jimwdollar

July 19-A, 2022

We build a life around our original nature and the innate virtues that are our from birth. We live to serve these things, sharing them appropriately in each situation as it arises. What we do to pay the bills falls into place around this center, and we live with balance and harmony, with integrity andContinue reading “July 19-A, 2022”

July 18-C, 2022

We have to find the center and live from there– the center of the boundary line between the extremes. Between the contraries. Between the contradictions. We have to live on the boundary between the mutually exclusive polarities that populate our life, and not just anywhere on the boundary, but in the dead center of theContinue reading “July 18-C, 2022”

July 18-B, 2022

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1328) said, “The final leave-taking is leaving God for God.” That is to say, “Leaving our idea of God for God.” Our idea of God is not God. Yet, the thing we do best is to tell God how to be God. We tell God who God ought to be. Growing upContinue reading “July 18-B, 2022”

July 18-A, 2022

We are always waking up to some aspect of our life– the life that we are living and the life that is ours to live. The nagging, recurring, idea that we have missed something, that this isn’t what we are cut out for, that we are empty in the wrong kind of way, and floundering,Continue reading “July 18-A, 2022”

July 17-C, 2022

In talking with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell said, “The symbolic ideas and metaphorical images of mythology and religion are poetical in the sense that they do not refer to actual, physical, facts. Rather all of the references of religious and mythological images are to planes of consciousness, or fields of experience, that are potential inContinue reading “July 17-C, 2022”

July 17-B, 2022

There is always something to not like about our life, about life generally, about the experience of being alive. If we let that become A Thing, we get divorced, quit our job, move to a different location, take up drinking and/or drugs, maybe enter psychotherapy, and allow it to become the center of our attention,Continue reading “July 17-B, 2022”

July 17-A, 2022

I am officially old. I cry at everything these days. The Webb Telescope being a case in point. But also, Joe Manchin for blocking a better life for millions of people. It’s a long list. And I’m an old man crying over everything on it. Flash mob concerts. Animals being reunited with former owners. WonderfulContinue reading “July 17-A, 2022”

July 16-C, 2022

What moves you? Find it! Be moved by it! Seek the Source! The Mover behind being moved! Moved toward what? Moved away from what? What is the field of movement? Moved by what? Moved to what? What is the nature of movement? Movement is the nature of life. Life is the nature of movement. LifeContinue reading “July 16-C, 2022”

July 16-B, 2022

All bad religion thinks the way it sees things is the way things are. Taking the way we see things to be the way things are is what schizophrenics do best. Bad religion and schizophrenia are inseparable. Where does that line lie? Bad religion is always talking about “God’s will this,” and “God’s will that.”Continue reading “July 16-B, 2022”

July 16-A, 2022

There is a willing force in nature that cannot be denied. Grass and weeds don’t quit growing even though they are whacked down once a week. Dandelions grow through asphalt! They don’t say, “Oh, gee. Asphalt! Can’t grow here!” Life is determined, willful, unrelenting, non-stop. Our life is like that. The life we came toContinue reading “July 16-A, 2022”

July 15-C, 2022

Joseph Campbell said, in one of his interviews with Bill Moyers, “Arthur Schopenhauer said, ‘When you reach a certain age and look back over your life, it seems to have had an order about it, it seems to have been composed by someone. And those events that when thy occurred seemed merely accidental and occasional,Continue reading “July 15-C, 2022”

July 15-B, 2022

I worry about not having what it takes to rise to the occasion and meet what is coming in each situation as it arises as I get older and less reliable situation by situation. And I laugh and remind myself of Thich Nhat Hanh’s mantra, “Darling, I am here for you, and together we willContinue reading “July 15-B, 2022”