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?
Moraine Lake Canoes 01 09/22/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Banff National Park, Alberta
We have vulnerabilities that are actual,
and vulnerabilities that are imaginary.
At 2:00 AM,
imaginary is actual.
At 2:00 AM,
we can worry about the damnedest things.
For some people,
2:00 AM lasts all day long,
every day.
They are awash in agony
over earthquakes that never happen,
droughts and floods,
and a critical shortage
of underarm deodorant forever.
They are victims of their own
self-destructive tendencies
and their terminal insecurity.
And, they cannot be helped.
They can generate fear
and things to be afraid of
faster than can be abated
by logic and reason,
magic, prayer and chanting.
Jesus couldn't help those people.
They are beyond being healed and whole,
confident and well.
A lot of us are beyond help
on a lot of levels.
We all have to make out
as best we can,
and walk with a limp,
or worse,
the rest of the way.
It is called,
"Coming to terms with who we are,
how we are,
where we are,
when we are,
here/now."
Limping,
or worse,
through every day.
We build a life around
our original nature
and the innate virtues
that are our from birth.
We live to serve these things,
sharing them appropriately
in each situation as it arises.
What we do to pay the bills
falls into place around this center,
and we live with balance and harmony,
with integrity and sincerity,
at one with our life,
and doing what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done,
all our life long.
This is the adventure of being alive.
Which we can reject/refuse
by having eyes for other things.
Smooth and easy, for example.
Or, the culture's idea of having it made.
Or, our idea of success and happiness...
The list is long
of things that separate us from our life
and lead us into a life
that has nothing to do
with our original nature
and innate virtues.
And thus, the need for consciousness/awareness
and diligence in the service
of The Way that is uniquely ours to travel,
making a regular place in our life
for emptiness, stillness and silence,
reflection, realization, illumination, enlightenment--
as our life becomes our practice
and we become its devoted attendees,
moment by moment,
day by day.
Moonset 02 11/19/2013 Oil Paint Rendered — Edisto Beach State Park, South Carolina
We have to find the center and live from there--
the center of the boundary line
between the extremes.
Between the contraries.
Between the contradictions.
We have to live on the boundary
between the mutually exclusive polarities
that populate our life,
and not just anywhere on the boundary,
but in the dead center of the line
all of the time.
Dionysus and Apollo live within us,
and we have to live in the center
of the line separating them.
And so with every other pair of opposites.
This is the work of Balance and Harmony.
Of consciousness/awareness.
Of seeing/hearing/knowing/realizing.
It is the work of illumination,
of enlightenment.
It is the work of being alive!
The trick with managing the art
of the center point
is understanding that it is
not a fixed point,
but a wobble.
It is in constant movement.
Woops! Too much!
Woops! Too much the other way!
Woops! Too much! Back the other way!
And so it goes.
There are no steady states of being.
We are moving back and forth
across a floating line
seeking an imaginary center
in strong winds
on heavy seas,
going, "Woops! Woops! Woops! all the time.
And, when we get that down,
we have it made!
Mesquite Dunes and Grapevine Mountains 11 04/22/2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Death Valley, California
Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1328) said,
"The final leave-taking
is leaving God for God."
That is to say,
"Leaving our idea of God for God."
Our idea of God is not God.
Yet, the thing we do best
is to tell God how to be God.
We tell God who God ought to be.
Growing up is growing out of
our idea of God
into God.
We are to be who God is.
We are to be God.
The people who swagger about
through their life,
acting as though they are God
have the most growing up to do.
If you want to know who God is,
walk through a maternity ward.
Newborns are closer to God
than Popes are.
And certainly closer to God
than most billionaires are
(Though Mackenzie Jewett
is doing her best to redeem
the collection).
"And the end of all our exploring.
Will be to arrive where we started.
And know the place for the first time"
(T.S. Eliot).
This is leaving God for God.
Little River Cascades 03/01/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Townsend, Tennessee
We are always waking up
to some aspect of our life--
the life that we are living
and the life that is ours to live.
The nagging,
recurring,
idea that we have missed something,
that this isn't what we are cut out for,
that we are empty in the wrong kind of way,
and floundering,
lost in a wasteland
that we are somehow responsible for,
is an ever repeating them
among human beings throughout time.
Well, what are we going to do
in response?
Mourn and weep
and bear our depression to the grave?
Or sit down with our inner guide
and say, "Alright, I know it's late,
but let's see what we can do
in the time left for living!"?
What we have missed is still right there,
where it always has been,
waiting for us to wake up,
turn the light around,
shift our perspective,
and do the thing that most needs doing
here/now
and see where it leads.
We don't have to have the whole map
unfolded on the floor,
with the route marked out
with a pink highlighter,
and an itinerary
with an attached daily planner
and appointment calendar
lying on the table.
We don't have to know anything
beyond what most needs doing here/now.
Do that,
where/when/how it most needs to be done,
and trust the path to open before us
one deed at a time from that point on.
And, like that, the adventure unfolds before us
as we start walking,
like all true adventures do.
Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River 04/15/2008 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Greenbriar District, Cosby, Tennessee
In talking with Bill Moyers,
Joseph Campbell said,
“The symbolic ideas and metaphorical images
of mythology and religion
are poetical in the sense
that they do not refer to
actual, physical, facts.
Rather all of the references
of religious and mythological images
are to planes of consciousness,
or fields of experience,
that are potential in the human spirit,
and these images are to evoke
attitudes and experiences
that are appropriate
to a meditation on
the mystery of the source of our own being.”
Good religion stands as a threshold,
a doorway,
connecting the facts of existence
with the mystery of existence,
assisting individuals in their work
of accommodating themselves
to the fundamental and essental
mystery at the heart of life and being,
and living their life around that center,
informed by
and evoked by
"more than words can say."
The images and symbols of good religion
are never literal/actual events in the here/now.
When good religion gives way to bad religion,
the language of poetry
is replaced by the language of prose,
of facts,
reason,
logic,
antlytics
and precision
where things are literally just what
they are said to be
and mystery is no more.
Then, the path of individuals
in that barren, empty,
hopeless wasteland of the soul,
is to find their way back
to the Land of Eden
and to the mysteries
of wonder and amazement,
laughter,
song,
dance
and play.
How are you coming with
this work
that is ours to do?
We have to do our own work
in "meditating on the mystery
of the source of our life and being."
We have to put ourselves in accord
with the mystery, on one hand,
and with the actual facts
of our existence on the other,
and walk two paths at the same time--
by living with an eye on the other path
while our feet are on this path.
We live on the boundary between
the mystery of life
and the physical requirements/demands of life,
and tend our relationship
with life on both levels.
It is the place of Ego
to take the messages originating from the mystery
communing, so to speak,
with our body-mind,
our unconscious mind,
and relate those messages to the conscious-mind
in ways that coordinate
our life "between the worlds,"
in our work to align ourselves
"with the Tao,"
that is to say, "with the mystery,"
for the good of ourselves
and of the world as a whole.
We live between conscious and unconscious
for our own good and the good of the whole.
Maine Islands 07 09/30/2010 Oil Paint Rendered, BW — Penobscot Bay, Deer Island, Maine
There is always something
to not like about our life,
about life generally,
about the experience of being alive.
If we let that become A Thing,
we get divorced,
quit our job,
move to a different location,
take up drinking and/or drugs,
maybe enter psychotherapy,
and allow it to become
the center of our attention,
around which everything else
competes for attention.
The unrelenting and on-going
task of life
is to make our peace
with the way things are.
"Adjustment and accommodation, Kid.
Adjustment and accommodation."
Growing up is an eternal round
of coming to terms
with what we do not like.
The idea is to do that
with grace and aplomb,
and hardly a wrinkle
in our management
of the day-to-day.
But.
We grow up against our will
all the time.
We get tired of it.
It gets old along with us.
And we are ready to go
before that time comes around.
I keep a mental list
of things I won't miss
when they are gone--
or when I am,
whichever comes first.
And acquiescing to the inevitabilities
becomes,
along with taking a shower
and brushing my teeth,
a regular part of each day,
in a "This is the way things are,
and this is what I can do about it,
and that's that--
and that is the way things are,"
kind of way.
I also adopt my own advice
about "No expectations
(Why would I continue to expect
things to be different than they are?),
no agendas,
no plans,
no opinions,"
and remind myself to do that regularly
throughout the day every day.
And just keep getting up and meeting
what meets me in a day,
doing what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done,
because it needs to be done,
an letting that be that
because it is,
with as much graciousness and compassion
as I can muster,
knowing that I don't have to like it,
but it helps if I do it
like I don't mind it,
"faking it 'til I make it,"
all the way.
Like I'm playing a role
that requires a certain response
to certain things,
no matter how I feel about it,
or wish I had a different role to play.
Whenever the undesirable comes my way.
Looking Glass Rock 04/12/2011 Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina
I am officially old.
I cry at everything these days.
The Webb Telescope being a case in point.
But also, Joe Manchin for blocking
a better life for millions of people.
It's a long list.
And I'm an old man crying
over everything on it.
Flash mob concerts.
Animals being reunited
with former owners.
Wonderful and terrible,
it's all the same.
Here come the tears.
If there is a theme playing through all of it
it would be
"We just don't know what's what!"
"We just don't take it to heart!"
"It's wasted on us--on too many of us!"
"We just don't get it!"
And walk on by, unseeing, uncrying.
I'm crying because
not enough people are crying.
Everybody ought to be crying.
All the time.
The Lotus Pond 08/03/2019 Oil Paint Rendered — Pike Nursery, Charlotte, North Carolina
What moves you?
Find it!
Be moved by it!
Seek the Source!
The Mover behind being moved!
Moved toward what?
Moved away from what?
What is the field of movement?
Moved by what?
Moved to what?
What is the nature of movement?
Movement is the nature of life.
Life is the nature of movement.
Life is moving toward life.
Toward realization.
Toward enlightenment.
Toward illumination.
Toward knowing.
Toward being.
Toward movement.
Toward life moving toward life and being.
Illusion is illumination.
Illumination is illusion.
Movement is just being.
Just being is movement.
Toward what we do not know.
By what we do not know.
For what we do not know.
Knowing is knowing that we do not know
and seeking the unknowable.
Laughing at the very idea.
Laughing at knowing what we do not know.
Laughing at knowing
what is beyond knowing.
What is unknowable.
Moving toward what moves us
is moving toward the mover
moving us toward being alive,
toward seeking the Source.
Life seeking life,
becoming life by moving toward life,
toward living,
toward being alive.
Linear is cyclical.
A straight line long enough
is a circle.
Circumambulation is the path to realization.
To illumination.
To illusion.
To the illusion of illumination.
To the illumination of illusion.
To the movement of life seeking life.
Seeking the fullness of living,
of being alive,
of being itself.
Wholeness with the wonder of being who/what it is.
What moves you?
Find it!
Be moved by it!
Seeking the Source--
as the Moved seeking the Mover!
Made for Contemplation 05/24/2008 Oil Paint Rendered — Crabtree Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, Little Switzerland, North Carolina
All bad religion
thinks the way it sees things
is the way things are.
Taking the way we see things
to be the way things are
is what schizophrenics do best.
Bad religion and schizophrenia
are inseparable.
Where does that line lie?
Bad religion is always talking about
"God's will this," and
"God's will that."
Everything is "God's will,
God's will,
God's will..."
Bad Religion holds that God
is all-powerful,
all-knowing,
all-loving,
all-good
in an "In HIM (always a HIM)
is light and there is no darkness
at all!!!"
Please.
Rumi had it right:
"Darkness is the cradle of light."
Darkness is light's mother.
Light would be dark
without darkness.
Nobody could see anything
without the contrast of shadow,
of darkness.
Which ties in nicely with God's will.
God is all-powerful
And God's will is what holds
everything in place.
Look around.
If God's will is responsible
for all of this,
God should quit.
Or be fired.
The truth about God is this:
God is as vulnerable
as a baby born in a manger,
as a man dying on a cross.
God is helpless.
God has no favorites.
God has no stake in anything,
has nothing to gain or lose in any outcome.
With God,
one thing is as good as another.
Else, how can things be what they are?
It's a mess out there,
and has been from the beginning.
Which beginning was that?
How many beginnings have there been?
And they have all turned out to be
indistinguishable from the last beginning.
Or the next one.
It's a mess everywhere we look.
God's will is messy.
God loves a good mess.
God is not who God is cracked up to be.
Speaking of cracked up,
it cracks me up
to hear people talking about God
being all-powerful
and all-compassionate
in a world like this one.
Compassion is the other side of the mess.
The mess generates compassion
by being so messy.
Compassion is the mess's way
of cleaning up the mess.
As a way of balancing out the madness.
Schizophrenia has a compassionate side.
And bad religion produces good religion
as a reaction to the insanity of bad religion.
Like water,
everything seeks its own level.
Homeostasis,
equilibrium,
balance,
harmony,
peace,
compassion...
are what everything is seeking.
Searching for.
Living to experience.
The mess produces
its own need for order.
Generates its own thirst
for "decently and in order."
Strives to save itself
from itself.
Light from darkness.
Life from death.
Resurrection.
Good religion.
The way things ought to be.
The Phoenix rising from its own ashes.
God's will willing itself into being.
Sense from nonsense.
Created by allowing things to be
exactly what they are
long enough to become
what they need to be.
And that's a long, long time.
And, it is the way.
Looking Glass Falls 07 10/28/2013 Oil Paint Rendering — Pisgah National Forest, Brevard, North Carolina
There is a willing force in nature
that cannot be denied.
Grass and weeds don't quit growing
even though they are whacked down
once a week.
Dandelions grow through asphalt!
They don't say, "Oh, gee. Asphalt!
Can't grow here!"
Life is determined, willful, unrelenting,
non-stop.
Our life is like that.
The life we came to live
is constantly willing itself
to life through us,
even though we aren't interested
and prefer some other different life instead.
We are at odds with our own life
in this way.
The life we want to life
isn't necessarily the life our life
wants us to live,
and our life doesn't give up.
It keeps trying to come forth.
And we keep shoving it back into the closet.
We do not honor life
as we need to,
or see its willfulness as a characteristic
of all living things--
as the very nature of life itself.
Life is ALIVE!
And willfully so!
Viruses keep evolving,
outsmarting vaccines,
finding ways to reproduce,
getting smarter and more resilient.
That is nature's way!
That is life's way!
And we have that same willful spirit
within us!
We do not care what our chances are!
We will endure and prevail!
"And when the heaving sea
has shaken our raft to pieces,
then we will swim!"
(Odysseus in the Odyssey)
Joseph Campbell said,
in one of his interviews with Bill Moyers,
“Arthur Schopenhauer said,
‘When you reach a certain age
and look back over your life,
it seems to have had an order about it,
it seems to have been composed by someone.
And those events
that when thy occurred
seemed merely accidental
and occasional,
and just something that happened,
turn out to be the main elements
in a consistent plot.'"
From birth to death
we are on the path,
living out who we are
without knowing we are on any path,
or doing anything remotely
connected with who we are,
and the path can only be discerned
by looking back,
not by looking forward.
We are making the path,
invisible to us,
by the way we live day-to-day,
choice-by-choice,
decision-by-decision,
reaction/response-by-reaction/response,
and living out the truth
of the Tao Te Ching's statement,
"The path that can be discerned
to be a path
is not a reliable path."
We can only live not-knowing
what we are doing,
or what we will do next,
trusting that we are being carried along
by forces we cannot know
to be benevolent, wise and kind,
and be amazed when,
at the end of our life,
we look back and see the thread
running through the whole thing,
and wonder at the marvel
that we have been a part of,
thinking,
"If we had known what we were doing
all this time,
we would have laughed more often,
and been more relaxed and at peace
all along the way."
Trust yourself to your life!
Relax and be at peace with yourself
and your circumstances!
We are being guided on our path
through the sea
by forces we cannot imagine
or comprehend.
Our life is a wonder,
astounding,
a marvel.
Trust that it is so,
and live it with all your heart!
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 