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?
Crater Lake Sunrise — Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
I would love to re-play some of the scenes in my life. I wonder how many that would be, given the opportunity. The tricky thing about re-plays is that is where experience is created and experience is essential for other scenes that did not need a replay because of the preparation the re-plays provide. So, the perennial question, “Where would we be better off?” And if I am going to get one right it would be, “Here I am, now what?” If we get the “Now what?” right the rest of the way, that would be recompense enough, I think. And the only person we have to please is ourselves, with that in mind, recompense is something we only have to work out with ourselves.
Intuition is strong among all living things. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it with every species. Intuition guides us all. We can help it by paying attention to the signals coming to us from our body. Our physical senses operate like traffic lights with Yes! No! Warning! And who doesn’t know the “Uh-oh” feeling? Listening to our body in every situation–and being cautious in situations where desire might override every other concern–will provide us with the insight of our physical guide as we weigh our choices in finding the way.
Nature is doing its thing. We are doing our thing. Circumstances are begetting circumstances, as the old Taoists observed 5,000 years BCE, and no one is in charge. There is no plan. No purpose. There is only the experience of life, living, being alive. We get to choose the shape our experience takes, but no one is keeping score. No one is grading anyone’s performance. We all are free to do what we will with the time that is ours on the earth. Every living thing is free to do its thing, bound only by its own ideas of what is called for, when, where and how, and what is not called for. And we make it all up. We are like children in a sand box. All our lives long. What we are doing here is what we decide we are doing here. Our life is ours to live as we determine how our life is to be lived. Let’s give it our best effort! And we decide what that is. It is the freedom of being alive, to make our own choices about what that needs to be. These photographs and these words are how I choose to live my life. And, actually, they chose me! And I think it would be cool if we all felt that way about the life we are living–that it chose us, and we are glad to comply.
Along a Back Road Off the Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina
When I sit thinking about what is called for and what I can do about it, ice cream often finds its way into the equation. Whenever it does, I am glad to oblige. I call it doing my part. Naps also come around quite often, usually daily. I consider my expertise with either beyond the normal and customary range, and am happy to offer my serves to the occasion, using the practice to become increasingly efficient and at the ready over time, and somewhat of a legend among those who know me.
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.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 