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?
22-Acre Woods 10/08/2020 — Indian Land, South Carolina
Trump is forever whining about how
unfairly he is being treated.
I take that to mean he thinks he should be
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,
and be accorded the honor and admiration
he thinks he deserves.
Whatever he thinks,
he recognizes the importance of fairness
and bemoans not being granted his share.
It is a justice issue.
Trump quickly recognizes injustice
as a recipient.
He has no awareness whatsoever of injustice
as a dispenser.
"I acknowledge no responsibility!"
That's Trump's trump card.
Trump trumps everything playing that one.
I wish I had a trump card like that.
It's not fair.
But I recognize the absurdity of thinking that
wanting something has some mystical association
with receiving the thing.
That kind of thinking comes with wealth and privilege.
More wealth and privilege than I'm interested in.
An aside: Some people can't get enough wealth and privilege,
others need only enough to get their work done.
The people who can't get enough,
have no work to do.
Apparently, their idea is to avoid all work entirely,
and go through life wallowing in wealth and privilege.
As Jesus might say, "They have their reward."
All I want is enough wealth and privilege to do my work.
Not enough wealth and privilege is a distraction,
and too much wealth and privilege is also a distraction.
The sweet spot, you might say,
is enough to buy the tools our work requires
but not so much that it gets in the way.
And we have to know what our work is,
what we live to do,
and be about it.
Joseph Campbell said the blessing of getting older
is the ability to refine what is truly important
down to the absolute essentials
and the time to spend your life with those things.
He was absolutely correct about that,
and I relish each day as another opportunity
to enjoy the presence of those things which matter most.
May you be blessed in a similar way
throughout what remains of the time to be lived
on your life!
–0–
01
Hammock Creek — Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina
Wanting what we have no business having
is the bane of our existence.
Desire,
Fear,
and Duty
burden us with concerns
that are not our concern.
Contriving to have something else,
something better,
something more
keeps us from the joy
of the day-to-day.
We are our own worst enemy.
Nothing can happen to us
that we can't make worse
by the way we respond to it.
If we are ever going to be happy,
contented,
well-pleased
and at peace,
it is going to start right here,
right now.
The only thing keeping that from happening
is the way we think about things.
Our judgments.
Our opinions.
Our evaluations.
Our expectations.
Our default dissatisfaction.
Combine to prevent us
from being able to delight
in simple pleasures,
and dismiss
concerns that are not our concern.
An old Taoist self-help manual says,
"Noble people are calm,
joyful,
and not contrived,
without cunning or ulterior motives.
This means being empty and plain."
And,
"Private interest is what corrupts the world."
And,
"What is not one's path is not taken,
even if profitable."
2,000 years later,
they still ring true.
"The Christ" is "the anointed one."
Anointed to do what?
"To proclaim the Gospel (The Good News)
to every sentient being!"
What is the Good News?
"You are all The Anointed One,
anointed to do your thing
for the true good of all!"
We are all The Christ--The Anointed Ones!
Anointed to do our thing
in the service of all!
What is "our thing"?
It is our task to realize our thing
and to live in its service.
It is a matter of waking up
to the truth of who we are
and what is ours to do--
what we are about.
Being and doing are one thing.
When we are being who we are,
we are doing what is ours to do.
When we are doing what is ours to do,
we are being who we are.
Joseph Campbell said,
"We all know when we are on the beam
and when we are off it."
Carl Jung said,
"It is the individual’s task to differentiate
themselves from all the others and stand on their own feet."
And:
"The development of the personality means
fidelity to one's own law of being."
And:
"At bottom, there is only one striving, namely,
the striving after your own being."
And:
"In the final analysis, we count for something
only because of the essential we embody.
If we do not embody that, life is wasted."
And:
"Through pride, we are forever deceiving ourselves.
But deep down below the surface of the average
conscience, a still, small, voice, says to us
something is out of tune."
And:
"One can feel correctly only when feeling
is disturbed by nothing else. And nothing
disturbs feeling so much as thinking."
And:
“The highest and most decisive experience of all...
is to be alone with ...[one’s] own self...
The patient must be alone if he is to find
out what it is that supports him
when he can no longer support himself.
Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation."
Marianne Moore said,
"The cure for loneliness is solitude."
Jim Dollar said,
"We know when we are where we have no business being."
We only have to listen within to know what we know.
But who takes the time
to sit still long enough
to listen in the silence
and know what is being said to us by us?
We are The Christ,
but.
We are alienated within,
cut off from ourselves,
do not know what we know,
and cannot be who we are
because that interferes with
our idea of who we want to be
and of the life we want to live.
Jesus spent his life talking about
the return to the self.
The "essential Jesus"
can be found
in The Sermon on the Mount,
the Parable of the Prodigal's Father,
the Parable of the Good Samaritan,
and the sutra built around the theme
"Inasmuch as you have done it--
or not done it--
to one of the least of my brothers and sisters,
you have done it--
or not done it--
unto me."
We have done it--
or not done it--
to ourselves.
We have to wake up
to the truth of who we are
and of what is ours to do--
of what we are about,
and of what we are not about.
We have to sit still,
and be quiet
long enough
for the mud to settle
and the water to clear,
enabling us to know
who we are
and who we are not,
and what is ours to do
and what is not ours to do.
We have to listen to our nighttime dreams,
listen to our hearts,
listen to our body,
listen to our feelings
and know what we know--
and do what we need to do
to be who we are:
The Christ--
the anointed one,
anointed to do our thing
for the good of sentient beings everywhere.
False Fox Glove 10/08/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
The work is ours to do alone.
Sitting.
Listening.
Looking.
Seeing.
Hearing.
Feeling.
Trusting.
Risking.
Doing.
Being.
Becoming.
We grow up on our own.
Against our will.
Because it is called for.
And is the best
of all our available options.
All that we have been told
about how things are
is not how things are.
This is how things are:
There is the way things are,
and there is what we can do about it,
and that's that.
And that is how things are.
Part of what we can do about it
is squaring ourselves up
with the difference between
how things are
and how we wish they were,
or how we want them to be.
Coming to terms with how things are
is being okay with things
not being okay.
And letting things be
because they are.
Within any context and all circumstances,
there is what we can do
and what we cannot do.
Refusing to let what we cannot do
keep us from fully exploring what we can do
is the creative response
to our situation,
no matter what it is.
Always the strategy is:
Ask all of the questions that beg to be asked!
Say all of the things that cry out to be said!
Listen to everything!
See what we look at!
Feel what we are feeling!
Know what we know!
Bear the pain
and keep on going!
–0–
03
Fence Post 10/07/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
Martha Graham's dance, "Lamentation," says what words cannot
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgf3xgbKYko),
and in reflecting on her performance,
she said about it and all of her performances,
"The is always one person to whom you speak
in the audience. One."
That took me straight to the one disciple of the Buddha
who "heard" his Flower Sermon.
Mahākāśyapa is in every audience,
as male or female.
Do not think,
"No one hears"
(Or cares).
–0–
02
Muscadine and Sourwood 10/10/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
Believe in what you are doing
and do it!
If you are going to believe in anything,
let it be what you are doing!
Why would we do anything we don't believe in?
Yet, how many of us are doing things we don't believe in?
Going through the motions.
Paying the bills.
So we can go through the motions.
Wait!!!Time Out!!!
It's one thing to go through the motions
to pay the bills--
but we can't pay the bills
to go through the motions!
We have to pay the bills
to do what we believe in doing!
Are we doing anything we believe in?
Anywhere in our life?
If no,
that's a problem.
How can we live without believing
in what we are doing?
Without believing in the life we are living?
We can't just go through the motions!
Our heart has to be in something
we are doing,
else our life is a sham,
a lie,
an empty balloon on a stick
and we are dead people walking around
blank-eyed and soulless.
Sound like anybody you know?
The cure is to get our life back
by finding something we believe in
and doing it
while we pay the bills any way we can.
Where do we start finding something
we can believe in?
What was the last thing you believed in?
What happened to that?
What are some things you think
you might be able to believe in?
If you were going to believe in something,
what would it be?
What would it take to be able to do it?
If you can't do it,
start dreaming about doing it.
Imagine doing it.
Watch videos about doing it.
Pretend to be able to do it.
Start collecting items that are related to it.
Read about it.
Write about it.
Build a fantasy life around it.
Believe in your fantasies!
If you can't go to the moon,
make a life around studying everything
about going to the moon!
Work something you believe in into your life!
Without something to believe in,
we are just marking time until we die.
We may as well be in prison.
Do not die before you are dead!
Promise me you won't!
–0–
01
Sourwood 10/09/2020 09 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
This is my credo,
my statement of faith in what I am about:
"I do not know what the hell I'm doing,
and I am going to do it to my dying breath!"
Two things flow from this.
The first is the old saw/observation
that people spend their entire lives
climbing the ladder of success
only to discover at the end
that it was leaning against the wrong wall.
I have every confidence that my ladder
is leaning against the right wall.
The second thing is my essential belief
in the importance of muddling around in the middle,
holding all of the extremes,
all of the opposites,
all of the contradictions,
all of the polarities
all of the variant points of view
in view
and bearing the agony/anguish of that tension,
waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear
to see what happens.
I'm not here to make anything happen,
but to assist the happening
of whatever needs to happen.
If you bear the tension long enough,
something shifts,
the mud settles,
the water clears.
The worst thing is to push for a solution
that solves nothing
and only temporarily eases the tension
of mutually exclusive opposites.
No pushing!
No forcing!
Wait to see what needs to happen,
and assist its happening
by calling attention to it
and maintaining the tension
of irreconcilable polarities!
Give equal voice--
equal attention--
to all concerns.
Do not dismiss,
discount,
disregard,
deny,
ignore anyone's rights,
and bring the weight of realization--
of clarity--
to bear on the issues at hand.
The issue of abortion,
for instance,
would take on an completely new shift
if all of those clamoring for an end to abortion
suddenly became pregnant.
That is making the heart of the matter
painfully apparent.
When all of our polarities
become painfully apparent,
attitudes,
viewpoints,
and perspectives shift,
and things change.
Muddle around in the middle long enough
to be clear about what's what,
and things change.
Of their own accord.
There is nothing like clarity
for illumining the way.
Muscadine and Moss 10/07/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
Waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear,
it is important to exhibit
the kind of stillness
and confidence in the process
that creates the atmosphere
in which the mud can relax
and trust itself to gravitational forces
it cannot understand,
but can allow to work its magic
in assisting things seeking to find their place
and give themselves to doing
what they do best.
The forces at work in our own life
are not different from the gravitational force
at work in the service of clarity.
We belong to the things that stir us to life
and call us forth
to find what best suits our gifts
and interests,
and our deepest love--
a love we know noting of
until it claims us
and graces us with its call to service
in devotion and loyalty to its needs
and interests.
We find our way to what owns us
bit by bit,
allowing "one book to open another,"
and always listening for what calls our name
in each situation as it arises,
allowing ourselves to be led--
even when we don't know we are being led--
to sacred places
"transparent to transcendence,"
with nothing special about they
that would set them apart,
or suggest the wonders hidden
from those who look without seeing
what we behold.
Swaddled in amazement,
we feel ourselves carried
from one wonder to another
in a life that is merely following the flow
from one day to the next,
without a plan in mind,
or an agenda directing the action.
All we need do is listen and look,
as we wait for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.
–0–
02
Adventure Road 01 10/07/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
Faith has nothing to do with belief.
Faith is faithfulness.
Keeping faith with oneself and one another.
Being faithful to one's center, core, foundation--
in the company of those
who are being faithful to themselves,
to their center, core, foundation--
and to one another.
Faith as faithfulness is the center, core, foundation
of ourselves
and of the right kind of community.
It has nothing to do with what we believe,
and everything to do with what we know to be so
because it forms the ground of our experience,
and is the very essence of our being/doing.
"Thanks be to God I am who/what I am!"
(Paul of Tarsus)
"What I do is me/for that I came!"
(Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Belief is a substitute for faith,
a surrogate for the lived experience
of ourselves in the world.
"Know Thyself!"
(The Delphic Oracle)
"To Thine Own Self Be True!"
(William Shakespeare)
Our faith is in who we are
and what is ours to do.
Our faith is our life.
Our life is our faith.
The content of our faith
is the body of work
we create/produce
as a testimony to who we are
through the way we live our life
and bring ourselves forth
within the context and circumstances
of the times and places of our living.
The content of our faith
is how we live our life.
–0–
01
Around Price Lake 10/17/2016 19 — Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
Purity is the great enemy of truth.
Purity is truth to the far extreme.
Truth without contradiction.
Truth without contraries.
Truth without truth.
A mockery of truth.
An imposter of truth.
A pretender of truth.
A sound-alike.
A wanna-be.
A Lie.
Watch the flow of the game
over the next 10 to 20 years.
Keep your eye on the ball.
The truth is that
"extremes beget extremes."
Those who remain steadfastly in the center
become the enemy
of the opposite poles.
Yet, the center is the fulcrum,
the pivot point,
"the still point of the turning world"
(T.S. Eliot).
The center is our only hope.
The cross of Christ
bearing the pain
of his own self-realization.
"You shall know the truth,"
he said,
"and the truth shall set you free."
The truth of what?
Free from what?
Free for what?
The truth of the moment.
Of this moment.
of this here-and-now.
Free from/for what?
Free from denial/mindlessness/unawareness/blindness/stupidity...
Free for doing what needs to be done here and now,
in this moment just as it is.
Free for responding appropriately
to the moment as it is being lived
in seeing/hearing what is called for
and providing it,
doing it,
regardless of what you might have said/done
in the last moment,
or any previous moment--
or what you ever imagined that you would do
in any moment.
Freedom to be who you are,
living out of your own center
in response to the craziness--
the madness--
of a world gone to the extremes,
where:
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity"
(W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming").
Freedom to be what is needed
even there,
especially there,
in the heart of anarchy
amid the Clashing Rocks
and the Heaving Waves
of the Wine-Dark Sea.
Steele Creek Cascades 03/29/2014 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Dairy Barn Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina
The most important commandment in the Old Testament
didn't make the top ten,
though it lends itself to an interpretation
that makes it #1 even there.
Seeing "The Lord Thy God" in each of our neighbors
would put "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"
in the place of, as Jesus would say,
loving our neighbors as we love ourselves,
and as the most important commandment puts it,
"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark."
Honor thy neighbor's right to themselves
and to all that belongs to them!
Do not mind thy neighbor's business!
Do not violate thy neighbor's boundaries!
Do not invade thy neighbor's sacred space!
Do not denigrate thy neighbor in any way!
Respect thy neighbor as thou desireth to be respected!
Know where you stop and your neighbor starts
and do not step over the line!
How may ways did Jesus say that?
He made it the central element in what he had to say.
Everything comes down to seeing our neighbor
as equal to us in every way.
And to seeing everyone as our neighbor.
And everyone is Every. Single. One.
We are to be everyone's neighbor,
treating them all as though they are our neighbor.
Why is this hard?
Why is it not being done?
–0–
01
The Dairy Barn 02/18/2018 — Louisiana Central Hospital Grounds, Pineville, Louisiana
We do not receive the help we need.
And if it is offered,
it isn't what we have in mind.
Given the choice,
do you go for feeling better
or getting better?
When the treatment is worse than the disease--
or worse than the symptoms--
what do we do?
Where do we go with the pain
of damned if we do and damned if we don't?
With the agony of endless agony?
In the meantime, what?
When there is no balm in Gilead,
where do we go for relief from our anguish?
For alleviation from our pain?
Where do we find what we need
to do what needs to be done
about any of it?
Therapy is found in the damnedest places.
The dairy barn at the Louisiana Central Hospital
brought people back to life
by giving them cows to milk and feed,
to pasture and tend.
What does a cow have to do with our problems?
Who would ever think,
"A cow is just what I need"?
How long would a physician last
who prescribed a cow to care for
to those seeking solace for the burdens they bear?
Don't disparage cows!
Seek out their equivalent in your own time and place!
You who have needs,
lend yourself to the service
of that which has need of you!
You who languish for a lack of help,
provide help to that which languishes
for what you have to offer!
Be good for someone,
some thing!
The world will shift on its axis,
reorient itself in its orbit.
All because you dared
to love a cow!
The Horse Barn 10/04/2020 02 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina, Horse Barn Road Access
We live our way to the truth of who we are
coming to terms with the truth of how things are,
of how the world is,
of how life is,
of the way things work
moment-to-moment,
one situation at a time,
one day at a time,
over the full course of our life.
The Spiritual Journey,
is the Hero's Journey,
is another term
for Growing Up.
Growing up is coming to terms with how things are
and how we are
and how best to deal with the contradictions/dichotomies
at work within and without
throughout our life.
We want things to be different than they are.
We want to be different than we are.
And how well we bear the pain of the difference
between how things are and how we want them to be
on all levels of life and being
is the essence of growing up,
of waking up,
of squaring up
with how it is with us
at various points in our life.
Our identity changes over the time of our living.
Living changes us.
Living requires us to change.
The people who refuse to change,
who live static, rigid, lives
are dead people.
They may be 98.6 and ambulatory,
but they have no life about them,
they haven't been alive for years past remembering.
How we respond to our life
through all the stages of our existence
is the marker declaring our degree
of vitality,
interest in,
and enthusiasm for
our life and the experience of being alive.
Our life is naturally designed to bring us forth,
to show us who we are,
by requiring things of us
we do not know we are capable of.
We have to be fluid and flexible enough
to sit before what is being asked of us
and explore/imagine/consider how we might
best respond to it in the here and now of our living.
This is to say that new epiphanies,
recognitions,
realizations,
understandings,
visions
and additional illumination
are required--and available/possible--
at every point along the way
from birth to death.
And so, it is said that the awakening
of every enlightened being
requires a return to the state of unenlightenment.
We never out-grow the need to respond
creatively/imaginatively
to the circumstances and situations
of life here and now
throughout the times and places of life in the world.
The Spiritual Journey has no end.
The "Circumambulation of the Self"
(Carl Jung) is eternal and everlasting.
We are always becoming who we are.
And the longer we are conscious of the process,
the more we are able to laugh and dance
along the way.
–0–
02
Afternoon Light 10/04/2020 — Black-eyed Susans, Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina
We cannot live one dimensionally in in a multi-dimension world.
This is the failure of Evangelical Christianity
and of strict religiosity world wide.
"Walking the straight and narrow"
is not about prudishly, puritanically, keeping the rules.
It is about walking gingerly, consciously, carefully
along the slippery slope,
the dangerous path,
the razor's edge,
between the Clashing Rocks,
the Scylla and Charybdis,
the dualities, dichotomies, duplexities
of day-to-day,
moment-to-moment,
life in the world of normal, apparent, reality.
There is no static way of being.
Balance and harmony are about controlling the wobbles,
like riding a bicycle.
We have to live free in our soul,
like the spirit that blows where it will--
which is another way of saying,
"Not knowing what it will do next"!
Jesus lived that way,
raising the dead in one minute,
and leaving the dead to bury the dead in the next.
Forgiven the woman guilty of adultery one day,
and cursing the innocent fig tree on another.
Do not look for, expect, demand, insist upon consistency,
uniformity,
absence of deviation
from yourself
or one another!
Sometimes, we do it this way,
and sometimes, we do it that way,
as the occasion requires.
We dance with the music of the times.
We do what the situation calls for--
without being burdened
with having to "toe the line"
and "mind our p's and q's"
by doing what we are "spozed to do"
in all times and places
because we dare not "get out of line"
or express our own individual gifts and genus
in the way we go about our life.
Grant yourself the freedom of getting out of character--
because it is required by the circumstances,
or just for the hell of it!
Do things that are "not you"!
Expand your range!
Open yourself to the possibilities!
Live beyond your limits!
Outside your boundaries!
Live to find out--to discover--
what you are capable of!
Experiment with new roles!
Try out for different parts!
Explore!
Experiment!
Bring yourself to life
in the time left for living!
Why hold anything back?
–0–
01
Stump and Sourwood 10/05/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
When the light comes on,
everything/nothing changes.
Life goes on as it always does
and nothing about life is as it was
for the one for whom the light comes on.
Now, that one has to live
with a foot in two worlds,
and walk two paths at the same time--
living in this world
in light of that world--
with this and that world
informing and influencing
the way they live
in that and this world.
The two worlds interact/interface
in the one for whom the light goes on.
They cannot live in either world
as though the other does not exist.
The two worlds are not mutually exclusive.
They both are conjoint with the other
and create the "Mysterium Coniunctionis"
(Carl Jung's term meaning
the "Mystery of the Conjunction"),
which is the ground of all of our dualities,
and which we live to integrate and express/exhibit
by the way we manage the challenge
of living in two worlds at the same time,
walking two paths at the same time,
and consciously realizing
and living in the tension
of the interplay between the worlds
(Which might be better thought of
as "dimensions" within the world of
normal, apparent, physical reality)
moment-by-moment
within all of the times and places
of our existence.
We are living within an optical illusion.
Now it's this way,
now it's that way.
Which way is is?
Both ways simultaneously!
How do we manage our life
living both ways at once?
Playfully!
Laughing and dancing all the way!
It is the Tevya dialogue in "Fiddler on the Roof":
"But, this cannot be so if that is so!"
"You are right! That is also so!"
Laughing and living in the tension of all opposites,
of all dichotomies,
being so at the same time!
The two become one in us!
And we become one with all things!
Integrating what cannot be reconciled,
and bearing the agona, the agony, of the tension
playfully, laughingly,
every step along the Way,
by doing it the way it needs to be done,
the way it is being called for,
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.
Sometimes we do it like this,
and sometimes we do it like that,
and sometimes we do not do it at all!
When to do what is our call to make,
lovingly, laughingly, playfully,
doing what is called for in each moment,
the way only we can do it,
moment-by-moment,
"singing and dancing in the rain."
Two Mushrooms 10/05/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
The old Taoists recommended
that we "turn the light around,"
and look inwardly
for what we are seeking externally,
which would be something worth living for.
Some reason,
some purpose,
some meaning
for it all.
Life is its own meaning,
but it takes realizing that
and living as though it is so
to turn the light around.
Living as though our life is meaningful
just as it is
is the shift
that opens us to the truth
of the immense value
of the here and now.
This! Is "the still point of the turning world"!
(T.S. Eliot)
This! Is the moment of our Illumination!
It only takes looking
to see that it is so!
Two mushrooms seen properly,
are the bell of awakening.
Any time can be the time of our realization.
How we see what we look at
is more important than what we look at.
Turn the light around!
–0–
o1
The Live Oak at Springer’s Point 10/17/2013 — Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina
Attending what I am doing,
moment-to-moment
is among the hardest things
for me to do.
Just knowing what I am doing now--
not generally,
vaguely,
"I'm driving."
"I'm walking."
But specifically.
Precisely.
"My turn is coming up."
"Watch the kid on the skateboard!"
Being here, now, is the hardest thing.
Of course we are here, now.
We know that.
And we miss our turn,
and send the kid on the skateboard
to his heavenly reward.
All because we know what we are doing
without attending it,
without being aware of it,
without knowing what we know,
specifically,
precisely.
We live disconnected
from the time and place
of our living,
thinking about anything,
everything,
but the here and now.
So what?
How we answer that question
makes all the difference.
Here and now is all there ever is.
If we are not present and accounted for,
fully here, fully now,
when will we ever be alive?
We do not come to life
until something in our present moment
commands our full attention
and brings us to life.
Puppies can do it.
And kittens.
And babies/grandbabies...
We all can remember experiences,
good and bad,
that have grabbed us
and hurled us in to the Now,
but it takes something special.
We can't be here, now,
for no reason.
We are shanghaied by other things,
fear,
desire,
duty
drag us off into endless walk-a-bouts,
meandering among the possibilities
and the impossibilities,
lost and unavailable
to turns coming up
and kids on skateboards.
But.
Any moment can be "transparent to transcendence"
(Joseph Campbell),
transporting us instantly
into the rapture of awe and wonder--
not because it is obvious,
not because we are whammed by it unexpectedly,
but because we simply sat,
looking,
until we saw--until we see--it.
We can be so present to any moment
that every moment has the potential
of being a portkey,
transporting us from this dimension
into the other dimension
of numinous, ineffable, unspeakable truth.
Bringing that dimension
into this dimension,
moving from this dimension
into that dimension,
is the gift of attentive presence,
bringing us to life
in the life we are living.
Eyes that see
are the same eyes that don't see,
waiting us to open ourselves
to what is here and now
but turning the light around
and seeking within the switch
that turns the light on
and enables us to see what we are looking at
for the very first time.
Wildflower Grassland 01 10/04/2020 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina
What would it take for you to be at peace with your life
just as it is?
Which includes doing what it takes
to make your life more like it needs to be
than it is.
What does your life need to be
that it isn't?
Where is your life deficient?
Where is your life excessive?
Where is your life being neglected/ignored?
Where is your life being restricted/confined?
Where is your life being overrun/violated/disrupted?
In what ways do you need help with your life?
To what degree are you aware
of your relationship with your life?
In what ways does your life reflect/exhibit/express/incarnate/reveal
who you are?
In what ways does your life inhibit/conceal/deny/oppose/repress who you are?
How would you describe your relationship with your life?
In what ways do you tend and serve your life?
In what ways do you expect your life to tend and serve you?
In what ways do you cooperate/collaborate with your life?
In what ways do you contend/clash with your life?
What do you need from your life?
What does your life need from you?
–0–
01
The Horse Barn 10/04/2020 01 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
If you wait until you are drowning
to learn how to swim,
you make it harder on yourself
than it needs to be.
See how many places you can apply
this pithy little insight
throughout your life.
It will change your life.
Muscadine and Sourwood 10/03/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina, an iPhone Photo
Living from our own center
with nothing at stake in the outcome
is like singing in the shower,
or dancing in the rain.
It is a spontaneous,
impromptu,
improvisational
response to our situation as it arises
and opens before us,
calling us to dance with life
in becoming one with the moment
and the opportunity it offers us
to express ourselves
by offering what is ours to give
in response to the need of the moment
and the time that is at hand.
And this,
without contrivance
or agenda,
or any thought of what is in it for us,
or how we might seize the moment
for our benefit,
advantage,
gain
or profit,
and "come out ahead"
in any sense of the term.
We're dancing, man!
"And there is only the dance!"
(T.S. Eliot)
The key to living well
is to live as though we are dancing.
When the music begins,
our cares drop away.
We don't know who the President is,
or what our worries are,
or how we are going to manage
with "the wolf at our door."
We dance.
And dancing brings forth
the joy of life.
The joy of being here, now,
alive in this moment
and able to dance.
The music is there in every moment,
waiting for ears that hear,
and toes that tap,
and hearts that can dance with life!
–0–
01
Two Rocks 02 09/24/2004 –Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine
Abraham's retort to God,
"Shall not the judge of the earth do right?"
is one Job should have used.
Instead, Job cowers before the "Might Makes Right" defense
God uses to justify leaving Job unprotected against the wiles of Satan.
And Baruch would have done well to use it
against God's, "I'll give you your life as a prize of war,"
excuse for refusing to be more of a
"very present help in time of trouble."
The question is one we shun and ostracize
in the forlorn hope that God will make it up to us
if we are patient and faithful
in trusting ourselves to the ultimate triumph of "God's Plan"
at work through inconceivable evil
to save the day and all the long-suffering True Believers
at the End of Time.
Habakkuk and Jesus stand out in having
the courage of their own convictions,
in declaring their loyalty and allegiance
to doing what is right in each situation as it arises,
no matter what--
with the outcome playing no part
in their ongoing and eternal devotion
to doing what needs to be done
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
their whole life long.
In so doing,
they point the way for us all.
Why something happens
or fails to happen
is irrelevant to the situation at hand.
Doing what is called for here and now
is our only concern.
"Here we are--now what?"
is our response to the times
all the time.
How we answer that question,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
sets the tone
and establishes the rhythm
of our life,
and shapes the future
better than any assortment of beliefs
and statements of faith
ever could.
Believe whatever you want,
but do what needs to be done!
Here and now and always and forever!
Two Barns 08/10/2019 Panorama — Kershaw County, South Carolina
Our life forms itself around us,
reflecting our choices and decisions
exhibiting our preferences and inclinations,
expressing our degree of creativity and courage...
We are content seeking shape and form.
Our life becomes us so.
And we blame our circumstances.
"If we had had more of this
and less of that!"
If this! If that!
Well.
Easy to say.
Maybe. Maybe Not.
What we know is that
we are the one constant
through all of the times and places,
chances and opportunities,
contexts and circumstances
of our life,
and here we are now.
We are the content,
and this is the shape and form.
If we would prefer a different shape,
a better form,
we only have the content to work with.
How different can we be in the time left for living?
If you are serious about finding out,
sit before a mirror
and see who looks back at you.
Consider the content of you,
and what is revealed/concealed
by your appearance,
body language--
including posture
and facial expression--
tone of voice
physical shape
and overall demeanor.
Take up the practice
of changing your content
and seeing what shifts
your shape and form
take in response
to the shifts made in content.
It will be a game
you play with yourself
for the rest of your life.
–0–
02
Goldenrod 01 10/01/2020–22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
We could make a list--
and probably should--
of the people who know the truth
when they see it,
as a source of encouragement
and motivation
in our own work
to see what we look at
and know what's what.
George Carlin
Claudia Conway
Dolly Parton
Linda Ronstadt
Eddie Murray
Richard Pryor
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
Al Franken
...
Who stands out for you?
Let them be your soulmates,
your guides,
your gurus,
your spiritual family,
the people you turn to
in time of trouble.
Nobody can do it for long alone.
Not even the people on your list!
Live to be on somebody's list--
and keep going!
–0–
01
Water Rock Knob 10/29/2014 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Maggie Valley, North Carolina
The old adage gets to the heart of the matter:
"It's all grist for the mill."
What are we milling is the question.
What are we working to get,
acquire,
amass,
attain,
achieve,
have,
do,
be?
What is it going to take
for us to be
at absolute peace
with the life we are living?
What are we milling?
Producing?
Manufacturing?
Making?
Constructing?
Creating?
Processing?
Assembling?
Putting together?
What is guiding our boat
on its path through the sea?
How we discern a favorable wind
from and ill wind?
A good place to be
from where we have no business being?
What is our business?
What are we about?
What are we milling?
Where are we going?
How will we know when we arrive?
Who are we trying to please?
How do we know what is pleasing?
Who says so?
How did they become the voice of authority
ruling over our life?
What makes us think they know what is pleasing?
Our life is based on what?
What is guiding our boat
on its path through the sea?
Valley View 04/26/2006 — Yosemite National Park, Mariposa County, California
We hide ourselves
and hide from ourselves.
We speak in code about ourselves
and to ourselves.
Dismissing.
Disregarding.
Discounting.
Denying.
Ignoring.
What is important
in favor of what is trivial
and essentially non-essential.
We only have to look a our life
to know it is so.
Our life conceals and reveals us.
Our choices disclose and obscure us.
We don't like ourselves
and it shows.
Nothing is more apparent
than our refusal to be who we are.
We have what remains
of the time left for living
to turn the light around,
and redeem what needs redeeming
by serving the destiny
we abandoned shortly after birth.
We start by sitting down,
being quiet,
and meeting what meets us
in the silence
with nowhere to hide--
holding everything that comes up
in our awareness,
with compassion,
without judgment or opinion,
just seeing,
just knowing,
just looking,
just listening,
just being
with what is being with us,
waiting for the way
to open before us,
trusting ourselves
to know when it does.
The Way doesn't get any clearer than this:
Do your thing
with nothing at stake in the outcome.
In each situation as it arises.
That is all there is to it.
Or ever has been.
–0–
02
Ace Basin Collage 01/29/2015 — Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Hollywood, South Carolina
We create the future
by the way we respond to our present.
Each present moment--
every here-and-now--
is a fulcrum,
a pivot point,
shifting how things are
into how things will be.
If things are to be different.
We have to think differently.
We have to live differently.
We have to see differently.
We have to interpret/evaluate/understand differently.
We have to be different.
We have to become different.
Here/Now.
We tend to think we are perfect as we are,
and it is our surroundings,
our circumstances,
that have to change.
If we want things to change
in relation to us,
we have to change
in relation to things.
It starts with us.
We are holding things in place
by the way we respond to things.
Until that changes,
nothing changes
(No matter how much it appears to change).
If things change
without our attitude changing,
nothing is different,
regardless of how much it changes.
The changes that make a difference
take place behind our eyes,
between our ears.
–0–
01
Mushrooms 01 09/30/2020 — 22-Acre Woods, Indian Land, South Carolina
Happiness is not a function of circumstance or occasion.
Happiness is a function of perspective,
of evaluation.
Happiness is a way of seeing/being.
Why not be happy?
With things just as they are?
Why not say YES! to life just as it is?
Why not, as Joseph Campbell suggested,
"participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world"?
Campbell also said,
"The warrior's approach is to say 'yes' to life: 'yea' to it all."
And,
"We are not there until we can say 'yea' to it all."
And,
"As you proceed through life, following you own path,
birds will shit on you. Don't bother to brush it off."
(Pay it no mind.
Live to do what you are doing!)
And,
"Getting a comedic view of your situation
gives you spiritual distance.
Having a sense of humor saves you."
And,
"The very cave you are afraid to enter
turns out to be the source
of what you are looking for.
The damned thing in the cave
that was so dreaded
has become the center."
And,
The path requires "the love of your fate.
Whatever your fate is,
whatever the hell happens,
you say, 'This is just what I need!'
It may look like a wreck,
but go at it as though it were an opportunity,
a challenge.
If you bring love to that moment--
not discouragement--
you will find the strength is there."
And,
"Nothing can happen to you that is not positive."
And
"When we are on our own path,
what we need comes along just when we need it."
And,
"Have a theory that if you on your own path,
things are going to come to you.
Since it is your own path,
and no one has ever been on it before,
there is no precedent,
so everything that happens
is a surprise and is timely...
Nothing is routine,
nothing is taken for granted.
Everything is standing out on its own,
because everything is a possibility,
everything is a clue,
everything is talking to you."
Happiness is a function of perspective,
perception and evaluation.
Happiness is a function
of how we see what we look at,
of what we tell ourselves
about what we see.
We are either on the adventure
of being who we are,
where we are,
when we are,
how we are,
or not.
"The future is up to us!"
(Enola Holmes)
"Anything can happen,
if you let it!"
(Mary Poppins)
"Whose side are you on?"
(Jim Dollar)
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 