.
  
  And all of that is contingent
  on our engaging regularly
  in the right kind of silence
  with the right kind of appreciation
  for movement and rest.
  
  Everything is either moving or resting.
  The tide comes and goes and turns.
  The turning is when the tide is resting.
  
  Our life is always moving or resting.
  
  When we refuse to rest
  and are always going
  in pursuit of,
  or service to,
  whatever it is that we think
  we have to have NOW!,
  we deplete our energy and spirit,
  trade virtue for achievement
  and acquisition,
  and ignore the importance of timing
  in constant quest of *Victory Now!*
  
  We have to balance activity
  and consideration,
  replace striving/forcing
  with perceiving/sensing,
  and allow things to happen
  in their own time,
  at their own pace,
  in their own way.
  
  Which means replacing
  wanting/desiring/having-to-have
  with seeing/hearing/knowing
  in order to do what needs to be done,
  when it needs to be done,
  the way it needs to be done
  in light of all things considered.
  
  In each situation as it arises
  all our life long.
  
  It means acting only when it is time to act,
  in the service of what needs to be done–
  and being right about when-and-what that is.
  
  If we are going to practice anything,
  we should practice that.
  
  
• 01/13/2020—  Eastern Bluebird 01/12/2020 01 — Scenes from my Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 12, 2020
  
  We are all sailing solo on a pathless sea.
  All directions are equally possible
  and plausible.
  All are different,
  none are better or worse
  than others,
  each is capable of bringing us forth
  to meet the challenges and disappointments,
  triumphs and glories
  unique to each.
  
  Good and bad,
  better and worse,
  are preferences,
  opinions,
  judgments,
  evaluations
  in light of what we think we know–
  in light of what we think we want–
  in light or what we think is good and bad,
  better and worse
  
  In light of the end of the journey
  that we have in mind for ourselves.
  
  We invent/image the end,
  and judge the path from the standpoint
  of how soon we want to arrive
  and how easy we want the trip to be.
  
  The sea is not only pathless.
  It is also endless.
  There is only the adventure of the journey.
  The unfolding of who we are
  over the full course of our life.
  We are always becoming who we are.
  We are always growing up.
  Our view of what is good and bad,
  important and unimportant,
  is always in flux,
  is always being put to the test
  by new realizations
  brought forth by changing circumstances
  and different situations.
  
  What is good here
  is bad there.
  What is important now
  is unimportant then.
  What is right and what is wrong
  depends on what works
  when and where.
  A strategy that fits our youth
  is laughable in our old age,
  and vice-versa.
  We are becoming different
  all along the way.
  And “there is only the dance”
  (T.S. Eliot).
  
  There is only the sea.
  Sail on!
  Sail on!
  
• 01/13/2020—  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 Panorama — Boone Fork, Boone Fork Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina, November 03, 2019
  
  Only you know what you need to hear,
  see,
  know,
  realize,
  comprehend,
  embrace,
  integrate into your life
  and live in the service of
  all the days remaining
  in your time
  upon the earth.
  
  If you are not listening,
  why not?
  
  If what you hear
  has to be pushed on you
  in a hard-sell kind of way,
  it is not what you need to hear.
  
  What you need to hear
  resonates immediately,
  automatically,
  spontaneously,
  with you.
  
  If it doesn’t,
  you either don’t need to hear it,
  or it isn’t time for you to hear it.
  It will cycle back around
  when you have grown up some more (again).
  It is waiting
  for you to be ready
  for what you need to hear.
  
  You can hurry things up
  buy watching the Jon Kabat-Zinn
  YouTube videos (The shortest ones first),
  and familiarizing yourself
  with Ann Weiser Cornell’s writing
  and videos on her web site.
  
  If that doesn’t resonate with you,
  you will have to wait
  for it to cycle around again.
  Maybe for several cycles.
  But, its recommendation
  will never go out of date.
  
  
• 01/14/2020—  Otter Creek 10/29/2019 07 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Big Island, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  We have to get out of our heads
  and into our lives.
  
  We think we have our life
  all mapped out in our heads.
  Our life is thinking,
  if we would stop thinking
  it could show us all we need to know
  about being alive.
  
  Being alive is living with Integrity,
  aligned with Kairos,
  in accord with Tao,
  in light of Dharma,
  under the care of Grace.
  
  We don’t know
  what any of those words
  with capital letters mean.
  
  That is because
  we have been thinking
  about what we want
  out of life
  instead of thinking
  about what our life
  wants out of us.
  
  Integrity is living with
  outside in sync with inside–
  living to serve inside with outside.
  Living to be who we are
  instead of living to do what we want.
  
  Wants trump everything.
  When what we want directs
  what we do,
  we jerk ourselves around
  from one apparently
  wonderful thing
  to another
  throughout our life–
  with no guiding sense of direction
  keeping us on the path
  in the service of our life’s
  true meaning
  through all contexts
  and circumstances
  no matter what.
  
  Speaking of “what,”
  what does wanting know?
  Wanting knows what is desirable
  here and now
  period.
  Wanting mostly knows
  it wants out of here, NOW!
  Wanting is no help what-
  so-ever.
  
  Living with integrity
  saves us from the
  “What do we want to do now?” trap.
  With our integrity at stake,
  our doing takes its guidance
  from what is right for us as a whole
  regardless of the price we have to pay
  to do it.
  
  What is right for us as a whole
  is not something we think
  our way into knowing.
  We feel our way there.
  Look our way there.
  Listen our way there.
  Trust our way there.
  
  If you are ever going to have faith
  in something,
  let it be faith in your ability
  to know what is right for you.
  And trust yourself to it
  with filial devotion
  and allegiance,
  following it everywhere you go.
  
  This is living with Integrity.
  
  
• 01/14/2020—  Eastern Bluebird 01/12/2020 04 — Scenes from my Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 12, 2020
  
  Kairos was the Greek God of Luck and Opportunity,
  signifying the right time,
  the appropriate time,
  the appointed time,
  the time to act,
  the time for birth
  and the time for death,
  the time for things to happen
  the time for things to stop happening…
  
  Chronos was the Greek God of Time
  signifying clock time,
  calendar time,
  What day is it?
  What time is it?
  
  Aion was the Greek God of Time
  signifying eternity,
  eternal time,
  the God of the Ages,
  the Spirit of the Times…
  
  When we ask,
  “Do you know what time it is?”
  We are talking about Chronos.
  
  When we wonder,
  “Is it time for a nap
  or a walk around the block?”
  We are talking about Kairos.
  
  When we say,
  “Those were the days!”
  We are talking about Aion.
  
  Being alive in the moment of our living
  is living with Integrity,
  aligned with Kairos.
  
  The old Taoists knew the Way
  is the way of knowing
  what the time right now is ripe for,
  and acting in ways that are at one
  with the time that is ready
  for our action.
  
  We have to read the times (Aion)
  and know what is being called for now (Kairos)
  no matter what the day, or hour, is (Chronos).
  
  Knowing what Kairos is calling for,
  is ready for,
  and acting in ways that are felicitous,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  is to be centered in the path
  and offering what the occasion calls for
  with the gifts/genius/daemon
  we are here to serve.
  
  Perfection doesn’t get any better than this.
  
  
• 01/15/2020—  Mabry Mill 10/30/2019 03 — Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 176.2, near Meadows of Dan, in Floyd County, Virginia, October 30, 2019
  
  Being alive in the moment of our living
  is living with Integrity,
  aligned with Kairos,
  in accord with Tao.
  
  Tao is you.
  Tao is what is right for you
  (Not to be confused
  with what you want for you.
  What we want is always
  keeping us from doing
  what is right for us,
  which is why it is said
  that we always grow up
  against our will.
  We are separated from
  ourselves at birth,
  and spend our lifetime
  trying to find our way back
  to who we are–
  fighting it all the way.
  Which means we want
  nothing to do with Tao.
  You see the problem).
  
  Tao is your true,
  authentic,
  genuine,
  natural self.
  “The face that was yours
  before you were born.”
  Your original nature.
  The essential truth of who you are.
  
  Carl Jung said,
  “We are who we have always been,
  and who we will be.”
  When we are in accord with Tao,
  we are in accord with that aspect
  of who we are.
  
  And Tao is more than that.
  Tao is how everything is
  in its essential nature.
  Tao is the entire universe
  working together in one harmonious whole.
  It is how things are
  when they are smoothly functioning
  as themselves
  in relation to all other things and beings.
  
  When we break troth with ourselves,
  with one another,
  with other things,
  we are out of accord with Tao
  and out of tune,
  out of harmony,
  with all of life.
  
  And all the money,
  drugs,
  alcohol,
  and sex
  in the world
  will not compensate us
  for what we have lost.
  
  The way out of the mess we are in
  is the way back to who we are,
  to what is right for us
  even though it is the last thing we want.
  
  We cannot get there
  without growing up.
  Some more.
  Again.
  Forever.
  
  It’s like dying.
  
  That’s the price of being alive.
  
  
• 01/15/2020—  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 03 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville River Bridge, Linville Falls Picnic Area, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  Jesus said,
  “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?”
  
  I say,
  “What would you go to hell for?”
  
  We are asking the same question.
  
  Deciding for ourselves what is right
  is saying we will go to hell for it.
  For our decision about what is right.
  
  How right can it be
  if we aren’t willing to go to hell for it?
  
  How authentically can we live
  if we hedge our bets,
  tiptoe on egg shells,
  carefully refuse to make waves,
  or rock boats,
  or turn over apple carts,
  or the tables of money changers,
  for fear of going to hell if we do?
  
  How can hell threaten
  anyone who is hellbent on being who they are
  and doing what they know to be right–
  not because someone else said so,
  but because they say so–
  no matter what?
  
  No one can judge for us what is right.
  That is ours to determine for ourselves.
  We say what is right,
  and we live as though it is,
  in each situation as it arises,
  all our life long.
  
  What is right
  is what is right here and now.
  Who says so?
  
  We do.
  
  And if we are wrong about it?
  We will learn from it,
  and do better next time.
  
  And if we go to hell for it?
  If there is nothing worth going to hell for
  in our life,
  what kind of life is that?
  That kind of life is worse than hell
  because we never lived it.
  We were too afraid of going to hell.
  Which is the moral of the guy
  who buried his talent
  in a mayonnaise jar
  and took no chances with being wrong.
  
  Champ Wilson said,
  “Columbus took a chance.”
  
  Are you going to live your life or not?
  
  
• 01/05/2020—  Eastern Bluebird 01/12/2020 05 — Scenes from my Camp Stool, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 12, 2020
  
  It takes being in the right place
  at the right time,
  being around the right people,
  knowing what is right for you
  and what is wrong for you,
  looking and listening
  for what the right thing is to do
  in each situation as it arises,
  without trying to be smart,
  and wily,
  and crafty,
  and sly,
  conniving and contriving
  ways to bring about
  the agenda you are serving,
  attempting to arrange
  the future you want for yourself,
  no matter what.
  
  Can you do that?
  Can you serve a good
  at a variance with what
  you consider to be your own good?
  
  Can you see and do what is right for you
  no matter how much it is contrary
  to what you want for you?
  
  Can you sacrifice yourself
  for the sake of what needs you to do it?
  
  This is Jesus on the cross.
  This is Jesus saying,
  “If you would walk with me,
  you have to deny yourself
  and take up your cross daily
  and come with me.”
  
  It takes growing up
  some more
  again
  every day.
  
  It takes seeing what you look at.
  It takes looking into what you look at.
  
  Everything you need to see
  is always right before you.
  Right there waiting
  for you to develop eyes that see.
  
  Everything we do is a mirror showing us
  who we are
  and who we need to be.
  
  Nobody can tell us that.
  We have to see it for ourselves.
  
  I’ve told you that every photograph I take
  is a picture of harmony,
  serenity,
  balance,
  peace,
  beauty,
  calm,
  symmetry,
  synthesis,
  oneness,
  congruity,
  etc.
  
  I am showing myself
  who I am to be,
  who I am to work toward becoming,
  and the degree to which
  discord,
  disharmony,
  chaos,
  fear,
  uncertainty,
  imbalance,
  confusion,
  insecurity,
  instability,
  insanity,
  meaninglessness
  and absurdity,
  etc.
  dog my heels
  and threaten my existence.
  
  I work within what is true with me
  to become what is true with me
  and all of that is plainly visible
  in the things I do
  that are most important to me.
  
  We know who we are
  and who we also are
  by looking at what we are doing
  and what that has to say/show us
  about who we are
  and who we also are.
  
  Mirrors are everywhere
  for those who know how to see
  what to look for.
  
  
• 01/16/2020—  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 06 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Being alive is living with Integrity,
  aligned with Kairos,
  in accord with Tao,
  in light of Dharma.
  
  Dharma is “the eternal and inherent,”
  “uncontrived and inerrant,”
  “constant and unalterable”
  “nature of reality,”
  “cosmic law,”
  “universal truth”
  running through
  and binding
  all things,
  seen and unseen,
  in “the way things are together
  and apart.”
  
  It is the way things are in themselves
  past all appearances,
  wants,
  wishes,
  desires,
  illusions,
  delusions,
  representations,
  pretensions,
  etc.
  
  It is who we are at the source,
  at the heart,
  at the bedrock,
  at the foundation stone.
  
  It is who I am
  when you say,
  “Isn’t that just like Jim?”
  
  It is water seeking its own level.
  It is gravity producing,
  and produced by,
  mass.
  Mass producing and produced by
  gravity.
  
  It is who we are
  and what we do
  when we are being
  true to ourselves.
  
  The problem is that lions
  and great white whales,
  gophers and asteroids
  have to be true to themselves–
  and you and I do not.
  
  We can be whatever we think
  will get us what we want,
  will work out best for us,
  will produce the end we have in mind.
  
  We can create disruption in the flow.
  We introduce disharmony
  and discord
  into “the fabric of the universe.”
  
  We can ignore Kairos,
  distort the Tao,
  deform Dharma,
  lose connection with our original face
  and wander through the endless wasteland
  cutoff from the guiding pulsation
  of our original nature.
  
  We can spend our life
  seeking who we are,
  instead of being who we are.
  
  Finding the tools,
  the path,
  the way to The Way
  of Being Our Natural Self
  is the work of becoming
  what we seek.
  
  The keys are awareness,
  compassion,
  patience,
  persistence
  and practice, practice, practice.
  
  
• 01/16/2020—  November 4 11/04/2019 01 — Blue Ridge Parkway near Boone, North Carolina, November 4, 2019
  
  Playing the best game of our life
  may, or may not, result in victory,
  but.
  We played the best game of our life.
  
  If we consistently play at the level
  we are capable of playing,
  wins and losses will balance out,
  but.
  Wins and losses are minor details.
  
  Consistently playing/living at the level
  we are capable of playing/living
  in each situation as it arises
  is the source of satisfaction,
  bliss,
  peace,
  well-being,
  harmony,
  serenity,
  fulfillment,
  completion
  and the best
  we can imagine,
  hope for,
  expect,
  experience,
  have,
  enjoy–
  and cannot be bought,
  or contrived,
  or connived,
  or conned,
  or manipulated into being.
  
  What is keeping us
  from playing/living at the level
  we are capable of playing/living?
  
  What do we think is better,
  or more important,
  than that?
  
  
• 01/17/2020—  Parkway Overlooks 10/29/2019 02 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Being alive is living with Integrity,
  aligned with Kairos,
  in accord with Tao,
  in light of Dharma,
  under the care of Grace.
  
  Grace says it all.
  “By Grace we are saved.”
  Not “by God” from “Hell,”
  but “by Grace” from “Chaos,
  Apostasy,
  and the Desolating Sacrilege”
  (Or whatever words
  describe for you
  the wasted emptiness
  of the Void).
  
  By Grace we are saved
  from having to live a life
  we have no idea how to live.
  
  Grace saves us in the sense
  of restoring us to a life worth living–
  to the life that is our life to live,
  the life that only we can live,
  the life that makes us “us,”
  who we are,
  reunited with our original nature
  and the face that was ours
  before we were born.
  
  Grace is Irrational Benevolence.
  Irrational in that it is
  completely unexpected,
  undeserved,
  shocking to the point
  of stunning us into silence
  and disbelief,
  sitting us down,
  shutting us up
  and forcing upon us
  the work of making sense
  of wonder,
  amazement
  and awe
  beyond words–
  beyond imagining,
  beyond believing.
  
  Grace is serendipity,
  synchronicity,
  miracle.
  
  “I once was lost,
  but now am found,
  was blind,
  but now I see!”
  
  Enlightenment.
  Awakening.
  Nirvana.
  Deliverance.
  
  Kairos,
  Tao,
  Dharma,
  coming together,
  coinciding,
  revealing themselves as One,
  to create Integrity
  and introduce us to US!
  
  It is all Grace.
  All the way down.
  
  If you don’t know what I’m talking about,
  keep walking around in the dark,
  looking for a light switch.
  When the light comes on,
  that’s Grace
  at work in your life,
  and you will look back at the darkness
  and realize that, too,
  was Grace at work in your life.
  
  Realized,
  or not realized,
  Grace is all there is.
  
  
• 01/17/2020—  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 14 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls Picnic Area, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  Throw away your doctrine,
  your theology,
  your faith in what
  somebody has told you is so,
  and step into your own life
  with your eyes wide open,
  looking at everything,
  looking into everything,
  afraid of nothing
  curious about it all,
  asking all of the questions
  that beg to be asked,
  saying all of the things
  that cry out to be said,
  holding nothing back,
  holding yourself back from nothing,
  bearing the pain,
  seeing clearly,
  responding appropriately
  in each situation that arises,
  all your life long.
  
  That is all there is to it.
  
  
• 01/17/2020—  Eastern Bluebird 01/12/2020 06 — Scenes from my Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 12, 2020
  
  Sarah Kendzior said
  “All we need to do is care about one another”
  (Or words to that effect).
  
  We have allowed the internet
  and social media
  to take caring away from us.
  
  Hostility and anger
  quickly become rage,
  and here we are.
  
  Don’t act out of anger.
  That’s the first rule of caring.
  And if it isn’t the first,
  it’s high on the list.
  
  
• 01/18/2020—  Parkway Overlooks 10/29/2019 07 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  The profit motive is the essence of sin.
  Sin is being off the path,
  away from The Way,
  lost without hope,
  guidance
  or direction.
  
  Sin is as far from enlightened living
  as we can be.
  Sin is being wrong about what is important.
  
  Enlightenment,
  deliverance,
  realization,
  salvation is being restored
  to ends worthy of us,
  and being right about what is important.
  
  “What’s in it for me?”
  is irrelevant
  in the grip of what we must do
  no matter what.
  
  How many of us live out of a sense
  of what we must do,
  out of an ever-deepening relationship
  with what calls our name,
  with the face that was ours before we were born,
  with our original nature,
  with who we are
  and what we are here to do,
  serve,
  become,
  be?
  
  Real Life is about these things.
  Physical Life is about
  being 98.6 and breathing.
  
  When we are 98.6 and breathing,
  our biggest concern
  is how to fill up the time
  without being bored out of our mind.
  Physical Life is driven by a fear of boredom
  and a desire for profit,
  adoration,
  fame
  and followers.
  “Fortune and glory, Kid!
  Fortune and glory!”
  
  Real Life is about living in the service
  of that which grounds us,
  centers us,
  focuses us
  in that which we came to do
  and for which we live
  and move
  and have our being–
  for that which is life
  and imbues us with life
  through our association with it,
  our relationship with it–
  guiding,
  directing,
  comforting,
  calling us
  through all situations
  and circumstances
  in the work that is ours to do
  and the life that is ours to live.
  
  Physical Life looks for what is important,
  for what matters most.
  Real Life flows from what is important
  and brings us to life
  in the service of what matters most.
  
  
• 01/18/2020—  Mabry Mill 10/28/2019 03 — Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 176.2, near Meadows of Dan, in Floyd County, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  Democracy is not automatic.
  
  The Constitution is an ideal for self-government
  that offers the best imaginable atmosphere
  for personal liberty, freedom and rights
  for all citizens,
  across the board,
  with no exceptions or exemptions
  that has ever been instituted
  in the history of the world.
  
  Some people don’t like that
  because it interferes with their ability
  to make the highest possible profit
  at the expense of their fellow citizens’
  liberty, freedom and rights.
  
  The wealthy are always wealthy
  at somebody’s expense.
  And the wealthy can never be wealthy enough.
  
  The Founders of Democracy
  could not envision the kind of wealth
  the wealthy have created for themselves
  by buying politicians
  to create loopholes,
  granting them exceptions and exemptions,
  and allowing them special consideration
  in making laws that undercut the foundation
  of “government of the people,
  by the people,
  for the people,”
  and making corporations “people”
  at the expense of actual people.
  
  They get by with their subterfuge and deceit
  by managing the perceptions of actual people,
  and making actual people think
  that they, the wealthy, have their, the actual people,
  best interest at heart,
  and are protecting them, the actual people,
  from the terrible threat to democracy
  the true defenders of democracy are
  to the interests of the wealthy
  but not the interests of the actual people.
  
  It is a scam and a con all the way.
  Actual people are surrendering
  their liberty, freedom and rights
  in the service of the wealthy,
  and becoming the toadies and servant/slaves
  of the wealthy
  because the power of money
  is the power of perception,
  and those who control perception
  control the world.
  
  And destroy democracy.
  
  
• 01/18/2020—  November 4 11/04/2019 03 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Goshen Creek, near Boone, North Carolina, November 4, 2019
  
  We drink ourselves to oblivion.
  
  Or smoke pot,
  chew peyote,
  sniff coke,
  shoot heroin…
  
  “Bread and circuses” do it for some.
  Distraction,
  diversion,
  denial…
  
  Escape comes in many forms.
  
  Addiction to something
  (Religion, perhaps),
  is our favorite alternative
  to being here, now.
  
  Suicide is a close second.
  
  What?
  
  Physical Life has nothing to commend it!
  Life is not automatic.
  Physical Life is just like being dead,
  except for being 98.6 and breathing.
  
  Physical Life is just a step on the way
  to Real Life,
  but.
  We have to keep walking.
  
  Seeking.
  Searching.
  Looking.
  Listening.
  Seeing.
  Hearing.
  And always,
  always,
  bearing the pain of being alive
  in the service of coming to life,
  waking up to life,
  birthing ourselves
  into Real Life
  by living our way
  into the realization
  of what’s what,
  and knowing the power
  of the shift in perspective
  that transforms everything
  without changing anything,
  which changes everything.
  
  The shift from Physical Life
  to Real Life
  is the shift from looking for a reason
  to go on with it,
  to being gripped by a power so compelling
  that we cannot get enough
  of life just as it is here, now.
  
  This is the power of Real Life.
  The power to will and to do,
  to know and to be,
  to see and to hear,
  to realize and to imagine,
  to create and to enjoy,
  to wonder and to perceive
  and to live in the service
  of the life that is ours to live
  in each situation as it arises,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  all our life long.
  
  Real Life pouring over,
  spilling out,
  flowing through us
  and around us
  is there for the living
  for each of us.
  
  We get there by looking into
  what we are doing.
  
  Stop!
  Look!
  Listen!
  
  Into what you are doing!
  
  Ask all of the questions that beg to be asked!
  Say all of the things that cry out to be said!
  Bear the pain of knowing what’s what
  into knowing more than you know you know
  simply by knowing fully what you know,
  and what questions that begs to be asked
  until you go over into “I don’t know,”
  and continuing to ask about what you don’t know,
  and allowing the quest to know
  more than you know you know
  carry you from Physical Life
  into the infinite possibilities of Real Life.
  
  We get from here to there
  by living our way there
  one moment at a time.
  
  Bearing the pain of the journey
  is the key to making the trip.
  
  
• 01/19/2020—  Eastern Bluebird 01/12/2020 03 — Scenes From My Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 12, 2020
  
  If I were your physician
  and you came to me once a year
  for a physical/wellness exam
  I would ask you,
  “What keeps you going?”
  And,
  “What do you love to do
  that doesn’t involve the participation
  of anyone else?”
  And,
  “How often do you do it?”
  
  My best advice would be,
  year after year,
  “See what you look at.”
  “Ask the questions that beg to be asked.”
  “Say the things that cry out to be said.”
  “Know what’s what.”
  “Do what needs you to do it
  with the gifts you bring to the table
  in each situation as it arises
  all your life long.”
  
  No physician I’ve ever had
  has said any of this to me.
  And, I expect not to you.
  
  Which has as much to do
  with where we are
  here and now
  as anything else
  that we have done,
  or that has been done,
  or not done,
  to us.
  
  
• 01/19/2020—  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 15 Panorama — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Holes Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  We enter the river of life at birth,
  with what comes with us from the womb
  and what meets us upon arrival
  to work with.
  And here we are.
  
  This has been going on for at least 200,000 years.
  Nothing has changed about the process
  in that length of time.
  We can’t say it doesn’t work.
  It could work better
  if the umwelt that receives us
  were more conscious,
  more compassionately aware,
  of what it was doing with us.
  
  As it is,
  we plop out of the womb
  and are thrown into life
  with practically nothing
  in the way of an instruction manual,
  or any up-to-date
  and trustworthy
  guidance
  regarding what’s what
  and what to do about it,
  how to deal with it,
  manage it and/or our response to it,
  handle it
  and be better off for it.
  
  The advice we get
  is partisan to the core,
  and not well-considered
  or adequately evaluated
  by those doing the advising.
  
  Who can we trust with our life?
  Who wouldn’t be better off
  with better parenting?
  
  It is an absolute miracle
  that we are doing as well as we are!
  There is no validity at all
  to much/most of the stuff we are told.
  We spend as much of our life unlearning what isn’t so
  as we spend learning what is so.
  We do not get the kind of help we need.
  And it is all up to us to figure that out
  and find what is helpful
  and ignore what is not.
  With nothing more to go on
  than our own personal experience.
  
  This is wild.
  
  Who can we trust?
  Upon what can we rely?
  It begins with ourselves.
  What can we trust about ourselves?
  What can we rely on about ourselves?
  The more consciously–
  the more mindfully,
  compassionately,
  aware–
  we are of creating/building/maintaining
  a relationship with ourselves,
  the better of we will be
  in finding what we need
  to do what we need to do
  with what is ours to work with
  throughout our life.
  
  And nobody tells us this.
  We have to figure it out on our own.
  Knowing that much
  puts it squarely up to us.
  We start with ourselves,
  and look for people who are looking for us,
  and band together,
  drawing comfort and consolation
  from each other,
  pooling our knowledge,
  sharing our insight,
  offering encouragement,
  support
  and caring presence
  all the way along the way.
  
  The right kind of company
  makes all the difference.
  And, in order to find
  the right kind of company,
  it helps to be the right kind of company.
  That is the work
  that is incumbent upon us all.
  
  And no one tells us this at the start.
  And very few tell us this at all.
  Be sure to pass the word.
  
  
• 01/19/2020—  Parkway Overlooks 10/28/2019 02 Panorama– Blue Ridge Parkway, The Saddle Overlook, Floyd, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  Neither whiskey,
  beer
  nor cheap red wine
  nor drugs,
  legal
  or illicit,
  nor religion
  as it is presently constituted,
  can restore
  our stability
  and harmony,
  our peace
  and balance,
  our serenity,
  our foundation,
  our ground
  and center.
  
  Putting ourselves
  in right relationship
  with ourselves
  and our life
  is the work
  of integrity–
  of integrating ourselves
  with ourselves
  and with Kairos,
  Tao,
  Dharma
  and Grace.
  
  It is the work
  of seeing what we look at
  and looking into it
  so that we see
  all there is to see
  about it.
  
  It is the work
  of asking the questions
  that beg to be asked,
  and that beg to be asked
  about the questions.
  
  It is the work of trusting questions
  more than answers,
  and asking all of the questions
  our answers generate.
  
  It is the work of saying the things
  that cry out to be said,
  and asking all of the questions
  raised by saying them.
  
  And looking into everything.
  And seeing what’s what,
  and doing what needs to be done about it
  with the gifts that came with us
  into the world.
  
  Doing this the way it needs to be done
  restores harmony,
  puts things back on track,
  realigns the mechanisms of life,
  reestablishes order,
  allows things to naturally
  find their place,
  brings spontaneity to life,
  along with good faith,
  kindness,
  tenderness
  and mercy,
  and everything hums along
  in tune with the music of the spheres.
  
  
• 01/20/2020—  Brown Creeper 01/16/2020 01 — Scenes From My Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 16, 2020
  
  I wish things were as they should be,
  as we expect them to be,
  as we say they are.
  
  I wish equality were real,
  actual,
  tangible,
  true
  and experienced it as such
  everywhere,
  all the time.
  
  I wish corporations weren’t people.
  I wish people knew
  when they had enough money,
  and stopped trying to make
  more than they need.
  And that people who didn’t
  have enough money
  had legitimate means
  of making what they need.
  
  I wish people who hated people
  would change their perception
  and their attitude
  and give everybody a break.
  
  I wish people cared for all people
  they way they care for themselves,
  and I wish all people cared for themselves
  the way they need to
  to be who they are.
  
  I wish we all respected
  and honored one another.
  
  I wish we all were straight up
  and flat out
  who we are,
  and content to be exactly that
  without airs and aspirations
  for more than we need to be.
  
  I wish everybody had what they needed
  to be who they are.
  And that that was enough.
  
  I do so wish
  there were lines we all
  could agree were lines
  and could honor
  and respect
  and draw
  with full confidence
  that they would be honored
  and respected by all people.
  And that no one lived
  to destroy valid lines.
  
  
• 01/20/2020—  Curves 10/29/2019 06 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  “Looking into it” means
  “Getting to the bottom of it.”
  
  It means looking until you see all of it.
  
  Do not stop with the surface!
  Do not stop with the assumptions!
  Do not stop with the presumptions!
  Do not stop with the inferences!
  Do not stop with the conjectures,
  the surmises,
  the suppositions,
  the uncritical embrace
  of “What we all know to be so.”
  
  Do not stop with what
  is too shallow to splash!
  
  Look into it!
  
  Ask the questions that are not allowed.
  Inquire past good manners
  and polite examination,
  and social affirmation
  of common opinions
  long held to be sacrosanct
  and beyond through inspection.
  
  Go for the heart of the matter!
  
  Dig for the full reality
  of “What everyone knows is true.”
  
  “What is the evidence
  that everyone knows
  what they are talking about?”
  
  Separate hearsay from the facts.
  
  The world is awash in uninformed opinions.
  
  “What makes you believe
  that what you believe
  is so?”
  
  “Where do you get your information?”
  
  “What are the assumptions
  that form the basis
  of your ideas, beliefs, opinions?”
  
  “What makes you think
  that what you say is so is so?
  
  “Who says so?
  What is their basis for saying so?
  How do we know they know
  what they are talking about?
  What do they have at stake
  in seeing as they do?”
  
  “What do we have at stake
  in seeing as we do?”
  
  Ask the questions until there are no more questions!
  About everything that matters!
  
  
• 01/20/2020—  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 10 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway near Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  There is nothing to have,
  or acquire,
  or attain,
  or grasp.
  
  There is only to will,
  and to do,
  and to be
  In each situation as it arises,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  There is no steady state of being:
  saved or lost,
  deserving or undeserving,
  blessed or cursed,
  safe or in peril…
  
  There is only one thing after another,
  through circumstances that change,
  and times that are always moving,
  like a river through the days.
  
  We move with the currents
  and dance with the time,
  sometimes like this,
  and sometimes like that,
  but always, always,
  in ways appropriate to the occasion.
  
  Here we are–
  now what?
  What is happening?
  What is called for?
  What is being asked of us?
  Be still!
  Listen!
  Look!
  Be like the echo
  in response to the shout!
  
  Live with everything on the line
  in every moment.
  Why hold anything back?
  Why hedge your bets?
  
  There are a lot of opinions
  about what happens when we die.
  There is no doubt about this
  being our one shot at life.
  Why waste a minute
  with something that
  does not resonate
  with something deep within?
  
  We are not here to kill time.
  We are here to seek ourselves
  and live out who we are
  in the time left for living.
  
  “The game is a-foot!”
  Be awake!
  Be aware!
  Something is calling your name!
  
  
• 01/21/2020—  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 15 — Linville Falls Picnic Area, Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  We all have a Vital Core
  that we must live
  to honor,
  serve,
  explore,
  express,
  steward,
  protect,
  and defend.
  
  It is our place
  to develop our relationship
  with our Vital Core
  and to live with it
  in ways that bring us and it
  to life in our life.
  
  The degree to which we
  are able to do this
  is reflected
  in our vitality,
  spirit,
  energy
  and life.
  
  People who have failed,
  and are failing,
  in their stewardship
  of their Vital Core
  are evident on all sides–
  as are those who are excelling
  in the task.
  
  Our relationship with our Vital Core
  is apparent in our eyes,
  in our demeanor,
  in our behavior,
  in our step,
  in our tone of voice
  and in our relationships
  with other people.
  
  We begin the work of tending
  our Vital Core
  by recognizing its existence
  and looking into the reality,
  of its presence
  and its place in our life.
  
  This is meditative awareness
  and introspection
  at its best–
  and is a process
  we can carry out anywhere,
  everywhere,
  throughout our life.
  I call it “Checking In
  With The Heart Of Life And Being.”
  
  “Hello!
  What’s up?
  Are you there?”
  
  Ask it for a sign of its authenticity.
  Perhaps a dream verifying its existence,
  or an urge pointing direction
  or calling for action.
  
  You have to learn how to sense
  the stirring of your Vital Core to life.
  How to read its signals,
  know what its needs are
  and what actions on your part
  will bring it more fully to life in your life.
  
  Moods might be a place to look
  for a connection with your Vital Core.
  Explore your moods
  for what they might be saying
  about the needs of your Vital Core.
  Our moods often reflect our response
  to what is happening in our life,
  but they can as easily reflect
  our Vital Core’s response
  to how we are responding
  to what is happening in our life.
  What might it be asking us to do
  in responding to what is going on
  within our present situation
  or circumstances?
  What guidance might it be offering?
  
  As we learn how to led our Vital Core
  take the lead in guiding our response
  to the affairs of our life,
  we find a partner in the work
  to manage our life
  moment-to-moment-to-moment–
  and are no longer “up against it alone,”
  but have a Consultant Within
  with whom to confer
  in finding the best response to make
  to the here-and-now’s of the day-to-day.
  
  And that is like having all we need
  to find what we need
  to do what needs to be done
  in each situation that arises.
  What a source of vitality
  and life
  that would be!
  
  
• 01/21/2020—  Carolina Wren 01/18/2020 06 — Scenes from my Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 18, 2020
  
  It isn’t about thinking or believing.
  It isn’t about having or acquiring.
  It isn’t about achieving or accomplishing.
  It isn’t about wanting or willing.
  It isn’t about forcing or striving.
  It isn’t about contriving and arranging.
  
  It is solely about being and doing.
  Right being and Right doing.
  In each situation as it arises.
  Moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  All our life long.
  
  Whether we are in the mood for it or not.
  Whether we feel like it or not.
  Whether we want to or not.
  Whether we need some time off or not.
  Through all circumstances,
  regardless of the weather conditions.
  24/7/12/Forever.
  
  Being who we need to be,
  doing 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.
  
  All the talk about faith
  and theology,
  doctrine and dogma,
  comes down to this:
  Do we have what it takes
  to be who we need to be
  and do what needs us to do it,
  every moment
  of every day
  no matter what
  forever?
  
  
• 01/21/2020—  Otter Creek 10/29/2019 06 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Big Island, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  The Buddha died from eating bad pork.
  How enlightened was that?
  What did the Buddha get
  out of being the Buddha?
  
  The Christ died charged
  with being a messianic pretender.
  What did the Christ get
  out of being the Christ?
  
  What do you hope to get
  out of being you?
  
  What are you in this for?
  
  If you are looking for a payoff,
  what is it?
  If you are not looking for a payoff,
  what motivates your life?
  
  What are you living for?
  What was the Buddha living for?
  What was the Christ living for?
  What is a good-enough reason
  for dealing with the day–
  day-after-day-after-day?
  
  What’s in it for you?
  What do you expect to receive
  for your trouble?
  
  Look into it.
  
  What grounds you?
  Shapes you?
  Directs you?
  
  What are you centered on?
  Focused on?
  Enchanted by?
  
  What is your purpose?
  Your goal?
  Your intention?
  
  What makes your little heart sing?
  What are you doing here?
  What are you doing with your days?
  
  Look into it.
  
  
• 01/22/2020—  November 4 11/04/2019 02 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway near Boone, North Carolina, November 4, 2019
  
  Here is the solution
  to making life as good as it can be
  for all of us:
  
  Want less.
  Love More.
  Share the wealth.
  Starting with a livable minimum wage.
  
  That’s it.
  That is where the rest of this is going.
  Save yourself the pain of the trip
  by stopping now.
  
  Taoism and Buddhism and Zen,
  and Hinduism and Islam and Christianity,
  and all religion ever
  are elaborate systems of denial.
  
  Alcoholics Anonymous is as truthful as it gets.
  But even A.A. stumbles with what to be
  beyond sober.
  Sober alcoholics don’t have a better life
  than anybody else.
  They are still stuck in some elaborate system of denial.
  
  Because the curse of Col. Nathan R. Jessup rules the world:
  “You Can’t Handle The Truth!”
  
  Truer words have never been spoken,
  nor will be.
  
  Our need to hide from the truth
  is the source of all of our problems today,
  and tomorrow and every day forever.
  
  Let’s take mindfulness for an example.
  Mindfulness is grounded upon
  looking truth in its ugly red eye.
  Two things flow from this.
  Here is the first.
  Mindfulness in one dispensation
  is equivalent to and inseparable from
  happiness, love, joy, peace, gratitude and bright smiling faces.
  You cannot be mindful and depressed,
  or sad, angry, guilty, hate-filled, gloomy, moody or real.
  Mindfulness is mindless about its own failure
  to be reality based.
  Mindfulness is in denial,
  and is yet another system of denial.
  
  Mindfulness in another dispensation
  attempts to get around this dead-end
  by telling us to put all of our negative feelings
  “in awareness” without being sidetracked
  by them and go on attending the present moment.
  But we never get back to dealing with
  all that we tuck away “in awareness.”
  What do we do with all of the negative
  realizations and emotions arising
  from the realizations?
  Our situation is hopeless!
  What do we do with that?
  And what is with the refusal to face
  the hopelessness of our situation?
  Why must we all deny hopelessness?
  And pretend it is not so?
  
  The truth is that all of us are going nowhere fast.
  That is easier for some of us to deny
  than others of us,
  but it applies to all of us.
  
  Let’s take a person working a minimum wage job,
  making, say, $20,000 a year
  (but it may be more like $16,000).
  Nobody can live on $20,000 a year.
  Minimum wage jobs are built for teenagers
  working after school with a mom and dad
  to take care of food, clothing, shelter and medical expenses.
  
  Military veterans come home from our endless wars
  with PTSD, substance abuse addiction
  and no marketable skills,
  and are killing themselves at a rate
  of about 6,000 per year.
  
  Telling them to deposit their feelings in their awareness
  is not changing their lived experience.
  Feeling better can be a step on the way to getting better
  IF the resources are available
  for a self-sustaining life with appropriate goals
  and the means of achieving them.
  For an increasing number of people world-wide
  that is not a possibility.
  
  After we put things in awareness, what?
  After alcoholics and substance abusers become sober, what?
  How do we change the systems that create hopelessness
  for more people every year?
  
  No matter where you go with this question,
  you will be circling around the inescapable conclusion
  that it all hinges on the excessively and super wealthy
  sharing the wealth.
  
  And the best way of doing that is an equitable tax system.
  Farmers are subsidized.
  Corporations are subsidized.
  The unemployed and underemployed have to be subsidized.
  And we all have to come to terms with the undeniable fact
  that we all have to have appropriate life goals
  and the means of achieving them.
  We cannot “have it all,” or even half of it all.
  We cannot sustain an ever-increasing standard of living.
  Nobody’s wealth can grow exponentially forever.
  Every one of us has to live within limits
  in order for all of us to live at all.
  
  Want less.
  Love more.
  Share the wealth.
  Starting with a livable minimum wage.
  
  
• 01/22/2020—  Parkway Overlooks 10/29/2019 22 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway near Roanoke, Virginia, October 29, 2029
  
  The deeper we go into any religion,
  or philosophy,
  or spiritual discipline/persuasion/point-of-view,
  the more ridiculous,
  absurd,
  conflicted,
  paradoxical,
  outlandish,
  insane
  it becomes.
  
  I love Zen because it doesn’t
  take itself seriously,
  it doesn’t try to make disciples,
  and it doesn’t care what anyone thinks about it.
  The heart of Zen is preposterous,
  nonsense,
  non sequiturs,
  non-answers,
  farcical,
  idiotic
  and laughable.
  
  As are all other religions (etc.),
  but they have been known
  to kill people
  who said that about them.
  
  Zen just says,
  “You are right!”
  and joins in on the fun.
  
  That’s the best way to be religious (etc.).
  That, and inviting everyone
  to be a part of the joke,
  with no entry fees required
  or obligations imposed.
  
  
• 01/22/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 08 — Spillway, Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019, an iPhone photo taken with the Spectre slow shutter app
  
  We live best out of a state of equilibrium,
  homeostasis,
  balance,
  harmony,
  calm,
  peace,
  serenity,
  stability,
  composure,
  tranquility,
  equanimity,
  etc.
  
  All commercials/advertisements/scams/cons/etc.
  are geared to unbalance us in some way.
  The easiest way is to play with our
  wanting/wanting-not mechanism.
  
  The people who are out to get us
  know we cannot be gotten
  if we are solidly grounded in the moment,
  at one with who we are.
  They have to destabilize us somehow
  to have a chance at “making the sale.”
  
  Everything that preys on us
  has to destabilize us
  in order to get to us.
  They do that by getting our attention
  and then distracting us
  into their agenda for us.
  “Distraction and Pounce”
  is the process of “Owning the Mark.”
  
  Owning your Center keeps the parasites at bay.
  
  Make equilibrium your living quarters.
  Learn to recognize when you are “home”
  and when you are “away from home,”
  and note just how far “away from home” you are
  at various points throughout your day.
  
  Home represents invulnerability.
  Away From Home represents vulnerability.
  The more off balance, out of balance, unbalanced,
  we are,
  the more vulnerable we are.
  
  When you find yourself Away From Home,
  stop and see
  how you got there
  and what you need to do
  to find your way back Home.
  And do it.
  
  You will make better decisions
  and have a better life
  when you live
  and work
  from Home.
  
  
• 01/22/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 16 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  There are a lot of things
  we cannot do anything about.
  Important things.
  Essential things.
  
  When we come upon those things,
  we have to re-think our options.
  Having our way is not one of them.
  We have to readjust our goals,
  revise our priorities,
  and make-do with what we have.
  This requires maturity on our part.
  
  The immature among us will develop symptoms,
  flail about,
  scream, moan, whine and shout,
  take refuge in substance abuse
  or suicide,
  and their story will end with a flame-out.
  
  Carl Jung observed that the Big Problems in life
  have no solution,
  but can only be out-lived.
  Perspective changes over time.
  We have to wait it out.
  Sometimes, we run out of time.
  Well, we all do eventually.
  
  Enjoying what remains of our time
  begins right now,
  in the midst of terrible circumstances
  and little hope of better days ahead.
  
  Enjoyment is a perspective shift.
  When we cannot do anything else,
  we can shift our perspective.
  That is an option available to all of us
  in all circumstances.
  
  Detachment.
  Perception.
  Perspective.
  The special powers of mind.
  
  Play around with how you see things,
  with the words you use to describe
  your situation.
  Pay attention to how what you say
  impacts how you see
  and what you feel–
  and change the narrative,
  the internal dialogue,
  you use to say what’s what
  and your reaction to it.
  
  The special powers of mind
  govern our reaction to what is going on
  in our life.
  Changing our reaction even a little,
  changes our response,
  and opens doors to coping and adjustment
  that would remain shut without it.
  
  We have to use everything at our disposal
  in making our way through a world
  like our world.
  
  There may be dark times ahead for us all.
  How we perceive them will enable us
  to help one another along the path we share.
  
  
• 01/23/2020—  Carolina Wren 01/18/2020 02 — Scenes from my Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 18, 2020
  
  Anything that stops us,
  requires us to take stock
  of our situation,
  forces reflection and consideration
  upon us,
  shocks us out of automatic living mode,
  makes us orient ourselves
  in space and time,
  leaves us wondering,
  “Now what?”,
  invites us to sit down
  while we catch our breath,
  leaves us pondering
  our next move,
  and where we go from here,
  is the kind of thing
  we need to practice
  from time to time
  in order to be ready for it
  when it does happen.
  
  We need to practice
  getting our feet under us,
  squaring up to the moment,
  reorienting ourselves
  in time and space,
  reacquainting ourselves
  with the Bedrock,
  regaining our equilibrium,
  our homeostasis,
  our balance,
  and realigning ourselves
  with the Source,
  the Goal,
  and the Vitality of Life.
  
  We live too insulated
  from the heart of life.
  We are too automatic
  and unthinking
  in our responses to life.
  We are fundamentally mindless
  of our way with life.
  And rarely pay attention
  to what we are doing
  or why we are doing it,
  and how we might do it better,
  or whether we need to be doing it at all,
  and what we might be doing instead.
  
  We might pretend,
  from time to time,
  that we just had a heart attack.
  
  And see how that changes
  what we do next.
  
  
• 01/23/2020—  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 05 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Holes Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  Our problem is living in ways appropriate to the occasion
  in each situation as it arises,
  all our life long.
  
  Anything that helps us with that is to be received
  with gratitude and appreciation.
  
  Anything else is a distraction at best
  and toxic or deadly at worst.
  
  We have to determine
  whether we are being helped
  or hurt,
  and take action appropriate
  to the occasion.
  
  In each situation as it arises,
  all our life long.
  
  
• 01/24/2020—  Carolina Wren 01/18/2020 04 — Scenes From My Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 18, 2020
  
  Oblivion and distraction are the twin demons
  disrupting the flow,
  upsetting the balance
  and destroying the harmony
  of our lives–
  according to the old Taoist and Zen masters.
  
  Substance abuse
  and the 10,000 addictions
  of the modern world
  bring the validity
  of the old observation
  to life in our lived experience.
  
  We have lost the ground,
  the foundation,
  the bedrock
  of life,
  and live searching
  for a reason to be alive,
  settling for ways
  to escape the pain of not-knowing
  and the fear that there is nothing
  at the bottom of it all,
  only free-falling
  all the way down.
  
  It is time we stop
  and see what’s what.
  
  And know three things:
  
  1) “Where you stumble and fall,
  there lies the treasure”
  (Joseph Campbell).
  2) “What you seek
  lies far back in the darkest corner
  of the cave you most
  don’t want to enter”
  (Joseph Campbell).
  3) “What you seek
  is found within”
  (Multiple sources).
  
  Within is the last place
  we want to look.
  We attend lectures and seminars,
  read books and articles,
  watch videos and take courses.
  We will do anything
  but the one thing required
  to find the path
  and take up the journey.
  
  The path is under our feet.
  We only have to look and listen,
  see and hear,
  to know that it is so.
  
  We have to trust ourselves
  and our own sense
  of what is right for us
  and what is wrong.
  
  And, when we prove to be untrustworthy,
  we have to keep trusting ourselves
  to make the necessary adjustments
  to refine our sense
  of what is right for us
  and what is wrong.
  
  When trusting ourselves leads us into trouble,
  we keep trusting ourselves
  to find our way out of trouble,
  and trouble becomes our teacher.
  
  Living the lesson
  and life is the teacher.
  
  And “We are the sculptor
  and we are the stone”
  (Alexis Carrel).
  
  
• 01/24/2020—  James River 10/29/2019 07 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Big Island, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “What happens now
  can influence what happens next.”
  
  He also said, “No one else can wake us up.”
  That responsibility is ours alone to bear.
  
  How many now’s will we pass through
  without influencing what happens next
  in the direction of waking up?
  
  Now is when/where we take the step toward waking up.
  By simply being aware
  of what is happening here, now.
  
  Now has an internal aspect
  and an external aspect
  which are interrelated
  and capable of modifying
  each other in significant ways.
  
  And things are happening
  on both levels simultaneously.
  Some things are happening unconsciously,
  beyond our range of conscious awareness.
  And, some things are happening
  within our range of awareness,
  but outside of our zone of attention.
  We do not see things we look at.
  We do not hear things that are within hearing distance,
  but out of mind.
  
  Now is mostly happening without us.
  We live without being alive to the time and place of our living
  too much of the time.
  Engaging the present moment
  influences the next moment.
  Not engaging the present moment
  also influences the next moment.
  
  How we live now influences how we will live then.
  What kind of influence do you want to have?
  Conscious/mindful?
  Unconscious/mindless?
  
  If we are not mindfully engaged with our life,
  we are not so much living our life
  as we are being lived by it.
  We are “just along for the ride.”
  
  Socrates is said to have said,
  “The examined life is not worth living,”
  leading Sheldon Kopp to quip,
  “The unlived life is not worth examining.”
  The place of mindful awareness
  is front and center
  in both the living and the examining.
  
  If we are not aware of what we are doing,
  we are being swept along by the winds,
  tides and currents of time and chance.
  Which is one way to do it,
  but we are pushing our luck
  more than trusting it.
  
  We become an active participant
  in choosing the tone and direction
  of our life–in the living of our life–
  by being present in
  and aware of
  what is happening here/now,
  and thereby influencing
  what happens next.
  
  Take a ten minute break.
  Sit quietly, eyes open or closed,
  focus on the moment
  and be aware of all that is in the moment with you,
  internally and externally,
  for ten minutes.
  
  Your attention will drift–
  that becomes one more thing to be aware of.
  Simply bring it back to here, now
  and continue to be aware of the moment.
  
  Take a break for the present
  once or twice a day
  for the rest of your life.
  
  That’s all there is to it.
  
  
• 01/25/2020—  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 30 — Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  Grounding ourselves in our original nature
  and living out of our vital core,
  positions us to look into who we are
  at our center–
  and that means stopping and seeing,
  listening,
  reflecting
  on who we have shown ourselves to be
  time and again
  through all of the situations and circumstances
  of our life.
  
  What shines through
  all that we have done
  and all that has been done to us?
  What is the kernel that keeps coming to light?
  
  What have we been able to count on
  from ourselves?
  What got us to this point?
  We could have quit a thousand times,
  yet, here we are.
  We could have done better, of course,
  and we all wish we had,
  but, we also could have done worse,
  easily.
  Yet, here we are.
  We owe being here, now, to ourselves.
  What got us through all of that
  to here, now?
  That is a core strength.
  Explore all aspects of the qualities
  and characteristics
  that got us here, now.
  Honor them with the recognition
  that they are reflections
  of your original nature,
  of what you can count on,
  rely on,
  depend on,
  believe in
  about you.
  
  Live to be aware of all of that
  working in your present
  to buoy you up,
  keep you going,
  bounce you back,
  call you to life–
  and work to develop
  your relationship with those aspects
  of you
  with conscious appreciation of them
  and reliance on them.
  
  Sink into them
  and live out of them
  amid “the heaving waves
  of the wine-dark sea.”
  And spend time with people
  who bring out the best in you
  by reflecting you to yourself,
  and showing you who you are
  by reflecting your core qualities to you
  and by recognizing them in you.
  
  We have made it this far unconsciously,
  almost accidentally,
  without our intentional participation
  and cooperation.
  Let’s live to see what we can do
  as a full partner with our ground
  and center
  in the time left for living!
  
  
• 01/25/2020—  Mabry Mill 10/28/2019 02 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 176.2, near Meadows of Dan, in Floyd County, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  There is a lot of talk about gratitude these days,
  as though it is a panacea for all that besets us,
  a sure cure for all of our troubles and woes.
  If we don’t like something,
  we are encouraged
  to just tuck it into gratitude
  and let it take all our anxiety away.
  
  Nowhere in the gratitude sales pitch
  is any attention given
  to the fine line between gratitude and denial.
  Between spontaneous,
  heart-felt appreciation,
  and tricking ourselves into feeling better
  by refusing to see what there is to feel bad about.
  
  To see how things might be viewed
  at the expense of how things are
  and also are
  is two-side-ism that dismisses one side.
  The glass can be seen as half-empty,
  and half-full.
  And, it can be seen as containing 4 oz of liquid
  in an 8 oz glass.
  And how we feel about that
  depends on how thirsty we are,
  and a host of other factors,
  all of which are ignored
  in the service of gratitude at all times,
  above all other considerations.
  
  Denial comes in 10,000 forms
  to comfort and console and keep us going.
  
  To see clearly
  and access responsibly
  and respond appropriately
  to what we are being asked to deal with
  is essential to managing our life situation
  in light of the true good of all concerned.
  What we don’t see
  because we refuse to look at it
  or assess it accurately
  can skew our response
  and create a make-believe world
  with no connection to the actual situation
  in which we live.
  
  Being grateful things aren’t worse yet
  isn’t helping them get better–
  and keeps us from seeing what we look at
  and responding to it in ways appropriate
  to the occasion.
  And there is entirely too much of that
  going on in the world
  for us to mindlessly assist it in any way.
  
  
• 01/25/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 20 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  Jon Kabat-Zinn said,
  “Mindfulness has to do
  with waking up
  and living in harmony
  with oneself
  and with the world”
  (Wherever You Go, There You Are).
  
  Living in harmony with oneself
  and with the world
  is the hardest of all things.
  
  Living in harmony with oneself
  means being in accord
  with our original nature,
  and that means finding our way
  back to our original nature,
  which was taken from us
  shortly after birth
  and replaced with the culture’s idea
  (or our parents’ idea)
  of who we ought to be.
  
  Left-handed children
  have been forced to be right-handed.
  Introverts have been required to be extroverts.
  Gay people have been denied a place in the world
  unless they pretend to be straight
  (And is “straight” ever a misnomer!).
  The list is long of qualities and characteristics
  that are unacceptable
  and not allowed in the world
  which receives us at birth.
  
  Living in harmony with ourselves
  means finding and reclaiming
  those aspects of ourselves
  that have been rejected,
  neglected
  and denied their rightful place in our life.
  
  If you think that is easy,
  give it a spin.
  
  And there is the “living in harmony
  with the world” part!
  Living in harmony with the context
  and circumstances of our life!
  Are You Kidding Me???
  *This* world?
  *This* context?
  *These* circumstances?
  
  *This* is the place that killed Jesus
  for being different!
  It would kill Jesus today!
  What chance do *we* have?
  How can *we* fit into *this* world?
  Why would we want to?
  
  It is going to be some trip
  harmonizing ourselves with ourselves
  *and* with the world!
  We are going to need a lot of help
  with that!
  And all we get is
  Awareness!
  Awareness!
  Awareness!
  With compassion
  and non-judgmental acceptance
  of the difficulty of the task before us.
  
  So.
  Take a deep breath,
  and let’s get to work!
  
  Start with Jon Kabat-Zinn’s
  books, “Wherever You Go, There You Are”
  and “Mindfulness Is Not What You Think,”
  and his YouTube videos (The shortest ones first).
  With patience and a good faith commitment
  to what is before us.
  
  It is the most necessary journey of our life,
  and the most difficult task we could ever undertake.
  It is called “The Hero’s Journey” for good reason!
  
  
• 01/26/2020—  Mill Houses 01/25/2020 01 Panorama — Gibson Mill, Concord, North Carolina, January 25, 2020
  
  Wendell Berry’s
  “The Peace of Wild Things”
  is a poem for these times,
  and is to be applied frequently,
  perhaps several times daily,
  in order to connect
  with a truth that sustains us
  across all times and places,
  grounding us in the realization
  of life beyond life–
  of life beyond the impact of life–
  sealing us in the hope of wild things
  and the hope of the natural world
  from which we come
  and to which we all shall return
  in due time.
  
  Taking strength from that association,
  that realization,
  to go on
  through the trials of the present time
  grounded in the peace
  of our original nature
  and in the resiliency it affords.
  
  Googleit.
  
  
• 01/26/2020—  Swan Lake 09/13/2019 01-B Panorama — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
  
  We have to preserve our sanity
  any way we can.
  
  By “sanity,” I mean our ability to function in the world–
  responding appropriately to each situation
  as it arises,
  rising to meet every occasion,
  standing grounded upon the bedrock
  of our original nature,
  our original essence,
  our vital core,
  our essential identity,
  amid all circumstances
  that come our way,
  especially including
  “the heaving waves of the wine-dark sea,”
  and doing right by ourselves
  and our umwelt
  at every point.
  
  What knocks you off your center?
  What flattens you like Wile E. Coyote
  in the Roadrunner cartoons?
  How much does it take
  to send you off
  into the Land of Shattered Dreams
  and Lost Hope?
  
  How do you recover?
  Pull yourself together?
  Pick yourself up?
  Shake it off
  and step back into the ring?
  
  We are absolutely surrounded by people
  who are not emotionally/psychologically
  stable enough to see/hear/understand/know
  what is going on.
  
  All they know is what somebody told them–
  somebody who didn’t know
  what they were talking about, I mean.
  
  And too many of both sets of people–
  the blind and those following the blind–
  are running the world.
  
  What chance do the rest of us have?
  When have “the rest of us” ever had a chance?
  What does “having a chance”
  have to do with how well we live our life?
  
  We are here to be who we are no matter what!
  To live out of our core identity,
  out of our bedrock foundation,
  out of our vision/understanding/knowledge
  of who we are and what we are about–
  serving values and ends
  we know to be worthy of us
  amid all circumstances
  that come our way,
  especially “the heaving waves
  of the wine-dark sea,”
  and doing right by ourselves
  and our umwelt
  at every point!
  
  What do we need in order to do that?
  How do we preserve our sanity?
  Knowing these things is our primary work
  at this point in our life
  and in the life of our world.
  
  Find what anchors you–
  what re-establishes you
  in relationship with what needs to be done–
  and maintain your connection with your anchor
  through all that comes your way!
  
  The work to preserve our sanity,
  and our spirit,
  and our courage,
  and our determination
  to be who we are,
  anyway,
  nevertheless,
  even so
  is our responsibility.
  
  No one can do it for us.
  
  Find where your encouragement lies,
  where your peace resides,
  where your heart is restored,
  and go there often!
  
  
• 01/27/2020—  Tree Panorama 01/08/2020 02 — The Promenade on Providence, Charlotte, North Carolina, January 8, 2020,
  
  The distance between well off
  and well-enough off
  is worth considering early-on.
  But.
  It takes a long time
  to come to this realization.
  
  We can’t know where we are
  well-enough off
  until we are old enough
  to understand/realize
  what we have to do–
  with “have” being
  what is ours to do
  and that we *must* do
  what is ours to do.
  
  We generally think we are here
  to make enough money
  to pass a good time.
  For some that means
  a case of beer on some beach,
  and for others it means
  being the wealthiest person in the world.
  
  That all changes when we think
  of making enough money
  to be who we came to be,
  doing what is ours to do.
  
  How much money will it take
  to pay the bills required to survive
  at a level far enough beyond subsistence
  to allow us to buy the tools
  to do the work,
  that is ours to do?
  
  What is the work that is ours to do?
  Once we know that,
  it is a matter of doing the work
  that pays us enough
  to do the work that is ours to do.
  
  I have a friend who is an auto mechanic
  who describes his work as “Wrenching it.”
  He means using a wrench,
  any wrench,
  all wrenches.
  He is perfectly matched
  with the work that is his to do
  and the work that pays him enough
  to pay his bills that are unrelated
  to his work.
  It helped knowing that “Wrenching it”
  was *It* for him.
  
  Too many of us have no idea
  of what we *must* do.
  Or, or too lazy/lethargic/fearful
  to care about knowing.
  Too many of us just want
  to be taken care of
  and given what we want.
  
  Living to have what we want
  is consolation
  for refusing/failing to do
  what wants us to do it.
  Those of us in this position
  have no conception of something
  beyond us forcing its way
  into our life
  and compelling us into its service.
  “Wrenching it,” or its equivalent,
  has no meaning for us,
  and we bounce from one want
  to another all our life long.
  
  The rest of us have to consciously,
  willingly, willfully,
  enlist ourselves in the service
  of The Wrench (or its equivalent)–
  for me it is The Camera and The Typewriter/Keyboard–
  and find ways to support ourselves
  and our work throughout our life.
  
  We only need to be well-enough off
  to pay the bills
  that allow us to do the work
  we are here to do.
  
  
• 01/27/2020—  Carolina Wren 01/18/2020 05 — Scenes from My Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 18, 2020
  
  Two stories highlight my understanding
  of serving the vision,
  doing the work.
  
  I was walking along a greenway in Charlotte
  with my camera and tripod
  looking for something to catch my eye.
  A guy walking with his wife
  stopped and asked,
  “Who are you working for?”
  I laughed and asked him,
  “Who are you walking for?”
  They joined in the laughter,
  and continued walking.
  
  I was sitting at a table in a coffee shop
  writing on a little portable keypad,
  when a friend who worked for the local newspaper
  asked me what I was doing.
  “Writing,” I said.
  “What are you going to do with it?” he asked.
  “Add to it,” I said.
  
  The idea that we can’t just “do something,”
  but have to do something that makes money,
  or serves some higher purpose than the doing,
  is pervasive in the culture.
  We have to be accomplishing something,
  achieving something.
  We can’t just be walking around with a camera,
  or sitting at a keyboard.
  Why would anybody do that?
  
  I’m proud of the photos I’ve taken
  that are stored on some hard drive.
  I’m pleased with the things I’ve written
  that are keeping the photos company.
  I haven’t made enough money
  from either, or both,
  to pay the mortgage
  or make the car payments.
  
  And I will be walking around with a camera,
  and sitting at a keyboard,
  for as long as I am able to walk and sit.
  
  If you have something similar in your life,
  we both are blessed beyond measure,
  and unable to explain why, or how,
  and don’t have time to try to figure it out.
  There is work yet to be done,
  and we have to be doing it!
  Why is irrelevant to the work.
  
  
• 01/27/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 25 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019, an iPhone Photo
  
  Sin is being wrong about what is important.
  
  Our primary sin is betrayal of ourselves
  in the service of our idea of what we want.
  
  This is the Original Sin.
  Adam and Eve trading paradise
  for what they thought was better than paradise.
  Us trading our original nature/essence/self
  for what we think is better than any of that.
  
  Us launching/lurching off on our own
  chasing our dreams/wants/wishes/desires,
  sure that we know what we are doing,
  and for sure no one else
  is going to tell us what to do
  or how to do it.
  
  And then waking up at the bottom of some wall,
  empty and lost
  with no prospects
  and very little chance,
  casting about,
  trying anything that looks like
  it might help us forget the fear and pain
  for a while,
  still ignoring the door
  that follows us everywhere we go
  waiting for us to open it
  and get to work
  serving our true heart/soul/self
  and their/its idea of who we are
  and what is ours to do.
  
  It is a tough path back to where we started.
  “What we seek lies far back in the darkest corner
  of the cave we most don’t want to enter”
  (Joseph Campbell).
  And when we get there,

and peer into that corner,
what we find is a dustless mirror
reflecting us to us,
and we meet ourselves at last,
and know us for the first time.

What happens then
is up to, well, us.

• 01/27/2020—  Hermit Thrush -0/19/2020 01 — Scenes from My Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 19, 2020
  
  Satisfaction is peace,
  is balance,
  is harmony,
  is symmetry,
  is congruence,
  is accord…
  
  It is at-one-ness
  with ourselves
  and our place in life.
  
  Resting in the just-right-ness
  of the moment.
  
  What disrupts our satisfaction?
  Disturbs our peace?
  Destroys our harmony?
  Introduces tension?
  Anxiety?
  Fear?
  Worry?
  
  Grounded in our original nature,
  in our essential self,
  in the unalterable “is-ness”
  of our “I,”
  we are unshakeable,
  immovable,
  anchored in that which does not change
  about us–
  in that which has been reliably “us”
  through all of the ups and downs,
  trauma and drama,
  of our life.
  
  There is a core identity
  at the heart of each one of us
  that is immune to the ebbs and flows,
  and the “heaving waves
  of the wine-dark sea.”
  
  Find the bedrock grounding our “I.”
  Live to express the eternal qualities
  and character of our own essence.
  Be the Woman,
  be the Man,
  you are,
  and always have been,
  and always will be.
  
  Be the calm you seek.
  The peace you long for.
  The eternal source
  of the “just-right-ness” of you
  in the world.
  
  
• 01/28/2020—  Mill Houses 01/25/2020 04 Panorama — Gibson Mill, Concord, North Carolina, January 25, 2020
  
  If you take up the practice
  of thinking of yourself
  as a “we” and not as an “I,”
  you will begin discovering
  what it means to say
  “There is more to us than meets the eye.”
  
  We–individually, I mean (“we” mean)
  are composed of inherited strengths
  (and weaknesses) packed into our DNA
  from the entire species.
  
  All of these elements combined
  (There is actually no end to the possible combinations)
  are lumped into the terms
  “psyche,” “unconscious,” “soul,” “heart,” “self,” “mind”…
  Our “conscious self” takes care
  of the business of life in physical reality,
  but, there are other levels of reality,
  additional planes of existence–
  there is more to us all than meets the eye.
  
  Consciously enlarging our conscious reality
  to take into account the portion of “the more”
  that we are capable of accessing,
  positions us to tap natural resources of awareness
  that free us to respond to our circumstances
  out of the inherited wisdom of the species,
  and gives us a very helpful sense
  of not being on our own alone,
  up against the terrors of the times
  (On “the heaving waves of the wine-dark sea”).
  
  We have help with the task
  of finding our way,
  if we open ourselves to what is available
  in a “Here we are, now what?” kind of way.
  
  Things “pop into mind,”
  “occur to us”
  that we would never think up on our own.
  We discover that we are being
  (and have always been)
  led all along the way.
  And as we take up the role of seeking
  to know what we know,
  we assist that invisible process
  in allowing our feet to follow paths
  we cannot see
  to destinations (way points, actually)
  we would not choose on our own.
  
  This is to say, of course,
  that we do not “use the powers”
  to achieve goals we think are desirable–
  we confess that we do not know what to do
  and allow ourselves to be guided
  along the way on the adventure of being alive.
  
  We think our way to how,
  we feel our way to what.
  And we wait to see what’s next,
  and what we do about it,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  in each situation as it arises,
  all our life long–
  by remembering to listen,
  and know we don’t know as much
  as we think we know,
  and remain open to more than meets the eye.
  
  
• 01/29/2020—  Tunnel View 04/28/2006 B&W 01 — Yosemite National Park, California, April 28, 2006
  
  Musicians are the people I love the most,
  respect the most,
  admire the most…
  
  I am not a musician,
  but.
  That doesn’t prevent me
  from appreciating them,
  being grateful for them
  and holding them
  in my highest esteem.
  
  Why? Because they know what is important
  and are right about it.
  
  Most of them are right about it.
  Some of them think money is the most important thing
  and music is their way of accessing
  and accumulating money.
  That works well for some of those
  who think this way,
  but, for all their money,
  they miss the point of music.
  
  The point of music is music.
  Most musicians understand this,
  and live to serve music with their life.
  They are playing or singing somewhere all the time.
  Maybe only in their basement.
  
  Musicians love music.
  And I love musicians because they love music.
  Everybody ought to have something they love
  the way musicians love music.
  
  Everything I have to say,
  comes down to this:
  Find something in your life
  you can love
  the way musicians love music.
  And love it with your life.
  Your whole life long.
  
  
• 01/29/2020—  Goodale 10/25/2019 24 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  The old Buddhists and Taoists
  had a notion about “original nature,”
  and held that living in accord with it
  is Real Life
  and living at odds with it is a lie.
  Or as they might put it “illusion.”
  
  Our original nature
  is our core identity,
  our core vitality.
  It knows what brings it to life,
  and it knows what it takes
  to express/exhibit/incarnate it
  in the way we live.
  
  We can live more or less aligned
  with our original nature,
  or more or less out of touch with it–
  and the proximity of our lived life
  with the life our original nature
  is built to live
  is the degree of balance,
  sanity,
  wholeness,
  wellness,
  integrity,
  authenticity,
  genuineness
  and truth
  that we have about us
  as we go take care of our business
  in the world
  day-by-day
  and moment-to-moment.
  
  Our place is to own our original nature
  and to be owned by it.
  
  To know and love who we are
  at the deepest/highest levels.
  And to live in ways which reflect
  our true identity
  as we go about our life.
  
  Now, the problem is doing that
  and paying the bills.
  Our life may not easily support
  the life that is ours to live,
  the life that we are here to live.
  
  We have to work it out.
  
  This is called “Walking Two (Or More)
  Paths At The Same Time.”
  We do that by being mindfully aware
  of “the other path”
  as we are walking the one we are on.
  We don’t kid ourselves about the difficulty
  of being true to ourselves
  and paying the bills.
  
  We bear the pain,
  and do the best we can,
  without kidding ourselves about
  it being truly the best we can do.
  That’s the best we can do.
  Jesus couldn’t do it better.
  God couldn’t do it better.
  
  We take who we are
  when we are being true to ourselves
  in one hand,
  and we take what it takes
  to pay the bills
  in the other hand,
  and we work to get the two hands together
  all our life long.
  
  That is the essence/nature of the Hero’s Journey.
  And the essence/nature of growing up.
  It is what our life is all about.
  We live between the hands,
  on the one hand this,
  on the other hand that,
  and work to get them together
  our whole life long.
  And that is how things are.
  
  
• 01/29/2020—  Parkway Overlooks 10/29/2019 08 –Blue Ridge Parkway near Big Island, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  This marks 5,800 photos and monologues that I’ve posted here. It would be great if there were that many more to go!
  
  We think of our life
  in terms of attainment and acquisition,
  accomplishment, achievement and success.
  Of getting, having, doing, becoming…
  
  All the while,
  our life needs us to serve its ends.
  
  We don’t think of our life
  as having a will of its own,
  but.
  Our life has a will of its own.
  
  We are built for a certain life,
  and not for others.
  We have the temperament,
  and the body,
  and the drift of soul
  for a certain life,
  and not for others.
  
  We are not free to will any life for ourselves.
  We come with a blueprint attached,
  and live to discover how to read it
  in order to know who,
  and how,
  to be.
  
  But.
  There are none to teach us.
  All those who should know,
  ask us!
  “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
  “What do you want to do with your life?”
  
  What does wanting know?
  We want sugar,
  and alcohol
  and tobacco.
  And pot,
  and opioids.
  We don’t know what to want,
  or how to know!
  And, we aren’t free to want what we ought to want,
  even if we could be sure of what that is!
  
  The situation is bonkers from the start.
  
  Why does nobody we know
  tell us this at the beginning?
  
  Resonance!
  Why does nobody tell us about Resonance?
  Or listening to our nighttime dreams?
  Or knowing how to read our body’s signals?
  Our trusting our feelings–
  particularly the “Uh-oh feeling”?
  Or the “me/not-me feeling”?
  
  The Way of Life for us is not hiding!
  It’s just that no one knows how to spot it!
  It is a White Rabbit!
  Watch for what catches your eye!
  For what takes your breath away!
  For what stops you in your tracks!
  And. Do. Not. Dismiss. It.
  And go right on with your life
  as though nothing happened.
  
  When something like this happens,
  note it!
  Notice it!
  Pay attention to it!
  And look closer!
  See what is there!
  
  And, it will come around again and again.
  So, if you remember missing it a time or two already,
  it will be back.
  Be looking for it.
  And listen to your life
  when it calls your name.
  
  
• 01/24/2020— 
  
  

Share this:

• Press This
• Twitter
• Facebook

Customize buttonshttps://widgets.wp.com/likes/index.html?ver=20200826#blog_id=91364836&post_id=2039&origin=jimwdollar.wordpress.com&obj_id=91364836-2039-5f77c8237e3ea&domain=jimwdollar.com

Related

One Minute Monologues 006In “One Minute Monologues”

One Minute Monologues 005In “One Minute Monologues”

One Minute Monologues 007In “One Minute Monologues”

09/06/2019 — 11/05/2019

1. 09/06/2019  —  Crape Myrtle 2019-09 01 — Charlotte, North Carolina, September 3, 2019, an iPhone photo
   
   Recurring dreams mean
   we aren’t getting what the dream is saying
   because we have ideas for our life
   that are out of accord
   with our life’s ideas for us.
   
   It means we are having to grow up
   some more again,
   and we don’t want to.
   Who does?
   
   The whole thing about growing up
   is doing what we don’t want to do
   as though we want to do it.
   
   We want a savoir
   who will make it all just right for us forever.
   So we dream up Jesus
   and heaven
   to save us from the hell
   of having to grow up
   and do what we don’t want to do
   on our own,
   by ourselves,
   because there is no one here but us.
   
   No one needs a “Lord and Savior”
   who will do the hard work for us
   and deliver us from the pain and suffering
   of having to do for ourselves
   what has to be done by ourselves.
   
   Alexis Carrel said,
   “We are both the marble
   and the sculptor.”
   
   Joseph Campbell said,
   “That which you seek
   lies far in the back
   of the cave
   you most don’t want to enter.”
   
   What are you afraid of?
   Go there.
   Do that.
   
   
   
2. 09/07/2019  —  The Peacock 2014-04 01 — Magnolia Plantation, Charleston, South Carolina, April 20, 2014
   
   What is worth your life?
   
   This is a question only you can answer.
   
   What would you go to hell for?
   
   This is another one.
   
   No one can tell you the important things.
   And you can’t think them up for yourself.
   
   You can only realize them.
   
   All of the things that matter most
   come to us
   as realizations.
   As urgencies.
   We turn a corner,
   and there they are.
   
   We know what is important.
   We know what has to be done.
   We know what we have to do.
   And nobody can knock us off of it.
   But.
   We can talk ourselves out of it.
   
   All of the wasted lives
   that are being lived around us
   are there because the people living them
   talked themselves into living them
   by talking themselves out of the life
   that was worth living.
   
   Happens all the time.
   
   Laziness,
   lethargy,
   inertia,
   momentum,
   fear
   combine
   to deliver us into
   a life that is so not worth our time.
   And, we know it,
   but.
   What can we do?
   
   What we can do
   is ask the question
   without the implied but unstated
   yet obvious “Nothing.
   It’s all over.
   We’re helpless.
   Crawl back into the bottle.
   Take another round of pills.
   Sniff.
   Snort.
   Inject.
   Tune out.
   Turn on.
   Forget about it.
   And hope to die young” attached.
   
   “What can we do?”
   Asked in the right frame of mind
   opens the door
   to the life that is left to be lived.
   
   “Here we are. Now what?”
   Puts us in the moment of decision,
   and positions us to change our world,
   which is the first step
   to changing *the* world.
   
   If you aren’t going to believe
   there is a life for you
   that is worth living,
   you may as well continue to wish
   for an early death.
   
   If you are going to take something on faith
   let it be that there is a life for you
   that is worth living–
   even now,
   even yet–
   and live as though it is so.
   
   Once you make that leap of faith,
   the rest falls into place around that.
   It is only a matter of time,
   and patience,
   and courage,
   and persistence,
   and dedication,
   and determination.
   
   The way to the way
   begins in the silence.
   
   Sit down.
   Shut up.
   Be still.
   Be quiet.
   Quit thinking.
   Be present
   with the silence and the stillness,
   and the horrors that dwell there.
   
   The Buddha lived through the horrors.
   So did Jesus.
   So must we all.
   
   In the quiet,
   we face the monsters of the darkness.
   The trick is to make them welcome
   and to not take them seriously–
   in a “Yes, yes. This too, this too,” kind of way.
   
   Invite them to have a place
   in your awareness,
   and return to the silence,
   to the stillness,
   and wait for what you are waiting for
   to emerge,
   to arise,
   to occur to you,
   to come upon you as a realization,
   as an urgency,
   that cannot be denied,
   calling your name,
   enlisting you in its service,
   directing you to what’s next.
   
   Take that step
   and trust the path to open before you
   as you start walking–
   without writing the script
   or trying to line everything out
   in a knowing the eternal plan for your life kind of way.
   
   Trust one step to lead to another
   without ever knowing where you are going,
   and always being amazed at how you got here,
   with the wind of the spirit that blows where it will
   forever in your hair.
   
   
   
3. 09/08/2019  —  Hail Mary Full of Grace — Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Charleston, SC, April 21, 2014
   
   Here we all are–
   whether we know it or not,
   whether we “believe in God” or not,
   whether we are “religious” or not.
   
   We are all right here,
   right now,
   in every here and now,
   throughout all here’s and now’s
   forever.
   
   This is how “it was in the beginning,
   is now and ever shall be,
   world without end. Amen.”
   
   *This* is the Eternal Now
   of our life in the world.
   
   We are at the mercy of things
   quite beyond our control.
   
   Presidents are elected
   who have no business being president.
   
   Wars come along
   that have no business being fought.
   
   Disease, drought, flood, fire, famine…
   Catastrophe comes in many ways.
   And never stops coming.
   It is always just around the corner.
   
   And here we all are.
   
   We are left with kneeling in the silence
   and bowing beneath the weight
   of life under the conditions
   in which life must be lived
   all our life long.
   
   And it is our hope
   and our salvation–
   that we will know that,
   and do it.
   
   There are 10,000 things
   we have to take on faith.
   None of them have to do
   with doctrines, creeds, dogmas,
   ideologies, theologies, isms and religions.
   
   For me–
   and you will be different here–
   three things stand above all the others
   as things we must take on faith:
   
   The Silence,
   The Work, and,
   The Source
   (Which I also think of as
   The Rhizome, after Carl Jung).
   
   I see the Silence
   as being that which connects us
   with the Rhizome,
   and the Work
   as that which arises/emerges
   from the Rhizome–
   to claim us,
   call us,
   direct us
   and immunize us against
   all of the terrors of the night
   (and day).
   
   Our work is to be true to our work,
   to our Body of Work,
   through “the heaving waves
   of the wine-dark sea,”
   and the worst that life can do.
   
   Woe be unto those
   who are not connected
   by the Silence
   to the Source
   via their Work
   in the day-to-day,
   moment-to-moment,
   conditions-and-circumstances
   of life in the world!
   
   We kneel (or sit, or lie, or stand, or walk…)
   in the Silence
   and bow beneath the weight
   of life as it is,
   and connect with the Source
   that is with us always
   to direct and encourage us
   in the Work that is ours to do
   even now,
   even yet,
   even so–
   without theology,
   without doctrine,
   without dogma,
   without creeds,
   just seeing,
   knowing,
   doing,
   being
   servants of the Source
   in every situation as it arises
   all our life long,
   believing in the Work
   and doing it
   anyway,
   nevertheless,
   even so,
   “without hope,
   without witness,
   without reward”
   (Steven Moffat in Dr. Who).
   
   Standing there,
   we can withstand anything.
   
   It only takes believing it is so
   to know that it is.
   
   
   
4. 09/09/2019  —  Beidler Forest 2019-06 12 — Four Hole Swamp, Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Center & Sanctuary, Harleyville, South Carolina, June 23, 2019, an iPhone photo
   
   A “modern-day” (1919) equivalent
   of the parable of the Garden of Eden,
   is the song,
   “How’re You Going To Keep Them Down On The Farm
   Once They’ve Seen Paree?”
   
   We spend our youth
   and middle-age
   running through
   the “Paree alternatives”
   (and there be many)
   to silence,
   reflection,
   realization
   and the reconciliation
   of ourselves with ourselves
   and with the work that is ours to do.
   
   Our “salvation,”
   if you will,
   is our recognition
   of the absence of viable options
   to the discipline
   of mindful,
   compassionate,
   non-judgmental
   awareness
   (Jon Kabat-Zinn’s YouTube Videos),
   the art of seeing what we look at,
   and knowing what is happening
   in each situation as it arises,
   and what needs to happen in response,
   and offering what we have to give
   in that cause
   to the best of our ability
   moment-by-moment-by-moment,
   situation-by-situation-by-situation,
   day-by-day-by-day,
   in doing the work
   that is ours to do,
   all our life long.
   
   Being true to ourselves,
   and true to our work,
   and true to the claims,
   of each situation upon us
   can be seen
   as the vital ground of being
   it is,
   only after the illusion
   of “gay Paree”
   has been seen for what it is.
   
   We have to have reached
   the Age of Discernment
   before we know
   what must be known
   in order to do what needs to be done
   and live the life that is ours to live
   and do the work that is ours to do.
   
   And that Age doesn’t arrive
   until the emptiness of youth’s
   ideas of glory
   expose Paree to be the Oz
   at the end of the Yellow Brick Road,
   and what we get for our trouble
   is what we have had
   all along.
   
   
   
5. 09/09/2019  —  Cedar Island Ferry Sunset 2011-10 02 — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, October 24, 2011
   
   We have changed the world we live in
   faster than we have changed
   to be able to live in it.
   
   Our inherited propensities are for another age.
   
   We have lived beyond ourselves,
   and no longer belong in the environment
   we have evolved to fit.
   
   The world once was large enough
   to absorb our excesses
   and our stupidity.
   No more.
   
   Global warming is resulting
   in the world’s effort to rid itself of us
   because it can no longer assimilate us
   into its framework of homeostasis.
   
   We have destroyed the balances
   that hold the earth together,
   and must pay the price
   of our ignorance
   and folly.
   
   Our technology–
   in addition to melting the glaciers
   and poisoning the oceans
   and the atmosphere–
   has created weapons of war
   capable of ending life everywhere.
   
   Our capacity for acquisition
   and aggression
   comes up against
   our incapacity for living
   in a radioactive umwelt.
   
   We are not built
   for the new world that is on the way.
   
   What do you think we ought to do?
   
   If you said “Change the way we think,”
   you would be right.
   
   We have to think about our thinking
   by being aware of our thinking
   and reflecting on our thinking–
   without rushing to judgment,
   or jumping to conclusions,
   or failing to distinguish among
   observations,
   inferences
   and assumptions.
   
   We have to sit tight.
   Be quiet.
   Breathe slowly.
   Open ourselves to the stillness,
   and to everything that comes up
   in the silence.
   
   We fold all of it into our awareness,
   seeing everything that is happening
   and how that relates to what all is happening,
   and what needs to be done about it–
   denying nothing
   but inviting everything into the conversation.
   
   See it all,
   hear it all,
   hold it all in our awareness
   and wait
   while connections are made,
   and realization dawns,
   and the changes that need to be made
   become obvious.
   
   What does what we want
   have to do with what we need?
   
   How are we frittering away
   our resources
   for entertainments
   and pleasures
   that take our mind off our life
   and keep us from living a life
   that is sustainable
   and environmentally friendly?
   
   How does our life need to change
   in order to continue to be lived?
   
   How do we coordinate our lives
   in order to cooperate
   and collaborate
   in the work to make life livable around the world?
   
   If we keep living in the immediate future
   the way we have lived in the past
   none of us will live long.
   No, not one.
   
   
   
6. 09/10/2019  —  Heath Springs Gulf 2019-09 03 — Heath Springs, South Carolina, September 2, 2019, an iPhone photo — A roadside, drive-by, museum of sorts, calling forth memories of how things used to be.
   
   How things used to be
   failed to prepare us
   for how things are,
   and leave us completely
   on our own
   and in the dark
   regarding how things will be.
   
   We will have to trust ourselves
   to the inner light
   to have a chance at all.
   
   GK Chesterton said,
   “When Jones follows the Inner Light,
   Jones follows Jones,”
   as though that is a bad thing.
   
   The catch is that when
   Jones follows someone else’s idea
   of the Outer Light,
   Jones still follows Jones,
   in that Jones chooses whom to follow.
   
   Jones is stuck with Jones.
   And would be wise to know
   as much about Jones
   as can be known,
   so that he knows when Jones is talking
   and when Jones is listening
   to a voice that is Not-Jones.
   
   “Know Thy Self” is to be paired with
   “To Thine Own Self Be True.”
   
   It takes a lot of practice in the art
   of looking and listening
   to be able to see and hear.
   
   As things shift from the way they have been
   to the way they are going to be,
   we make the transition
   as smooth and as easy as it can be
   by seeing and hearing
   what is happening,
   knowing what’s what
   and what to do in response
   in each situation as it arises
   all our life long.
   
   Joseph Campbell said,
   “Reflection leads to new realizations.”
   Reflection is the transom
   between looking and seeing,
   between listening and hearing.
   And reflection is more akin to awareness
   than it is to thinking.
   
   As we work to deepen,
   expand,
   enlarge
   our awareness of ourselves,
   one another,
   and the world in which we live,
   we are increasing our chances
   of knowing what’s what
   and what needs to be done about it–
   and that is all the edge we need
   to do well with what is coming.
   
   
   
7. 09/10/2019  —  Footbridge Chester State Park 2019-08 01 — Chester, South Carolina, August 22, 2019, an iPhone photo
   
   There is being on the beam,
   in the flow,
   at one with the Tao,
   Kairos,
   Dharma.
   
   And there is being off the beam,
   out of the flow,
   at odds with the Tao,
   Kairos,
   Dharma.
   
   There is being on the beam,
   etc.,
   but there is no *staying* on the beam,
   etc.
   
   We come and go
   as the tide ebbs and flows,
   as we inhale and exhale.
   
   Movement is life.
   Steady,
   static,
   states of being are death.
   
   Balance is the art
   of counteracting loss of balance.
   Riding a bicycle
   is constraining the wobbles.
   Walking is catching ourselves
   as we fall.
   Dancing is a miracle.
   
   Don’t make too much
   of being spot-on.
   Don’t make anything at all
   of falling on your face.
   
   We have to receive the kingdom
   like a child
   because children don’t take anything seriously.
   The kingdom least of all.
   
   
   
8. 09/11/2019  —  Goodale 2019-08 12 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, August 26, 2019
   
   The eighteenth anniversary of 9/11
   doesn’t leave us with much to be proud of
   over the course of those years.
   
   I can’t see how we have used the time
   to grow kinder,
   more compassionate,
   more gracious,
   more awake,
   more aware…
   
   We are not better people.
   We are not a better nation.
   The world is not a better place.
   
   We have wasted the experience
   in cultivating hatred,
   dishonor,
   rancor,
   bitterness,
   littleness,
   vitriol…
   
   We are more suspicious,
   more afraid,
   we own more guns,
   we kill more of our own citizens,
   we have fewer politicians
   who are people of integrity and good faith.
   
   Everybody seems to be out for themselves.
   Money seems to be all anyone is living for,
   and no one seems to know what to do with it.
   
   We are digging a hole for ourselves
   in 10,000 ways.
   Hiding.
   Without hope or direction.
   The hole is within.
   We have lost our connection
   with our heart.
   Nothing has heart for us.
   
   We go through the motions of life
   without being alive
   to the reality of living.
   Reality is nothing we care
   to spend time with.
   
   We have no vision.
   of a life worth living.
   We have no horizon.
   We don’t believe in anything worth having.
   We don’t believe anything is worth having.
   We don’t have a long list of things
   we would go to hell for.
   Things we would die for.
   And that is death itself.
   Hell itself.
   
   We are into opioids and suicide,
   bread and circuses,
   escapes and entertaining pastimes.
   
   9/11 exposed us to the truth of our vulnerability.
   We haven’t come to terms with it yet.
   Don’t know how to do that.
   Refuse to look in the mirror
   and see what we look at.
   Won’t do the work
   of bearing the pain
   of how it is with us
   in order to do what needs to be done
   about what has become of us,
   about who we are
   and where we are going.
   
   We are waiting for a Savior
   who is not coming,
   and reject all opportunities
   to become what we seek.
   
   And tomorrow is always
   just another day.
   
   
   
9. 09/11/2019  —  Nation Ford Road 2019-08 01 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, August 29, 2019, an iPhone photo.
   
   There is what we want,
   and there is what is right for us.
   
   We know what we want.
   That clouds the picture,
   interferes with our focus,
   obscures the way that is The Way,
   and allows us to kid ourselves
   and do what we want
   and tell ourselves it is the right thing to do.
   
   We do not care what is right for us
   in our headlong rush toward
   what we want for us.
   
   What we want for us.
   What is right for us.
   Create for us
   an internal conflict,
   conundrum,
   koan,
   paradox
   that is at the crux
   of what is wrong with us.
   
   We have to enter the awareness
   of the complexity,
   of the chaotic swirl,
   of want vs. right
   in order to have a chance
   of being healed,
   and whole,
   and well
   in the time left for living.
   
   We have to sit before
   what we want for us,
   and open ourselves to
   what is right for us,
   and be quiet,
   and listen,
   and wait.
   
   Here is the guiding truth:
   We know when we
   are on the beam,
   and when we are off it.
   
   We are knocked off the beam
   when what we want for us
   conflicts with
   what the beam is requiring of us,
   asking of us,
   in the here and now of our living.
   
   When we reach for what we want–
   even if it is to stay on the beam–
   we are off the beam.
   
   We cannot want and be
   centered in,
   and grounded upon,
   the way that is The Way.
   
   Wanting is the enemy of The Way.
   
   We have to recognize that,
   and open ourselves to the conundrum,
   the koan,
   the paradox,
   the contradiction
   of what we want for us
   and what is right for us,
   and wait.
   
   This is what Adam and Eve
   did not do in Eden.
   
   It is what Jesus did
   in the wilderness
   and in Gethsemane.
   
   It is what the Buddha did
   beneath the Bo Tree.
   
   It is what all the people
   who have ever awakened
   and lived with awareness
   of themselves experiencing
   their life in the here and now of existence,
   moment-by-moment-by-moment
   have done and are doing–
   without wanting.
   
   Just seeing.
   Just hearing.
   Just knowing.
   Just doing.
   Just being
   at one with the Tao,
   the Dharma,
   Kairos,
   Grace,
   “Without hope,
   (Because hope is grounded upon wanting
   ‘Not this! Not this!’)
   without witness,
   without reward.”
   
   And it is what Jesus meant
   when he said,
   “Those who would be my disciples
   have to pick up their cross daily
   and follow me.”
   
   “Follow me into the work
   of doing what is right for us–
   even if it is also wrong for us–
   in each situation as it arises
   all our life long.”
   
   
   
10. 09/12/2019  —  Lake Andrew Jackson 2019-08 04 Panorama — Andrew Jackson State Park, Lancaster County, South Carolina, August 22, 2019, an iPhone photo
    
    Witch hunts were initiated because some women
    were stand-off-ish
    and a little strange.
    And the larger society
    is always looking for a scapegoat
    to blame for its troubles
    and its woes.
    
    Everything is made better
    with someone to blame.
    We always blame the weak,
    the vulnerable,
    the powerless,
    the feeble,
    the lame,
    the stand-off-ish,
    and the strange.
    
    The stand-off-ish
    are often forced to be so
    because they are rejected
    and denied a place
    in society at large.
    
    Single women experience that.
    People of color experience that.
    Immigrants experience that.
    Jews experience that.
    Muslims experience that.
    Handicapped people experience that.
    The list is long.
    
    It is a short distance
    from being excluded
    to being thought of as strange
    to being blamed
    for the troubles
    and woes
    of society at large.
    
    Different-ness
    is easily magnified
    and made into a fault.
    
    Now only must we work
    to accept different-ness,
    we must also work to BE different.
    We all are different,
    and too many of us
    permit society to smooth off our peaks,
    and round off our edges,
    and fill in our valleys
    in order to look like everyone else.
    
    It starts in the third grade.
    By the seventh grade
    there is a clear line
    between those who are “the same”
    and those who are “different.”
    The line gets darker and thicker with time.
    
    Accepting everyone’s differences
    begins with accepting our own,
    and enhancing them,
    bringing them out,
    knowing who we are
    and who we are not
    and living in ways that declare
    what is and is not so about us.
    
    Honoring our own tendencies,
    and inclinations,
    and dispositions,
    and propensities,
    and preferences,
    and idiosyncrasies,
    etc.,
    defines us
    and sets us apart–
    and makes us a part of the whole
    which is composed of people
    who are just like we are
    in being different from everyone else.
    
    And no one is to blame
    for anyone’s troubles and woes.
    The things we suffer
    also make us one–
    and everyone is carrying a burden,
    and walking with a limp.
    
    And everyone could use more kindness
    and compassion than they get.
    
    
    
11. 09/12/2019  —  Steele Creek Swinging Bridge 2019-08 01 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, August 29, 2019
    
    Our place in this place
    is to off-set injustice and absurdity
    everywhere they are manifested.
    
    We serve homeostasis in the world
    by bringing balance and sanity
    to life there.
    
    When life is mean,
    cruel,
    heartless,
    atrocious,
    obscene,
    vicious,
    brutal,
    savage,
    ruthless
    and inhuman,
    we stand up
    and step forward.
    
    This is where we come in.
    
    We witness the victimization
    of the oppressed.
    We bear their grief
    and carry their sorrow,
    and are one with them
    in the experience of sighs too deep for words.
    
    We join them in their anguish
    and sit with them in their agony,
    and raise our voices with the sound
    of weeping and great mourning.
    
    We take up the cause of those suffering
    to amend what can be amended,
    and restore what can be restored,
    and address what must be addressed,
    and right what must be made right
    in the name of all that is good,
    and just,
    and widely recognized
    as how things ought to be.
    
    This is our place with one another
    and our duty to all people.
    May we live to fulfill it
    with all our heart,
    and mind,
    and soul
    and strength–
    now and forever!
    
    
    
12. 09/13/2019  —  Goodale 2019-08 13 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, August 24, 2019, an iPhone Photo
    
    “We are all we got–
    we are all we need!”
    The old football rallying cry
    applies to us as individuals
    as well as to us as a football team.
    
    We are on our own.
    It is all up to us.
    In order to manage our life
    on our own,
    we have to be discovering
    who all we are.
    
    There is more to us than meets the eye.
    Any eye.
    We have depth and breadth
    beyond imagining.
    We are the doorway,
    the threshold,
    the portal
    to worlds beyond worlds.
    
    We are more than enough
    to meet any circumstances
    that come our way.
    But.
    We have to do the work
    of aligning ourselves with ourselves,
    listening until we hear,
    looking until we see–
    and trusting what we see and hear
    to be the guidance and direction we need
    to meet any circumstances
    that come our way.
    
    And.
    We have to understand
    that we-as-conscious-egos
    are partners with,
    collaborators with,
    servants of
    our unconscious
    (so said because we are not conscious of it/her/him)
    Self.
    
    It takes both of us–
    all of us–
    to be one person in the world.
    And we have to do the work
    of being one with who we are,
    and also are.
    
    Jon Kabat-Zinn
    and Ann Weiser Cornell
    are helpful guides in this work.
    As are Joseph Campbell
    and Carl Jung–
    but in the old alchemical sense
    of “one book opening another,”
    you will find what you need
    in terms of guardians and guides
    when you start looking
    for what is helpful
    in your own work to find and be
    who you are.
    
    Obi wan Kenobi’s advice
    to “Trust the Force”
    and “Let the Force be with you”
    (Though he may have never
    actually said those words!)
    are operable here.
    
    The work to find and be who we are
    is like swimming
    in that we have to trust the water
    to support us
    before the water will support us.
    
    We have to believe it is so
    in order to know that it is.
    
    What we take on faith,
    and what we are willing
    to go to hell for
    tell the tale.
    
    
    
13. 09/13/2019  —  Beidler Forest 2019-06 20 — Four Hole Swamp, Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Center & Sanctuary, Harleyville, South Carolina, June 23, 2019, an iPhone photo
    
    Money is so overrated.
    All money is good for is paying the bills.
    An they have to be the right bills.
    When we use money
    to pay the wrong bills,
    we can’t make enough money
    to offset everything that is stinky
    about our life.
    
    Then, we need money to take our mind
    off our life.
    Which is really all money is good for these days.
    Money doesn’t help us live our life–
    the life that is truly ours to live.
    Money entertains us,
    distracts us,
    diverts our attention
    from the life we are living
    because that is the really stinky thing
    about our life.
    
    That’s where addiction comes in.
    Addiction smooths things over,
    soothes us
    like a Mama in a syringe,
    or a bottle,
    or some other delivery mechanism.
    
    We have to get ourselves together
    with our life–
    our real life–
    the life that was ours before we were born.
    But.
    We have no idea where to begin, for one.
    And it sounds like way too much trouble, for two.
    And we have too much on our plate already, for three.
    So nothing can change,
    and maybe some kind of miracle
    will happen.
    
    Our nighttime dreams have been trying
    to right our listing life from the start.
    All we have to do is start listening to our dreams.
    Our dreams are always showing us how our life is
    here and now.
    Our place is to enlist our Psyche-Soul-Self
    in moving from where we are
    to where we need to be.
    
    Back to money.
    We think money is all we need,
    that everybody is happy with enough money.
    But money cannot buy fulfillment.
    And we don’t know what would be fulfilling.
    But.
    Our life knows.
    The life that needs us to live it knows.
    The life our nighttime dreams are calling us to live knows.
    
    So.
    Back to our nighttime dreams
    and our Psyche-Soul-Self.
    
    All we have to do is listen–
    without being in a hurry to hear.
    Without jumping to conclusions
    and rushing to fix it.
    No Quick Fixes!
    Just sit down.
    Shut up.
    Be still.
    And listen.
    
    Practice that twice a day.
    Three times a day if you are bold.
    For ten minutes at time.
    For the rest of your life.
    
    What could possibly be easier?
    Nothing!
    And nothing is more necessary!
    So?
    
    
    
14. 09/14/2019  —  Road Through Fall 2013-11 03 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbriar District, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, November 6, 2013
    
    I walk around with a camera
    until something catches my eye.
    
    My eye knows.
    
    I only know what my eye knows.
    
    This not that.
    This in this way not that way.
    This like this, not that.
    
    My eye knows where to stand, or sit, or lie.
    Where to place the tripod.
    When to wait until it’s right.
    
    My role is to do the driving
    and carry the equipment.
    I get to rule out everything
    that catches my eye
    when taking the picture
    would put me in harm’s way.
    
    My eye gets to inform me
    when it looks closer
    and changes its mind.
    
    In this arrangement,
    there is nothing you can do to help,
    and there is a lot you can do to interfere.
    It’s just me and my eye.
    It’s just me tuning in to what my eye is seeing/saying.
    
    My eye doesn’t like it
    when I have someone in tow
    who thinks everything is a photograph.
    Or asks, “Why are you taking a picture of that?”
    Or, “How long does it take to take a photograph
    of a waterfall?”
    
    I am easily distracted
    and lose the connection
    with knowing what my eye knows
    like that,
    and have to honor the link
    by stepping apart from the crowd,
    and going where I am led.
    
    This makes photography,
    for me,
    a metaphor for life.
    
    Our heart is our eye for living.
    If we follow our heart’s lead
    we won’t be too far off the path.
    If head takes over
    and thinks our way along the way,
    we will be lost like that.
    
    
    
15. 09/15/2019  —  Swan Lake 2019-09-13 01 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019, an iPhone photo
    
    AR-15/RK-47 owners own them
    to keep themselves
    and their families
    safe.
    
    I know of a guy
    who bought three AR’s
    in one week.
    
    Some people can’t be safe enough.
    
    And, while all of these AR/AK owners
    are being safe,
    Trump is poisoning their air and water.
    Destroying the foundations of their society.
    Tanking the economy.
    And inviting the Russians
    to take over the country.
    
    I’m thinking they are missing something
    fundamental about safety.
    
    No one can be safe
    without being secure.
    
    Security comes first.
    
    Once we are grounded
    on the bedrock
    of our own confidence
    in our ability
    to square up to,
    and deal with,
    anything that comes our way,
    we are well beyond
    needing an arsenal to keep us safe.
    
    The first step
    toward that kind
    of security
    is facing the reality
    of our insecurity.
    
    Tracing it back to its source,
    exploring the things
    that keep it in place,
    investigating its needs
    and its fears,
    comforting it
    while it cries,
    listening with compassion
    as it unveils its false assumptions
    and its unfounded inferences,
    getting to the bottom of things.
    
    Everybody wants solutions
    that are instant
    and fixes
    that are quick.
    
    Nobody wants to take the time
    and go to the trouble
    of getting to the bottom of things.
    
    And that’s why we all
    are exactly where we are.
    
    Because at the bottom
    it is clear
    that we are responsible
    for the things we think
    about the world we live in–
    and nothing changes
    until we change
    our relationship with our life.
    
    
    
16. 09/16/2019  —  Swan Lake 2019-08-13 04 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 13, 2019
    
    We are all equidistant
    from the rhizome,
    the bedrock,
    the source,
    the core,
    which has always been called God,
    and is manifested
    in our lived experience
    as the Tao,
    Dharma,
    Kairos,
    Grace,
    Synchronicity,
    “Wow!”
    
    This is The God Of The Rock
    that grounds,
    sustains
    and upholds
    us all–
    quite apart from
    theology,
    doctrine,
    dogma,
    beliefs,
    creeds
    and canons.
    
    Living in right relationship
    with the rhizome
    transforms our life
    and the world–
    although we cannot exploit it
    and manipulate it
    to serve our ends
    and purposes.
    
    “It rains on the just
    and the unjust,”
    as the old saying goes,
    but the just suffer more
    from the ways of the unjust–
    and the just can’t let
    that stop them,
    or even slow them down.
    
    Right-relationship with the rhizome
    implies right-relationship with how things are,
    and those two things
    constitute the work of being human.
    
    
    
17. 09/16/2019  —  Mute Swans 2019-08 02C — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 17, 2019
    
    We are able to live self-transparent
    and self-directed lives
    only in the company/community
    of those who are themselves
    living self-transparent
    and self-directed lives.
    
    The right kind of community
    is grounded upon the individual distinctiveness
    of its members–
    people who are grounded
    in the principles
    and in the practice
    of self-transparency
    and self-direction.
    
    If you don’t have the company
    of this kind of community
    at work for you
    somewhere in your life,
    your work in finding
    and living
    the life that is your life to live
    is going to require a lot of quiet time
    away from the people
    who are built
    to keep you from doing that work.
    
    
    
18. 09/17/2019  —  Bewick’s Swan 2019-09-13 01 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    What do you love?
    
    What do you love about what you love?
    
    In what ways do you serve
    what you love about what you love
    with your life?
    
    How is what you love about what you love
    evident in how you live your life?
    
    I love self-transparency
    and self-determination
    in the service of self-realization.
    
    My entire life revolves around,
    flows from,
    leads to,
    serves
    these things.
    
    Everything I do has self-transparency,
    self-determination,
    self-realization
    at its core
    and as its destination.
    
    I live to be integrated
    with myself
    and my life.
    
    Hold that thought.
    
    We all live the life we are living
    with a perception filter
    firmly in place.
    
    Our perceptions–
    what we see–
    are held in place
    by our perspective–
    how we see.
    
    What we see
    is determined by
    how we look.
    
    In order to see beyond our perceptions,
    we have to see the perspective
    with which we see things.
    
    How does the way we see
    keep us from seeing what we look at?
    What governs our perspective?
    
    The stake we have in the outcome,
    in the results of,
    seeing.
    
    Seeing things as they are
    has implications for our life
    and how we live it.
    
    Once we can no longer kid ourselve4s
    about what we look at,
    we have to live in ways
    that take what we see
    into account.
    
    As long as we can kid ourselves
    about what we see
    and what its implications are,
    we can live anyway at all.
    
    Once we stop kidding ourselves,
    everything changes,
    especially how we live our life.
    
    Hold that thought.
    
    Women,
    LGBTQ people,
    people of color,
    immigrants,
    the oppressed and beleaguered world-wide,
    have a take on things
    that men smoking cigars
    and drinking single malt whiskey
    in a Real Men Only Club
    cannot touch.
    
    Put all of this together,
    and you have a path
    into the next moment
    that did not exist
    when you started reading this.
    
    Walk it with your eyes open,
    seeing everything you look at,
    looking at everything.
    
    
    
19. 09/18/2019  —  Swan Lake 2019-09013 05 — (Australian) Black Swans, Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    There is what we want to do,
    and there is what needs to be done.
    
    There is what we feel like doing,
    and there is what needs us to do it.
    
    There is what we want to happen,
    and there is what needs to happen.
    
    Our place is to submit
    to what needs to be done,
    to what needs us to do it,
    to what needs to happen,
    in a “Thy will, not mine, be done”
    kind of way.
    in a “I came not to be served, but to serve,”
    kind of way,
    and to get up and do the thing,
    the way it needs to be done,
    when it needs to be done,
    as often as it needs to be done,
    for as long as it need to be done,
    without opinion
    or expectation of reward.
    
    When the yard needs to be watered,
    we water the yard.
    When the dog needs to be walked,
    we walk the dog.
    When the baby’s diaper needs to be changed,
    we change the baby’s diaper.
    
    Like that.
    Day in and day out,
    all our life long.
    
    The spiritual journey
    can also be called
    “growing up.”
    
    
    
20. 09/19/2019  —  Bewick’s Swan 2019-09-13 02 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    We don’t know where we are going.
    
    We don’t know how we got here.
    
    If we know that much,
    we know it does not depend on us.
    
    If we know that much,
    we know enough to relax
    into the Tao,
    the Dharma,
    the Kairos,
    the Grace,
    the Synchronicity
    that got us here, now,
    and see where it goes next.
    
    If we know that much,
    we have it made.
    
    
    
21. 09/19/2019  —  Beidler Forest 2019-06-23 22 Panorama — Four Hole Swamp, Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Center & Sanctuary, Harleyville, South Carolina, June 23, 2019, an iPhone photo
    
    When we sit down
    and shut up,
    and wait quietly
    in the silence,
    the first things
    we are likely
    to encounter
    are shame,
    guilt
    and fear,
    in no particular order,
    and conflict,
    contradiction,
    paradox
    which loop back
    into shame,
    guilt
    and fear.
    
    We have to suffer it through.
    
    Suffering it through
    is the sine qua non
    of a life well-lived.
    
    It is the fundamental requirement
    of the spiritual journey.
    
    “Those who would be my friends
    have to bear their own cross daily
    and come with me.”
    
    You think the cross was about suffering.
    So is silence.
    We are where we are today–
    individually and collectively–
    because we will not bear the cross
    of silence.
    
    Too much meets us there
    that we can’t handle.
    
    It is only silence–
    and we are doing it
    to ourselves.
    
    Let it come.
    Let it be.
    Receive it all
    into our awareness
    without being sucked into it–
    and if we are sucked into it,
    receive it as well
    into our awareness–
    and allow our awareness
    to contain it all
    without being engaged with it,
    consumed by it.
    Our awareness has it.
    Our role is to receive
    what else is there,
    what all is there,
    and hold it in our awareness,
    and wait in the stillness,
    open to all that is there.
    
    Acceptance allows what meets us
    in the silence
    to be what meets us in the silence–
    without opinion,
    without judgment,
    without emotional reactivity
    (And if there is opinion,
    judgement,
    emotional reactivity,
    we accept that as well,
    and hold it in our awareness
    without opinion about the opinions
    without judgement about the judgements,
    without emotional reactivity
    about the emotional reactivity).
    
    We have to acknowledge
    and accept
    what meets us in the silence
    to meet what else is in the silence.
    We have to sit quietly
    to receive what all waits
    to greet us in the stillness.
    
    “That which you seek
    lies far in the back
    of the cave
    you most don’t want to enter”
    (Joseph Campbell).
    
    
    
22. 09/20/2019  —  Wood Ducks 2019-09-13 02 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    Jesus came to love, lift up and die for
    the people Donald Trump and the GOP
    consider to be undesirable
    and consign to “the trash heap of history.”
    
    Jesus would not be welcome
    in Donald Trump’s
    Fascist,
    Racist,
    White Nationalist,
    Xenophobic,
    Misogynistic,
    Islamophobic,
    Homophobic,
    Transphobic
    world.
    
    Who do we stand with?
    Who do we stand against?
    Whose side are we on?
    
    
    
23. 09/21/2019  —  Bewick’s Swan 2019/09/13 03 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    Donald Trump is a teetotaler,
    but you would never know it
    by the way he acts.
    He acts like a man on a binge.
    Which leads me to wonder
    about his medication
    and his brain chemistry.
    
    Alcohol can mess with our judgment,
    but it isn’t the only thing that can.
    Warnings against operating heavy machinery
    are attached to a lot
    of the over-the-counter pills
    in any pharmacy.
    
    Which leads me to wonder
    about Congress’ capacity
    for “sober judgment.”
    
    How are drugs and alcohol
    shaping our future?
    A three martini lunch
    could be shaping it
    with a sledge hammer
    and a wrecking ball.
    
    This track also leads me
    to offer a caveat regarding
    my reverence for,
    and adoration of,
    the place of silence in our life.
    
    Silence is no friend for those
    into drugs and alcohol.
    We have to approach silence
    with our critical faculties intact.
    Our ego-self has to be operating
    at full capacity
    in order to partner with our psyche-self
    in the work of creating
    a life worth living.
    
    We cannot stagger along the spiritual path.
    
    Good judgment and good faith
    are a tandem.
    We have to be able to see what we look at,
    and assess the value of the voices,
    images
    and urges
    arising in the silence.
    Alcohol doesn’t do us any favors,
    and does interfere with our ability
    to be clear about anything.
    
    How much alcohol do you consume in a day?
    How much medication do you take?
    Don’t kid yourself about how much
    it is interfering with your life.
    
    Don’t kid yourself about it being necessary
    to take the edge off your pain.
    Your pain is your best friend
    highlighting areas in your life that need to change–
    highlighting areas in which you need to change.
    
    Get to know your pain.
    Bear the pain of getting to know your pain.
    Trust it to lead you gingerly
    along the way.
    
    
    
24. 09/22/2019  —  Swan Lake 2019/09/13 08 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    We like to think
    we know where we are going,
    but
    we don’t have any idea how we got here,
    now.
    
    We certainly did not want ourselves here,
    now.
    
    We did not say ever,
    “I want to be there,
    then!”
    And plot out the course
    and the timing
    of our arrival.
    
    Yet,
    we think we can do that
    with where we are going.
    
    We think we can want ourselves there,
    then,
    as though our wanting knows.
    
    Wanting only knows what it wants.
    It has no concern for what it needs to want,
    for what it ought to want.
    
    Wanting cannot want what it ought to want.
    It can only want what it wants.
    As though it knows what to want.
    
    You would not trust yourself
    to what your mother wanted for you,
    or your father,
    or me.
    
    Why would you trust yourself to you?
    Unless there is a you beyond you
    who knows what you ought to want
    because it knows you
    better than you do.
    
    Two yous in one body?
    One you who knows what to want,
    and one you who only knows what it wants.
    And you deciding
    which you you are going to listen to.
    
    Three yous in one body?
    And you thought you were all alone!
    
    
    
25. 09/23/2019  —  Bewick’s Swan 2019/08/24 03 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 24, 2019
    
    It all will not fit.
    We have to leave some important things out.
    Some things have to go.
    
    It’s the parable of the net of fishes
    with the fishermen culling out
    the rough fish from the market variety.
    
    We have to do that with our life.
    We have to cull out
    what is working against us
    living the life that is our life to live.
    
    “Ooohhh” (Uttered with a high-pitched nasally whine),
    we say, “I can’t do thattttt!”
    
    And that is what separates
    those of us who are alive to the life
    that needs us to live it,
    from those of us who are dead
    waiting for some undertaker
    to make it official.
    
    If booze and drugs are in our way,
    they have to go.
    If our routine doesn’t have enough time in it
    to allow devotion to the tasks
    our life requires,
    our routine has to go.
    
    A *meaningful* life is a different kind of life
    from the one that is “smooth and easy.”
    A *meaningful* life is disciplined.
    It revolves around
    silence,
    reflection,
    contemplation,
    realization,
    inquiry,
    study,
    exploration,
    examination,
    work,
    reading,
    writing,
    listening,
    looking,
    seeing,
    hearing…
    
    It is a focused life,
    a well-considered life,
    a life of few distractions,
    diversions,
    amusements.
    
    We do not know and serve
    our psyche-self
    without spending time
    knowing and serving
    our psyche-self.
    
    All the other little fishes
    have to go.
    
    
    
26. 09/23/2019  —  Bewick’s Swan 2019/08/24 02 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 24, 2019
    
    We have to be able to dance
    with our circumstances,
    with our contradictions,
    with the time and place
    of our living–
    In an “Okay,
    here we are,
    now what?”
    kind of way.
    
    “What can we do
    about being unable to do
    what needs to be done?”
    
    Being frustrated,
    shutting down,
    losing it
    and quitting
    is a worse choice
    than sitting down,
    being quiet,
    opening ourselves
    to the moment
    and waiting to see
    what occurs to us.
    
    We don’t always/ever
    (Take your pick)
    get the kind of cooperation
    we need.
    
    We all could use
    more help
    than we get.
    
    What we do about that
    is up to us.
    
    How we assess it,
    interpret it,
    respond to it,
    decide what it means to us,
    positions us to manage
    what follows.
    
    What follows hinges largely
    upon the way we deal
    with the here and now.
    
    If we go out and get drunk,
    that is going to have one kind
    of future.
    
    If we sit down,
    shut up,
    and listen,
    that is going to have
    a different kind of future.
    
    The life that is ours to live
    is an extension
    of the life we are living.
    
    The choices we make now
    set the tone
    for the choices
    we get to make next.
    
    The present moment
    is all we have to work with now.
    If all we can do is wait,
    we can at least wait
    with our eyes open.
    
    
    
27. 09/24/2019  —  Bewick’s Swan 2019/08/24 01-B — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 24, 2019
    
    Our place as ego-consciousness
    enclosed in this body,
    in this time and place,
    is to coordinate the collaboration,
    integration,
    and alignment
    with our psychic-unconscious,
    so that we might unite
    and live as one
    in the life we are living.
    
    This doesn’t mean using
    the Psyche to get what we want,
    accomplish our goals
    and achieve our idea of success.
    
    It means living the life
    that needs us to live it
    in each situation as it arises
    all our life long.
    
    We hand over our ambition
    in the service of a good
    that is better than our own good,
    in a “Thy will, not mine be done”
    kind of way
    (With the “thy” being
    the Psyche’s sense
    of what needs to happen
    in each here and now
    in light of all things considered).
    
    The Psyche is in charge
    of who we need to be
    and what we need to do.
    Ego-consciousness is in charge
    of how to do it.
    We negotiate the path
    Psyche would have us walk,
    taking into account
    the demands,
    limitations,
    requirements
    and restrictions
    of the physical world.
    
    It is “a slippery slope,
    a dangerous path,
    like a razor’s edge,”
    and we guide The Guide,
    so to speak,
    with our knowledge
    of ethics
    and morality,
    common sense,
    propriety,
    protocol,
    process
    and procedure–
    negotiating and compromising
    our way
    moment-by-moment-by-moment,
    through the situations and circumstances
    that present themselves each day.
    
    The Native Americans
    on their vision quests–
    and each of us on ours–
    receive a sense of their calling
    (Who they need to be,
    What needs them to do it),
    and they (we) are left to work that into
    the possibilities and opportunities
    afforded by the situations and circumstances
    of the reality of the physical world.
    
    It is a partnership all the way.
    We listen in the silence for what occurs to us,
    and apply it within the terms and conditions
    of life as it is lived,
    day-by-day,
    all our life long.
    
    In us,
    the What and the Who
    meet the How,
    and when we are humming,
    focused
    and in the flow,
    in the zone,
    on the beam,
    miracles happen.
    
    
    
28. 09/25/2019  —  Bewick’s Swan 2019-08-24 05 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 24, 2019
    
    A countless number of futures
    open before us in each moment,
    each one contingent upon
    what we do in that moment.
    
    Every act–
    or failure to act–
    comes with a future attached.
    
    What we do now determines–
    or strongly influences–
    what happens next,
    and what we do then
    leads to…
    
    Too many of us try to
    play the futures market,
    not with pork belly prices,
    or soy beans,
    but with what we think
    is the future we want to have.
    
    Stop The Train!
    (The train of thought)
    
    And allow me to ask you
    the most important question
    in the entire library of questions:
    
    WHAT DOES WANTING KNOW?
    
    And the second most important question
    is like unto it:
    
    WHERE DOES WANTING COME FROM?
    
    We act like what we want
    is the critical key to a future worth having,
    to a life worth living.
    Remember your first marriage?
    How did that work out for you?
    How about your second?
    Still looking for what you want
    in a life-partner, aren’t you?
    That’s what wanting knows.
    Nothing.
    
    We have an irrational stake
    at stake
    in having what we want,
    as though that is going to be something
    worth having.
    Even though that has yet to be borne out
    in our life.
    No matter how often we get what we want,
    we are still wanting.
    There is never a moment
    in which there is nothing else to want.
    We can want to stop wanting
    but we cannot stop wanting.
    We are addicted to wanting.
    Wanting drives us through our life
    like a mad jockey with riding crop in hand.
    
    Every moment becomes an opportunity
    to exploit the situation
    for our own advantage,
    with our best possible future
    firmly in mind.
    We play the moment
    to beat the odds
    and win the game.
    
    There is no game.
    There is only the moment
    and what needs to happen
    here and now.
    
    “In light of what?” is the question.
    The good of the moment
    is a better answer
    than our good in every moment.
    
    When we live to serve our good
    in every moment,
    we create a future
    in which everybody
    is fighting everybody
    for advantages
    benefits,
    boons,
    and assets…
    as though if we can just get
    what we want,
    we will be happy at last.
    
    But.
    Wanting has nothing to do with happiness.
    It springs from the desert
    of our discontent.
    What shall we do about that?
    
    
    
29. 09/26/2019  —  Australian Black Swans 2019/08/24 04 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 24, 2019
    
    The pursuit of wealth
    cannot be lived
    in the service of life.
    
    The requirements of wealth
    are at odds with
    the requirements of life.
    
    Wealth destroys life,
    and then, sometimes,
    donates to benevolent causes
    to enhance life
    and compensate its conscience
    for destroying life.
    
    Donald Trump and his “friends”
    embody the love of wealth,
    and exemplify the qualities
    of greed and envy
    in all they do.
    
    They are what the pursuit of wealth does
    to all who trod that path.
    
    They are what Capitalism does
    to those who serve its ends
    under the banner of Profit At Any Price.
    
    When there is nothing better than wealth,
    there is nothing but the refuse of the wealthy,
    who are constantly looking for more resources
    to turn into money
    at the expense of everything else.
    
    Wealth as the goal of life
    is at odds with life itself.
    Life lives to be fully alive–not wealthy.
    
    Where the pursuit of money
    and the service of vitality,
    libido,
    life energy,
    enthusiasm,
    joy of life, etc.
    diverge
    is where money is used to buy
    vitality, libido,
    life energy, etc.
    
    Money can buy sex,
    but it cannot buy life.
    
    Wealth is just a splashy way
    of being dead.
    
    
    
30. Beidler Forest 2019-06-23 31 — Four Hole Swamp, Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Center & Sanctuary, Harleyville, South Carolina, June 23, 2019, an iPhone photo
    
    Joseph Campbell said,
    “The reason for our discontent
    is the failure of the vitality
    under which we are supposed to live.”
    
    Our life is supposed to be meaningful.
    The world that receives us at birth
    is supposed to be a meaningful world.
    
    We have, as a species,
    outlived the meaningfulness
    of the symbols and myths
    which are there to receive us at birth.
    
    They have been meaningless
    for generations
    by the time we are born.
    
    To have a chance at a meaningful life,
    we have to create our own meaning
    from scratch.
    
    We can do it, of course,
    but it will not be easy.
    The work will require
    all we have,
    and are.
    This is now the task that is ours
    from birth:
    Finding what is meaningful
    and building a life centered on it,
    allowing that life to take shape around it,
    as we live in the service
    of what is meaningful
    moment-by-moment-by-moment,
    all our life long.
    
    We begin in the silence.
    Sitting.
    Listening.
    Looking.
    For what occurs to us.
    For what calls our name.
    For what catches our eye.
    
    We are hidden in all that attracts us
    and revealed by all that repels us.
    We are found all that we enjoy doing,
    and in all that we love.
    
    We find what is meaningful
    by sitting quietly with those things
    until we see ourselves looking back at us.
    
    Then we live to incorporate them in our life.
    
    Find your joy.
    discover where your heart loves to be.
    Be what you love.
    Do what you love–
    and what it takes to pay the bills.
    
    There is your life.
    Waiting for you to hop in,
    and go for a ride.
    The ride of your life!
    
    
31. 09/27/2019  —  Great Blue Heron 2019/08/24 02 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 24, 2019
    
    I am stopped–
    stunned–
    by the amount of work required
    to keep me going.
    I am sustained by a vast web
    of support,
    without which
    I wouldn’t last a week.
    
    Just think of all that goes into
    getting a can of green beans
    onto the shelf of the grocery store
    just down the road!
    And what it took to get the grocery store
    just down the road!
    And what it took to get the road in place,
    and keep it maintained!
    
    Add to the list my doctor and dentist,
    my optometrist and ophthalmologist,
    the police and EMT’s on stand-by–
    and all of the people and systems
    that are in place to keep life as we know it going!
    
    What makes us worth their effort?
    What are doing in response?
    How do we express our gratitude?
    What contribution are we making
    to the on-going work of being good for one another?
    What is our bit?
    Our part?
    How well are we doing it?
    
    We owe it to ourselves
    and to each other
    to bring forth
    what is ours to give
    to the network of life and being
    that connects all of us
    to each other
    and to the planet
    which provides for all our needs.
    
    We honor ourselves,
    one another,
    all others,
    and the earth
    which births and sustains us
    when we live
    with all of this in mind,
    and are humbled
    by the wonder of it all,
    by the grace of Kairos,
    Tao
    and Dharma,
    and willingly–
    willfully–
    take our place in the scheme of things
    in deliberately,
    consciously
    and conscientiously
    living to be who we are
    by developing our gifts,
    genius,
    talent,
    ability,
    daemon,
    proclivities
    that are unique to us
    and share them
    in service to all
    in a “take what you can use
    and leave the rest behind”
    kind of way–
    trusting that to be enough,
    because it is all we can do.
    No one could do more!
    
    
    
32. 09/28/2019  —  Two Geese Flying 2019/09/13 01 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    We are all “just lucky to be here.”
    
    Which means there is more
    going on with us
    than meets the eye.
    Any eye.
    
    Our ancient ancestors knew
    the visible world
    of apparent,
    normal,
    reality
    is grounded upon
    and flows forth from
    the invisible world
    of unconscious,
    unimaginable,
    incontestable,
    reality–
    and that the Really Lucky Ones
    among us
    know exactly how lucky they are.
    
    Oh, and “luck” and “lucky”
    are terms that are interchangeable with
    Grace,
    Kairos,
    Tao and
    Dharma.
    
    We are all being upheld
    and led along
    by Invisible Hands.
    The Really Lucky Ones
    among us
    realize that.
    
    There is a sense in which
    we can definitely play the Luck Card
    to our advantage.
    The catch is
    that doesn’t mean
    what we think it means.
    We have no idea
    what is to our advantage
    and what is to our disadvantage.
    
    “Advantage” from one point of view
    is “disadvantage” from another.
    From what point of view
    are we seeing
    when we see what we look at?
    That’s the switch
    that shifts the tracks
    that carry us either
    to our fate
    or to our destiny.
    
    What does
    “Thy will, not mine, be done,”
    mean to you?
    
    
    
33. 09/28/2019  —  Steele Creek 2019/08/29 06 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, August 29, 2019, an iPhone photo
    
    I cannot recommend highly enough
    the regular practice of interviewing yourself.
    
    Write/type it out.
    
    Sit down with the invisible you
    and explore what The One Who Knows knows.
    
    This will focus your self-reflection,
    enhance realization,
    awareness,
    enlightenment,
    and develop a process
    for putting you in the position
    of watching things occur to you
    “out of the blue.”
    
    Those are the occurrences
    that make all the difference
    in our life.
    
    Sit down with yourself
    and start asking questions.
    
    Writing it out will give you a record
    to refer to
    and serve as a guide
    for future explorations
    for life together
    with the you who lives within.
    
    
    
34. 09/29/2019  —  Faires-Colthrap Cabin 2019/08/29 01– Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, August 29, 2019, an iPhone photo
    
    We have to pay the bills
    and we have to know
    what we pay the bills to do.
    
    What is worth doing?
    What is worth our time?
    We live for what?
    
    How much of our life
    is spent diverting ourselves
    from considering
    what we are living for?
    
    Who are we?
    What are we about?
    
    What is our ground?
    Foundation?
    Bedrock?
    Rhizome?
    Core?
    Center?
    Heart?
    
    Our life is centered on what?
    Revolves around what?
    We live toward what?
    In the service of what?
    
    Sit down with these questions–
    and the questions these generate–
    and write out the answers
    that come to you
    in the silence.
    
    
    
35. 09/30/2019  —  Goodale 2019-08-24 14 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, August 24,2019, an iPhone Photo
    
    The heart of discipline
    is being in command
    of how we respond
    to not being in control.
    
    How we respond
    is the switch
    that shifts the tracks
    that lead
    to all that follows
    in each situation
    as it arises.
    
    How we respond
    to this situation
    leads to the next situation,
    situation-by-situation forever.
    
    We are here
    because of how we responded
    to where we have been.
    
    The right kind of discipline
    is being in command
    of how we respond
    to each situation that arises
    in light of all we can be aware of
    in each here-and-now
    of our existence.
    
    We will never be in control
    of all the things that matter,
    and that is a good thing,
    because all we know
    is what we want and don’t want.
    
    We have no idea of what to want,
    of what we should want,
    and if we did,
    we wouldn’t want it.
    
    We cannot make ourselves
    want what we ought to want.
    But.
    We can make ourselves do
    what needs to be done.
    We can sacrifice what we want
    in light of what we also want,
    in light of the true good of all concerned.
    
    We can get up and go to work,
    or to school,
    when we want to stay in bed
    and go back to sleep.
    
    We are not in control of how we see things.
    We cannot make ourselves see things differently
    than we see things.
    We can concede that things can be seen differently
    from the way we see them,
    but,
    we can only see things the way we see them.
    
    And, we can be in command
    of seeing the way we see things
    in light of how else they may be seen,
    and that, alone, may lead to seeing things differently.
    
    We can question our authority and our ability
    to know how things ought to be seen.
    We can look closer.
    We can make inquiries.
    We can adopt “the scientific method.”
    We can investigate our hypotheses.
    We can change our mind.
    We can respond differently
    to how things are
    by seeing how things also are.
    
    We can examine what things mean to us,
    and allow their meaning to change
    in light of the full implications
    their meaning has for us
    and for everyone else
    and all sentient beings.
    
    We can allow ourselves
    to respond differently
    to the events
    and circumstances
    of our life
    in light of all things considered.
    
    We can be in command
    even though we are not in control.
    
    And that can make all the difference.
    
    
    
36. 09/30/2019  —  Trumpeter Swans 2019-08-27 03 Panorama — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 27, 2019
    
    You hear it a lot,
    “Play the hand you’re dealt.”
    
    It also goes,
    “Bloom where you are planted.”
    
    I prefer the card analogy.
    I like being the player.
    I don’t like the idea
    of being planted.
    Stuck.
    Locked in place.
    May as well be in prison.
    Blooming
    or not blooming,
    you’re still in prison.
    Stuck in the ground.
    
    Deal me in!
    The trick about
    playing the hand you are dealt
    is:
    
    Trust the cards!
    
    Trust the cards
    to be exactly right for you!
    Give yourself wholly
    to the task of playing
    the hand you are dealt
    to the best of your ability.
    
    If you try to make the cards
    serve your end
    there be problems.
    
    If you forget exploiting the situation
    for your advantage,
    to achieve your idea
    of what your life ought to be,
    and give yourself solely
    to the cards,
    playing them like they need to be played
    in each situation as it arises,
    living according to the Tao,
    the Dharma,
    Kairos,
    Grace,
    Flow,
    in each moment,
    there be miracles.
    
    Perhaps not what
    you might have in mind
    for miracles,
    but miracles,
    nonetheless.
    
    Trust the cards.
    Play for a miracle.
    In each situation as it arises.
    All your life long.
    
    
    
37. 10/01/2019  —  December Woods 2013/12/29 01 B&W — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, December 29, 3013
    
    Once we align ourselves
    with our life,
    everything else falls into place
    around that.
    
    Where we go to school.
    How we pay the bills.
    Who we marry.
    Where we live.
    How we spend our time.
    What course we plot
    through the conditions
    and circumstances
    that form the umwelt
    of our existence.
    
    Our relationship with our life
    determines our relationship
    with all the rest.
    
    We typically think
    if we can get
    all the rest
    under control,
    our life will take care of itself.
    
    What life do we need to be living?
    
    Start there.
    All the rest
    will take care of itself.
    
    
    
38. 10/02/2019  —  Swan Lake 2019/09/13 08 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, September 13, 2019
    
    What’s at the bottom?
    
    What grounds us?
    
    What supports us?
    
    What are we here to do no matter what?
    
    What is worth our life?
    
    What some people call success,
    I call missing the point.
    What I call success,
    they call missing the point.
    Who knows what they are talking about?
    They cannot talk me out of what I think.
    I can’t talk them out of what they think.
    We all think we know what we are doing.
    Are we all right?
    
    We are right to be grounded on what grounds us,
    and let nature take its course,
    and see where it goes.
    
    We owe ourselves the privilege of being wrong–
    and live all-out in the service
    of what drives us,
    supports us,
    and gives meaning and purpose to our life.
    
    Pilate and Jesus.
    Hitler and Gandhi.
    Donald Trump and Reality Winner.
    …
    
    Everyone lives their own life
    grounded on what grounds them.
    No one can be talked out
    of the way they are doing it.
    
    What we call good
    determines everything that follows.
    
    What is at the bottom?
    
    What grounds us?
    
    What supports us?
    
    What are we here to do no matter what?
    
    What is worth our life?
    
    
    
39. 10/02/2019  —  We all can look at the same thing and we each will see something different. Look at a potato, abortion, a gay person, a grazing herd of bison…anything. What leads us to see it the way we do?
    
    Where does seeing come from?
    
    What is the source of our seeing?
    
    What causes us to see “this” and “that” the way we do?
    
    We cannot see anything apart from the meaning it has for us. Seeing the thing is seeing the meaning of the thing. We cannot see a thing that is meaningless to us. That’s the reason modern art is difficult for us to see. We don’t know what it means. The more meaningless something is, the more invisible it is.
    
    Seeing is interpretation. We interpret something in the act of seeing it. We decide what it means in deciding what it is.
    
    Seeing is evaluation. Seeing is judgment. Seeing is discrimination. For anything to stand apart from its background, we have to be discriminating. We have to discriminate between things in order to know where one thing starts and another thing stops. “This” is “this,” and not “that.”
    
    We can’t seem to help how we look at what we see. Knowing that doesn’t change anything. As I look at this, it is great, wonderful, beyond imagining, though, in a sense, I am imagining the entire concept!
    
    All of our ideas of “the good” come from the source of inference, intuition, hunches, urges, feelings, notions, awareness… We are seized by visions of mythic proportions and directed by a will beyond our will to do what we infer/intuit/sense/perceive/feel/etc. needs to be done—for better or for worse—no matter what.
    
    What is responsible for our seeing things the way we see things?
    
    It takes a lot of looking to be able to see.
    
    
    
40. 10/03/2019  —  Dairy Barn 2019/08/29 02 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, August 29, 2019
    
    The Yin/Yang symbol
    is an ancient Taoist rendering
    of reality as we experience it.
    Opposites/Polarities/Contradictions
    everywhere we look.
    
    All of the boundaries separating
    and containing
    Yin and Yang
    are composed
    of Recognition,
    Respect,
    Reconciliation,
    Integration
    and Transcendence.
    
    That is how Opposites/Polarities/Contradictions co-exist.
    
    Not by being locked into
    eternal cycles of war and desolating devastation.
    
    The catch is
    that it takes a certain level of maturity
    on all sides
    to bring this off-
    to live together
    within the tension
    of mutual repulsion.
    
    And that brings us to the heart of the matter.
    
    We have created,
    produced,
    and live within
    a culture that is
    superficial,
    shallow
    and immature.
    
    It is based
    on me getting
    more money
    from you
    than you get
    from me.
    
    And what we do with our money
    is spend it,
    invest it,
    in ways that assist me and you
    in the effort
    of getting
    more money
    from you
    than you get from me,
    and vice-versa.
    
    It is a scheme of living for money,
    but what’s money for?
    Making more money.
    But for what?
    For lording it over those
    who have less money than we do.
    
    This is all the culture has to offer.
    
    We are not going to grow up in this culture.
    
    Anyone who grows up
    has to withdraw from the culture
    and create a counter-culture
    which values values
    like self-awareness,
    self-transparency,
    self-discipline,
    self-discovery,
    self-direction,
    self-reflection
    self-realization,
    self-expression–
    all of which are contained
    in Carl Jung’s idea of individuation.
    
    Jung was quick to point out
    that individuation can only occur
    in a community of the right kind of people–
    which would be people
    engaged in their own coming to be,
    and sharing themselves
    and their work
    with their friends and neighbors,
    with all being grounded in the principles
    of Recognition,
    Respect,
    Reconciliation,
    Integration
    and Transcendence.
    
    If you want to help sift the culture
    from where it is
    to where it needs to be,
    work at becoming the kind of person
    who attracts the kind of people
    who are capable of producing
    the kind of counter-culture
    that serves the purposes
    of individuation
    in an atmosphere of Yin/Yang.
    
    
    
41. 10/04/2019  —  Happy Halloween 2019 01 B — Indian Land, South Carolina, October 3, 2019
    
    We cannot help
    seeing things as we do–
    and we have to
    change our mind
    about what is important.
    
    Look around.
    Things are as they are
    because we see things
    as we do.
    
    Change the way we see things
    and everything changes.
    On every level.
    From the way we dress
    and walk,
    to the health of the environment,
    to the way nations deal with themselves internally
    and with other nations externally.
    
    It all hinges on how we see what we look at.
    
    Sin in all the religions from the beginning
    is being wrong about what is important.
    Repentance in all those religions
    is changing our mind about what is important.
    
    We cannot help seeing the way we do,
    and we have to change
    the way we see things.
    
    Everything depends on it.
    
    
    
42. 10/04/2019  —  Great Blue Heron 2019/08/24 03 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, August 24, 2019
    
    Things are the way they are
    in our life
    because we see things as we do.
    
    When we change the way we see things,
    everything changes.
    
    Until we change the way we see things,
    nothing changes,
    regardless of all of the changes we make
    (In terms of spouses,
    jobs,
    where we live,
    what we do, etc.).
    
    Our idea of what is important
    and how best to serve it with our life
    locks us into the life we are living.
    If potato chips,
    french fries
    and ice cream are important,
    our life will reflect that.
    
    Our life is an expression of what we value.
    Our priorities are always on display.
    How we think about things
    has us precisely where we are.
    
    Nothing changes until how we see
    what we look at changes.
    
    We have the rest of our life
    to teach ourselves
    to see things as they are.
    And also are.
    
    There is no time to waste.
    
    
    
43. 10/05/2019  —  Happy Halloween 2019 02 — Indian Land, South Carolina, October 2, 2019
    
    We create the future
    by the way we respond to the present.
    
    Here and now is the doorway
    to everything that follows.
    
    There is no moment more pivotal
    to what remains of our life
    than right here,
    right now.
    
    This is the pivot point
    for shifting our past
    into our future.
    How we make the transition
    tells the tale.
    
    That being the case,
    you might think
    we would be more careful
    with the present
    than we ever are.
    
    We are here, now,
    all the time,
    yet we never pay much attention to it.
    We are always thinking about
    what has happened to us,
    and where we are going.
    
    When we throw the present away
    our life reflects it.
    And we pay the price.
    We cannot neglect our place in the present
    and have a future
    that is what it would have been
    if we had been present
    to each present.
    
    We blow through the present
    in one of two ways:
    rationally or emotionally.
    We think our way forward,
    or we react our way there.
    Either way,
    what we want
    is a ring in our nose
    leading us down paths
    we don’t want to walk
    to places we don’t want to be.
    
    What does wanting know?
    Does it know what to want?
    Does it know how to want
    what it should want?
    What it ought to want?
    What it needs to want?
    What it must want–
    with all it’s heart?
    
    If we are going to want something,
    why not want what needs us to want it?
    What needs to be done?
    What needs us to do it?
    Never-minding what’s in it for us?
    Never-minding what we stand to gain?
    Never-minding whether it serves our advantage?
    
    This is the place of awareness
    in our life.
    Awareness is the way
    of seeing/hearing/knowing/understanding
    what’s what and what needs to be done about it
    in light of the best that can be imagined
    in the service of the true good of the situation
    in every situation as it arises
    all our life long.
    
    What needs to happen here and now?
    We cannot think or react our way there!
    We perceive our way there
    by knowing what we know
    about all that can be known here and now.
    
    How to do that is what Jon Kabat-Zinn is all about.
    He has YouTube videos that won’t cost you a dime.
    Watch the shortest ones first.
    
    
    
44. 10/06/2019  —  Steele Creek 2019/08/29 08 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina August 29, 2019
    
    Joseph Campbell said,
    “Spontaneously living out
    of what needs doing now–
    that is the play of children.”
    
    Of all of us when we were children.
    Now?
    Not so much!
    
    All of our “play”
    is governed by
    how it is supposed to be done.
    We grade every move.
    and look for approval
    at every turn,
    as though everyone is watching,
    looking for mistakes,
    score cards in hand.
    
    Where in your life
    are you free
    to play–
    to live–
    as you did as a child?
    To be one with the moment,
    dancing in delight
    with whatever incites us
    to laughter
    and wonder?
    
    We have lost the way
    to that world,
    and do not even
    allow ourselves
    the freedom of our fantasies
    about it.
    
    Where does your imagination
    roam free and unrestrained?
    
    Campbell recommends that we
    “Amplify your own fantasies!”
    To allow ourselves to be
    “Fascinated by your aspirations!”
    And to integrate them into our life.
    
    What are your fascinations?
    Your aspirations?
    Campbell would remind us,
    “They both have to be a little bit insane!”
    And, he would call us to
    “Play with them!”
    And tell us,
    “That is the way to find the support for your life!”
    
    How long has it been
    since we dreamed ourselves to life?
    
    
    
45. 10/06/2019  —  Happy Halloween 2019 01 — Indian Land, South Carolina, October 6, 2019
    
    I can’t make sense of anything I do.
    Truth be known,
    no one can make sense of anything.
    If you keep asking “Why”
    of every “explanation,”
    you will eventually get to the point
    of “I don’t know.”
    
    Or, “You have to take it on faith,”
    which amounts to the same thing:
    “I don’t know,
    and I am not going to think about it anymore.”
    
    I try to be as aware of my motives
    as I can be,
    but.
    I have never had a motive
    that I fully understood.
    
    I can’t get to the bottom of any of it.
    And, I think it gets in the way
    of what I am going to do next
    if I dwell too long
    on what I just did,
    or on what I did years ago.
    
    Norms,
    codes,
    standards,
    president,
    protocol,
    rules,
    guidelines
    and laws
    help guide me along the way,
    but.
    All can be set aside
    to take a photograph,
    or to eat a piece of Lemon Ice Box Pie.
    
    Leaving me wondering
    what I will do next,
    and hoping that I will
    be better off for it
    on every level.
    
    Which would mean it won’t be pie.
    
    
    
46. 10/07/2019  —  Steele Creek 2019/08/28 03 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, August 28, 2019
    
    Awareness is the tool
    for constructing our response
    to each situation as it arises
    in the time and place of our living.
    
    Awareness is the primary tool,
    the ultimate weapon,
    and the time to act,
    when it comes upon us,
    is a matter of being attuned
    to what arises within
    as a compelling urgency,
    a pronounced impetus,
    to action–
    and we find ourselves
    doing what needs to be done
    without knowing why here,
    why now.
    
    We do not think our way
    to right action
    so much as we listen/see
    our way there.
    
    When we know what’s what
    on every level–
    or on enough of them–
    we know what to do about it,
    and act like that,
    as though we are dancing effortlessly
    to music no one else can hear.
    
    Sit in the presence of the facts,
    the contradictions,
    the conflicts,
    the polarities,
    the paradoxes,
    and live within the tension,
    open to all that is,
    awaiting clarity,
    realization,
    and the inward push
    to do what needs to be done,
    perhaps against your will.
    
    
    

10/08/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 02 Panorama — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019

We are on our own.
It is all up to us.
And we cannot do it alone.
You might think
we would be doing
everything possible
to establish the right kind of relationships
with ourselves
and with those who are at least as awake as we are
in order to have our best chance
of coming to terms
with the conditions and circumstances
of our life
moment-by-moment-by-moment,
situation-by-situation,
all our life long.

But no.

We follow the herd
from the barn
to the pasture
back to the barn,
waiting for someone to tell us
what to think,
what to believe,
what to do,
and cannot remember
the last original thought we had,
or the last chance we took,
or the last time
we trusted ourselves
to the guides who live within.

• 10/09/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 09 — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  We have to have a life
  that is bigger than we are–
  a life that we serve
  in a “Thy will, not mine, be done”
  kind of way.
  
  We belong to our life.
  Our life does not belong to us.
  Our destiny is in charge of us,
  we are not in charge of our destiny.
  
  Farmers belong to the seasons,
  and to the weather.
  Athletes belong to their sport,
  and to their training regimen.
  
  We all have our orders of the day.
  We rise early
  or sleep late
  naturally–
  and we set those tendencies aside
  in service to the requirements
  of our job,
  or whatever is ours to do
  (Taking the dog out,
  driving the kids to school…).
  
  Our life has its own shape and form.
  We choose the life that owns us,
  but we don’t get to live it any way we choose.
  
  We are all ordered and disciplined
  by the life we are living.
  How right is the fit is the question.
  How fully do we belong
  to the life we are living?
  To what extent is it “us”?
  To what extent is it “not us”?
  
  Are we owned by a life
  we do not belong to–
  that does not belong to us?
  If so, how would our Real Life
  be different?
  What might we do
  to incorporate some aspects
  of our Real Life
  into the life we are living?
  How might we
  walk two paths at the same time?
  
  The better the fit
  between us and our life,
  the better we are,
  the better our life is.
  And it shows.
  
  When things are not right,
  we know it,
  and our life exhibits it.
  When we “live to get it right”–
  to more accurately exhibit
  the life we are built to live–
  things shift into place,
  take on a different light,
  and we have an air
  of belonging to the life we are living,
  transforming everything
  and making all things new
  
  
  
• 10/09/2019  —  Happy Halloween 2019/10 04 — Indian Land, South Carolina, October 9, 2019
  
  The center fails to hold
  when the government fails to govern,
  and the law is flaunted
  by the officials with the highest authority,
  and the country is free-falling
  as in the Great Depression
  and in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.
  
  Where do we turn
  when there is nowhere to turn?
  What grounds us,
  secures us,
  when all the structures
  and institutions
  that have been so reassuring
  in the past
  no longer work their magic?
  
  We are still breathing.
  The silence is always with us.
  The stillness is always the source
  of comfort and direction
  to those who know how
  to wait and watch,
  look and listen
  for the two million year old voice
  that has directed the people
  who are our ancestors
  through dark times
  and difficult places,
  to these times,
  and this place.
  
  We only have to remember our breathing,
  and enter the silence,
  and embrace the stillness,
  to wait and watch,
  look and listen,
  and know that it is so.
  
  
  
• 10/10/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 04 — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  We have to suffer it through.
  Or suffer through refusing
  to suffer it through.
  
  Suffering is the common ground
  of every path.
  How we understand that
  and accept it,
  embrace it,
  acknowledge that suffering *is* the path
  and take up what is ours to bear,
  bearing it as it should be borne,
  transports us to realization,
  understanding,
  enlightenment,
  and the knowledge
  that transforms our existence
  and makes all the difference.
  
  Suffering it through grows us up.
  It is the only thing that does.
  Growing up is the path
  to wherever it is we think we are going.
  The only path.
  
  “If you are going to be my companions,
  pick up your cross each day,
  and come along with me”
  (Jesus, or words to that effect).
  
  We don’t have to go looking
  for our cross.
  It is everywhere we are asked
  to suffer it through.
  
  If we are married,
  we have to suffer through being married.
  If we are not married,
  we have to suffer through being unmarried.
  If we are employed,
  we have to suffer through being employed.
  If we are not employed,
  we have to suffer through being unemployed.
  And so on,
  through all of the states of being
  and all of the terms and conditions,
  contexts and circumstances,
  of our life.
  
  Those who refuse to suffer
  have to suffer through refusing to suffer.
  
  The trick with suffering is to welcome it,
  invite it into your life,
  and dance with it daily–
  consciously,
  mindfully,
  bearing the agone/agona
  that comes with being alive.
  All our life long.
  
  Suffering is the door to life
  and the path to life.
  If you can understand that,
  laughing,
  you have it made–
  and qualify for being
  the current incarnation
  of the Christ.
  
  “Well done, good and faithful master!
  Welcome to the joy of the master!”
  
  
  
• 10/11/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 08 Panorama — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  The material world is not the real world.
  The ancient ones of all races
  in all parts of the world
  knew that the visible world
  is grounded in,
  and founded upon,
  the invisible world.
  Today, science is the only discipline
  that knows what we see,
  weigh,
  count,
  measure
  is upheld and made possible
  by what we don’t see.
  Gravity, for example.
  Dark Matter, for another.
  
  Where does direction come from?
  Guidance?
  What pilots our boat
  on its path through the sea?
  How did we get here, now?
  
  Grace, luck, providence, Kairos, Tao, Dharma, synchronicity, chance, magic, flow, groove, charmed, cursed…
  are all terms pointing
  to more than can be known–
  to more than our will at work in/upon our life.
  
  And, we no sooner acknowledge that
  than we begin to wonder
  how we can exploit it,
  take advantage of it,
  work it to our own personal gain.
  
  But.
  
  Looking back over our life,
  what was gain and what was loss?
  
  We don’t know what is good for us,
  or how good the good is that we call good.
  
  We are better off in the hands of the invisible world
  than in our own hands.
  We only know what we want and don’t want.
  We don’t know what *to* want.
  We may know what we ought to want,
  but we don’t know how to want it.
  Or where we are well off.
  Or what it takes to be there.
  We all are Adam and Eve,
  trading paradise for the pleasure of the moment.
  
  Sure.
  Put us in charge of our life.
  We know what we are doing!
  
  The alternative is to align ourselves
  with the invisible world,
  and to trust ourselves to it
  through “the heaving waves
  of the wine-dark sea.”
  
  The path there starts
  with sitting quietly,
  being still
  and noticing what occurs to us–
  what arises in the silence–
  attending our dreams,
  listening to our body,
  to our “gut feelings,”
  to “what we know in our bones,”
  to what our heart knows,
  to what our feet know,
  and allow those things
  to lead us along the way,
  not knowing what we are doing,
  or where we are going.
  Trusting ourselves to some spirit
  that blows where it will.
  You know the one.
  It got us here, now.
  
  
  
• 10/12/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 06 — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  We need to be living like we are dying.
  Like we are running out of time.
  Like we have something to live for–
  something to serve–
  something to do.
  
  What could that be?
  
  We have no idea,
  and conclude there is nothing to live for,
  nothing to serve,
  nothing to do–
  and live as though that is the case.
  
  Take money out of the picture
  and there is no reason to live!
  Give everybody all the money
  they could ever spend
  and what would they do
  that would not fall
  into one or more of the following categories:
  Distraction,
  Diversion,
  Denial,
  Addiction?
  
  All we have are entertaining pastimes!
  And death only relieves us of the pressure
  of what’s for lunch,
  and what to do with the rest of our life.
  
  We have no compelling urgency,
  no directing vision,
  no guiding purpose.
  And no idea of what to do about it.
  Here’s one:
  Empty yourself of all
  that might pass for
  a reason to live.
  Get rid of the noise.
  Sit still.
  Be quiet.
  For as long as it takes.
  Wait for salvation.
  
  Salvation is seeing what needs to be done
  and doing it
  in each situation as it arises
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  in light of what is happening
  and what needs to be done about it
  your entire life long.
  
  After a time,
  you will develop
  a rhythm,
  a style,
  take on a shape,
  form yourself around
  the skills and abilities,
  interests and proclivities
  that set you apart
  and make you you.
  
  You will have a way about you.
  You will begin living
  out of your own authority.
  You will sharpen your own focus,
  serve your own sense
  of the good,
  be responsible
  for your own expression,
  incarnation,
  of your own gifts and genius
  in service to the good of the whole.
  
  And there won’t be enough time
  to get it all done.
  
  
  
• 10/13/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 03 Panorama — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  Exploitation.
  That’s a bad thing.
  It locks us into a perspective
  that colors our perceptions
  and cuts us off
  from what needs to be done–
  from what needs us to do it–
  and focuses us on what’s in it for us,
  what are wee getting out of it,
  how we can maximize our opportunities
  to our full advantage,
  all other things notwithstanding.
  
  Here’s one for you,
  no, two, no three.
  1) Our advantage isn’t what we think it is.
  2) We are not here to serve our advantage.
  at the expense of all other considerations.
  3) We don’t know what is truly advantageous.
  
  We need a certain about of working room.
  We need enough resources
  to not be consumed with survival.
  We need to be secure and comfortable–
  *in the service of*
  what needs to be done/what needs us to do it
  in the service of the good of the situation as a whole.
  
  We are here,
  not to serve ourselves,
  but to serve the good of the whole,
  the good of the other–
  in a way that declares unequivocally
  *there are no others*!
  
  We have no idea what is to our fullest advantage.
  We think in terms of wealth and power.
  fame and fortune
  (“Fortune and glory, Kid. Fortune and glory”).
  That’s the best we can do.
  So we try to exploit everything to that end.
  And, here we are.
  Looking for what, we do not know.
  
  That’s where I come in
  with: Sit down,
  Shut up.
  Be quiet
  and still.
  Listen.
  Look.
  Until you can see and hear
  what’s what
  and what needs to be done about it.
  And do not shut things off–
  do not shut yourself off from things–
  thinking you know what’s what
  and what needs to be done about it!
  
  Have you watched all of the Jon Kabat-Zinn
  YouTube videos?
  One of the things you will learn there
  is the importance of distancing yourself
  from what you think
  in order to see what you look at
  and hear what is being said
  (In any number of ways,
  on any number of levels).
  
  Awareness creates distance
  when it sees without emotional
  attachment/involvement/investment
  in what is seen–
  when it sees without opinion or judgment.
  Just seeing,
  just knowing,
  just understanding,
  in a “This, too, this, too” kind of way.
  When it sees
  without trying to possess/exploit
  what it perceives to be its advantage
  in any way.
  
  Fostering and serving this attitude
  is the first step
  in becoming who we need to be
  in order to live the rest of our life
  the way it needs us to live it.
  
  Why would we not want to do that?
  
  
  
• 10/14/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 05 — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 3029
  
  We are looking for what fits,
  for where we belong,
  for what is right for us.
  
  The only thing wrong with us
  is that we are too often wrong
  about what is important.
  
  The only thing we need to do
  about that
  is change our mind
  about what matters most
  until we get it right.
  
  We will know when that is
  by the way things fall into place
  around us.
  
  Joseph Campbell said,
  “We know when we are on the beam
  and when we are off it.”
  
  We simply need to know what we know
  and act accordingly.
  
  We know what fits,
  where we belong,
  what is right for us.
  
  We know what is life for us
  and what is not.
  
  What’s the problem?
  
  
  
• 10/14/2019  —  Happy Halloween 2019 06 — Indian Land, South Carolina, October 14, 2019
  
  We only have to live in each moment
  in light of what matters most
  in that moment.
  
  It helps to have no ideology,
  no theology,
  no doctrine,
  nothing to impose on the moment–
  only an openness to the moment
  in light of all things considered.
  
  How do we know what is right?
  What is good?
  What is just?
  
  Everybody knows these things
  as they pertain to themselves.
  
  We know when we are being treated poorly,
  and when we are being treated well.
  
  We know what is right for us,
  what is good for us,
  what is just for us.
  
  Which is to say that
  we know what is right,
  what is good,
  what is just.
  
  We only need to get ourselves
  out of the way
  and apply what we know
  about right, good, just
  to the moment–
  doing unto others
  as we would have them
  do unto us–
  loving all others
  as we love ourselves.
  
  When we treat everyone lovingly
  everything falls into place
  around that.
  
  We know what it means
  to be treated lovingly.
  Treat everyone like that.
  In each moment.
  Change the world.
  
  
  
• 10/15/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 11 — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  Communion is a lost art.
  
  We talk of “communing with nature,”
  and of “community,”
  but.
  The actual *practice* of communion,
  anywhere,
  on any level,
  is largely,
  if not completely,
  neglected,
  and the experience is accidental,
  or “stumbled upon,”
  if we ever encounter it.
  
  Where are we “one” with anything,
  even our life?
  Regularly,
  dependably,
  predictability,
  systemically?
  
  A few friendships, perhaps,
  but.
  As the old biblical text declares,
  “If we love only those who love us,
  what have we done?”
  
  Where do we go to commune
  with those not like us?
  
  Where does Right sit down with Left?
  Used to be,
  in the old days,
  that both sides of the isle
  would commune with each other
  over dinner
  after a brutal day at the office.
  
  Where do opposites get together
  to talk about the things that unite them
  these days?
  
  What’s it like in your house
  over Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner?
  
  How much communion is going on?
  
  What can we do to revive the art?
  To be sources of civility
  and commonality
  in our world?
  
  
  
• 10/15/2019  —  The Tree By The Side Of The Road — The Mandala Collection, 2019
  
  What drives you,
  propels you,
  urges you on?
  
  What do you serve with your life?
  What do you seek
  with all your heart,
  and soul,
  and mind,
  and strength?
  
  What serves you
  as your ground,
  your foundation,
  your source,
  your rhizome,
  your bedrock?
  
  Where do you go
  when you have nowhere to turn?
  
  What do you count on?
  Rely on?
  Depend on?
  
  What is responsible
  for you being where you are?
  
  
  
• 10/15/2019  —  Happy Halloween 2019 07 — Indian Land, South Carolina, October 15, 2019
  
  We all have exactly the same problem.
  Every one of us.
  Around the world.
  Through time.
  
  It comes in two parts
  but it is one problem.
  
  We have to make sense of things.
  We have to find a reason to go on with it.
  
  How well we deal with the problem
  tells the tale.
  
  How well are you doing with it?
  
  Everything we do is a reflection
  of how well we are doing
  with dealing with the problem.
  
  My advice is to make it conscious.
  The more conscious we are
  of doing what we do–
  the more conscious we are
  of the problem
  and how we are dealing with it–
  the more likely we are
  to actually deal with it.
  
  And that will make all the difference.
  
  
  
• 10/16/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 10 — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  Let’s make a list
  of things we can’t help:
  
  We can’t help
  how we feel
  about making lists.
  
  We can’t help
  how we feel.
  
  We can’t help
  what we want–
  and what we don’t want.
  
  We can’t help
  seeing the way we see.
  
  We can’t help
  what we are in the mood for–
  and not in the mood for.
  
  We can’t help
  what we are afraid of.
  
  We can’t help
  what our choices are.
  
  We can’t help
  what we dream about when asleep.
  
  We can’t help
  what we dream about when awake.
  
  We can’t help
  where we have been,
  and not been,
  what we have done,
  and not done,
  what has been done to us,
  and not done to us.
  
  We can’t help
  what we like
  and what we don’t like.
  
  We can’t help
  what makes sense to us,
  and what makes no sense at all.
  
  We can’t help
  the facts that impinge upon us–
  like doing this
  means not doing that,
  having this
  means not having that,
  choosing this
  means not choosing that,
  or that, or that…
  
  We can’t help
  how one thing leads to another,
  and how everything
  has implications for other things,
  and how we can’t do anything
  without impacting something else.
  
  We can’t help
  having to come to terms
  with what we can’t help.
  
  Or how ridiculous it is
  to talk about free will
  when we are not at all free
  to will what we will
  or what we want–
  and what we are going to do about it
  is the question
  that never goes away.
  
  
  
• 10/16/2019  —  Beidler 2019/06/23 35 — Banded Water Snake — Four Hole Swamp, Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Center & Sanctuary, Harleyville, South Carolina, June 23, 2019
  
  We need help being who we are.
  
  We can’t help being who we are,
  and we need to understand that
  in an atmosphere
  which encourages
  us to experiment,
  explore,
  examine,
  define,
  refine,
  exhibit
  and move through
  all of the stages
  of our development
  in the times and places
  of our living,
  all our life long.
  
  Who we are is not a steady state of being.
  
  We are fluid,
  evolving,
  becoming,
  growing,
  enlarging,
  expanding
  in relationship with,
  and in response to,
  the context
  and circumstances
  of our life,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  We are changing,
  in flux,
  flowing,
  moving,
  coming,
  going,
  losing,
  gaining…
  
  And need mentors,
  sponsors,
  stewards,
  friends and supporters
  in the work to be who we are
  in the times and places
  of our life.
  
  Every living thing
  needs a nourishing,
  nurturing,
  environment
  to go about the business
  of self-development
  and self-determination
  from birth to death.
  
  And, as human beings,
  we owe it to one another
  to be what the other needs
  to become who we are.
  
  
  
• 10/17/2019  —  Bass Lake 2019/10/07 01 Panorama — Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, October 7, 2019
  
  The Context,
  conditions
  and circumstances
  of our living
  serve as our own personal
  labor/delivery room.
  
  We are birthing ourselves
  over the course of our life.
  
  The umwelt that receives us each day
  and tucks us in each night
  forms the matrix
  that is perfectly suited
  to bring us forth
  as the unique individual
  we each are.
  
  How well we cooperate
  with the process,
  align ourselves with it,
  and make conscious the work
  of becoming who we are
  tells the tale.
  
  We have to read the signs,
  speak the language,
  catch the drift,
  and understand the nature
  of what we are about
  in order to be about it:
  
  Birthing ourselves,
  bringing ourselves forth,
  growing ourselves up,
  being who we have within us to be
  in the time and place of our living
  by meeting the day
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  and being there
  who we are needed to be,
  day-after-day-after-day.
  
  It comes down to
  what we say yes to
  and what we say no to,
  and how well we sync
  who we are capable of being
  with what is needed
  in each situation
  as it arises
  all our life long.
  
  It takes focus,
  concentration,
  intentional,
  mindful,
  compassionate,
  non-judgmental,
  awareness
  to be who we are asked to be
  and offer what is ours to give
  in every here and now
  that comes along.
  
  If you think
  you have
  something better to do,
  you are wrong.
  
  You are living
  at odds with your life,
  and your life is evidence of that,
  and will remind you of it,
  until you wake up
  and take up the process
  of birthing yourself
  into the face that was yours
  before you were born.
  
  
  
• 10/17/2019  —  Lower Falls 09/07/2011 — Hanging Rock State Park, Danbury, North Carolina, September 7, 2011
  
  Our contradictions,
  dichotomies,
  polarities
  are the crosses
  upon which
  we are crucified–
  and offer us the possibility
  of the right kind of dying,
  which leads to resurrection
  and new life.
  
  And dying again,
  and rising again,
  again and again
  throughout our physical existence.
  
  Life is death,
  death is life–
  if it is the right kind of living
  and the right kind of dying.
  
  This is the process
  by which
  we come,
  over time,
  over the full course
  of our life,
  to exhibit
  “the face that was ours
  before we were born.”
  
  This is the process
  of individuation–
  Carl Jung’s term
  for the work
  of becoming,
  of aligning ourselves with,
  who we are called to be,
  who we are built to be,
  who we are created to be,
  who we are capable of being.
  Which has practically nothing
  in common
  with who we want to be,
  with who we wish we were.
  
  And so the dying in order to live.
  
  We die to the life
  we have in mind for ourselves
  in order to live the life
  our life has in mind for us.
  
  We know what is right for us
  and what is wrong.
  But, what is wrong
  has a lot to offer.
  
  This is the story
  of the Garden of Eden,
  and the story
  of the Garden of Gethsemane.
  
  If you can understand that,
  you have a choice to make.
  Again and again.
  Over the course of your life.
  
  
  
• 10/17/2019  —  Memory of Notre Dame 08/30/2019 — The Mandala Collection, Indian Land, South Carolina, August 30, 2011
  
  The artists of our times–
  of all the times that ever have been,
  or ever will be–
  are the spokespersons of the times,
  telling us,
  showing us,
  what we need to hear/see
  in order to do what needs to be done
  and become who we need to be
  in the time and place of our living.
  
  They, individually, are expressing
  as only they can,
  the truth of their experience
  in the time and place of their living.
  
  Some of them,
  through their work,
  resonate with us,
  and some do not.
  The ones who speak to us
  have to be heard by us–
  we have to allow them
  to guide us into the questions
  that we need to be asking,
  to the reflections
  we need to be considering,
  to the realizations
  we need to be having
  in order to put things together
  for ourselves,
  align ourselves with ourselves
  and be who only we can be
  in response to the here and now
  of our living.
  
  Artists are the prophets of our times.
  We must pay heed
  to those who speak to us,
  and open ourselves
  to what they have to say.
  
  
  
• 10/17/2019  —  Redbud on the River 04/15/2008 — Oconaluftee River, Cherokee, NC, April 15, 2008
  
  Jesus on the cross
  is the metaphor for our time.
  For every time.
  For all of time.
  
  The Buddha said,
  “There is a way out of suffering!”
  
  Jesus said,
  “There is a way,
  and it is through suffering!”
  
  When John said Jesus said,
  “I am the way, the truth and the life,
  and no one comes to the Father but by me,”
  John meant that Jesus meant
  his way was/is the way of the cross.
  Not the way it is generally understood–
  with Jesus dying for everybody
  so that nobody would have to die–
  but the way Jesus meant when he said,
  “If you want to be Christians,
  you have to pick up your cross daily,
  and do it like I did it.”
  He meant, “Suffer it through!”
  He meant, “Die, again and again,
  figuratively,
  metaphorically,
  symbolically,
  by dying to our idea of our life,
  by dying to our idea of the way life ought to be
  by dying to what we want
  and wanting what we ought to want,
  which is the good of the situation as a whole
  in each situation as it arises,
  all our life long,
  until we die
  really,
  absolutely,
  physically,
  at the end of the line.”
  
  On the cross,
  Jesus was saying,
  “Look! This is the way you do it!
  This is the way it is done!
  Everybody dies for the sake of the moment,
  for the good of the situation,
  for the good of one another,
  for the good of all others.
  By bearing the pain of their own life,
  and doing what needs them to do it,
  in spite of the cost to them personally,
  no matter what,
  in each situation as it arises,
  all their life long.”
  
  Parents sacrifice themselves for their children.
  People sacrifice themselves for one another.
  We sacrifice ourselves for the life
  that needs us to live it.
  Time after time.
  
  That’s the way to do it.
  We bear the pain.
  We suffer it through.
  
  Now, the church,
  even back then,
  knew this would not fly.
  Who would think this is good news?
  So they changed the narrative,
  and gave us the church of our experience.
  It’s time we call BS on that,
  take up the way of the cross,
  and step into the next situation
  and see what needs to be done there,
  and what we can do about it
  with the gifts, genius, daemon, etc.
  that are ours to share,
  and do it–
  and keep it up
  for the rest of the time left for living.
  
  
  
• 10/18/2019  —  African House 04/29/2019 — Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 28, 2019
  
  The worse thing we can do is dismiss,
  discount,
  discard,
  disregard,
  dishonor,
  deny,
  neglect,
  ignore,
  reject,
  betray,
  abandon,
  nullify and void
  the gift.
  
  That leaves us to wander seeking
  purpose,
  direction,
  wholeness,
  completion,
  fulfillment
  and satisfaction
  among entertaining diversions,
  distractions,
  and delights.
  
  What are the chances?
  
  The gift is the path
  to all things worthwhile.
  Serving it is our salvation.
  
  Salvation is being right
  about what is important,
  and pledging ourselves to it
  with liege loyalty and devotion
  all our life long.
  
  The gift awaits our allegiance,
  even now.
  Even still.
  Even yet.
  
  Finding and serving the gift
  is as simple
  as a shift in perspective.
  Repentance is changing our mind
  about what is important.
  
  Stop thinking!
  Stop evaluating!
  Stop judging!
  Stop having opinions!
  Stop imposing your idea
  of how things ought to be
  on how things are!
  Get out of your way!
  Start noticing everything!
  Notice your reaction to everything!
  Notice what occurs to you!
  Befriend your interests and inclinations!
  Trust yourself to your leanings
  and to the drift of your soul!
  
  You have been ignoring directions
  all your life.
  Examine your discards.
  Dig through your trash pile.
  Follow hunches long buried.
  And notions not acknowledged.
  
  Wild hares have a lot in common
  with white rabbits.
  Look closer at the things
  that catch your eye.
  See how long it takes
  to catch yourself smiling
  for no reason,
  and laughing aloud
  at the wonder of it all.
  
  
  
• 10/19/2019  —  St. Augustine 2019/04/29 09 HDR — St. Augustine Catholic Church, Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  What drives you,
  feeds you,
  nourishes you,
  sustains you?
  
  Where do you find
  what it takes
  to go on?
  To do what needs to be done?
  
  What is your core?
  
  When did you first
  begin thinking about
  these questions?
  
  Aniela Jaffe said,
  “Those who do not
  create meaning,
  but wait for it,
  end in never-ending
  disappointment”
  (Or words to that effect).
  
  And those who live
  based on someone else’s meaning–
  on what someone else says is meaningful–
  wind up in the same corner.
  
  This is the difference
  between serving
  “The Supposed To Be”
  and serving
  “The IS.”
  
  What is Heart for you?
  
  Spend time with that.
  Build your life around that.
  Create/imagine ever-new ways
  of working that into your life.
  Of serving that.
  
  
  
• 10/19/2019  —  St. Augustine 04/29/2019 13 — St. Augustine Catholic Church, Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  We save the world
  one moment at a time.
  
  A lost life is a string
  of lost moments.
  
  The most important time
  is right here,
  right now.
  
  We have to live this moment well
  to have a chance at the next one.
  
  This moment lived poorly
  carries over into the next moment,
  increasing the chances
  it will be lived poorly,
  building momentum,
  gaining speed
  until our whole life is blown to hell.
  
  We stop it by stopping it.
  By stopping.
  By siting quietly,
  being still,
  listening,
  looking,
  sensing,
  feeling,
  intuiting,
  tuning in
  turning onto
  what is happening
  and what needs to happen
  in response…
  
  Seeing,
  hearing,
  knowing,
  doing
  what needs to happen in response
  to what is happening
  in each moment,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  in each situation as it arises,
  all our life long…
  
  Being what the moment needs.
  Offering the gift
  that is ours to give.
  Loving the moment,
  gracing the moment,
  cherishing the moment,
  gifting the moment,
  with our presence,
  with our attention,
  with our awareness…
  
  Saving the world,
  one moment at a time.
  
  
  
• 10/20/2019  —  St. Augustine 04/29/2091 11 — St. Augustine Catholic Church, Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  What is to blame for the way things are
  is our idea of the way things ought to be.
  
  We want to live in the world we want to live in.
  
  There you are.
  Change that and everything changes.
  But.
  The world we want to live in
  is always changing.
  We can always imagine a better world
  than the world we live in.
  And, we can’t stand it.
  We cannot bear the pain
  of the dichotomy,
  of the contradiction,
  of the conflict.
  
  We have to have what we want,
  at any price.
  
  Consider Adam and Eve.
  Paradise wasn’t good enough.
  Living in this world
  in light of that world–
  No! *That* world!
  NO! THAT world!
  Etc. Forever–
  ends this world’s chances
  of ever being fit to live in.
  
  We hate this world.
  And that is what’s to blame
  for the way things are.
  
  Change that and everything changes.
  
  The operative modes of operating
  in this world are:
  Grace,
  Compassion,
  Kindness,
  Gentleness,
  Generosity,
  Good Faith,
  Good Will,
  Benevolence,
  Charity,
  Devotion,
  Transparency,
  Integrity,
  Forthrightness,
  A genuine concern
  for the well-being
  of all people,
  And An innate refusal
  to exploit any situation
  for our own good
  at the expense of the good
  of anyone else.
  
  Give me those qualities in every one,
  and I will give you a
  Brave New World.
  
  You’re laughing, aren’t you?
  
  Well.
  That’s what it will take.
  Nothing less will do.
  Each of us has to do our part
  in serving the good of the whole.
  
  It’s called being Christ-like.
  And, having Buddha-mind.
  All of the holy women and men
  through the ages
  have lived this way.
  
  Now, it is our turn
  to get with the program.
  
  
  
• 10/21/2019  —  St. Augustine 04/29/2019 14 HDR — St. Augustine Catholic Church Cemetery, Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  Being aligned,
  inner with outer,
  in every moment
  completely transforms
  our approach
  to living in the moment,
  which is to serve what we want
  to happen there
  at the expense
  of what needs to happen there.
  
  Such alignment
  depends upon–
  and flows out of–
  our awareness of the moment,
  of the time and place of our living,
  on every level.
  
  Taking everything into account
  brings complexity,
  contradiction,
  paradox,
  polarity,
  conflict,
  contrary,
  opposition
  into the picture,
  and requires us,
  too often,
  to make an unchooseable choice,
  in light of all things considered–
  a choice that is assisted by clarity
  and confirmed by peace.
  
  Think of Jesus in Gethsemane,
  and Abraham with Issac.
  
  That kind of clarity is found
  more often by seeing,
  feeling,
  sensing,
  intuiting,
  knowing
  than by reason and logic
  or flipping a coin.
  
  But, who has time for that?
  Who has time
  to slow things down
  in order to look and listen,
  see and hear?
  
  Who has time to know what’s what,
  and what’s happening,
  and what needs to be done in response?
  
  We are where we are
  because we did not have the time–
  or did not take it–
  to be somewhere else.
  
  Time to sit and listen,
  see and hear,
  feel and know,
  what is being asked of us
  and how best to respond.
  
  Time that might be thought of
  as prayer time–
  time to commune with the moment
  and see what is there,
  and know what to do about it
  with the gifts that are ours
  in the time that is at hand.
  
  
  
• 10/21/2019  —  Bamboo 04/29/2019 01 — Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  Make a statement.
  Any statement
  about any subject
  that you think is so.
  
  What makes you think it is so?
  Who says it is so?
  What makes you think
  they know what they are talking about?
  Is it factual?
  
  How would you verify it?
  Establish its validity?
  What witnesses would you call
  who would declare it to be so?
  On the basis of what?
  Is the statement capable of verification?
  
  How much do you think is so
  that cannot be substantiated?
  That remains your opinion?
  Something you “take on faith”?
  
  “Faith” is an opinion
  we are convicted about.
  Conviction carries a lot of weight.
  But.
  “It is a slippery slope,
  a dangerous path.
  Like a razor’s edge.”
  Much of what we believe
  lacks any foundation at all.
  
  We cannot take it for granted
  that we know what we are talking about
  when we say something is so.
  How do we know?
  
  Self-awareness
  means self-transparency.
  It means questioning our
  assumptions,
  inferences,
  premises
  suppositions,
  conjectures,
  surmises
  and hypotheses.
  
  And knowing that we don’t know
  as much as we think we know–
  and don’t know a tenth
  of what we do know.
  
  If we know that much,
  we will explore everything,
  examine everything,
  question everything.
  
  And take absolutely nothing
  for granted
  ever.
  
  
  
• 10/22/2019  —  Bayou Teche 04/27/2019 01 — Bayou Teche, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, April 27, 2019 – Bayou Teche was, in its prime, the super highway of the swamp lands of Cajun Country in South Louisiana, transporting goods to market and merchandise from the markets to the people along the Bayou, making life better for some and possible for all.
  
  The time within time—
  the time within The Times—
  is all we have to work with,
  and determines the impact
  the times upon us,
  and the impact of us
  upon the times.
  
  Each of us is—
  all of us are—
  swept up in,
  and swept away by,
  the times which
  receive us at birth,
  and come upon us out of nowhere
  throughout our life.
  
  The quality of our life
  within the times of our living
  depends upon
  the way we spend the time
  that is ours within the times
  that shape and form us.
  
  It is like this:
  Luck is entirely a matter of perspective.
  The quality of our luck
  hinges upon how we see
  what we look at.
  
  Good luck or bad luck
  turns on our point of view—
  on how we frame it,
  on how we spin it,
  on how we see it,
  on what we say about it.
  
  Want to change your luck?
  Change the way you see it!
  Change the way you think about it!
  Change your mind about it!
  
  We change our mind
  by being aware of it.
  Nothing changes the way we think
  faster than thinking about it.
  
  When we spend the time within the times
  being aware of everything
  we can be aware of,
  we change how the times affect us.
  When we change the affect,
  we change the effect,
  and live differently
  though nothing has changed
  about our life.
  
  Change the way you think
  about your life,
  and about the times within which
  you live—
  by being aware of how you think
  about your thinking—
  and you transform everything
  about your life,
  and about the way you live
  in relation to everything
  and everybody.
  
  And that changes everything.
  
  The time within the times
  is all we have to work with.
  How well we work with it
  influences everything that follows.
  
  
  
• 10/22/2019  —  Cypress Swamp 04/27/2019 12 — Lake Martin, St. Martin Parish, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, April 27, 2019
  
  I am good for a way
  that leads to
  compassion,
  grace
  and maturity.
  
  It is one of many ways–
  as many ways as there are people.
  The old saying goes,
  “Many ways up the mountain,
  but one mountain.”
  
  My way is to modify this
  and say,
  Once at the top of the mountain,
  other mountains appear,
  and the way continues eternally.
  
  I do not know if that is so,
  of course,
  but it satisfies my yen
  to never cease the quest,
  and honors Heraclitus who said,
  “Traveling on every path,
  you will not find the boundaries of soul by going;
  so deep is its measure.”
  
  There is no grace and maturity
  without compassion,
  No compassion without
  grace and maturity,
  No grace without maturity
  and compassion.
  No maturity without
  grace and compassion.
  
  What we are living toward
  is compassion,
  grace
  and maturity.
  All roads will take us there
  if we keep walking.
  
  As stewards and servants
  of compassion,
  grace
  and maturity,
  we will be able
  to see things as they are,
  and also are,
  and see what’s what,
  and what is happening,
  and what needs to be done about it
  in each situation as it arises,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  and offer what we have to give
  to do what needs to be done
  using the gifts,
  genius,
  daemon,
  qualities
  and abilities
  that we have from birth
  and/or have developed
  along the way.
  
  That’s it.
  Nothing here
  about socking it away
  and having it made.
  Just getting up
  and meeting the day,
  one situation after another.
  All along the way.
  
  
  
• 10/23/2019  —  General Store 04/28/2019 01 B&W — Oakland Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail/Cane River Creole National Historical Park, Natchitoches Parish, Natchitoches, Louisiana, April 28, 2019
  
  Zen is what happened
  when Taoism met Buddhism,
  so the phrase should be,
  “Zen-Taoism,” and not “Zen-Buddhism,”
  but.
  That is another fight
  I will not win.
  
  Anyway.
  Two Zen-Taoist sayings are:
  
  “When the flower opens,
  the bees gather.”
  
  “When the pupil is ready,
  the teacher appears.”
  
  The point of both
  is that we cannot push/force/hurry
  realization/enlightenment/waking up.
  
  That happens in its own time,
  at its own pace,
  in its own way.
  
  No striving allowed!
  But.
  Preparation is definitely permitted.
  We can prepare the way,
  and prepare ourselves for the way,
  by understanding
  we are both the Pupil and the Teacher.
  
  “We are the sculptor
  and we are the stone,”
  (Alexis Carrel).
  
  We know what catches our eye
  and what does not.
  No one can tell us that.
  
  We know what resonates within
  and what does not.
  No one can tell us that.
  
  Our place is to know what we know,
  to sense what we sense,
  to feel what we feel,
  to ask/seek/knock
  and to trust the questions
  more than the answers,
  so that we question the answers
  until no more questions remain.
  
  And.
  Our place is to
  notice when we are
  dismissing,
  discounting,
  disregarding,
  overlooking,
  rejecting,
  ignoring
  the Teacher’s attempts
  to get our attention.
  
  We cannot push/force/hurry
  realization/enlightenment/waking up.
  But.
  We can delay it,
  squelch it,
  prevent it
  indefinitely
  by refusing to be interested
  in the things
  that are calling our name.
  
  
• 10/24/2019  —  St. Augustine 04/29/2019 07 HDR — St. Augustine Catholic Church, Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  I’m nearly one month into
  the fourth quarter
  of my 75th year.
  It takes me longer
  to get to where I’m going,
  and my daily routine
  means more to me
  than it used to.
  
  I think our Order of the Day
  says more about us
  toward the end of our days
  than it does at the beginning.
  
  We come to know what works
  through the years,
  and what is important to us,
  and what isn’t.
  And we spend time with what is.
  
  What is important to me
  amounts to very little
  when I look at it,
  but.
  It is very important to me.
  
  If you tried shadowing me
  throughout my day,
  you would be dead from boredom
  by noon,
  and I would be thinking
  about a nap
  to recover from all the activity.
  
  The term “Dancing with the day”
  takes on a different meaning
  when you’re not striving
  to align the day
  with your wishes for it,
  but are striving to align
  yourself with what the day
  is asking of you.
  
  That kind of dancing is slow stuff,
  built around the rhythm
  of sizing things up
  and letting go
  what needs to go,
  and letting come
  what needs to come.
  And being fine with what’s what.
  
  The aggressive pursuit
  of accomplishment,
  achievement,
  success
  and glory
  was never my bent,
  so I’m markedly successful
  in allowing the day the right
  to its own course and gait,
  and enjoying what that leads to,
  and seeing where it goes–
  and what I do with it,
  and how I become better
  at what I do
  because of who the day
  asks me to be.
  
  It’s all in a day.
  Who we are,
  and who we need to be.
  Day after day.
  The practice is the same.
  Getting better at who we are,
  doing what is ours to do,
  here and now.
  For nothing more than being and doing.
  For having been
  and having done.
  
  
  

10/24/2019  —  Creole Homeplace 04/29/2019 04 — Cane River National Heritage Trail, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019

The Five Rules of Life,
which are all over the internet,
are:

Show Up;
Pay Attention;
Be True To Yourself;
Bear the Pain;
and Don’t Take It Personally.

These are fundamentally sound,
and I certainly agree with their importance,
but they are far from complete.

Johnny Carson might have added,
Brush Your Teeth,
Wear Clean Underwear,
and Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street.

When they were driving back to college,
my wife and I would always go over
the Driving Rules with our daughters:

Buckle Up;
Lock Your Doors;
Don’t Pick Up Strangers;
and If You Have A Flat, Ride The Rim.
It was a Mantra For The Road,
and we couldn’t be comfortable
without reciting it,
though it certainly did not cover
all the contingencies.

No list does.
No matter how many we have,
there are always more rules to live by.
They are everywhere.
And they are all important.
And they soon begin to clash and collide.
Look Before You Leap
Runs into Those Who Hesitate Are Lost.
The Rules rule each other out,
clash,
contradict
and vie for supremacy.
we make ourselves crazy
trying to live by the rules.

At some point,
we have to suspend the rules
and wing it.
We have to “fly by the seat of our pants,”
and “feel our way along.”
We have to trust our own judgment,
and our power to live with–
and through–
whatever mess we might make
in stepping out “on our own,”
and attempting to find
our own way through our lives.

Which makes the Primary Rule
something along the lines of
Do What You Can Do With It Today,
And Do It Again Tomorrow.

• 10/25/2019  —  Creole Homeplace 04/29/2019 04 — Cane River National Heritage Trail, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  The Five Rules of Life,
  which are all over the internet,
  are:
  
  Show Up;
  Pay Attention;
  Be True To Yourself;
  Bear the Pain;
  and Don’t Take It Personally.
  
  These are fundamentally sound,
  and I certainly agree with their importance,
  but they are far from complete.
  
  Johnny Carson might have added,
  Brush Your Teeth,
  Wear Clean Underwear,
  and Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street.
  
  When they were driving back to college,
  my wife and I would always go over
  the Driving Rules with our daughters:
  
  Buckle Up;
  Lock Your Doors;
  Don’t Pick Up Strangers;
  and If You Have A Flat, Ride The Rim.
  It was a Mantra For The Road,
  and we couldn’t be comfortable
  without reciting it,
  though it certainly did not cover
  all the contingencies.
  
  No list does.
  No matter how many we have,
  there are always more rules to live by.
  They are everywhere.
  And they are all important.
  And they soon begin to clash and collide.
  Look Before You Leap
  Runs into Those Who Hesitate Are Lost.
  The Rules rule each other out,
  clash,
  contradict
  and vie for supremacy.
  we make ourselves crazy
  trying to live by the rules.
  
  At some point,
  we have to suspend the rules
  and wing it.
  We have to “fly by the seat of our pants,”
  and “feel our way along.”
  We have to trust our own judgment,
  and our power to live with–
  and through–
  whatever mess we might make
  in stepping out “on our own,”
  and attempting to find
  our own way through our lives.
  
  Which makes the Primary Rule
  something along the lines of
  Do What You Can Do With It Today,
  And Do It Again Tomorrow.
  
  
  
• 10/25/2019  —  St. Augustine 04/28/2019 01 — St. Augustine Catholic Church, Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 28, 2019
  
  In every situation,
  there is what we need,
  and there is what needs us.
  
  There is what we want,
  and there is what wants us.
  
  And that’s it.
  
  Keep your eye on those four things.
  
  Work out who gets what
  in light of all four,
  and you will have it made–
  as much as you can have it made,
  given the nature,
  context
  and circumstances
  of your life.
  
  
  
• 10/26/2019  —  St. Augustine 04/29/2019 08 — St. Augustine Catholic Church, Melrose Plantation, Cane River National Heritage Trail, Cane River National Creole Area, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, April 29, 2019
  
  On the whole,
  we don’t stand much of a chance.
  
  Our life is going to be lived
  as it has always been lived.
  
  Our perspective and outlook
  are going to be what they have been.
  
  We aren’t going to do better
  with our choices and decisions
  than the people we hang out with
  do with theirs.
  
  (The Rule of Life that applies here is
  “If you want to change your life,
  you have to change the people
  you run with.”)
  
  What would it take to make
  a real difference in the way
  we think and live?
  How different can we be?
  For how long?
  
  Stillness,
  silence
  and solitude
  are all I can think of.
  
  We live too loudly to listen.
  
  And spend very little time
  thinking about our thinking.
  
  Reflection and self-reflection,
  transparency and self-transparency,
  realization and self-realization
  aren’t high on our list
  of things we do in a day.
  
  When we talk,
  it is typically in ways
  that enhance and strengthen
  our opinions and beliefs.
  
  We rarely inquire about our
  strongly held views,
  “Is that so?
  What makes me think it is so?
  In what ways is it not so?
  What do I have at stake
  in thinking it is so?
  How do I need to change my mind?”
  
  Nothing is going to change
  about our life
  until we begin changing our mind.
  
  
  
• 10/26/2019  —  Goodale 10/25/2019 01 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  I have a golden rule of photography:
  I will not put myself in harm’s way
  to get a photograph.
  I will not force access
  where there is no access.
  
  Yesterday, on a photo safari,
  I drove past three outstanding photographs
  because there was no parking available.
  And I will regret through all eternity
  having not stopped for any of the three.
  But.
  
  Had I stopped for any of them
  and safely added them to my collection
  of worthy photos,
  I would not have taken any
  of the photos I did take
  because I would have interfered
  with the time of my arrival
  for each of them.
  
  By the time I got to this particular amalgamation
  of sky and reflections and lighting
  it would have been an entirely different photograph,
  and I may not have taken it at all.
  
  Changing anything changes everything.
  
  We think changing some things
  would leave everything else exactly as it is.
  
  If only we had had better parents
  or a different point of origin
  (In either time or place, or both)!
  We think that would make everything better.
  Maybe not.
  Probably not.
  Absolutely not.
  
  “Everything else being equal,”
  is a happy fantasy and a popular delusion.
  Here we are!
  Now what?
  This is the moment everything before it
  has produced.
  What is the best we can do with it,
  here and now?
  Do it!
  And get ready for the next moment!
  Don’t waste time in remorse over
  any past moment!
  Attend *this* moment,
  and what is being asked of you,
  offered to you,
  by it!
  
  This is the only moment
  we can make the most of.
  To fail to do that
  is to fail all of the moments
  flowing from this one.
  
  We cannot calculate our best move
  or arrange a future entirely to our liking.
  We can only do what needs to be done
  in each moment
  to the best of our ability,
  and let that be that.
  
  And, I am not going to force access
  where there is no access!
  
  
  
• 10/27/2019  —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 Panorama — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019 (See the swan?)
  
  Religion as it ought to be
  is grounded upon the lived experience
  of the people.
  
  There is no room in religion as it ought to be
  for Freedom Of The Will and Sin.
  
  We are not free to do whatever we want.
  We are *bound* to do whatever we want.
  We cannot want what we want.
  We cannot help what we want.
  Paul said it himself,
  “I want what I have no business wanting!”
  No kidding.
  
  We want what we want
  and not what we want to want–
  not what we ought to want.
  That is not sin.
  That is the truth.
  We are up against ourselves
  from the start.
  It has nothing to do with being sinful
  or evil.
  It has strictly to do with who we are.
  We are at odds with ourselves
  at the core.
  
  And.
  We have the ability to recognize that,
  accept it as an organizing principle
  of our existence,
  and work with it
  in transcending it
  and living in the service
  of the best interest
  of all concerned.
  
  We can put ourselves aside
  in serving a good beyond
  our own personal good.
  
  There is greed within,
  and there is grace within,
  and our ego-conscious self
  can be aware of both
  in light of the true good
  of the whole.
  
  We cannot rid ourselves
  of our greedy side,
  our lazy and lethargic side,
  our love for smooth and easy side,
  our disdain for whatever
  is hard,
  painful,
  distasteful
  and repugnant side,
  but,
  we can keep an eye on it.
  
  And,
  we can do what we do not want to do
  out of liege loyalty
  and filial devotion
  to the best we can imagine.
  
  We can sacrifice the world
  to serve ourselves,
  and we can sacrifice ourselves
  to serve the world.
  
  And we decide which it will be
  here and now
  in each situation as it arises.
  
  Whose side are we on here, now?
  
  The right kind of religion
  assists us with knowing and doing
  what is ours to do
  in the moment-to-moment
  choices of our life.
  
  The right kind of religion
  talks to us about
  finding the way that is the right way
  through the world
  of daily decisions.
  
  This is sometimes called
  “The Straight And Narrow.”
  It is also called
  “A Slippery Slope,
  A Dangerous Path,
  Like The Razor’s Edge.”
  
  The right kind of religion
  talks to us
  about the importance
  of living aligned
  with the way
  of Grace,
  of Tao,
  of Dharma,
  of Kairos
  in the minute-by-minute
  crush of circumstances
  and options
  in each day.
  
  There is no theology
  in the right kind of religion.
  No doctrine.
  No creed.
  Only seeing/hearing,
  knowing/doing
  being/becoming.
  
  This is who we are,
  and this is who we also are,
  and how are we going
  to live this out
  here and now?
  
  We choose each day–
  each moment
  within each day–
  whom we are going to serve,
  here and now,
  greed or grace.
  
  And the cumulative total
  of each day’s choices
  tell the tale.
  And mindful awareness
  leads the way.
  
  
  
• 10/27/2019  —  Goodale 04/25/02 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  In each moment,
  there is what we want
  and what we do not want.
  
  There is what is good for us
  and what is bad for us.
  There is what is good for others
  and what is bad for others.
  
  And we stand in the midst
  of the swirling conflict of interests
  at work in and through
  the situations
  and circumstances
  of our life,
  and make a choice
  regarding what to do,
  here and now,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  How do we decide what to do?
  What guides us through the times
  of our living?
  What leads us along the way?
  What pilots our boat
  on its path through the sea?
  
  How aware are we of any of this?
  
  
  
• 10/27/2019  —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 19 B&W — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  I am graced by 10,000 hands every day
  helping me along the way.
  
  How many people are responsible
  for enabling me to enjoy my day–
  from picking the coffee bean
  and handling it all along its path
  to the grounds I spoon into the filter
  to become the cupa
  that helps me welcome the day,
  to all the people that take up from there
  to dress me,
  heat and cool me…
  all the way to bedtime–
  I am carried along by the grace of others.
  
  So are you.
  So are we all.
  
  It is grace all the way down!
  
  
  
• 10/28/2019  —  Goodale 10/25/2019 03 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  What do you have at stake
  in any situation?
  What do you have to gain?
  What do you have to lose?
  Where are you most vulnerable?
  Where are you most guarded,
  defensive?
  Where are you most willful,
  defiant?
  
  If my seminary had taught me
  how to read myself
  and the situation–
  any situation,
  every situation–
  instead of how to read the Bible
  in Greek and Hebrew,
  and how to think like a
  Reformed Theologian,
  I wouldn’t have wasted
  so much time
  getting down to the heart of the matter.
  
  If I had known how to see
  what gives,
  what goes,
  what’s what,
  what’s happening,
  and what needs to happen
  in response
  in light of the true good
  of the situation as a whole–
  and how I can contribute to that
  out of the gifts,
  preferences,
  proclivities,
  perspective
  I bring to the situation–
  I would have had what I needed
  to be who I am capable of being
  in every situation
  that comes along.
  
  Jesus couldn’t do better than that.
  
  And I didn’t have any more
  than Jesus had.
  None of us do.
  We all are saddled with the task
  of learning to be Pin-ball Wizards
  without being able to see.
  How do you think we do it?
  We don’t know!
  
  We just get in there with what we have
  to work with
  and see what we can do with it!
  What works?
  What doesn’t work?
  In light of the true good
  of the situation as a whole?
  
  We are all forty years in the wilderness!
  Learning to size things up
  and recognize what’s what
  and what to do about it
  one situation at a time.
  
  It helps to reflect on our life experience
  to the point of forming new realizations.
  That is the source of revelation,
  enlightenment,
  realization,
  transformation–
  experiencing our experience
  and reflecting on it.
  That is all anybody has ever had!
  It is all Jesus had.
  All the Buddha had.
  All Lao Tzu had.
  All there is to have.
  
  Start with you,
  here and now.
  What’s what?
  See where it goes!
  
  
  
• 10/30/2019  —  Parkway Overlooks 10/28/2019 01 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway approaching Peaks of Otter, October 28, 2019
  
  Jesus was the Christ
  the way only Jesus could be the Christ.
  
  The Buddha was the Christ
  the way only the Buddha could be the Christ.
  
  Helen Keller was the Christ
  the way only Helen Keller could be the Christ.
  
  Harriet Tubman was the Christ
  as only Harriet Tubman could be the Christ.
  
  Rosa Parks was the Christ
  as only Rosa Parks could be the Christ.
  
  You and I are to be the Christ
  the way only you and I can be the Christ.
  
  The Christ is the anointed one,
  the coming one,
  come to exhibit,
  to incarnate,
  the concrete,
  living presence
  of more than words can say
  in the day-to-day experience
  of all living things.
  
  There is nothing to ask.
  or want,
  or imagine as being worthy and desirable
  beyond being what the situation calls for
  in every situation that arises
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  all our life long.
  
  To live to exploit the situation
  to our advantage
  is to live as Adam and Eve,
  not the Christ!
  
  To live to serve our personal good
  and not the good of the situation,
  is to live as countless thousands before us,
  not as the Christ!
  
  What is the time that is at hand
  asking of us?
  Bring that forth out of the gifts
  that are ours to bestow upon the earth!
  Or as Lao Tzu
  (Who was the Christ
  as only Lao Tzu could be the Christ)
  would say,
  “Do your work, and let that be that!”
  
  Day after day,
  for as long as there are days!
  
  
  
• 10/31/2019  —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 01 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway north of Peaks of Otter, VA, October 29, 2019
  
  In any situation,
  harmony is of higher value
  than morality.
  
  Discord.
  Pandemonium.
  Cacophony.
  Disharmony.
  
  Are greater evils
  than anything prohibited
  by the Ten Commandments
  
  Harmony.
  Congruity.
  Integrity.
  Concord.
  Resonance.
  Consonance.
  In sync.
  Aligned.
  At-one.
  
  Are evidence of atonement
  and reconciliation,
  and the very nature–
  the essence–
  of the path
  that is simultaneously
  the end of the path.
  
  Everything seeks its own realization.
  Its own completion.
  Its own fulfillment.
  
  We seek to be one
  with who we are
  and who we also are
  and with all that is.
  
  The old Taoist symbol
  of Yin-Yang captures
  the tension
  of integrated wholeness
  as the balance of opposites.
  
  Both/And,
  not
  Either/Or.
  
  The trick is to live our life
  walking two paths at the same time.
  
  The way to do that
  is to walk this path
  with that one clearly in mind,
  holding both paths in our awareness
  and carrying in our body
  the cross of our contraries,
  to the point of transcendence,
  laughter,
  play,
  song
  and dance.
  
  
  
• 11/01/2019  —  Sumac 10/28/2019 01 — Blue Ridge Parkway, near Roanoke, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  You are taking things way too seriously!
  Lighten up!
  Stop trying to make sense of everything!
  Of anything!
  Give it a rest!
  
  That is the message of Jesus
  and the Buddha
  and all the Dalai Lamas
  and everybody who knows anything.
  
  It don’t make sense!
  
  It’s all useless,
  pointless,
  hopeless,
  futile and absurd–
  and it’s coming to a very bad end
  (We’re all going to die!).
  But, don’t let that stop you!
  How we live in the meantime
  makes all the difference!
  
  Do not let the facts that it makes no sense
  and we are dying
  keep you from living
  as fully as you can
  for as long as you can!
  
  Your problem is not that you are dying,
  but that you don’t know what it means
  to be fully alive!
  
  The first thing it means is
  STOP TAKING THINGS SO SERIOUSLY!
  
  This is the lesson
  of everyone of Jesus’ parables.
  
  It is the core lesson
  of the Buddhas
  and the Dalai Lamas
  and the Yodas
  and the Obi wan Kenobis
  through time.
  
  STOP TRYING TO MAKE THINGS MAKE SENSE!
  
  What is “sense” anyway?
  What has making sense of things
  ever done for you?
  You are still here,
  trying to make sense of things!
  There is life to be lived!
  Stop wasting your time
  worrying with meaninglessness
  and death!
  
  What would it take for you to be
  fully alive today?
  In the next five minutes?
  Right now?
  Within the context
  and circumstances of your life
  just as it is?
  
  What’s holding you back?
  
  
  
• 11/01/2019  —  Mabry Mill 10/30/2019 01 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, near Meadows of Dan, Virginia, October 30, 2019
  
  Consciousness is consumed with thinking.
  An alternative is awareness.
  
  Things are occurring to us all the time
  that we do not think up.
  
  We can realize things
  we do not think about.
  
  We would be well-served
  to honor, attend, nurture and nourish
  our awareness of the threshold
  between conscious
  and unconscious.
  
  The more conscious we become of,
  and the more consciously we serve
  the unconscious,
  the more attuned we will be
  to the time and place of our living,
  and the more appropriately
  and intuitively,
  instinctively,
  we will live in relation to our life,
  and not to what we think about our life.
  
  Thinking about our life creates
  internal narratives
  and scenarios,
  and generates imaginary realities
  that compete with the actual reality
  of the here and now,
  leading us to react to now
  more out of our mind-world
  than in response to the
  this world right here.
  
  We often live more in our mind-world
  than in our here-and-now-world.
  We are often more conscious
  of our mind-world
  that of our here-and-now-world.
  
  Thinking of our mind-world
  prevents us from being
  in our here-and-now-world.
  
  The trick is to become conscious
  of thinking
  and to intentionally shift our consciousness
  to awareness–
  to perceiving this moment right now,
  and opening ourselves to the things
  that are occurring to us
  that do not have their origin
  in the thinking process.
  
  Sit quietly and see how long it takes
  to be aware of something
  you did not think up–
  for something to occur to you
  that does not originate in your thought process.
  
  Awareness and thinking
  are two aspects of consciousness.
  Expanding our awareness
  will deepen,
  enlarge
  and enrich our life–
  and will provide us
  with a wealth of experiences
  that are worth thinking about.
  
  
  
• 11/01/2019  —  Goodale 10/25/2019 15 B&W — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  We need some Common Agreements
  that we all can stand together and affirm.
  Things that we all can count on
  from one another.
  Norms,
  Codes,
  Standards,
  Principles,
  Laws.
  
  If we only had a Constitution!
  
  If we only honored the Constitution we have!
  
  What is so hard about honoring the Constitution we have?
  
  Why has that fallen out of favor?
  
  I trust that we are learning as a Nation
  how important that is!
  
  
  
• 11/02/2019  —  James River 10/29/2019 02 Panorama — James River Visitor Center, Blue Ridge Parkway, Monroe, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  What’s money for?
  
  Did someone just ask,
  “What’s money for?”?
  That’s funny.
  I was just thinking,
  “What’s money for?”.
  
  I came up with this:
  Money is for buying
  the tools and resources
  (Like food, clothing, shelter, etc.)
  required to do the work
  that is ours to do.
  
  If we have more money
  than it takes to do that,
  we have too much money,
  and need to give some away
  to those who don’t have enough.
  
  In honor of the principle,
  “Those who need help,
  should be helped,
  and those who can help
  should be helpful.”
  
  If we put money in its rightful place,
  we would be putting ourselves
  in our rightful place,
  and we would be helping
  everyone else find their rightful place,
  and all would be right with the world.
  
  Which is clearly something
  we can do
  and aren’t doing–
  like a gazillion other problems
  facing us in this time and place
  (Littering, for one.
  And global warming , for two).
  
  
  
• 11/02/2019  —  Peaks of Otter 10/28/2019 03 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Peaks of Otter Lodge, Bedford, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  Let things happen
  in their own time.
  
  Suffer it through.
  
  Bear the pain.
  
  This is the path of transformation.
  
  We are here, now,
  because people think
  they can improve on it.
  
  Because we think
  we can improve on it.
  
  
  
• 11/02/2019  —  James River 10/29/2019 03 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, James River Visitor Center, Monroe, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Carl Jung said that the things that truly matter
  are never products of “purpose or conscious willing,
  but rather, seem to be borne on the stream of time.”
  
  These things, he says, “presented by fate seldom,
  or never, correspond to conscious expectation.”
  
  We do not think our way to where we need to be.
  
  Rather, he says that the way there
  consists of doing “nothing (*wu wei*)
  but let things happen.”
  
  He continues,
  “The art of letting things happen–
  action through non-action–
  (is the) key opening the door to the way.”
  
  And adds, “For us, this actually is an art
  of which few people know anything.
  Consciousness is forever interfering,
  helping, correcting, and negating…
  It would be simple enough
  if only simplicity were not
  the most difficult of all things.”
  
  Learning to accept what comes to us
  is the art of letting come what is coming
  and letting go what is going.
  
  Upon that, everything depends.
  
  Be like the river.
  Letting come what’s coming,
  and letting go what’s going.
  And see where that takes you.
  
  
  
• 11/02/2019  —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 15 Panorama — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  We are led by the things
  that occur to us
  out of the blue.
  
  We do not plan our way
  to where we are going.
  Or, better,
  the things we plan our way to
  are more in the way
  than they are on the way.
  
  Chance occurrences are not so much chance.
  They are turning points
  occasioned by factors beyond imagining.
  
  We look around and think,
  “This is it and this is how it works.”
  But we only see the surface,
  with no inkling of all that is going on
  beyond our conscious perceptions.
  
  There is an invisible world
  at the heart of life
  about which we know
  next to nothing.
  
  We hear that
  and immediately think
  of conquest,
  exploitation,
  domination–
  as though the invisible world
  is ours to plunder
  and use to our advantage.
  
  Our place is to serve,
  to cooperate,
  to collaborate.
  
  We are Adam and Eve
  in the Garden of Eden,
  thinking we can be Masters
  of Paradise.
  
  And we’ve heard of Jesus
  who said,
  “I came to serve,
  not to be served,
  and to give my life
  to wake others up
  to the role they are asked
  to play.”
  
  The future swings
  on the quality of our relationship
  with the invisible world.
  
  The next move
  is ours to make.
  
  
  
• 11/02/2019  —  Goodale 10/25/2019 04 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  Freedom is not license
  to do whatever we want.
  It is the opportunity
  to know what to want.
  
  From that point we are liege servants
  in filial devotion
  to the work
  that is ours to do–
  to the life
  that is ours to live.
  
  Our freedom
  is the freedom
  to know what to want.
  Beyond that,
  we are bound
  to the legitimate
  object/subject of our desire:
  the work that is ours to do,
  the life that is ours to live.
  
  How do we know what to want?
  Sit still.
  Be quiet.
  Open to the stillness.
  See what occurs to us.
  See what arises
  from the silence.
  If our body resonates
  in recognition
  of the urgency
  of the vision,
  we give ourselves
  to its service
  and the adventure begins.
  
  
  
• 11/03/2019  —  Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 02 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Peaks of Otter Lodge, Abbot Lake, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Ruthlessness and greed are the way of nature.
  
  The biggest hummingbird
  keeps the rest away from the feeder.
  
  The big fish eat the little fish,
  and the little fish hide.
  
  Grace, compassion and kindness (etc.)
  are what we bring to the table.
  
  Ethics and morality
  are the contribution of humanity
  to the laws of nature.
  
  We change the game
  to the extent that we resist
  ruthlessness and greed
  and serve grace and compassion.
  
  The vehicle by which we choose
  how we express ourselves in our life
  is mindful awareness.
  
  The beast lives within.
  We ride the dragon
  when we get out of bed
  and meet the day.
  We could destroy them all
  just like that
  between breaths
  for no reason
  just because they are in our way.
  
  But.
  Civilization requires that we not do that.
  So.
  We mindfully mind our manners.
  With enough practice,
  and enough mindfulness,
  it is almost as though
  we actually are human beings.
  But.
  Mr. Hyde is always there,
  looking for an opening,
  ready to do his thing.
  So.
  We have to be alert to his antics,
  and mindfully aware of our possibilities
  at all times.
  Or else.
  
  We are that close
  to letting the dragon
  have the reins.
  
  
  
• 11/04/2019  —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 07 — Linville River, Linville Falls Picnic Area, Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  Sometimes, I ask it like this:
  “What would you go to hell for?”
  And, sometimes I ask it like this:
  “What would you do,
  consistently, dependably, reliably,
  for no reason other than you love to do it,
  whether it makes any difference or not,
  whether it matters or not.
  whether it means anything or not,
  because it makes a difference to you,
  it matters to you,
  it means the world to you?”
  
  I hope your list is long.
  Both lists.
  The things you would go to hell for
  and the things you would do
  anyway, nevertheless, even so.
  
  The lists are the same list.
  Go to hell for the things you love
  no matter what!
  
  This gets us to the heart of the matter:
  Living your own life
  out of your own, personal, authority.
  Living your own life
  grounded in,
  standing solidly upon
  the things that mean the most to you,
  so that nothing can happen
  that will/can knock you off your foundation.
  
  Loving what you love
  and doing what you love to do
  right up to the end!
  
  If you knew you were going to have
  a fatal heart attack tomorrow,
  how would you live today
  and tomorrow right up to your last moment,
  so that the heart attack
  catches you completely by surprise,
  you are so engrossed in what you were doing?
  
  Be that engrossed in doing what you love
  every day!
  Work what you love to do into every day!
  Do not waste a day living it
  without loving something about it!
  
  When you get that down,
  through practice, practice, practice,
  you will be ready for anything.
  And, you will be showing
  everybody you know
  how to live their life.
  
  Get to work loving your life!
  
  
  

11/05/2019  —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 17 — Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019

Seeing is the ultimate weapon.

Seeing how things are
changes how things are.

Seeing is a superpower
possessed by all sentient beings.

It lives unacknowledged
and unaccessed in us all
because no one can
bear the pain
of knowing what’s what.

In order to see,
we have to have
no opinion
about what we look at.

The moment we have
something at stake
in the moment,
judgment and greed
come to life,
and grace and compassion
are relegated to the frigid hinderlands
of the Outer Darkness.

Then we care about
what we take to be
our best interests,
and see everything
in light of what it means
to us personally.

Seeing sees only when
we can let things happen
and do what needs to be done
without regard
for what we stand
to gain or lose
by the outcome.

The more the outcome means,
the less we are able to see.
But, what’s the point of seeing
if we can’t exploit it for our own advantage?
What good is a super weapon
if we can’t use it in the service
of our own good?

What does “Thy will,
not mine, be done,”
mean to you?

• 11/05/2019  —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 08 — Linville Falls Picnic Area, Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  I’m here by virtue of the books I’ve read
  and the connections I made
  between what I was reading
  and the life I was living.
  
  When I graduated from seminary,
  after having received very little
  or no help
  from any source up to that point
  that would position me
  to deal with my life
  and the lives of others,
  I set out upon the quest
  seeking what would be helpful.
  
  The old Alchemical formula,
  “One book opens another,”
  worked well as a guide for living,
  and the caveat I would add to the formula is
  “for those who are seeking
  with all their heart.”
  
  If we are not looking,
  nothing is going to show us the way.
  
  After a while, the books begin to
  reference each other,
  and it seemed to me
  that truth was a fairly well-defined circle
  with silence and solitude
  constituting the perimeter
  and stillness at the center.
  
  Zen, as the distilled essence
  of Buddhism and Taoism,
  remains the clearest,
  most playful and nonsensical,
  source of direction and encouragement
  I know of,
  with Jesus’ life and teaching forming
  a wonderful koan/conundrum
  in that tradition
  for pondering to the point
  of transcendence,
  dancing and laughter.
  
  The situation is hopeless!
  So what?
  Bear the pain!
  Suffer it through!
  Live on!
  Live on!
  In light of the best we can imagine
  in each situation as it arises,
  offering there what we have to give
  out of the gifts and genus,
  talents and abilities,
  that came with us into the world–
  anyway,
  nevertheless,
  even so,
  just because!
  
  
  
• 11/06/2019  —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 09 — Linville Falls Picnic Area, Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  The secret to having it made
  and having it all together
  is to be just fine
  with not having it made
  and not having it all together.
  
  What’s to have that we don’t have
  except the perspective
  that is just fine
  with this right here right now?
  
  People are desperately seeking
  something that is not this,
  not here,
  not now.
  But, that is all they know
  about what they want,
  about what it will take
  to make them happy
  with this right here right now.
  
  Happy is a frame of mind.
  A perspective.
  A way of seeing
  this right here right now.
  
  What needs to be changed
  about your life
  that seeing it differently
  wouldn’t help?
  
  What can you do to change it?
  In the meantime, what?
  In the meantime,
  change the way you think about it!
  
  Change your mind about it
  until the time comes
  when a shift is possible,
  then make the shift!
  
  When the door opens,
  walk through!
  
  In the meantime,
  bear the pain,
  suffer it through,
  wait it out,
  with a different perspective.
  
  The perspective shift
  is the shift
  that enables
  the shift we are waiting for.
  
  It allows us to see things differently.
  And that changes everything.
  
  
  
• 11/06/2019  —  Peaks of Otter 10/28/2019 02 Panorama — Peaks of Otter Lodge, Blue Ridge Parkway, Bedford, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  There is nothing to see but this moment
  and what is going on in it–
  what *all* is going on in it.
  
  That kind of seeing
  also sees
  what needs to be done in response–
  and does it.
  
  Seeing is doing
  in this sense.
  
  Seeing is knowing and doing.
  
  Practice cultivating a quiet
  seeing space
  for each moment,
  which is, of course,
  also a quiet listening space.
  
  Seeing and hearing
  are knowing and doing.
  
  When our action flows spontaneously
  from our seeing and hearing,
  we are one with the Tao,
  with Dharma,
  with Kairos,
  with Grace,
  and that is to be
  at one with the heart of things.
  
  If you are going to be at one with something,
  be at one with that.
  
  It gets crazy
  and goes all to hell,
  if we begin to think about
  what is good for us–
  what is advantageous to us,
  what is beneficial to us,
  what we stand to gain,
  and lose.
  
  That disrupts the flow,
  and we are no longer
  one with the moment.
  
  That is Adam and Eve
  in the Garden of Eden.
  
  Strive to be Jesus
  in the Garden of Gethsemane.
  Live for the moment,
  each moment.
  
  Live to be one with the moment.
  In service to the moment.
  Trust everything to fall into place
  around that.
  
  
  

11/07/2019  —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 02 — Parkway Overlooks, Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019

People with cameras
treat one day like any other.
People who like to think
of themselves as photographers
take weather systems into account,
and go with a camera
into days when the time is right.

The photos on the trip
to the northern Blue Ridge
were taken on 10/28-29.
The Halloween Bluster
blew through on 10/31,
effectively taking fall with it.

I’ve been calling the people
at Francis Beidler Forest
for three weeks,
asking “Is it right, yet?”
I think it may be “right”
on November 16.

Knowing when the time is right
is crucial knowing.
Letting things happen is one thing.
Letting happen what needs to happen,
when it needs to happen,
is quite another.

The Bible takes Kairos into account.
Jesus came,
as we all do,
“in the fullness of time,”
“at the right time,”
“when the time was at hand.”

No one is born out of time,
though many of us are “behind the times,”
and some of us are “ahead of our time.”
But.
It is all at exactly the right time.
For us,
and the times that need
what we have to offer,
what we bring forth.

And.
We meet the times at the right time best
by developing our sense
of what time it is,
and what time it is for,
and what time it is not for.

The Preacher, Ecclesiastes,
is famous for saying,
“There is a time for everything
under heaven.
A time to be born,
and a time to die…”

Leaving us to ponder,
“What time is it for here and now?”

Jesus’ best saying didn’t make it
into the Bible–
because the people
putting the Bible together
did not think the time was right for it.
They had their agenda,
which got in the way,
as agendas are prone to do,
and they blew their opportunity,
which is the very thing Jesus
was warning against
in the passage they left out
of the scriptures.

Jesus is talking to man
he found working on the Sabbath,
and said,
“Man, if you know what you are doing
(what time it is),
you are blessed,
but if you don’t know,
you are accursed,
and a transgressor of the law!”

The trick with knowing what time it is,
and is not,
is having to be right about it.

You can see why the Formers of the Scriptures
wouldn’t want to confuse things
by leaving this text in,
when they, themselves,
had no idea of how to know what time it is.

It is crucial knowing.
Everything hangs on it.
Kairos is a harsh taskmaster,
reaping where he does now sew,
planting where he does not cultivate,
and leaving us in the lurch.

We are to let things happen.
But.
Do we let having an affair happen?
Or do we let not-having an affair happen?
King David let having an affair happen.
And, several generations later,
Jesus happened.
Did David know what he was doing?
Was he blessed?
Was he accursed?
How do we know what to do?
What it is time for?

I check the weather
before I go out with my camera.
My affairs are another story.

• 11/07/2019  —  Goodale 10/25/2019 05 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019, an iPhone photo
  
  Take things as they come,
  and do with them
  what needs to be done.
  
  That can be done
  only from the perspective
  of mindful awareness
  that takes everything
  into account
  and has nothing at stake
  in the outcome.
  
  The catch is
  that no living thing
  can have nothing at stake
  in every outcome.
  
  All living things have preferences
  and disinclinations.
  That’s having a stake in the outcome.
  
  So.
  We work to perfect the art
  of walking two paths at the same time,
  by always keeping the other path in mind
  while walking the one we are on–
  and know at all times
  that thinking we know what we are doing
  is the “slippery slope,”
  the “dangerous path,”
  “like a razor’s edge.”
  
  And proceed very carefully
  along the way.
  
  With mindful,
  compassionate,
  non-judgmental,
  awareness.
  
  Jon Kabat-Zinn’s YouTube videos
  are a help here.
  
  
  
• 11/07/2019  —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 02 Panorama — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  You know where your enthusiasm lies.
  Only you know where your enthusiasm lies.
  Why aren’t you trusting yourself
  to know where your enthusiasm
  is asking you to go,
  and asking you to stop going?
  
  Why aren’t you trusting yourself
  to your enthusiasm?
  
  It is a better guide than Yoda,
  Jesus,
  Obi-wan Kenobi,
  Gandalf,
  and Albus Dumbledore.
  
  
  
• 11/07/2019  —  Road Through Fall 10/28/2019 01 — Blue Ridge Parkway near Orchard Gap, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  Live like it matters!
  Live like you mean it!
  Live with your heart in what you are doing!
  
  What would you have to be doing
  for your heart to be in what you are doing?
  
  What could you do with all your heart?
  
  Why aren’t you doing it?
  
  Why waste your time doing things
  you have no heart for?
  
  What does your heart want to do?
  
  Whose side are you on?
  
  
  
• 11/08/2019  —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 01 Panorama — The Bridge on Boone Fork Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  Everyone is seeking something.
  What is missing from your life?
  What is the nature
  of the emptiness
  you carry within?
  What is the source
  of your dismay?
  
  I’m seeking to square myself
  with the disharmony
  without and within.
  
  I’m seeking ways
  of making peace
  with how things are,
  and letting be what is.
  
  Squaring up is my daily practice.
  Finding peace is my daily work.
  
  I’m able to be a source of peace
  to the extent that I have found it
  and am in touch with,
  if not quite yet in tune with,
  the harmonies within and without.
  
  It is all so fleeting.
  I am the only constant in my life,
  as you are in yours,
  and we are all coming and going
  like flotsam and jetsam
  on a storm-tossed sea.
  
  We need more consistency and stability,
  reliability and dependability and sustainability
  than we get.
  
  We are seeking the bedrock.
  the foundation stone,
  the rhizome.
  The unmoving center
  in a kaleidoscopic world.
  
  Where are the harmonies in your life?
  The sources of peace and security?
  What restores your soul,
  and your sense of groundedness
  and constancy?
  
  What can you count on?
  
  When you are out of tune
  with your life,
  or your life is out of tune with you,
  what serves as your tuning fork?
  What brings you back into focus,
  at one with the flow–
  the ebb and flow?
  The rhythm of life and nature?
  The music of the spheres?
  How do you get yourself aligned
  with yourself
  and the life that needs you to live it?
  
  Wendell Berry speaks of
  “The Peace of Wild Things.”
  I recommend that you googleit
  and sit with his poem,
  and perhaps make an excursion
  to “where the wild things are.”
  
  Regularly.
  
  
  

xxx

09/10/2019. —  My view is that the mental and physical health of women
give them priority over any fetus they may be carrying.

I will support the rights of women to their own body,
and will assist their cause verbally and financially
for as long as I am able.

Surgical abortion and chemical abortion should
always be available to women who have need of them,
and no one has any right to interfere with that
or to condemn women for doing what they must do.

This is where I stand and I’m not moving.

I understand that I will never change any minds with this,
and I don’t intend for this to do that.

I am simply stating what is true for me
and will be true for me forever.

09/17/2019  —  What do you know about God
that you haven’t been told about God?

That you haven’t read about God?

What do you know about God
out of your own experience of God?

Where do you go to experience God
as God is–not as God is said to be?

09/17/2019  —  If all you know about pizza
is what somebody told you about pizza,
you don’t know pizza.

If you worship pizza,
and sing hymns to pizza,
and pray to pizza,
and listen to sermons about pizza,
and attend study groups on pizza,
and talk about pizza all the time,
but never eat pizza,
you don’t know pizza.

09/18/2019  —  All lines are straight
if they are short enough.

All lines are curved
if they are long enough.

That’s how things are.

They don’t need a reason
for being that way.

It is the nature of lines.

You and I have natures
just like lines do.

It’s the way we are.

09/19/2019  —  Pay attention to what occurs to you,
“out of the blue,”
“for no reason.”

Do not dismiss it.
Do not discount it.
Act on it.
Expeditiously.

09/20/2019  —  If we find and mind our business
and find and do our work,
while helping other people
find and mind their business
and find and do their work–
without confusing ours with theirs–
the world will shift overnight.

09/20/2019  —  The people who have no chance
are the people who have none
to help them with their life.

They are like babies
left to die in the desert.

If the Pro Life people were Pro Life,
they would be helping people
with their lives
throughout their life.

Housing,
Clothing,
Food,
Health Care,
Education,
Nutrition,
Jobs that pay a living wage,
Opportunities to discover and be who they are…

People who have the resources
to find and be who they are
have a chance to excel.
People who don’t, don’t.

It is incumbent upon
those of us who have a chance
to help those who do not
throughout their life,
throughout the world.

09/20/2019  —  The people who need help
with their life
have to help us help them.

They have to bring with them
the will to do what they can do
to do what can be done
about their life
and their circumstances.

Incentive;
Determination;
Dedication;
The practice of mindful,
compassionate,
non-judgmental,
awareness;
Self-transparency;
Self-direction;
Self-reliance;
Good faith…

The list is long of things
no one can give someone else.

The people who don’t have a chance
have to give themselves a chance
*and* have help
with the work
of finding their life
and living it.

The inner,
innate,
qualities
have to meet the outer
opportunities
in order to come forth
and bloom into the fullness
of life and being.

We all have a part to play
in the making of a life.
No one does it on their own.
No one can make anyone else do it.
This applies all our life long.

Jesus raised the dead,
and left the dead to bury the dead.

09/20/2019  —  Success is living a life
aligned with itself–
so that the life we live
is the life that is ours to live,
and reflects/exhibits/expresses
who we are/the face that was ours before we were born.

Jesus was successful.
The Buddha was successful.
Gandhi was successful.
The Dalai Lama is successful.
The list is long.

And.
Everyone on the list
lives to serve an agenda
not their own.
Their agenda
is to live aligned
with the agenda
that is handed to them
moment-by-moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises
all their life long.

Ah, but!
Who could possibly live in such
a here-and-now way?

Only those who know
the essential nature of,
and practice the art of,
walking on two paths
at the same time!

Successful people walk
on two (or more) paths
at the same time.

There is what we do to pay the bills.
And there is what we pay the bills to do.
And, if what we to pay the bills
is too much at odds
with who we are/the face that was ours before we were born,
we will need to find something else
to do to pay the bills.

Our integrity is the sine qua non
of success.
The more we live with integrity,
the more successful we are,
the less we live with integrity,
the less successful we are.

In order to be successful,
we have to know who we are
and what is ours to do–
and live in ways which reflect,
exhibit,
express,
that in each situation as it arises
for the good of the situation as a whole.

09/20/2019  —  I was talking with a deep south farmer in the 80’s
in his cotton field
about racism.

At a point in the conversation,
he said,
“Hell, Jim, this ain’t the way
I *see* things!
This is the way things *are*!”

The moon is 238,900 miles from earth.
That is how things *are*!

Whether or not
“The moon is a white marble
floating on a black velvet sea,”
is how we see things.

We often confuse how we see things
with how things are.
It is one of the things we do best
(Along with kidding ourselves,
shooting ourselves in the foot,
telling ourselves what we want to hear,
and taking ourselves way too seriously).

How we see things
is one of the things about us
that we can do very little about
(Along with our fingerprints
and iris patterns).

We are not in command of the way we see.
Change the way you see sugar,
alcohol,
exercise
and tobacco!
Now!

Change the way you see anything!

The way we see things has us
more than we have it.

The way we see changes
over the course of our life
by the way we are impacted
by our experience.
We come to see things differently,
but.
Not by effort of the will.

We cannot help how we see.
But.
We can begin seeing how we see.
And wondering how we came to see as we do.
And playing around with how many alternative ways
we can imagine seeing things.
And exploring why we prefer one way
over other ways.

What makes it easy for us to see the way we do?
Why do we think our way of seeing is right
and other ways of seeing are wrong?
What do we have at stake
in seeing the way we see?
What do we stand to gain by seeing how we see?
What do we stand to lose by seeing differently?

The stake determines everything.
But that’s another day’s work.

09/21/2019  —  Sometimes, all we can do
is wait for the times to change.

In the meantime,
we busy ourselves doing what we do best,
which is usually also
what we enjoy doing most.

And trust one thing to lead to another
the way “One book opens another.”

Then, when the times change,
we will be ready.
If the times don’t change fast enough,
we will have spent our life
in the service of what we do well
and what we love to do.

Either way,
times changing,
or times not changing,
we will be just fine.

“Get in there and do your thing,
and don’t worry about where it takes you
or what is going to come of it!”
(Joseph Campbell talking about the moral
of the Bhagavad Gita, or words to that effect)

09/21/2019  —  We self-medicate
with booze and pot.
Eases our way.
Smooths out the rough places.
Lessens our pain.

No physician or therapist
would say,
“You need to smoke pot
(or “more pot,”).
You need to drink alcohol
(or, “more alcohol”).
You need to spend more time
being high.”

But, we prescribe those things
for ourselves.

And, we will not hear
that we are kidding ourselves,
deceiving ourselves,
lying to ourselves,
killing ourselves.

But.
We are.

And we are the only one
who can do something
about it.

“We are the sculptor,
and we are the stone”
(Alexis Carrel).

Our life is up to us.
What we make of it
is ours to do.

We begin by squaring up to the task,
and to our circumstances,
and to the gifts,
genius,
daemon,
spirit,
abilities,
aptitudes,
talents,
interests,
proclivities,
that came with us from the womb–
and the skills
we have developed since then–
and getting to work.

09/21/2019  —  2 billion birds have died
bees and other insects are going extinct
mosquito-borne diseases are increasing
brain-eating amoeba
and flesh-eating bacteria
and toxic algae
and antibiotic resistant viruses
and rising water levels
and dead zones in the ocean
and you know the litany to Global Warming
are all a part of the snowball
that is gaining momentum by the day
and we live at the bottom of the hill.

It’s nature’s way of slapping us back in place,
or at least out of the way,
and starting over.

How many times does this make, I wonder.
Nature starting over.
I think by now it must be what Nature does best.

09/22/2019  —  We spend too much of our time
trying to make things be
what we want them to be.

Exploitation,
Manipulation,
Control,
are the words
that define our existence.

There isn’t a situation
we can’t work
to our advantage.

Like we know what that is.

How do we define our “advantage”?
We define it in terms
of whatever we want at the moment–
or whatever we want beyond the moment.

Who would ever do
what they don’t want?
Consistently?
Routinely?
Deliberately?
How do we know what to want?

What is good on one level
is bad on another.
What we want on one level
is not at all what we want on another.

What, then, guides our deciding
and our choosing?
How do we know where,
and when,
we are better off?
When does better
go over into
being worse?

How much of a good thing
is a bad thing?
How good is the good
we call good?
In light of what shall we live?

In light of what shall we live
in each situation as it arises?

What is at stake in each moment?
What hangs in the balance?
To be determined by the choices we make,
and the decisions we decide,
and the actions we take
moment-by-moment-by-moment?

Where do we turn
for guidance in the matter
of how to live our life?

What drives us?
Leads us?
Directs us?

In the service of what
do we live?

If not to our advantage,
to whose advantage–
to what’s advantage?

If not to our pleasure,
to whose pleasure–
to what’s pleasure?

What governs the thoughts we think?
The moods we have?
The things we do?

What are we seeking?
What is optimal?
Where do we belong?

As an alternative to the Three Big Motives above,
exploitation,
manipulation,
control,
I suggest these three conditions of life
as the motivating principles of existence:
balance,
harmony,
homeostasis.

Find the center.
Flow with it as it moves
from moment to moment.

Be one with the moment
in every moment
for the good of the moment.

And trust that to be enough.

09/23/2019  —  A lot of us could stand
with Terry Malloy and say,

“I coulda had class.
I coulda been a contender.
I coulda been somebody,
instead of a bum,
which is what I am.”
(Terry Malloy/Marlon Brando,
*On The Waterfront*)

Our circumstances
offer us all the excuses
we need.

Its the decisions
and choices
we make within our circumstances
that tell the tale.

The time and place of birth,
our family of origin,
and our parents’
family of origin
set the stage.

Here we are.
Now what?

How we answer that question
in each situation as it arises
all our life long
is our contribution
to the stew.

No one can answer it but us.

09/28/2019  —  “Let’s go bowling, Dude.”

What is the equivalent
of bowling in your life
and mine?

Whatever it is,
it is taking our mind off
living our life.

What do you do to
turn off,
look away,
drop out?

Identify it
and stop doing it.

Instead,
sit down,
be quiet,
look,
listen,
wait
to see what occurs,
arises,
emerges.

Open yourself
to the pain
that waits
in the silence,
and bear it consciously,
holding it in your awareness,
and waiting
to see what else,
what all,
occurs,
arises,
emerges.

It may be hell, but.
It is a hell of a lot better
than bowling.

09/28/2019  —  Everyone has access to the same information.
What we do about it tells the tale.
How open we are to it,
how aware we are of it,
what we dismiss,
disregard,
discount,
ignore
has us where we are
in each moment.
Always.

09/29/2019  —  Our life calls us forth.

We show ourselves to be who we are
in response
to the terms and conditions,
situations and circumstances,
limits and requirements
of our life
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

The constant through all
of the upheaval and turmoil
of each day’s deliveries
is the unique blend
of character and disposition,
priorities and preferences,
perspective and perceptions,
proclivities and inclinations,
genius and gifts,
traits and tendencies
that set us apart from one another
and reveal who we are
for all to see.

Who we are
is who we can be trusted to be
in the give-and-take,
through the gains and losses,
of each day.

There is a remarkable consistency
about the way we go about our life.
We can be depended upon
to do this if that happens–
to be this way in those circumstances.

We develop a particular gait,
a certain style,
a manner of being,
over time.

Those who know us
know when we are being
“just like ourselves,”
and when we are not.

The “idea” of “us”
goes before us
and trails along after us.

How accurate that “idea” is
depends upon how well we are aligned with
the nature that came with us from the womb.
We live best
when we live to exhibit
“the face that was ours
before we were born.”

The word for that kind of life
is “integrity.”

“Know thyself,”
and,
“To thine own self be true,”
and,
“Love your neighbor as you love yourself,”
are all the instruction we need
to live well upon the earth.
The catch is
we have to heed it.

09/29/2019  —  Discipline holds things together.

Discipline is how we do things.
Discipline is doing things that exhibit who we are
in ways that reflect who we are.

When we live undisciplined lives
it all goes to hell like that.

Football teams are built around
a core identity
instilled by the coach:
“This is who we are.”
“This is how we play the game.”
“This is what we do
and how we do it.”

That works fine
as long as the football team
is winning.
When they begin to lose,
badly and frequently,
they tend to forget
who they are,
and begin to play recklessly,
carelessly,
mindlessly.

Then, it is up to the coach
and to the leaders on the team
to call them back to
who they are,
and demand that they
live in ways which serve/display
their identity–
intentionally,
carefully,
mindfully.

It is the discipline
to be who we are
even when we are losing
that keeps a bad situation
from going over into a complete disaster.

We have to play/live aligned
with the vision of who we are
and how we do things.

And when we drift away from that,
we have to find our way back to it,
and play/live grounded in who we are.

Without a coach
and team leaders in our life,
it’s all up to us.
And without self-discipline,
where will we be?

09/29/2019  —a  I can’t stack eggs very well.

And you wouldn’t want me
to sing at your wedding.

This list is long.

The things I do well
rank high with me,
but not so much with anybody else.

Naps, for instance,
are among the things I do best.
My grandchildren are not impressed.
I don’t know anybody who is.

Doesn’t stop me,
or even slow me down.

Find what you do well,
and enjoy doing,
and do it.

Why would you not?

09/30/2019  —  After we have moaned and hollered,
stewed and cussed,
we still have to get up
and do what needs to be done.
That’s the truth
as clearly
as the truth has ever been told.
Are we going to sit there,
or what?

09/30/2019  —  If we live long enough,
we all come around
to the realizations
we don’t want anything
to do with.
Some of us had rather
be dead.
The rest of us
pick up our cross
and stumble toward Golgotha.
And resurrection.

09/30/2019  —  A lot of people
want to be president
who don’t have what it takes
to be president.

A lot of voters
want a president
who has no business
being president.

And here we are.

09/30/2019  —  Jon Kabat-Zinn has a wonderful approach to vitalizing the connection with our life. Vitality is the other side of transparency. Once we become self-transparent, everything falls into place around that. He has YouTube videos by the dozens. Watch the shortest ones first.

10/01/2019  —  We know when we are hungry,
when we are sleepy,
when we have had enough
and need to leave.

No one can knock us off these things.
No one can tell us,
“Don’t tell me when you are hungry!
I’ll tell you when you are hungry!”

That would be ridiculous.

We know what fits us,
and where we fit,
where we belong,
and where we have
no business being.

We know when things are flowing smoothly,
and when the going gets tough.
When things stop going,
and when there is no reason to keep going.

We can trust ourselves to know these things
and others like them.
We don’t have to wait for anyone
to tell us.
We can be secure
in our knowledge
of the basic guiding principles
of our life.

So, what’s the problem?
Not enough cooperation is a problem.
Not enough of the right kind of help is a problem.
Not enough resources
to do what needs to be done
is a problem.
Not knowing where to start is a problem…

And all of these things
are problems
we need to “sound out”–
problems we need to talk out–
in order to hear ourselves saying
what we need to hear.

But.
Once we hear what we need to hear,
we know it.

We have what we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done.

Start talking/writing
saying all you can think to say
about what needs to be said,
and then think about what you said,
and what needs to be said
in response to what you said.

Let that work in that part
of your mind
we call “the unconscious”
(Because we are unconscious
of what goes on there).
And see what occurs to you
“out of the blue,”
over time.

10/02/2019  —  We are not responsible for how we see things.

We cannot help how we see things.

We cannot force ourselves to see things any other way.

But.

The way we see things has changed
over the course of our life.

What is going on?

It is called growing up.
Maturation.
Maturity.

And we all grow up against our will.

We have no choice but to suffer it through.

All the way.

What needs to change about the way you see things?

Watch what happens there over time.

10/14/2019–The creed at the heart of fascism is
“It’s THEIR fault!”
The belief around which fascists rally is
“Get rid of THEM and all will be fine!”

Both are lies.

Fascism is based on the fallacy of Themism,
which surmises
“If everyone were like US we all would be happy at last!”
And,
“It’s people like THEM
who make people like US
hate people like THEM!”

Which lock fascists into a self-validating conviction
that cannot be refuted
because there will always be
those fascists hate–
those who are not like them.

They cannot change their mind
without growing up
and accepting responsibility
for having created a life
that is incapable of sustaining life
and requires somebody to blame.

The way out of fascism
is the realization
“I and I alone am the one to blame
for my life being as it is!
And I and I alone am responsible
for becoming who I need to be
to make things better than they are!”

“It is all on ME!”
is something a fascist cannot see.
“I would be great if it weren’t for THEM!”
is all a fascist can do.

A Pickle is a place
where nothing can change
until something else does.
Where fascism is concerned,
we are all in a Pickle.

10/17/2019  —  It’s so hard!
It’s Too Hard!
We want smooth and easy!

The whole problem in eleven words.

Bear the pain!
Do what’s hard!
Suffer it through!

The solution in nine words.

10/18/2019  —  Grace is the foundation of the civilized world.
No one earns their way.
Our way is made possible by the grace of others.
We exist because of the grace of others.

Grace is kindness.
Kindness is grace.
Nothing good happens
apart from grace and kindness.

Grace is unilateral.
It is our gift to the world.
Become a servant of grace.
Lighten burdens.
Spread good will.

For no reason.

That’s grace for you.

10/18/2019  —  Carl Jung said, “When one does the next and most necessary thing without fuss and with conviction, one is always doing something meaningful and intended by fate.”

It has an ought-to-be-ness about it that cannot be denied.

If you are seeking a meaningful life, simply do the next necessary thing with all your heart, the way it needs to be done, the way it is supposed to be done. And then, the one after that.

10/19/2019  —   The Photographer’s Lament:
“I only wanted to be
in all of the right places
at all the right times.

10/19/2019  —  Can we allow our life–
can we allow life–
to be what it is?

Can we allow ourselves
to be who we are?

Can we allow other people–
all other people–
to be who they are?

Can we allow the present moment
to be what it is?

Can we work within the givens
with the gifts we have been given
in the service of the good of the situation
in each situation as it arises
all our life long?

10/19/2019  —  What is the motivation
to be who you are?
What’s in it for you?
What do you stand to gain?
How can you parlay that
into something better than that?
What could be better than that?

10/19/2019  —  There are a lot of places
I do not belong,
places I have no business being.
It is part of my work
to stay out of those places–
and to be where I do belong,
doing what is my business
to be doing.
We can solve a lot of problems
just by not creating any.

10/19/2019  —  There is no time to waste!
If you don’t feel it,
don’t do it!
Wait for the shift to happen.
Wait for the door to open–
then walk through.
Time spent waiting
with your eyes open
is not wasted.
When waiting, wait!

10/20/2019  —  When we screw up,
we make amends–
to the extent that is possible–
and bear the pain
of realization
and contrition,
and change what needs to be changed
about our way with life
in order to do better.

If anybody thinks
they don’t need to do better,
they are failing
to see themselves as they are.

If anybody thinks they are
beyond forgiveness,
they need to reckon with
their own refusal
to forgive themselves.

And bear the pain of their guilt
and of their requisite transformation,
and change what needs to be changed
about their way with life
in order to do better.

The work of repentance,
penitence,
atonement
and recompense
is the work of doing better
moment-by-moment-by-moment.

We live this moment better
than the last one
all the way
to the end of the line.

And, if anyone thinks
they don’t need to do that work,
they are failing
to see themselves as they are.

10/28/2019  —  Tuned into the time and place of our living, awake, alert, aware—that’s the sure recipe for depression. Or, for enlightenment, realization, revelation. Depending on how we see what we look at. We are the door to our own future. It all depends on us.

11/05/2019  —  If you want to know the truth, you have to live in truthful ways. Truth is known through acts of integrity and grace, kindness and compassion, generosity and peace. It doesn’t come by reading it, or being told it. You have to live it, or live a lie.

Share this:

• Press This
• Twitter
• Facebook

Customize buttonshttps://widgets.wp.com/likes/index.html?ver=20200826#blog_id=91364836&post_id=2008&origin=jimwdollar.wordpress.com&obj_id=91364836-2008-5f77c3d7be3c2&domain=jimwdollar.com

Related

One Minute Monologues 022In “One Minute Monologue 022”

One Minute Monologues 014In “One Minute Monologues”

One Minute Monologues 007In “One Minute Monologues”