Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

Joseph Campbell said the crux of the matter
of our spiritual/psychological/emotional/human development
hinges on which question we ask about our art.

Are we primarily concerned with:
"What can I do to make money with my art?"

Or with:
"How is my art enabling me to flower/bloom/come forth
as a human being?"

If we are pursuing commercial success,
that will take us in a certain direction.

If we are pursuing our own personal development,
that will take us in a different direction.

The difference in the two directions
is the difference between Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden,
and Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In deciding which question is honestly
our question,
we face the truth of having to die to something
in choosing the question.
Something lives and something dies.

This is the kind of dying that follows us
throughout our life.

Campbell said, "T.S. Eliot said that the career
of a writer is a life of crucifixion every day."

Our relationship with our art requires this kind 
of devotion in giving up one way of living
in favor of another.

What are we interested in getting out of our life?
What are we here for?
What are we willing to give up--
to sacrifice--
in the service of what we are here for?

Both Eden and Gethsemane require dying to something.
What kind of death are we going to die?

I owe you all,
and everyone I know and have known, 
a heartfelt apology,
for I have short-changed everyone
by being less than I might have been with you.

I could have done better,
just by being more awake,
aware,
alive to what was what
and what needed to be done about it,
and doing it,
for the true good of all.

I'm sorry that's the way it is.

And.

You owe me and everyone you know
the exact same apology
for the exact same reason.

We all are let-downs and disappointments,
if only to ourselves.

And we all need rites and rituals
of cleansing and redemption
on a regular basis.

And it does not need to be 
"a corporate prayer of confession"!
There is nothing corporate about our confession!
It is wholly individual through and through.
We have failed ourselves as only we could.
There is not a "we" here,
it is all "me and mine" around the circle
for the entire globe.
And we need to own it as our own,
not to be shared with anyone.

Our cleansing and our redemption
is a private matter between us and ourselves alone.
And it must come from,
and be received by, 
the heart--both as cleansing and as redemption.

No one can redeem us but us.
You telling me I am redeemed (or forgiven)
means nothing!
It has to come from me to me!
From myself to me!

I have to know it is so,
not because someone tells me,
or a lot of someone's,
but because I say it is so--
because I know it is so.

And so,
I suggest we make our daily, 
or however often,
bath/shower 
a conscious, deliberate, rite/ritual
of cleansing and redemption--
as elaborate as you like--
remembering and sending down the drain
all we have done and left undone,
all we might have done if only we had seen,
all we needed to know and did not know...

Remember and let go,
washed away--
to be remembered again,
and washed away again, perhaps--
and allowing redemption to rest easy upon us,
grounded in our determination
to do better in the time that is left to us,
even now, even yet, even so, nonetheless.

To be repeated as needed for
as long as it is so.

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Understanding the Bible metaphorically, symbolically,
means finding where the metaphors, the symbols,
come to life in our own life.

For instance, the two gardens are metaphorically
the same garden.

The Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane.
As Eden, Adam and Eve fail the test
of who was in control of their lives,
of where they were finding their guidance,
of what they were living in accord with.

This is the essential test.
Until we are living aligned with the right way,
it is all a wasteland.
The garden disappears,
and we are alone,
on our own,
and, as the story goes,
the Angel of Death guards
the way back to Eden,
and you only go back by dying.

Now, this is a metamorphic death,
a symbolic dying,
a dying to self and living to serve
the unconscious force directing our life.

As Gethsemane, Jesus recognizes 
what is being asked of him in the garden
(Which is the same thing that was asked
of Adam and Eve)
and submits to death
with his, "Thy will, not mine, be done,"
where the "Thy" represents the unconscious force
that knows what's what
and will, if we cooperate, 
direct our life along the way that is the way for us.

Jesus' death is a symbol to us all,
saying, "This is the way it's done!"
His "Come, follow me," was in invitation
to die to self and live aligned with 
the way that is the way,
doing what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done,
in each situation as it arises,
no matter what it may mean for us personally.

Our place is to recognize 
where the garden of choice 
comes to life in our life,
to know what is being asked of us,
and to submit to the unconscious force,
trusting ourselves to it
in a "Thy will be done" kind of way,
and "dying" symbolic to our own preferences,
desires
and wishes,
in doing what needs to be done,
what needs us to do it.

There have been several turning points
like this in my own life,
and I am certain they are to be found 
in your own life as well.
This is where the Bible as Metaphor
comes alive in the life we are living,
and when we read it
we know we are reading about ourselves
and not about the Middle East 
from 2,000 years Before The Common Era.

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