Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy
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?
The newest book is up on Amazon Kindle at the link below
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jim-Dollar/author/B002BMG16M?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=61d35079-b6da-4e64-a59f-21def13e61d6
I think if you copy the link you will be transported to the Author Page on Amazon. I'll give it a try and let you know.
It worked fine for me. Best of luck to you!
I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters, five granddaughters, one great granddaughter, and a great grandson on the way, within about ten minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything. View more posts
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy
Yes, the link works and I used it to obtain the two books. Look forward to reading your manifestos.
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Thanks, Sandy. I have a terribly joyful time putting these books together. They carry me along on a delightful ride, and I enjoy the freedom of being able to say what I have to say the way I need to say it without worrying about pleasing a writing professor. Writing for the wonder of it like a baby playing with a string.
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Lovely!💕🥰
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Jim – I have a manifest of sorts that popped out recently when I replied to a Substack post. You can delete it. I know it doesn’t belong here, but I was happy with the result, which is unusual for me:
1/13/25 – The Ramblings of an old woman (S. Roggero) – Elliot Kirschner Substack
https://open.substack.com/pub/elliotkirschner/p/navigating-a-desert-of-despair?r=ew3g&utm_medium=ios
Thank you for this excellent summation of the collapse of the old paradigm in chaos and despair. I am 78 years old now. I grew up in various cities in both northern and Southern California. I lived in West Los Angeles for 40 years. Ten years ago I retired to “paradise” in Asheville, North Carolina. Then we had Hurricane Helene to contend with. My home was fine, however, the home next door to me was demolished in one day last week. Helene wreaked havoc on many homes in my area due to trees falling on homes. That’s what happened next door. A tree fell on the house and they had to abandon it and tear it down. They don’t know if they will rebuild.
Now Los Angeles has been decimated by wild fires. A friend in Pacific Palisades lost her home of more than 30 years of memories. Many years ago I used to house sit for them. They say they are too old to rebuild. Another friend, who has lived in her Tarzana home for 30 years, was waiting for evacuation warnings. I also used to house sit for them. It finally hit me today of the apocalyptic results of the vast swathes of homes lost in areas where I have many wonderful memories of that area. Many trips along Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu and back to West L.A. Now many of the homes along that coastline have been destroyed by the flames.
Many of us who grew up in Los Angeles were unaware we were living a lifetime in the last era before all the issues you listed in your article. I am in anguish that all the norms inspired in my life by a religious background growing up that I held fast to and have been guided by in a felt sense by the Sermon on Mount, have been abandoned. Back in the 1990’s, when I participated in Study Circles that shared information about New Paradigms emerging, we heard that chaos happened in the last days of the collapsing old paradigm. I never thought I would live to see this happen in my reality. Today I feel such anguish that I am alive to see such chaos and disruption politically, in the harsh climate happenings, and people living divided in two separate realities. All that you catalogued in your excellent article.
One of the positive things that I studied was a concept called “Imaginal Disc,” which I hope is now beginning to be useful to the new paradigm emerging out of chaos, corruption and the effects of climate change:
https://www.abundantcommunity.com/imaginal-cells-of-the-solidarity-economy/
This gives a taste of the concept:
“The discovery of imaginal cells, or discs, goes back to the 1600s, but the metaphor of imaginal cells was popularized by Norie Huddle in her 1990 book Butterfly. The story of a butterfly’s metamorphosis provides a lovely and useful metaphor for the metamorphosis from a system of capitalism to a postcapitalist system: the solidarity economy (SE).
Awakening to a Different Vision
When a caterpillar spins its chrysalis around itself, a magical process begins. First, its body starts to break down into a nutrient-rich goop. Within this goop are imaginal cells, which were present all along within the caterpillar but had been dormant. These imaginal cells begin to express a genome inherited through evolution, a genome that is different from that of the caterpillar.
These imaginal cells, in other words, have a different vision of what they can become. They are so different, in fact, that what remains of the caterpillar’s immune system views them as foreign interlopers, and attacks and destroys them.
Common Vision and Clustering
Yet, surviving imaginal cells begin to recognize each other as having a common purpose and vision of becoming. They begin to cluster together, and are able to fend off the attacks of the immune system. More and more of the imaginal cells find each other, come together, and survive. The surviving clusters find other clusters, and continue to come together.
Cooperation, Integration, Emergence
As the imaginal cells continue to coalesce, they start to specialize into their preprogrammed expression. Some develop as an eye, some grow into a leg, some become the body, and some the wing. These pieces work together, each integrating with the others, until what emerges from the chrysalis is an entirely different creature—a butterfly.
AWAKENING THE SLUMBERING POTENTIAL OF A SOLIDARITY ECONOMY
The rich foundation of solidarity economy practices are like imaginal cells. Currently, they are in the equivalent of a dormant stage within the caterpillar of capitalism. However, the convergent crises of the pandemic, climate change, the racism and violence that have sparked the widespread racial justice uprisings, the economic divide, and the alarming slide toward fascism also create opportunity. People’s faith in the status quo is shaken. There’s a growing openness to new narratives, new models, and new paradigms. In this context, many of the solidarity economy’s imaginal cells are shaking off their dormancy, awakening to a different vision of becoming.
What will it take for the solidarity economy’s imaginal cells to complete the metamorphosis into a postcapitalist system that operates with a different set of values and logic? We do not need to “wait for the revolution,” because SE practices already exist all around us today. Our task is to make these practices visible, and to grow and connect them. Like the imaginal cells, we can think of three phases: (1) awakening to a different vision; (2) recognizing others as sharing a common vision, and clustering; and (3) cooperating, integrating, and emerging.”
Feel free to delete the egotistical ramblings of an old woman. I felt this was a safe place I could quickly dump these notions that came about in Study Circles from the 1990’s. A quasi-manifesto of a bygone era.
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Sandy this is beautifully done! I lean in with an intuitive director within the imaginal cells of the caterpillar. Things come together in ways that could not be conceived by that which is doing the work but is guided by the unknown Mover at then heart of that which is moved, which the moved can trust even as they don’t know what is going on. The more like-minded movers commune with each other the more the Mover has to work with in producing more than anyone can imagine but which all can believe in and give themselves to unknowingly…Like a baby playing with a string.
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Yes! Exactly! Thanks so much for reading it – I don’t have your abilities to carry the brunt of a blog, but I am very satisfied to get this out into the ethers💕!
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Doing what we can with our unique collection of gifts in responding to what is called for within each situation as it arises is exactly what is needed in the overall scope of things becoming what they are capable of being with the moved responding to the Mover, as Lao Tzu might say, “Do your work and step back, let nature take its course.” He knew that a thousand years before Christ, give or take…
Jim Dollar 8607 Robinson Meadow Court Charlotte, NC 28277-1701 336-207-5598
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Intuition Exercises:
https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/can-i-develop-my-intuition
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Thank you. You have given me a gift for a more appropriate venue to share anything in the future. 🙏
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One LAST reply – You will appreciate that I had such a “Gendlin felt sense” of pure Satisfaction from sharing this with the world.
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