We cannot think about transcendence. We cannot talk about it. We can only experience it– without attempting to say what we experienced. Without saying anything about it. Leading Heinrich Zimmer to observe, “The best things cannot be said, the second-best things create confusion (By trying to discuss/explain the best things), leaving us to talk aboutContinue reading “December 17-A, 2022”
Author Archives: jimwdollar
December 16-B, 2022
We spend our lives looking for meaning, living in a wasteland. The definition of a wasteland is “No meaning anywhere.” We have to move. We can’t bear the thought of moving. We belong to the wasteland. Joseph Campbell would say, “In the wasteland, nothing is as it appears to be. Nobody is who they sayContinue reading “December 16-B, 2022”
December 16-A, 2022
The Transcendent is called “transcendent” because it transcends all categories of rational/logical/analytical thought. Sheldon Kopp captured the essence of transcendence when he said, “Some things can be experienced, but not understood, and some things can be understood, but not explained.” We can distance ourselves from the experience of transcendence in 10,000 ways, that can beContinue reading “December 16-A, 2022”
December 15-C, 2022
The three traditional/classical ways of accessing transcendence– The Transcendent, Transcendent Reality– are through our regular/recurring association with art, music and nature, in the company of emptiness, stillness and silence, throughout the time left for living. I combine art and nature with the images I have collected over the years and deposited in my Flickr accountContinue reading “December 15-C, 2022”
December 15-B, 2022
People talk all the time. Words do not do it. Feeling/sensing/intuiting instinctively/knowingly does it. The Quakers have it down. Spending time together quietly waiting/watching to see what arises/appears/emerges from the silence. That’s the way to do it. Ah, but. There is a catch, not even the Quakers are savvy about. In order for silence toContinue reading “December 15-B, 2022”
December 15-A, 2022
From the beginning we lived in relationship with transcendence, because we were dependent upon transcendence to guide and direct us, protect and sustain us, comfort and console us… And then, we invented money, and lost the way to transcendence. Before money, no one ever thought the goal of life was to be happy. Before money,Continue reading “December 15-A, 2022”
December 14-B, 2022
This Crèche was molded, hand-painted, fired and constructed by my aunt, Lois Hamilton, in Itta Bena, Mississippi in 1968 (+/-), and has been a part of our family ever since. +++ This only works if you do not take it literally. The entire Bible works that way. You have to see what you are lookingContinue reading “December 14-B, 2022”
December 14-A, 2022
How different can we be? If self-help books could do it, they would have done it by now. If we were capable of the kind of change it would take to make the world even a little more like it ought to be than it is, we would have done it by now. For allContinue reading “December 14-A, 2022”
December 13-B, 2022
How we see things creates what we see. Changing how we see things changes everything. Seeing is also not-seeing, keeping us from seeing what we do not see. What we see is how we see what we are looking at. A shift in perspective transforms the world. Control how we see what we look atContinue reading “December 13-B, 2022”
December 13-A, 2022
Joseph Campbell said, “I think anyone who pays attention to their inner life knows when they are living in harmony, and when they are out of harmony, with their own center.” And when we are “on the beam,” it is as though we are living a charmed life, and doors open where there were noContinue reading “December 13-A, 2022”
December 12-B, 2022
I like the quote, “Faith is an opinion that takes itself too seriously.” What is the difference between “having faith,” and having an opinion? Is weak faith better than a strong opinion? We say faith is necessary to get us into heaven, but we take that statement on faith. The whole thing is grounded onContinue reading “December 12-B, 2022”
December 12-A, 2022
The Fentanyl epidemic is fueled by a culture that has to have more/better/faster/Now! Commercial TV (Etc.) is grounded on the premise that we don’t have everything (anything) we desperately need NOW! Commercials sell us everything we don’t have yet, or have enough of yet, and don’t know what (All) we need NOW! The commercial cultureContinue reading “December 12-A, 2022”
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 