Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

My new web site, Tao-Psyche-Intuition.com is open for business and is home to the best I have to offer, representing the essence of who I am. I hope you feel at home there.

I had a piece of lemon ice box pie and a cup of coffee Saturday at our weekly family lunch out with the daughters and granddaughters. The pie and the coffee is what I had for lunch. My new Saturday lunch. I intend for it to be a regular thing. It is my way out of here–doing what I love. I hope I have years to go, with a Saturday lunch every week. Celebrating weekly. I’ll ask how many pieces to a pie, probably six. We will see how many pies I have left. I see that as the way to do it. Sounds just like me.

It’s all up to us, what we do with it. What we do. I’m all for doing what is called for. The trick is knowing what that is. We know when we are imposing ourselves upon the situation, and when we are cooperating with the situation, merging with the situation, being one with the situation, living a part from the situation… How is the fit with our life most often? There is what we want and there is what we serve, assist. There is what we do and there is who we are. The closer doing and being relate to one another, the better off we tend to be in terms of spirit and vitality, the two markers of the quality of our life. The people who have it made are bluegrass musicians jamming on someone’s front porch, or in someone’s back yard.

I have never known what I am doing–and it has worked out just fine. I have always trusted my luck and never pushed it. And that doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. It means I do not push my luck. And I would never recommend that strategy to anyone else. Each one of us has to live in sync with our own sense of what’s what and what is called for in each situation as it arises. That is our strategy and our game plan. Which means we have to know what’s what and what’s called for in our body–not in our mind. Not in our intellect. Not in our head. We have to listen to our body and know what our body is saying in the way of “peaceful abiding, here, now.” That means settling peacefully into our body and knowing how things are with us and allowing our body to take the lead in directing our action here, now. Practice that at all times. Through all places. All our life long. In so doing, we learn how to read our body’s signals. We relax into Psyche, Intuition and Tao. To the point where we might consider ourselves to be untouchable, and that is the point where we begin to push our luck. People who go there sometimes never come back. Do. Not. Go. There.

Yin-Yang is balance and harmony throughout the Cosmos. Equal and opposite forces of attraction and repulsion are bound together and make life possible. Without the bond we all fly off in different directions at once. The stupid ones among us think that if we can only get rid of what we hate, we would live happily ever-after, not realizing that our opposites balance us out and save us from exploding into the Void. The stupid ones among us hate Woke people and that prevents them from waking up to their stupidity and living life as it must be lived, at one with liberty and justice, equality and truth forever.

My cognitive decline is a little like dying with your eyes open while you are disconnecting. Here but not present. Or present but not here. And it is unpleasant however you choose to look at it. I look the other way, turn the light around, and flip the switch to “Peaceful abiding, here, now.” And the mood passes, along with everything else that is passing. I let it go and move on. It is quite the ride. I wouldn’t have missed it, and am glad to have done it, and to still be doing it, keeping company with what is keeping me company. And it is keeping me company. I see my environment as a kind and gentle place, and enjoy the opportunity to share my gratitude and appreciation with all that is with me day to day.

Waiting for the appropriate time
to do the appropriate thing.
in the appropriate way.
and in the appropriate place–
and trusting ourselves to know
spontaneously, naturally,
what and when, and where, and how that is.

No one can hurry up and be there!
Or even know where “there” is.
So, we wait to see.
hear.
know.
Understand.
When and where and how to act
in ways appropriate to the occasion.

We have to take everything as it comes. There is no immunity. No refuge, save the refuge of peaceful abiding here, now, no matter what. Knowing that we have what it takes to find what we need to do what is called for in any situation as it arises all our life long. If we are going to take anything “on faith” let it be that, and we will be invulnerable, off limits to every catastrophe, and the complete loss of everything anywhere, everywhere, along the way. There is nothing like the right attitude for having it made.

Quiet tranquility flows smoothly to peaceful abiding, here, now. To maintain that orientation upon “the heaving waves of the wine dark sea,” is to have mastered the art of having no opinion about anything.

Walks in the woods and by the water can restore us to our life like nothing else. It is the grace of the sacred at work in the life we are living. How long has it been?

Consciousness is the foundation of peaceful abiding, here, now. We have to be attentive to what’s what, and what’s called for in every here, now that comes our way. No sleepwalking! How do we maintain attentive presence throughout the day? We have to take it up as a spiritual practice, being here, now, all day every day. We can take up the practice of remembering our breath and allowing it to remind us to take body scans, looking for what our body may be trying to tell us about the needs of the moment, and allowing it to guide and direct us through the day. This is focusing on and tuning into our intuition calling for our attention and cooperation in living the way our life needs us to live it here, now all day every day. Keeping us on our toes and at the helm of our boat on its path through the sea.

The Enso is a Zen sacred circle, often referred to as an unfinished circle, or an incomplete circle, to underscore the Zen understanding of perfection and wholeness as being that which has something missing. We aren’t whole until we are one with our missing parts. Making our peace with how things are is much more important than being without blemish from birth. In walking with a limp we walk aware of what we are doing, where we are going and what it takes to get there. We are more awake, aware and alive than we would be if we were perfect. And that makes us truly perfect with our imperfections. Celebrating our holes we become whole.