Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

Everything spins according to 
the outcome we want to achieve.

It's the Rorschach applied to dreams
and life.
What do we see when we look?
At whatever we look at?
What do we see when we look again?

What do we want to see?
What do we want it to be?
What we look at.
What do we want it to be?

We write the script.
We control the narrative.
We say what's what
and it becomes so,
like that,
just what we say it is.

But, what is it beyond our spin?
What is it to itself?
According to its own spin?

People of color
carry the weight of the white people's spin.
White people cannot see people of color
apart from white people's spin.

White supremacists,
racists,
will never see people of color
as anything other 
than what the supremacists/racists
say they are.

Our biases show us how we see.

How do we get away from our biases
in order to see what we don't see
when we look with the spin of our biases
blinding our eyes?

I recommend highly distancing ourselves
from ourselves.
Meet everything we say with questions.
Don't take anything we say as the truth,
but as spin.

We spin everything.
We live in a spin show.
If we are going to see,
we have to see our looking for what it is,
our spinning for what it is.

Vet everything we say,
everything we believe,
everything we think...

Get to the bottom of what makes you think it is so!
Do not quit until you see your seeing for what it is--
A spin show.
Spinning everything
to support your biases,
to save yourself the trouble--
the pain--
of changing your mind
about all of the things you think are so
without thinking about what makes you think so.

Emptiness, you know.
As empty of thought and emotion
as the place between breaths.

Breathe in for a count of 5,
out for a count of 5,
pause between breaths for a count of 5.
Be empty like the pause between breaths.

Stillness.
Silence.
Listening.
Looking.
Asking the questions that beg to be asked
of everything you hear and see.
Saying the things that cry out to be said
of everything you hear and see and ask
of everything you hear and see.

This is a meditation on spin.
Getting to the bottom of you.

If it becomes too much,
return to your breathing.
In for 5,
out for 5,
pause for 5,
as many rounds as it takes 
to become calm and balanced,
working on getting to the bottom of you
and the world as you spin it,
hoping to just see,
just hear,
just know,
in order to just respond to what is happening
with what needs to be done,
without getting in the way
with spins and scripts and narratives,
spun, written, spoken with biases in charge,
in control,
in command.

We are taking ourselves back
one round of 5 breaths at a time.

Letting our biases take a walk
away from our life
for what remains to be lived of it.

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The super weapons we all possess
are our perspective,
perceptions,
awareness,
clarity,
instincts,
intuition,
sense of timing,
awareness of the path,
accord with the flow of vitality/life,
our original nature
and innate virtues/specialties.

Trusting ourselves to these inner quailities
and sensitive to the coincidental alignment
of outer circumstances,
we are well-equipped to find our way
through the labyrinth of our life
in the service of that which needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
and allowing nature take its course. 

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We live looking for diversion/distraction/entertainment--
anything to pass the time
with nothing worth our time to do.

The same old same old gets boring fast.
There is nothing in any of it
that interests us,
enthuses us,
captures our attention
and our presence
so that we lose track of time
and can't believe it is next month already,
shocked at how time flies
when you are intent on what you're doing.

How long has it been?
Intent on what we are doing?

When did we lose interest?

What would it take to ignite it again?

What piques our creativity,
imagination,
enthusiasm for life/living/being alive?

What keeps us in place,
not caring, not looking, not wondering?

What makes anything beyond
the same old same old 
too much trouble?

Internet searches are no trouble at all.
Ferret out the similarities and differences
between Gnosticism and Alchemy,
and what the Holy Catholic Church
and heresy trials/persecution 
had to do with the demise of both--
and see where that leads.

The idea here is to just start walking/looking.
The Alchemists had a saying:
"One book opens another."

One door does the same thing.
Open a door, anywhere, to see what is there,
and, more importantly, to see what other doors
that door opens.

Live in the service of your interest
in being alive,
and let it take you where it will.

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Security and stability are the two big ones
when it comes to the necessary foundation
for a life well-lived.

We have to be able to pay the bills
and not worry about where to spend the night
or if we will eat the next day.

After that comes #3:
We have to incur the right bills!
The bills that are necessary
for us to buy the tools required
to live the life that is our life to live.

That is #4.
We have to know what life is our life to live.
It is not what we want to do that matters,
but what is ours to do,
what we must do,
what we are compelled to do,
what we are obliged to do,
what has both a sense of vitality about it,
so that our heart is in it,
and also a sense of urgency about it,
so that we don't put it off indefinitely,
but know that we have to be about it NOW.

Writing has always been in the mix for me,
and a camera.
I have never known what that meant,
and have slowly worked it out over time,
writing whatever seemed to need writing,
and photographing whatever seemed to need photographing.

I'm still following that paradigm.
The ministry was a good fit,
and gave me enough time of my own
to read what I wanted,
take whatever courses/seminars/retreats
that caught my eye,
and here I am,
by accident, one might say,
but also by design,
or better, perhaps,
that I could not have designed it better
than it has worked out for me,
just by following my interests
and being true to what had my name on it.

Having the first three items on the list in place
enabled me to live in the service of the fourth
over the course of my life,
saying, "Yes," to whatever needed saying "Yes" to,
and saying "No," to whatever needed saying "No" to.

That seemed to come easy for me,
knowing what was "Yes," and what was "No."
Like what book to read next,
and what books to not read at all.
What movies to watch
and what movies to have nothing to do with.

Everything flowed for me out of "Yes," and "No."

I don't know how it will be for you,
but I trust you to find your way,
just by being interested in seeing 
what attracts you,
interests you,
compels you,
calls your name.

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We live to balance the contradictory forces of life
in our life and world.

We live for the sake of balance and harmony,
avoiding the extremes,
honoring the flow--
which includes the ebb and flow
of circumstances
and situations as they arise,
keeping an eye on our inner harmony
within the outer requirements
and needs
of when/where/how things are
and what is needed here/now
throughout each day.

We understand there are no
steady states of being,
that all things dance
with all things
in the constantly moving 
scale of life,
with everything/one playing its/their part
in the jazz/jam session each day produces
out of what/who shows up
in the moment at hand
to blend with the flow and the beat
of what's happening now
and produce the wonder of being alive
in the present experience
of every day.

And all the children sang,
"Yea! Amen! May it be so!"

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What keeps us from being
what the situation is calling us to be?

Lack of awareness/clarity.

Lack of interest.

Desire--there is something we want,
are more interested in--
than what the situation needs/is calling for. 

Fear--we are distracted by concern
for our interests.

Sloth/laziness/lethargy--maybe tomorrow,
some other time, later, one day.

Ignorance--we have no idea what
the situation is calling for,
or why we should care.
And we have no idea of how
to tune into the moment,
read the situation as it arises,
know what's what
and what needs to be done in response,
or how/when/where to do it...

From the start,
we should have been coached
as to how to attend our life
and live attentively to our life,
our circumstances,
our situations...

How to be aware of
and present with
what is happening within and without,
moment by moment,
and to know what to do with/about
the information that is present with us
in each moment.

But.
We were born into a world
that was as clueless as we were
fresh from the womb.
And we live in a world
that is as clueless as we are
about what's what
and what needs to be done about it.

We are all starting fresh off the tree,
and no one knows, 
no, not one.

Except, of course, for the old yogis,
Taoist sages and Zen masters
who knew all this beginning around 1,000 BCE,
or earlier.
And were ignored because their knowledge
had no practical application--
you couldn't use it to become wealthy
and powerful, 
only useful and helpful,
contented, peaceful,
joyful with ease of life
and well-being.

Things money cannot buy.

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How far away from who we are
can we live
without developing symptoms,
incurring the wrath of the neglected life
and being lost in the wasteland 
of endless discontent?

And, when we are born into a cultural 
and social ecosystem
which denies there is an Axis Mundi,
or "center pole/axis,"
or "essential identity,"
for each of us
around which we are designed/built to live,
and provides us with no help
or direction
to guide us along a reliable path
to finding ourselves,
what are our chances?

We all opt for desirable substitutes,
built around having our way
and getting what we want,
when, as it turns out,
those are the things that get in our way
and lead us farther into "the gathering gloom"
that is our future,
decreasing exponentially 
whatever chances we ever had.

There are no systems designed to come to our aid.
All of the available systems
fail to provide what we need
in terms of awareness, realization/recognition, clarity.

We are on our own.
But there are guides from the past,
if we are lucky enough to stumble upon them
and have the good fortune to listen 
to what resonates within 
to what is going on without,
there IS a chance, though small,
of finding the connections 
that make the link with how things are
and what needs to be done about it,
and leads us to light arising
from emptiness/stillness/silence
to seeing/hearing/knowing/understanding/doing/being
that is the path to who we are
and what is ours to do
past all of the false hopes
and empty promises
to our heart's true song
and our body's true home
of our original nature
and innate virtues/specialties
that form our identity
and produce the life that is ours to live,
if we but trust ourselves to the path
and start walking.

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What's your point?
What are you here for?
Why are you here?
What are you doing here?

Your point is to laugh at these questions,
and on on about your business
without caring what your point is.

What's the point of a moose?
Of a daffodil?
Of a dew drop?
Of a snow flake?
Of the universe?

None of these things know or care
what their point is or may be or should be.

But they all know what their business is,
and take care of it.

"Rhiannon Giddens has won the 2023 Pulitzer in Music for 'Omar,' her opera about a Black Muslim scholar," wrote Nancy Mclaughlin
of the Greensboro News and Record.

Rhiannon Giddens knows what her business is: Music
but she doesn't care what her point is.
Or what the point of music is.
Her business is giving herself to music
and letting the outcome be the outcome.
And she has won at least two Grammy's,
is a MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient,
and is allowing the road to open before her
as she takes care of business.

Lao Tzu said, 500 or so BCE,
"Do your work and step back.
Let nature take its course."

Know what your business is and take care of it,
and let the outcome be the outcome.

That's the way moose do it,
and daffodils,
dew drops,
snow flakes,
and the universe...

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