Finding our way to The Way one situation at a time. I don't know how great it will be, but I expect it will be interesting, and I look forward to it going on past all reason because wonder is just that way. Are you coming or not?
Hanging Rock Lower Cascades — Hanging Rock State Park, Danbury, North Carolina
Knowing what is called for here, now, and doing it where, when and how it needs to be done in each situation as it arises is all that can be asked of any of us.
Not what do we want? Not are we happy? Not what is expected of us? But, Is this what is called for here, now? Is this how, when and where it needs to be done?
And the questions are to be asked and answered in emptiness, stillness and silence. Meaning that we have to be able to ascertain the status of the state of our emotional wellbeing, seeking balance and harmony, rhythm and flow all the way along the way throughout each day.
Rock Castle Gorge Creek –National Recreation Trail, Floyd, Virginia
Albert Einstein held that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed or converted. Meaning, I take it, that death is not death, but transformation, conversion, resurrection, and the energy that is life goes on forever celebrating one form of existence after another, making the Universe/Cosmos, not a burial ground, but a grand party that never turns off the lights.
The wonderful fall leaves in the image above were not dying, but transforming and putting on a beautiful show. May it be so of us all–that we live to become a part of the show!
Ocracoke Island Cattails — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina
The Source is Psyche/Tao. And Ego’s place is to know what it knows and what it does not (cannot) know, and to stop trying to take over the show–and to simply wait and see what is called for where, when and how (Doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time, in the right way) which is the domain of Psyche/Tao.
Ego will know that like the tide knows when to come in, when to turn around, when to go out, when to turn around, when to come in… The tide doesn’t worry about when to take the initiative in any of these tidal decisions. It knows without knowing how it knows. It certainly does not think about it. Reason it out. Or guess. It knows. It always knows. And it is never wrong. It simply waits to know what is called for in due time, and in the meantime it waits to know when the time is right to initiate the proper sequence of events to produce the proper movements of place and time.
The source is a combination of factors/forces that nothing controls or shapes but is expressed best by the old Taoist realization that everything is a function of “Circumstances begetting circumstances.” The tidal cycle of ebb, turn, flow, turn, ebb… is dependent on the position of the moon and the time and pace/place of the earth’s seasons/movement, all of which is highly circumstantial and interdependent, with everything waiting and seeing what happens when and then what happens, with nothing in control, and everything dependent on something else at any given point in time.
Nothing is in control! And everything is dependent on something else, in order to happen in clockwork fashion, so that tidal charts are available around the world every day.
The moon shapes the tide, the tide shapes the shoreline, the shoreline shapes the wind, the wind shapes the clouds, the clouds shape the rain, the rain shapes the river, the river shapes the valley, the valley shapes the forest, the forest shapes the air, the air shapes the breath, the breath shapes the Psyche, the Psyche shapes the ego, the ego shapes the articulation… Everything is shaping everything else. Nothing is in charge.
(Today’s post was composed through a joint effort between Jim Dollar and Microsoft Word’s A-I, Copilot, which, if you think about it is as miraculous as the tides.)
Edisto Beach State Park Sunrise, Edisto Island, South Carolina
How about we settle for what’s what here and now? How about we let this be it? No more striving, wanting, having to have this or that or that over there? Just letting this be it? How about we just let this be it?
At 2:00 O’clock this afternoon, I had two cups of coffee and two premium desserts at Charlotte’s premiere restaurant for desserts. Now, if that is not having it made, I would like to know what is! And most of us who are reading this are as close to having it made as I am. How are we going to top two premium desserts and two premium coffees? And if we do top it, how are we going to top having topped it? Let’s just let this be it. Settle down. Adjust ourselves to our lot in life and get on with enjoying what is to be enjoyed every day that remains in the time left for living? I’m doing it and I am calling you to join me in doing it–unless you have something better to do.
Looking Glass Falls Mirror — Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah Nathional Forest, Brevard, North Caraolina
Maintaining our presence in the here, now is being aware of what’s what and what is called for by maintaining our balance and inner harmony throughout our present experience with the clashing rocks and heaving waves on the wine dark sea of our daily life in a “What’s new, we have seen it all before,” kind of way. Really–what can life throw at us that we haven’t seen multiple times before? We experienced our first rodeo years ago! And we are well into our “Here we go again phase of life,” so what’s the problem. We pick ourselves up and go again. And again. And again… Throughout the rest of the way!
Davidson River Mirror — Pisgah National Forest, Brevard, North Carolina
How are we justifying our existence today? I am justifying my existence by being aware of it. By being aware of existing. By seeing what I look at and listening to what I am hearing, and paying attention to what’s what, and knowing what is called for and doing what I can do about it with the skill set and tools I have to offer. By, asking, seeking, knocking, probing, poking, exploring, venturing into places and areas that catch my eye, call my name, and getting to the bottom of everything that arouses my curiosity. I have never known anyone busier existing than I am. I call that justifying my existence by existing to the max and wondering about everything I can find to wonder about. And you?
The Skeleton Trees of Boneyard Beach — Edisto Island, South Carolina, Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, Charleston, SC
If you go there looking for this, you won’t find it. Hurricanes and tropical storms reshape the landscape annually as “circumstances beget circumstances,” and everything finds its way day-to-day, letting “Today’s own trouble be sufficient for today.”
Birch Trees and Red Maple Leaves — Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine
Knowing what to do with the time left for living is a matter of dropping into emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing not three) and “Waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear” (Old Taoist saying), in order to know what’s what, what’s happening, what’s called for here, now–and doing that where, when and how it needs to be done, allowing one thing to lead to another, and letting that be that, throughout the time left for living. No thinking needed. Just seeing, hearing, understanding, knowing, doing, being. This is how nature works. We will be allowing intuition to take charge and doing “what we are told to do” all our life long. No will (Except to do what we are told), no agenda, no plan (Except to do what we are told). Just seeing, hearing, knowing, doing, being, day by day for the remainder of the time left to live. It works for elephants and ants, stars and planets. And has from the start.
I wrote the following 23 years ago: “What do we have to do whether we want to or not? What would we do whether we got paid for it or not? What would we do whether it were easy or not? What would we do even though there is, apparently, nothing in it for us? What are we willing to pay any price to do? What are the recurring, consistent (if not constant), reliable, returning interests or “drifts of soul” to which these questions would apply?”
I am still singing the same song after 23 years. I could have written this yesterday, or tomorrow. For me, these questions reveal how closely connected we live to the things that matter most to us, to our “Tao,” or flow, of heart and soul.
My first response to my own writing was to think, “Like a broken record,” and then I realized, “How different was the Buddha’s message over time?” And, “Wouldn’t Jesus still be saying the same things he had to say 2,026 years ago?” The things that need to be said do not vary much over time. We need to know what is important to us and how we live to serve that with our life throughout our life.
The Tao, Psyche, Intuition do not change over the centuries. Doing the right thing in the right way at the right time in the right place remains the thing to do through all the years there are or will be. May we all live to know what that is here, now, and do it. No matter what.
Ramsey Creek – Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbriar District, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
We have to make our peace with our life throughout our life. Making our peace with having to constantly be making our peace is, itself, an important piece of our being able to make our peace as necessary without warning all the way from start to finish. It is upheaval and disruption on the heaving waves of the wine-dark sea constantly, and we have to develop the art of keeping our sea legs under us all the way.
Being able to observe what’s what and to articulate the impact of our life upon our life is instrumental in meeting the day as the day needs to be met. If we don’t have someone to talk to, we have to write it out for ourselves, as I am doing here. Articulation is crucial to realization which is essential to adjustment and accommodation, which is the ongoing and unending work of keeping ourselves in accord with our life. Which is the work of being alive. No?
Crescent Beach Panorama, Ecola State Park, Clatsop County, Oregon
My father reacted to me and I reacted to my father and we both could have done a lot better. And we both need to acknowledge that about ourselves to each other and simply allow that truth to be a part of our individual makeup, and let it go.
And this is so with way too many of us around the world throughout time. All for whom this is so, need to take ourselves to a cosmic wailing wall and say our say and make our peace with ourselves and those we need to make our peace with, and let that be that, as the old Taoists might say. And let it go.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 