November 24, 2025

Lake Chicot Mirror — Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana

You know Jesus’ instructions to “Pray always”? He was talking about creating a regular, on-going, uninterrupted conscious presence with our Psyche. Psyche is that which has always been called “God,”–especially before theology, doctrine, heaven and hell, etc. Which is to say, before the Church of Rome invented theology, doctrine, heaven and hell, etc. in the four hundred years between Jesus’ death and the closing of the canon of scriptures we call “the Bible,” when the Church of Rome declared it to be all the Bible we would ever need in 392 CE.

Before then it was always Psyche that we experienced which the Church of Rome would call “God.” Psyche is the foundational source of our spiritual knowledge, which is to say knowledge beyond our physical senses.

I wrote this as the 114th entry in “Zen Thoughts” over in my Published Works Blog:

Carl Jung put Psyche forth as the guiding force in our life, whose purpose with us is to assist in our aligning ourselves with the Tao, with the swings and flow of our life as we develop into the self we are built/called/ment to be. Jung’s ideas about “individuation” is about us becoming who we are, the person we are born to be, “the antithetical self,” as opposed to “the Primary Self, or as he calls them, the Antithetical Mask,” with “the Primary Mask” with the “Primary Mask” being who we are supposed to be/expected to be by parents and society, and “the Antithetical Self/Mask,” being the person we authentically are called/ment to be. Our place is to know and be who we are. Jung’s idea of enlightenment/awakening would be knowing and being who we are, and his word, “individuation” was his idea of our task in being alive, that is to say, becoming who we are. And Psyche is with us to assist us in the work to live out of our true identity in our life. And I am interested in knowing how best we might do that in the time left for living. Jung would say we do that by attending our dreams and our symptoms and the swings and flow of our life in light of doors opening and shutting and events happening and opportunities coming our way, and where we are lucky and where we are not lucky with the trends and tendencies of our life over time.

The work to recover/develop/tend our relationship with Psyche, or God without the theology and doctrines, will be a renewal of our spiritual life requiring us to work out a partnership with Psyche in knowing what is called for and doing what needs to be done, when, where, and how it needs to be done, or as the Taoists would put it, “Doing the right thing at the right time in the right place and right way.” Without doctrines and theology to tell us what that is to be.

November 23, 2020

At the Beach

If you could be you for the rest of your life, what would you do?

If I could be me for the rest of my life I would live for things like this:

Today checking out at the grocery store, the young woman at the cash register (And with me that’s between 18 and 30) asked me if I was ready for Thanksgiving. I laughed and said, “I just go where they tell me to go and do what they tell me to do.” We laughed together and I asked her if she were ready for Thanksgiving and she said, “I just go where they tell me to go and do what they tell me to do.” More laughter, and I said, “We have the plan for making it through the holidays.” I live for this kind of interchange.

And this: At lunch this past week I saw a woman with her, probably two year old daughter in her arms waiting for a table, and the joy those two women were having with each other was delightful. They had it right and I hope they keep it up for the rest of their lives, and I’m confident that they will.

And this: Coming out of a different restaurant at lunch I watched a, say 6 year old boy holding hands with his, say, 4 year old sister, skipping from the restaurant to their car.

My days have enough of these kinds of experiences tucked away in them for me to be conscious of looking for them somewhere in each one. It is a wonderful way of inserting expectant wonder into the days that are left to me.

November 22, 2025

The Buddha Under The Bo Tree

Carl Jung would tell us that our role in life is not to be the Buddha, and it is not to be the Christ, but that it is to be simply who we are. Jung’s complete focus was what he called “Individuation,” being who we are to be. He talked about “”The Primary Mask,” which is the identity, the role we are told to play by parents and culture, who we ought to be, who we are ‘spozed to be according to the authorities, which are whomever we recognize as having authority over us and who we live to please. And The Antithetical Mask, who we are when no one is looking, the authentic self whom we are born to be.

Here are some Jungian quotes along these lines:

“It is the individual’s task to differentiate themselves from all the others and stand on their own feet.”

“The development of personality means fidelity to the law of one’s own being” — Carl Jung (“Fidelity to the law of one’s own being” is being true to our Original Nature and living that truth out within the context and circumstances of our life. – jd) (Buddha nature is our original nature, but we each are one with ourselves, just as Buddha was one with himself—but not one with all selves in an indistinguishable mass of humanity, or being. “We are one but not the same one,” —author unknown

“Particular care and attention must be given to that delicate plant ‘individuality’ if it is to grow and develop.”

 “At bottom, there is only one striving, namely the striving after your own being.”  — Carl Gustav Jung (All living things seek to become who/what they are—to bring ourselves into existence within the time and place of our living. – jd

Jung’s view of the Psyche is that side (or the foundation) of ourselves whose place is to call us to wake up and be who we are throughout our lives, coming to us in the way of dreams, visions, symptoms, events and circumstances, trends and experiences, coincidences, chance occurrences, the drift and flow of life throughout our life, and things that happen causing us to wonder if someone is trying to tell us something (Someone probably is: Our Psyche, Jung would say).

We have the rest of our life to workout who we are going to be in the time left to us, and what we are going to do, how we are going to live in the service of what we take to be our authentic self, whom our Psyche would be proud of us for being. I cannot think of a better way to spend our remaining days upon the earth. Good luck to us all in that undertaking!

November 21, 2025

Winter Field — Lancaster County, South Carolina

It is up to us to do what we can with what we have to work with. I say, “Take it to the silence, no, take it to the stillness beyond the silence. And wait for some compelling urgency to rise up as the mud settles and the water clears, and call you to enter the field of action with a mission in hand to do what needs to be done there, when, where and how it needs to be done, with the gifts of your original nature, inherent intuition, intrinsic virtues–the things you do best and enjoy doing most–and innate imagination, here, now, to atone for and redeem all that has gone before to the extent that is possible, and make things more like they ought to be than they are, in each situation as it arises, throughout the time left for living.”

If that seems too much for you, just maintain your relationship with what resides in the stillness beyond the silence, and you will be just fine through all of the circumstances that come your way, doing what can be done with what you have to work with, knowing that no one can do better than that. Not Jesus. Not Buddha. Not nobody. Not no how.

November 20, 2025

Ballantyne Ginkgo Park — Charlotte, North Carolina

The power of perspective cannot be overstated. How we see what we look at makes all the difference. And how we see when we look at our seeing–at what we see and how we evaluate it, so that we evaluate our evaluations–is the most important place to examine our perspective regarding how we are seeing what we look at.

No one sees independently of all we have seen up to now. What we see tends to depend on what we have seen, and is validated by how we have seen what we have seen. It is not often that what we see here, now invalidates or calls into question how we have seen what we have seen in the past. We tend to see today how we saw yesterday, so we are seeing the same things in the same ways all our life. This is like have, say, one day of experience repeated every day from that day forward. This is particularly so if where we are living does not change over time. We see everything as we have always seen it and do not grow one bit in our ability to evaluate our seeing over time. So that having fifty years of experience is not at all the same as having one year of experience repeated fifty times–which is the way it is in so many places around the world.

Where do we learn to question what we assume to be so? What we take for granted? What we believe to be the case? When do we ever see differently? How can we be sure that we are seeing at all? Or 1 tenth of what is available to be seen? Particularly if we label what we look at the same way over time we never develop our capacity to see the people and things that are with us. That being the case, there is no way that the world we live in could ever be much different-in-a-good-way than it is.

November 19, 2025

Glade Creek Mill — Babcock State Park, Clifftop, West Virginia

Wanting, desiring, fearing, buying, spending, amassing, consuming, having to have, acquiring, striving, pushing, wanting… When does it stop? When do we sit quietly, take stock, see what we are doing? Know what’s what and what’s happening and what is called for in each situation as it arises and do that when, where and how it needs to be done no matter what, using the gifts of our original nature, our inherent intuition, our inherent virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most) and our intrinsic imagination? Wanting, etc, takes up all our time, consumes our energy, commandeers our thoughts, robs us of our life and leaves us in the company of the wrong kind of emptiness with the likes of Adam and Eve. No?

November 18, 2025

Beech Tree Spring — New Garden Friends Woods, Greensboro, North Carolina

When I threw out theology all those years ago, I had to replace it with something that could serve as the core ground of existence, the “rock solid foundation” of who we are and what we are about, the Source of Life and Being. Initially, I referred to the bedrock of all that is “That Which Has Always Been Called God,” which I thought of as being “before and beyond the God of theology.” I have narrowed this over time and now think of the Source and Sustaining Force of Life and Being as the Psyche, or the Psychic Source of Life and Being.

“Psyche” and “Psychic” are terms that Carl Jung used exclusively to refer to “That which can be experienced but not understood, and that which can be understood but not explained” (R. D. Laing’s term), and which increasingly are terms used to refer to the unconscious, or that area of our experience which we are not conscious of directly but “see” evidence of in our dreams, premonitions, extrasensory perceptions, etc. The trend popularized by Alan Watts of thinking of consciousness as the root cause of physical existence at work throughout the universe, or cosmos, is a companion theory along with Psyche as alternative ways of comprehending the origin of life in ways that supplant the God of theology (Which was invented by the Church of Rome, now the Roman Catholic Church) during the 400 years between Jesus’ execution and the closing of the bible to any additional scriptures in 392 CE).

However we choose to think about the origin of existence, simply sitting quietly, empty of thoughts, emotions, memories, etc., and opening ourselves to the experience of silence and what may be stirring to life itself in the stillness beyond the silence, the adventure of being alive takes on a powerful new meaning as we imagine the possibilities and the paths that open themselves to us free from the burdens and restraints of theology and all of the things we must not allow ourselves to think, or say, or ask and step into new opportunities for thinking and being.

November 17, 2025

Carolina Thread Trail 03 — Waxhaw, North Carolina

We are on our own when it comes to living a life worth the effort, and the older I get, the greater the effort on all levels. The compromises and trade-offs make walking to the mail box more of a chore than it once was, and just sitting in this scene and those like it becomes preferable to walking through them taking pictures.

Absorbing the wonders. Relishing the joys. Becoming one with the beauty here, now, and being in no hurry to move on, move on, make the moment more of a treasure than they ever have been. I sit enjoying the breeze beneath a Carolina blue sky, and see no reason to move on, move on.

I slow every day down to my speed in this way. Taking my time to see what I’m looking at, and hear what I’m listening to, and taste what I’m eating (The amazing apple cobbler I made yesterday with lactose-free ice cream qualified for the highlight reel) are the kind of things I’m talking about when I say we are on our own when it comes to living a life worth the effort.

Looking closer, feeling deeply, absorbing the value of each moment, not allowing life to slip through our hands without intense delight at the experience of being alive to this here, this now throughout the day every day. And there is always the wonder of the music I’m in the mood for coming through my ear buds thanks to YouTube at any point in the day.

November 16, 2025

Carolina Thread Trail 01 — Waxhaw, North Carolina
The right kind of silence is the one thing that will make the most difference-for-the-good-as-we-determine-good-in-our-life-over-time.

Silence rights the boat that is our life. Guides the way.  Grounds us in the way that is the way for us. Uncovers the truth of who we are and what we are about. Restores us our balance and harmony. Connects and re-connects us with what matters most here and now. Puts us in sync the Tao, in the flow of doing what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done.

A day without a minimum of twenty minutes of silence in our life is a day in which we failed to tune in, turn on, wake up, realize what is called for and serve our destiny as it needs to be served.

And no one ever tells us that. Just like no one ever instructs us in how to facilitate the right kind of silence. Which is the foundational reason the world is in the mess it is in--and which is the only way out of the mess "to the land of gentle breezes where peaceful waters flow" (Anne Murray).

The key word to the right kind of silence is disengagement. How disengaged can we be? How aware can we be of everything without being engaged by anything for twenty minutes once a day? How long can we live without being hooked by something? We live from one hook to another. As we learn to live disengaged for twenty minutes once a day, that ability begins to show itself throughout our life. And that makes all the difference.

November 15, 2025

The Star Spangled Banner — The perilous fight goes on and on it seems, no?

There seems to be confusion regarding what the flag stands for. The Bill of Rights spells it out, but the Constitution itself is out of vogue these days. What’s with that? Who spits on the Constitution and supplants it with whatever he’s in the mood for? How did that attitude get to be President of the United States? How can 77 million people vote for that? Embrace that? Shout YES to that? Who stops the President from tearing down the White House? Why isn’t he stopped anywhere ever? The system of checks and balances failed spectacularly. No? No is a word without referent these days. A meaningless word. A word not in the vocabulary of those who cannot take it for an answer and do what they feel like doing anyway, nevertheless, even so. They wouldn’t have ended slavery. They wouldn’t have opposed fascism. They wouldn’t have stood for anything the Bill of Rights would espouse. Who are these people with no love of/for Justice! Freedom! Equality! Truth!? Where did they come from? They are disgusting Boors who do not belong!

November 14, 2025

Ballantyne Ginkgo Biloba Park — Charlotte, North Carolina

How do we know what to do when? How can we be sure that the way we see things is the way things are? Why do we see things the way we see things? What guides our boat on its path through the sea? What makes us think that what we want is the best thing for us to want here, now? Where do our ideas about how things ought to be come from? Who would be most pleased with the way we do things? How often do we examine our choices and evaluate the way we are living our life? What evidence do we consider in determining that the way we do things is the way to do things? What leads us to believe we are right about the things we believe are right? When is the last time we changed our mind about anything? How often do we take questions like these into consideration?