Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

When we merge with the flow
of what has life for us,
with where our joy is to be found,
and make that the path we follow
through the circumstances of existence,
things shift for us in substantial ways.

The way we structure our days changes.
The things we talk about
and read changes.
The questions we become interested in
are not the questions we once 
were interested in.

We say "No" more often.
Our life simplifies.
Quietens.
Softens.

And the wind of the spirit
that blows where it will
is always in our hair.

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Life without theology and doctrine
is as spiritual as it gets.

Theology and doctrine are sidetracks,
wilderness bound.

Emptiness, stillness, silence and solitude
flow straight from the heart
of transcendence and life.

The essence of spirituality is flow and life.

We all have--and have had--experiences
with the flow of interest and enthusiasm
carrying us to vitality and life.

Joseph Campbell called it "following our bliss."
It is going where we are drawn,
being led,
carried,
directed,
guided,
and fed.

This is the quintessential religious experience,
where we know we are not our own,
but belong to more than we know,
to more than meets the eye,
and can trust ourselves to that
with all of our life and being.

"That" is central to us,
and always "right there,"
without theology or doctrine,
and is "more than words can say."

Which is what everyone who knows knows.

Lao Tzu and all the old Taoists said,
"The Tao that can be said/told/explained
is not the eternal Tao."
A phrase that is better translated by Martin Palmer as:
"A path that can be discerned as a path
is not a reliable path."

Jesus said as much with his,
"The spirit is like the wind
that blows where it will."

No catechism or Book of Doctrine
or Collection of Sermons,
can say anything,
for all their words,
about that which they speak.

We are much better off not saying,
but simply living out of 
the flow of life
as it leads us with the pull of life
to where we need to be
and away from where we have no business being.

Find the path that is life for you,
even though it cannot be discerned as a path,
and trust yourself to it,
bliss leading to bliss.

You may not make a lot of money,
but money cannot buy what you have.

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Honoring our original nature
and our innate virtues/specialties
is finding our stride,
our flow--
the flow of life--
and being sensitive to 
what needs to happen
(And needs not to happen)
in each situation as it arises,
and waiting for the propitious moment
when the time is right for it to happen
(Or not happen),
so that we move with the circumstances
as they shift and change
throughout our day.

This is quite different 
from having a plan
and implementing it with precision
in order to do/achieve what we want
to happen
throughout the day,
with our lists of things to do
and a time table for getting it done.

The times themselves have priority
over our wants and needs.
Knowing what time it is
and what it is time for
are different things.

Divorcing ourselves from our 
day-timers 
and our schedules
is opening ourselves to 
the flow of life
and the requirements for life,
and the time to sense 
what life is asking of us
here/now,
moment-to-moment
throughout each day.

It is a different way of life,
and one we have to accommodate ourselves to
in learning to listen to our body
and see what is happening
on all levels of each situation
that comes our way,
and responding appropriately
to what is being called for
in the times as they unfold before us
from day to day.

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Dharma is the way things are--
"The eternal and inherent nature of reality"--
and our place,
according to Hindu and Buddhist lore,
is to "allow all that obscures 
'the complete essence of everything'
to fall away,
and become aware of/familiar with
our own original nature."

"Our own original nature" shines through
in seeing/knowing what we do best,
and seeing/knowing what brings us to life
by being a source of vitality/enthusiasm/interest/motivation
for us.

What do you want/need to do to the point
of letting nothing stand in your way
or prevent you from doing it?

Don't know?
Nothing comes to mind?
Step into the silence,
open and curious,
and see what stirs to life,
emerges,
occurs to you,
becomes apparent.

Only the silence knows/reveals
the deepest things about us.
Go there often just to listen/see.

Joseph Campbell said,
"Most of our action is economically
and socially determined,
and does not flow out of our life,
from the vital instincts
that direct us to life
and call us forth into life."

He said, "The claims of the environment
upon us are so great that 
we hardly know who/where/when we are.
We are always doing something required of us.
We need a place that is sacred to us,
and spend time there
in order to sort it out.
Find what makes your heart sing,
and see what comes forth from that."

In the normal day-to-day of our life
we encounter one distraction after another.
This is "the noise of the 10,000 things."
In the midst of all this,
we have to engage the silence
in a way that leads us to the immovable center--
"the still point of the turning world" (Eliot)--
that grounds us and enables us 
to see past the distractions
and know the unshakeable truth
of our own inner nature
and to live outwardly in ways
that honor that,
bring that forth
with fealty,
liege loyalty,
filial devotion,
unwavering allegiance,
come what may.

When we live like this,
we have it made,
and know it.
Then, there is only 
being true to it
in every situation as it arises
for the rest of our time on earth.

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We have what we need
to find what we need
to do what needs us to do it
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

We come out of the womb
knowing how to find a nipple,
knowing how to stretch
and how to yawn,
how to sneeze and hic-up,
and fill a diaper
all without being told a thing.

We are prepared to find our way.

But.

We are born into a culture
that talks all the time
and discourages us at every turn
from listing to ourselves
and knowing what we have to say.

The culture imposes itself upon us,
thinking, as it does, that it knows 
more than we do about who we need to be
and what we are supposed to do.

And so, the divide.

We live a long time learning 
to find our way back to ourselves,
back where we started,
and know what we know,
and trust ourselves to find what we need
to be who we are
and do what needs to be done
all the rest of the way.

May it turn out this way for all of us,
all the rest of the way!

–0–

What does wanting know?

What does wanting care?

Wanting only works as a guide to life,
through life,
if it knows what it ought to want,
and cares about doing it,
and does it where, when and how
it needs to be done
reliably,
dependably,
regularly,
relentlessly
over the full course of our life.

Can we be right about what ought to be done--
what needs to be done--
and do it where, when and how 
it needs to be done
whether we want to or not?

That is the only thing that matters.

If we do it for the money,
we are something money can buy.

A quick look around
will reveal what money knows,
cares about,
and does.
Money has created the world we live in.

Money only cares about making more money,
in a "Profit At Any Price" kind of way.

If money is all we want,
money will be all we have--
along with the sex, drugs, alcohol
and quality of life that goes with it.

And so, the adage,
"Be careful about what you want,
and know whether it is worth having,
before you sell yourself in its service."

And the other one,
"If you are going to want anything,
want what ought to be, needs to be, should be wanted.
In each situation as it arises.
Want what maintains, sustains, honors and serves
the flow of life and being
by doing what is called for
in each here/now that comes along--
no matter what."

What do we do "no matter what"?
How do we gauge whether it needs to be done?

What guides our boat on its path through the sea?

Is it wanting?

Or, wanting what ought to be/needs to be wanted--
and doing that no matter what?

–0–

Jesus' most profound saying is,
"The spirit is like the wind
that blows where it will."

That does what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done
because it needs to be done
for the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it,
in each situation as it arises
all your life long.

And what that will be
and what should be done about it
cannot be known in advance.
No one knows where the wind will blow next,
not even the wind.

Not even the spirit knows what it will be doing next.

We all have to be quiet
and see what stirs to life in the silence,
and see what emerges,
appears,
comes calling.

How quiet can you be,
for how long,
for how often
during a day?

I invite you to take up the practice--
the daily practice--
of being quiet
and see what occurs to you in the silence.

And see what shows up with a pressing urgency.

And see what you do in response.

Following/obeying/serving
the wind that blows where it will,
that flows where it is needed,
doing what needs to be done.

–0–

We invented God as the source/reason for all that is--
taking more pleasure in that
than in declaring "There is no source for all that is,
and no purpose to be found in any of it!"

Why not, "Here we are, now what?"

Why not be happy with,
"There is no purpose
beyond doing the best we can
with what we have to work with
in the service of the best we can imagine,
for the joy of doing it
and the gladness/satisfaction
of having done it"?

"There is no controlling any of it!
There is only doing our best 
in response to all of it!"

Why not just settle down with that
and enjoy what can be enjoyed?

No pantheons. 
No theology.
No doctrine.
No dogma.
No heaven.
No hell.
Just meeting the day
on the day's terms
and doing the best we can with it
in the service of the best we can imagine,
for the joy of doing it 
and the gladness/satisfaction 
of having done it
in each situation as it arises.

We all have what we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done
here and now
for as long as life lasts.

And, that is all there ever has been
to it.

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We have had the Hero Talk before,
and we will have it again,
because it is central
to being centered in/grounded upon
what matters most.

We see what matters most reflected in our heroes. 
Who are your heroes, 
fictional and actual?

It is telling, for me,
that I have no actual male heroes,
and no fictional female heroes.

My fictional male heroes are
Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird,"
and Tevya in "Fiddler on the Roof."

My actual female heroes are, in no order,
Betty White,
Helen Keller,
Eleanor Roosevelt
Dolly Parton.

I love the Tevya character,
and agonized over how he would make it
after stepping off the boat in New York,
then realized that he would make it just fine,
simply by being Tevya.

This is how all of our heroes are.
They are invincible to the degree
that they are who they are.

Betty White was always just fine
as long as she was being Betty White.
And Helen Keller,
and all the rest.

Being who we are is our solution
to all of our problems today,
any day
every day.

The trick is to be consciously connected
with our center, our ground, our core,
and live out of that--
being true to our own character--
in each situation as it arises,
all our life long.

It takes being quiet to connect with the core.

Regularly. Routinely. Religiously.

People who make a religion out of being quiet
are grounded in the truth of themselves,
and have nothing to worry about--
they just turn everything over to themselves,
and stand up and step into whatever is next.

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The only thing that separates us 
is our view of what is important. 

If we all placed the emphasis in the same place, 
we would all be one—
the same one. 

It isn’t just that we see things differently, 
from different points of view, 
from different vantage points, 
from different perspectives
from different times and places 
in the universe. 

It is that we ascribe value, 
assign meaning differently. 

We declare different things to be important, 
and unimportant. 
Our differences are differences in ways points of view.
From different vantage points,
say, the difference between two years old
and seventy-two years old,
we see more together 
than any of us can see alone.

Don't live for agreement.
Live for appreciation
and gratitude
for different points of view.

–0–

My Son-in-law Lee asked an AI bot
to explain the Tao to a six-year-old.
Here is the reply:

"Do you know what the Tao is? 
It is a word that means the way of nature. 
The way of nature is 
how everything in the world 
works together in harmony. 

The Tao is not something 
you can see or touch, 
but you can feel it in your heart. 

The Tao is like a river 
that flows through everything, 
and you are part of the river too. 

The Tao teaches us to be kind, 
humble, and peaceful, 
and to follow the natural flow of life. 

The Tao is not a religion or a rule, 
but a guide for living well."

I find this to be "transparent to transcendence,"
with "transcendence" and "tao" being the same thing.

–0–

I call this "High Mountain Lake Sunset,"
and see it as eternal and everlasting.

I created it by playing with shapes and colors,
allowing it to create itself
by showing me what it wanted to be.

All art forms itself that way,
through a "dear and glorious communion"
with some recipient of its need to be
shaped and formed into a specific shape and form
that only it foresees and serves.

For what? For the joy of it, of course.
The sheer delight of making something from nothing.
And the satisfaction of having done it.

This is what we are all about.
We work with our life,
only sensing its shape and form,
and serving our vision of what it needs to be,
is striving to become through us
by us being us to the best of our ability
at any/every point in time and place
while the opportunity lasts.

I woke up this morning thinking 
of two African/American spirituals.
"All my trials, Lord, soon be over,"
"I'm gonna lay down my burdens,
down by the riverside."

And that connected me to the "centering vision"
which came to me as a Big Dream
all those years ago.

I was told by three members of the Circle of Shamans
that I wasn't accepted as a member of the Circle.
They were an old man, who delivered the decision,
a young, warrior-Shaman, who was glad 
I didn't make the cut,
and I would never be one with him,
and middle-aged woman who was sad for me,
but resigned to serve the will of the Circle.

In the dream I was consoling her,
communing with her my understanding 
of the Circle's decision,
and agreeing with it myself,
knowing that I did not belong there,
being, as I am,
too much of a maverick, loner, unorthodox,
independent-minded person,
to exemplify any creed, or doctrine,
or way of doing things--
too much like the wind blowing where it will,
for what and why, it has no idea.

In less than six months,
I will step into my 80th year.
Out of those almost 80 years,
I have this to say to you:

Live the remainder of your days
out of your own integrity.
Be the work of art you are,
shaping and forming yourself
by what feels right,
by what you sense is using you
to bring itself forth,
like the wind that blows where it will,
for why and what, it does not care.

Just to be! Just to become!
Even now, even yet, even so!

Doing with your life as I did
with the colors and shapes
that became "High Mountain Lake Sunset,"
that became/is still becoming me,
eager to see what is to yet be/become
of all those trials that "soon be over,"
and all those burdens--
which themselves are tools the artist works with
to bring ourselves forth,
being as we are,
in the words of Alexis Carrel,
"The marble and the sculptor."

('Man cannot remake himself without suffering, 
for he is both the marble and the sculptor')

Integrity demands/requires that we be who we are,
even as we live to discover what that is
by living our way to it
following our sense of "Yes" and "No"
"any way, nevertheless, even so"!

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