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?
We wait for the right time to act, in the right way and the right place, then we offer our best in the service of what is called for.
How do we know what is right, when, where and how? Ah, that is where our intrinsic intuition comes in.
Our place is to invite/allow/permit our intuition to guide our boat on its path through the sea-- putting us in position to act in its service when the time is right.
Our place is to stay out of the way and let our intuition act through us in a "It is not I who live, but my intuition who lives through me!" kind of way.
Sunset on the Sound, 2005 — Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
We live and die as though we are individuals. But It gets all blurry and slushy like a blenderized fruit medley in death.
All our lines are erased.
We look around as single malt liquor might in its curing barrel, wondering if we just made up individually, and if we didn't, how did it all disappear so quickly?
But really?
I have a 1 year old great granddaughter, and a 29 year old oldest granddaughter. Neither are anything like they were at birth, and are nothing like they will be at eighty. So, who/where/when is this "individual self"?
It's a fiction. There are no individual selves. We blink and we're different. We are a lifetime of different selves thinking we are one eternal, unchanging, self.
Then we meet the curing barrel and are stunned.
The whole self-thing was just a warm-up. The after life extravaganza goes on forever, with us forming new and different shapes and patterns, liquid and solid, light and sound, spinning and flowing, through gravity and time.
Rainbows and northern lights, Supernovas and dark matter... The cosmos is our playground, and we are just getting underway.
Until we die, heaven is the best we can do. But what waits is a completely different world without end. Amen!
The Stump on Roan Mountain 2004 — Pisgah National Forest, Carver’s Gap, North Carolina
Knowing the difference between Stop - Go, Yes - No is important knowing.
Managing dualities correctly, not incorrectly makes all the difference.
And dispensing with duality in a cavalier, "Enough of that, it's only appearances" kind of way leaves us in Limboland, not sure if we are here or there, or somewhere in-between-- neither here nor there, both here and there.
What's for lunch? Where is the checkbook and the car keys?
Those who know and those who don't know unite in becoming everyone.
For what that's worth.
I'm waiting to see what difference it makes.
What matters most? Who says so? In light of what do we live? What guides our choosing? What do we stand to gain? What do we stand to lose? Where are we better off? What are the trade-offs? The compromises? What determines when we do what and where we draw the line? Do we think our way forward, or wait to know?
"Those who know don't say. Those who say don't know."
Controlled Burn 2004 B — Glacier National Park, Montana
I am for throwing out theology, doctrine, dharma, dogma, creeds, beliefs and opinions-- and devoting ourselves, routinely and regularly, to emptiness/stillness/silence, opening ourselves to our intrinsic intuition, our original nature, and our innate virtues-- the things we do best and enjoy/love doing most.
And seeing where it goes over time.
You will not find a better, or more timely, suggestion in the entire world of ideas and talktalktalk.
Lake McDonald 01, 2004 — Glacier National Park, Montana
The waitress at the Glacier Diner said, "Honey, if it isn't raining, its burning. And rain is a lot better."
So we took the rain with a smile, happy it wasn't worse, for a week of seven wet days without a mountain top in sight.
We were regulars at the Glacier Pie Place, with their "Pie for Courage" hats and their menu with more pies than I thought were possible, making seconds an attractive option with the rain coming down.
Going to the Sun Road was terrifying in the rain and fog, with no guard rails and an infinite number of drop-offs into infinity, so we took the long way around on the return trip and haven't regretted it yet.
But I do think about the pie from time to time, and got the Courage connection with driving to the sun. It's a definite requirement for the trip.
I took this photograph from Glacier National Park in 2004
From Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center: While not the highest peak in Glacier, at 9080 feet, Chief Mountain stands ahead of the other mountains on the eastern edge of the Rockies and looks out over the plains. It can be seen for over a hundred miles away. Lying half in Glacier, half in the Blackfeet Reservation to the east, and just under 5 miles from the border that passes through the Peace Park, the mountain transcends boundaries. For people of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which includes tribes in the US and Canada, Chief Mountain has helped define their territory for millennia. The prominence and visibility of the mountain provided guidance, shelter, and a landmark for travelers. Named “Ninaistako” by the Blackfeet, the mountain holds great power and ancient knowledge. Use of the mountain for ritual and ceremonial purposes goes back thousands of years. It is a sacred area. Chief Mountain is considered the oldest spirit of any of the mountains and creation stories of the Blackfeet are linked to it.
I will not always be a human being, but. I will always be of God. All of us--and everything with us-- are/is of God.
God is not separate from us, different from us, other than us.
Everyone and all things are of God, and are/is God. God is the ground of all being and non-being, even non-being IS!
All that IS is God. Nothing is Not-God.
There is only God. God is the matrix of the cosmos, but then, the cosmos is the matrix of the cosmos. The cosmos is God.
The cosmos is all there is. Everything is God.
This means a lot of things. The most significant thing it means, from my point of view, is that a lot of appologizing needs to be done.
From non-native colonizers to natives. From white people to black people. From Jews to Palestinians... all the way down the line.
There is no Us and Them. No "I and It."
It is all "Thou Art That!"
Life is our opportunity to see that it is so-- to know that it is so-- and to live as though it is so.
Life not lived like that is a wasted opportunity. A shameful thing. To be realized, recognized, and borne throughout eternity.
Lake Louise 01 2003 — Banff National Park, Alberta, Canadian Rockies
I took this photograph 24 years ago this September. I have more of a hitch in my stride now, and less incentive to get up for an early drive to Lake Louise. Or for a flight to Calgary and a rental car to Banff. This scene has fared better than I have. All things in their own time.
Knowing what it's time for here, now, is always an art and a grace. I leave it up to my intuition, and do what I'm told-- which is all the advice anyone ever needs to hear. I trust you are "picking up what I'm laying down here."
Our intuition knows, and is our closest connection with what has always been called "God," and is "God," for that matter.
Certainly, "God's" way of calling us to action throughout each day.
"Right there" for those to consult, who have put their will, wants, wishes and desires aside, to listen for what is called for, here, now, in each situation as it arises around the clock, year by year.
It only takes paying attention to know that it is so.
Spring Willow 2004 — Country Park, Greensboro, North Carolina
There is what we make of it, and what we do with it, and that's that.
Our reflections lead to realizations that impact the way we think and live.
Thinking about our thinking and our living transforms both.
What leads us to think the way we do? To live the way we live? Why do we do it this way and not some other way instead?
What do we care about? Why?
We are right here, now, by virtue of a long line of circumstances and the ways we responded to them, of the choices we had and the decisions we made.
We did not have here, now in mind at any point along the way. What might we have thought/done that we did not think/do that would have changed things for better or worse?
Marriage and seminary were my significant choices, then how to be married and what to do with a seminary degree set a course guided by interests and opportunity that bought me here, now.
The "Not Me" is as significant as the "Me." I have said, "No!" to as much as I have said "Yes!" to.
Together they combine to put me here, now. And I can imagine worse a lot easier than I can imagine better.
I hope you can say the same!
And, may it continue to be said for us all the rest of the way!
Lake Haigler 12/26/0211 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
Last night was my best bad night ever.
Nightland is where I wrestle with my demons and make my peace with how things are, coming to terms some more again with what I have done and with what has been done to me, what I have failed to do and what failed to happen to me along the way.
"Forgiveness" is a ridiculous term. An absurd concept. As though we can just go on with what we have done to the Africans who are now Americans, and the native tribes who always were Americans. Etc.
The Wailing Wall is forever. We grow up over time. Growing up is squaring up with what is and with what isn't-- with what was and with what never will be.
I make very good use of Nightland as a great place to grow up some more again each night. Getting up and living life as it may yet be lived, anyway, nevertheless, even so.
And, to do that without any apparent addictions or escapes of any kind, represents, for me, a courageous squaring up with the truth of what's what and what's to be done about it, with it, in the time left for living-- in a "Here we are, now what?" kind of way.
Which is as close to "forgiveness" as I ever want to be.
(I will always think of "forgiveness" with quotation marks because I see it as cheap grace-- playing the game of pretending not to be pretending, making nice, as though nothing happened, but it did.)
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 