Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

What catches your eye?
Sit with that,
exploring the connection.
What does that reveal to you
about you?

What has been your relationship
with the things that catch your eye?

Water does it for me.
And cypress trees.

Give me water and cypress trees
and forget about me.
I'll be fine.

Where are you fine?
Where is your solace and comfort
to be found?
What fills your heart
and restores your soul?

Spend time with those things.
Enjoy being blessed by their presence,
even though you may never understand
why them and not something else.

It is enough to know what catches your eye
and to allow it to be caught.
Too much thinking
breaks the link
which does not exist for your brain,
but for your body, heart and soul.

We feel/sense our way to life,
to the flow of life through life,
to the Tao that is the energy of life
carrying us through life.

We fine aspects of it
by knowing what catches our eye.

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The flow of energy through life
was called "The Tao" in 500-and-earlier BCE,
for lack of a better term.

"Tao" is gender-neutral
and free of the cumbersome baggage
of theology,
and cosmology,
and astrology,
and all of the other "logy's"
we have developed over time
to control/master/explain/exploit
the mystery at the heart
of life and being.

Tao is all we need.
On any level
And how many levels are there?
Inquiring minds would love to know,
and so,
we have made it all up through time,
answering all the questions,
and "accepting on faith"--
which comes down to refusing to say
we have no idea about any of it,
and can, therefore, invent
what pleases us
about all of it,
and thus we have life 
as we understand it to be,
ignoring all we do not understand,
while pretending
to know it all.

Tao puts this to rest,
and walks with us
into the darkness
and mystery
of knowing what we know
and don't know
about the things we experience, 
joyfully,
with amazement and wonder
every day,
all the way,
"dancing and singing in the rain"
and with the rain,
in the transcendent glory of it all.

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We work to keep it going
for the good of all concerned.
The good of all
is our social contract
with one another.

It is essential that we make it,
and keep it--no matter what.
No matter what we think of each other,
we work to keep it going
for the good of all concerned.

We do not evaluate the value
of one another--
we recognize and embrace the value
of all.
Everyone is of value!
And equally deserving
of the good of all.

To demean and despise the value
and rights of Trans Children,
as the Mississippi Legislature has done,
is a despicable desecration
of the social contract
that we all must acknowledge
and uphold.

Democracy is a gift
that flows around the circle
from each one of us in the circle,
and we must all do our part
in sustaining and maintaining
the gift of democracy
by acknowledging and honoring
our duty to one another 
to keep it going
for the good of all concerned.

This is basic humanity,
human decency,
extended to one another
over the entire course
of our life together.

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Go with the flow of energy
guiding you through your life
to life spilling over,
pouring out
as blessing and grace
upon you
and all those
who come your way.

Follow the flow of energy
as it leads you where you need to be,
trusting your sense of Yes and No
from here to there
day to day.

What has energy for you?
Go there!
Do that!

What drains you of energy,
shrivels your soul
dries up your well?
Stay away from that!
Have nothing to do with it!

Where are you spending your time?
With what has joy and life for you?
With what is only dry sand and hot winds?
Where do you belong?
Where do you have no business being?
What else do you need to know?

Whose permission do you need
to choose life
and live to be alive
in the time left for living?

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The heroes in Jesus' view
were the prodigal son's father,
the good Samaritan,
the sower who went out to sow,
the gardener who said,
"Let me tend the fig tree,
and give it another year."

The people who shared a cup of water
with the thirsty,
a loaf of bread
with the hungry,
who visited those in prison,
and cared for those who were sick.

Who did right by their neighbors
and were a neighbor to all.

I said, "Who were a neighbor to all."

Gay and lesbian,
transgender,
people of color,
the poor and homeless
(Of whom Jesus was one).

Everyone who needed a neighbor
had one in Jesus.

What would the prodigal son
have had to do
for his father to tell him,
"You are no son of mine!
Get out of my sight!
And don't you ever come
back around here again!"?

What would the man in the ditch
have had to have done
for the Samaritan
to spit in his direction 
and walk on by?

All it takes to be a hero
in Jesus' view
is to be kind and compassionate,
gentle and humble-hearted,
considerate and thoughtful,
a generous and just human being.

Doing what needs to be done
the way it needs to be done
when and where it needs to be done,
throughout the time left for living.

With nothing at stake in the outcome
beyond the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it,
our entire life long.

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Money is a tool
for making/buying the tools we need
to do what is ours to do
in in serving/expressing
our original nature
and our innate virtues/specialties
in doing what needs to be done
in each situation as it rises.

But who understands our mission
in these terms?

We use money to pass a good time,
to let the good times roll,
to take our mind off our life
and escape the burden
of each situation as it arises.

Money is our primary means
of soothing our pain
and easing our mind
in the service 
of diversion,
distraction
and denial.

How do we get
from the way things are
to the way things need to be?
And, who is interested
in making the trip?

These are the questions
diverting the flow of life
into the eddy comprising
the wasteland of our discontent,
preventing us from exploring/exhibiting
our strengths
in the work
of being who we are,
doing what is ours to do.

Maybe later.
Maybe some other time.
Perhaps some day soon.
When we are in the mood,
and have nothing better to do...

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