September, 2nd Week – Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

September 18-E, 2022

Heinrich Zimmer said the best things cannot be told/said/ explained because the best things are experiential/feeling things. We can’t talk about experiences/feelings. We can’t say what they are, what they mean. We say, “I love you,” thinking we have said something. Or, “I believe in God.” You get an entire congregation standing and saying together,Continue reading “September 18-E, 2022”

September 18-D, 2022

Wendell Johnson said that we are all born into a culture/society/family that has a certain idea of how things ought to be. But it is never articulated as such. Everybody just knows how things are supposed to be done, and how they are not supposed to be done, but the rules are never spelled out,Continue reading “September 18-D, 2022”

September 18-C, 2022

Wendell Johnson said, “All of our problems stem from our inability to state clearly and specifically what the problem is.” (Or words to that effect). We assume that things should be a certain way, but things are not that way, and we are lost in a fog of things being not right somehow, but weContinue reading “September 18-C, 2022”

September 18-A, 2022

The things we cannot control make us crazy, but we can control being crazy by refusing to allow things we cannot control to make us crazy. Exercise control where you have control. Controlling how we respond to having no control is controlling what we can control. Finding our stability, grounding ourselves on our essential nature,Continue reading “September 18-A, 2022”

September 17-B, 2022

The first spiritual law is Throw Away Theology And Stand Naked Before The Worst Life Can Do! What do you fear the most? Smile, and ask it to dance! Allow your fear to show you what it has to reveal. Joseph Campbell said, “What you seek lies far back in the darkest corner of theContinue reading “September 17-B, 2022”

September 17-A, 2022

There is a spirit of place with every place, accessible to our feeling/spiritual side. We live mostly cutoff from that side, learning as we do from shortly after birth that the only side that counts is our intellectual/rational side. Intuition and instinct suffer from this division, and we live with half (or less) of ourContinue reading “September 17-A, 2022”

September 16-B, 2022

We have to work out the ratios between our thinking brain and our feeling body. The solution, of course, is our being mind. The mind/body connection is as much a mind/brain connection. Mind is nothing more than connective tissue, with “tissue” having no physical attributes at all. The good stuff is all spiritual. We callContinue reading “September 16-B, 2022”

September 16-A, 2022

We feel our way along The Way. We feel our way to The Way. If we are thinking, we are not feeling. Thinking about a feeling is not feeling the feeling. We cannot feel a thought, and we cannot think a feeling. Thinking enables us to consider our options. Considering our options means feeling howContinue reading “September 16-A, 2022”

September 15-B, 2022

Trials and tribulations are not to be taken more seriously than they deserve. I am not aware of a book better than “Drive Yourself Sane,” by Susan and Bruce Kodish, now in its 3rd edition, for making out what’s what, keeping things in their place, and speaking accurately (even to ourselves) about them. Seeing ourContinue reading “September 15-B, 2022”

September 15-A, 2022

Where do you belong? Whom do you belong with? What do you belong to? Where are you welcome just as you are– without having to meet any entrance requirements? It is our responsibility to become a welcoming place. It is our role to make people welcome where we are. To make people safe with us.Continue reading “September 15-A, 2022”

September 14-A, 2022

Enlightenment is a function of realization. Realization is a function of reflection. Reflection is not thinking but wandering/wondering/looking/listening without motive or attachment, with no interest in gain or advancement, success or achievement. Without any sense of engagement in the process or the outcome. Just wandering for the sake of wandering. Playing, we might say, withContinue reading “September 14-A, 2022”

September 13-B, 2022

Serenity, peace, equanimity, connection, affirmation, at-one with the flow of things, with the way of things, no striving to make something be what it is not, what it has no business being… At home in the natural world, with the natural way of things. Nature does that for us, gives that to us, invites usContinue reading “September 13-B, 2022”