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?
This is a meditative icon, which every image is, with all art being the doorway/threshold between worlds, inviting us to behold the wonder of moving from one world to another in perceiving the wonder of the art object and its ability to transport us from world to world.
The water fountain is a Portkey, carrying us from this world to worlds beyond this world in the way that all art objects work to engage our imagination, call forth our meditative powers, and bring us to life by asking us to ponder the moment presented to us here, now, and see where it goes.
The fountain, the stones, the moon, and the viewer.
The four pillars of TRUTH.
With imagination being equal to water, rocks and moon in ushering us into the mystery--and inviting us to behold--the mystery of life and being here, now, in contemplating, experiencing, the radiance of all of it together in this time and place, and of everything that played a part in bringing us together here, now, to see, know the awe of the all, the whole, and the parts. One with the all, the whole, the parts--always and forever. World without end. Amen.
The still point of the turning world. The wellspring of living water. The water of life. Reviving our body. Renewing our spirit. Restoring our soul. A quiet pool. In a green space. A place of rest and wellbeing. Now and forever always.
Fall Tree — Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
We have to make our peace with our life from start to finish. And "beyond a certain age" life holds all of the cards. My wife and I are making the requisite concessions and maintaining our spirits and sense of humor, while awaiting The Event (The fall, the stroke, the diagnosis, etc., that announces Assisted Living to one degree or another. But we realize the inevitabilities our place in life invites, suggests, implies, and face the future with that in mind.
Death presents no problems for me, I look forward to the experience in anticipation of what's there. It is getting there that is the problem! Being able to count on physician-assisted suicide would be such a relief.
Absent that, I take solace in emptiness, stillness, silence, and find there the solace and consolation--the reassurance that I have all the help anyone in my place could hope to have. With the foundation in place, I ease into tomorrow without expectation, anxiety, opinion, fear, uncertainty, confident that I will do what I am able to do about what is called for, knowing no one can do more than that.
I am also comforted with my "Inner Companions," my original nature, innate virtues, inherent imagination and intrinsic intuition. The time spent developing my communion with these "inner others," has proved to be of value beyond all imagining, and enables a sense of humor shared around the invisible circle throughout each day.
The Democrat platform forever needs to be Liberty! Justice! Equality! Truth! Health Care! Child Care! Jobs! Livable Minimum Wages! Education (Including Reasonable Student Loans)! ... You know--like that! This is not hard. People need help with their lives. Government is here to help people with their lives. With Fascism and White Supremacy (The same thing) out of the way, helping people with their lives should be an easy thing to do. Republicans who do not want to do that should not be elected to office. I am an old stupid dumb guy and I know this much.
What floats your boat? Stokes your bliss? Comforts your soul? Warms your heart? Brings peace to life? Where do you go/What do you do to take care of yourself?
I think of me as being composed of my original nature, my innate virtues (The things I do best and enjoy doing most), my inherent intuition, and my intrinsic intuition.
I drop into emptiness, stillness, silence and listen. I notice when something is trying to get my attention when I am not intentionally open to that, and am always amazed at how things break into my life with something I need to say, or do, or tend to here, now.
And how I am guided/led from here to there every day, so that I make few plans and always trust myself to be led along the way all the time.
And how things work out. How this leads to that. How "one book opens another" (A Gnostic phrase that did not die as the Gnostics were being wiped out by those who knew best and had to be pleased at no matter what the cost).
If we don't shut the guiding urges, leanings, urgencies out, we will be carried all along the way--not to wealth and fame and worldly success, but to being where we did not know we needed to be, doing what we did not know we needed to do, and being stunned by amazement and wonder and awe at the whole damned thing. And that is what life is all about. Shutting up and listening, and doing what we know needs us to do it.
We should have role models showing us how to do that from birth to death. What could be more important than that?
Wanting, getting, acquiring, amassing, having, owning, hoarding, etc. fuels our journey, provides purpose and meaning to our days. If it weren't for that, what would we do?
The emptiness of a life overflowing with stuff is reflected in, exhibited by, addictive attraction to drugs, sex, alcohol and an aimless wandering through our birthdays with nothing to indicate that we are actually alive.
What brings us to life? Where is our joy to be found?
Start with that, and stay there, needing only enough money to pay the right bills.
Want only to do what is called for in each situation as it arises. And see where it goes.
I know where to put the tripod. I have always known where to put the tripod. And that knowing is not something I can claim as having generated. It is something that I have received, recognized, acknowledged. I do not create it--I simply know it.
If you are quiet, silent, still, empty of all thoughts, emotions, memories, desires/wants, etc. you will know what you know without knowing how you know it. Dig in there. Pay attention there. Hand yourself over there. Look closer there. And see where it goes.
We have what remains of our life to foster who we are by attending what we do best and enjoy doing most. I call that our "innate Virtues." If we focus on doing that which we do best/enjoy most, in light of our original nature and our inherent intuition and our intrinsic imagination, we will be bringing ourselves to life in the time left for living.
And that is all that can be asked of any of us.
When we make us our project and our practice, by listening to ourselves and doing what we know to be called for, when, where and how it is called for in each situation as it arises, we will be doing all that can be asked of any of us.
Our life will be our hobby then, and we will be as alive as we can ever hope to be.
And this will not be about what we have or how successful we are, but who we become simply by being who we are, doing what we do best and enjoy doing most. And what's not to love about that?
Who was it who said, "It is the wave's place to realize it is the ocean"? This realization makes meditation simply a matter of relaxing into "Peaceful abiding, here, now." It can't be about achieving anything, accomplishing anything, doing anything. The wave doesn't achieve, accomplish, do anything to be the ocean. Meditation doesn't achieve, accomplish, do anything to be the Buddha. What's with striving? We already ARE! What more is there to BE? We are the wave striving to be the sea. What sense does that make? How hard could that be?
1. Orthodoxy killed Jesus. The Priests, the Elders, The Scribes and Pharisees, the Sanhedrin were all the epitome of Orthodoxy. As to their faith they were without sin. So don’t hang your hat on orthodoxy. There is nothing, Biblically speaking, to commend it.
2. Jesus was crucified for heresy and blasphemy. And he told his disciples, and all would be disciples, “Come, follow me.” We aren’t following Jesus if we aren’t being accused on a regular basis of heresy and blasphemy—and being guilty as charged.
3. The Garden of Eden did not have latitude and longitude. It did not exist. Adam and Eve did not commit the unforgivable sin and their descendants were not cursed for all eternity for the sin of their parents, and no one is guilty of a fall from grace necessitating atonement and redemption.
4. Jesus came to correct the error of purity and perfection. He did not come to tell the children of Israel to try harder. He came to tell them to stop trying at all. “If you don’t receive the Kingdom of God as a child, you will never enter it,” he said. He came to do away with guilt and shame and to usher in the age of peace and goodwill when the Temple would become the House of Prayer for all Nations. And toward that end he told the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Have you heard of that one? Why don’t we get it? It has slipped by the sentinels, the watchers, the guardians of orthodoxy all these years.
The Prodigal never said he was sorry for all he had done. He said, “If I tell my father I am sorry for all I have done, he will be forgiving and give me a better life than I have here.” So he goes home, practicing his lines all the way. And when he arrives there, his father sees him coming from a half-mile away and runs to greet him with open arms with words of welcome, “O my son, You were lost and now are found, you were dead but now, you are alive, welcome home, my son, my son.” And the Prodigal stumbles to get his speech out but his father stops him with “Get out of here with that litany of forgiveness and pardon! (Or words to that effect), “This is no place for that! You were lost but now are found! You were dead but now. You are alive!”
We talk about forgiveness, but it is mercy that we seek. Mercy that we need. That is what greeted the Prodigal. Compare his greeting with the Orthodox portrayal of Saint Peter at the gate reading from the book of life in which is recorded all the sins of those seeking entrance to heaven, and the Orthodox image does not fare well. Mercy has it all over forgiveness!
And Jesus knew what he was doing. Jesus was suggesting that God will welcome us all as the Prodigal’s father welcomed him. Jesus was saying, “Sin is not a problem with the Father!” And the Orthodox gate-keepers missed it! It got by! But we all have missed it! It continues to get by! And my question is “What would the Prodigal have to have done for his Father to tell him, “You go to hell! You are no son of mine!”? What would amount to the end of mercy? And the answer of course is “There is nothing he could have done. He would always be welcome home!”
Mercy ALWAYS WINS! Amen! And so it is. Was he a heretic? He is welcome here! He is my son, my son!” This is the God Jesus came to announce. But the early church got its hand on the script and did its best to scrub out Jesus’ message, and put his words in red to emphasize what it wanted its members to read, so that the church had the power to determine who was saved and went to heaven and who was lost forever in the molten lava lakes of hell.
Finding our niche and our schtick and our hangouts is finding ourselves. Which makes me easy to locate. I stand out like a snag on a mountain ridge. I am peculiar that way. And not particularly accessible, which is the driving idea.
On the other hand, I'm eager to talk to anyone about the things I find interesting. Why we see the way we do, for instance. How we know where we belong and where we have no business being. What guides our boat on its path through the sea. How we find our direction in life.
I think it may have been the short-lived Gnostics (I will grieve that loss forever!) who recommended letting one book open another, and people who do that naturally have a link to an inner guide who can be trusted in all matters great and small--and provides a great segue here regarding deliberately, consciously, shifting from wanting as a guide for life to knowing as the primary method of knowing what to do when, where and how.
When we live from knowing, we are at one with the inner way, with "the beam," and nothing can knock us off it. I take that to be the authentic "Gnostic Way," which was so much of a threat to the Christian mind-controlling, top down, outside in way of directing the "life of the church," that the church felt it had to murder them all because "the Gnostic Way" was such a threat to the Church's dogmatic, self-serving, manner of directing all aspects of life and being.
Which is to say that I enjoy keeping company with those who like their own company and know what they need to be doing without being lost in a crowd doing the same things.
Knowing our Inner Knower and doing what we know needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, is Taoist to the core, and flows straight from our Original Nature and our Inherent Intuition and our Innate Virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most). And puts us in the inner-directed loop of those who are best friends with being silent, empty and still, waiting to catch their drift of soul in order to know what's what, what that calls for and what they need to do to be a part of what's going on--from the inside out, bottom up, heart/soul led all the way.
Wanting is the origin of all of our problems today, every day. Take the word "want" out of our vocabulary and our difficulties disappear like that (Snaps fingers).
The old Taoists and Buddhists and everyone who knows anything have known this from the beginning.
Speaking of the beginning, there is Adam and Eve wanting, and here we are. From the start wanting has been at the bottom of everything that is wrong with the world.
And while we are on the subject, let me remind us that the Garden of Eden never existed. There was no Adam, there was no Eve.
There was no beginning.
"Circumstances begetting circumstances" is all there ever has been, or will be. Circumstances generally fueled by somebody wanting something.
It is past time we were through with wanting forever.
In the place of wanting, we ask ourselves, "What is called for, here, now?
Doing what the situation, the circumstances, call for is putting things back on track. Back "on the beam."
Joseph Campbell said, "We know when we are on the beam and when we are off it." What does being off the beam call for? Do that and everything takes a turn for the better, like that (Ditto above).
So, when we get rid of wanting and begin living in the service of what is called for, no matter what we want, everything takes a turn toward the best of all possible worlds.
All because we quit wanting/caring about things we have no business wanting/caring about.
Just do what is called for here, now, and let the outcome be the outcome. And let nature take its course. And let things happen as they need to happen. And see what happens. Please.
Heresy is the path to truth. Is truth. Truth is not static. Frozen. The same forever. "The Spirit is like the wind that blows where it will." "The old has passed away! Behold! The new has come!" If we aren't thinking things we have never thought before, we aren't thinking. We are remembering.
To be alive is to experience things for the first time. How long has it been? Silence is never the same. Dreaming the same dream means we haven't gotten it yet. And it is very important that we get it. So, whatever we think it is about is not what it is about. So we sit down with that dream and don't get up until it has shown us what we need to see.
The same goes for everything that is the same old same old. Nothing is the same for those with eyes that see. So we sit down with the things we always think until we see them for the first time.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 