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?
Pools 1 & 2 — Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge, McBee, South Carolina
There is truth, and there is assumed/presumed (And where does that line lie?) truth. And there is inquiry into the nature of truth, which is rarely explored, which is tragic, because truth is everyone's method of getting/serving what they want.
Trump and his supporters declare the truth at every opportunity. Russia and China fill the world with the truth around the clock. Preachers declare the truth without pausing to breathe.
Everyone extols truth to their own advantage. No one examines the truthfulness of the truth they call truth.
Truth is a perception not a fact. A tool in the hands of propaganda experts skilled at speaking the truth to their advantage, where the truth is there is nothing but self-serving opinion all the way down.
Every fact has to be interpreted/understood subjectively. That means the truth of the fact lies in the perception of the beholder.
When it comes to truth, it is all a matter of how we look at what we see-- or how we see what we look at.
Mile Post 244 2008 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Doughton Park, North Carolina
We all need the right combination of the same things in order to be who we are, doing what is ours to do.
The birthing process goes on, and on, and on... throughout our life.
We are always being born again for the first time. Always coming to life, finally, at last.
Waking up to who we are and what our life needs of us within the context/circumstances of our living.
And the people around us at any time assist or inhibit our birth at that time.
We need people who see us when they look at us, who listen to us when we speak, who know us for who we are. who can be trusted to keep us safe.
How many people like that have you ever known? How often have you been someone like that in someone else's life?
To see what we look at, to hear what we listen to, to know what we know, to be who we are capable of being, in each situation as it arises, is to make an exceptional difference in the lives of those who live with us in this place-- and in our own life as well.
Wanting what we ought to want-- what we need to want-- instead of what we want, and being at peace with ourselves and our life, and being open to what's what and what's called for throughout all of the times and places of our living will have a powerful impact upon the way life is being lived around us.
And all we will have done is to have seen and heard what is to be seen and heard, and responded to it in ways that were right in that moment.
We have to be intuitive to live like that. And comfortable/confident with ourselves and our ability to deal appropriately with anything that comes up, any time, any place.
To be so grounded in the good is to be a blessing and a grace upon all times and places-- and that is well within our reach, though it exceeds our grasp too much of the time.
And it is up to us to do what needs to be done about that in the time left for living. "There's nothing to it but to do it" (Maya Angelou).
Dry Falls — Nantahala National Forest, Cullasaja River Gorge, Franklin/Highlands, North Carolina
We are seeking peace with ourselves and with our life.
The path to that end is simple: Stop wanting what you want, and start wanting what you ought to want instead!
Start with sitting still and being quiet, seeking the right kind of emptiness/stillness/silence.
Listening to yourself, to your body, to your life.
Teach yourself to live in a quiet, attentive, looking/listening, seeing/hearing, kind of way.
Check out Ann Wieser Cornell's web site and her book, "The Radical Acceptance of Everything."
And start doing what you know needs to be done, when, where, and how it needs to be done whether you want to or not, whether you feel like it or not, whether you are in the mood for it or not.
Your intuition is right here, now. Your original nature is right here, now. Your virtues/virtuosities (The things you do best and enjoy doing most) are right here, now.
That is all you need to find your way to the life you need to be living.
Which is the path to peace with yourself and your life.
Getting you together with yourself and your life is the solution to all of your problems today, every day, forever.
Wanting what you ought to want, doing what needs to be done.
Big Creek 2004 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Big Creek District, Waterville, North Carolina Access
I have out-lived the desire to return to so many photo-worthy places, this being one.
The images are worthy-enough reminders of what's there--or was there-- to connect me with what is everywhere in all places for eyes that see.
And, it takes sitting until we see to see what we are looking at anywhere all the time.
Do we take the time is the question. Are we interested enough to bother? Too busy to care?
What drives our boat on its path through the sea? What are we seeking? What are we after?
What is the life that is ours to live, even now, even yet, even so? And what do places like this one, Big Creek, in April of 2004, have to do with connecting us with the life that is our life to live?
Where do we go to be so connected? How open are we to being connected? To seeing what we look at? To finding what we seek?
To be so pulled into the moment that we can't miss it, and have to stop and be there for a while, and return often.
The key is knowing it is right here, right now. We have been living with, in, around the life that is ours to live all our life long, not knowing what we were doing.
Now we know what we are doing, looking for what we have been doing that is IT, always has been, always will be.
Asking questions is my life to live. Looking out the window. Connecting the dots. Reflection-Realization-Recognition... Always has been, always will be.
All I've missed is knowing what I was about while being about it. Now that I know it, I do it knowingly. That is the only difference.
How far are we ever from the life that is our life to live? If all it takes is reflection/realization/recognition? It is always just right there, waiting. For us to wake up and see what we have been looking at all this time.
It isn't as though we have missed anything. We have merely been preparing to see what has always been there all this time.
Now that we know about reflecting/realizing/recognizing, we can take our time, and begin looking at what we are looking at as though for the first time. "Arriving at the place we started and knowing it" finally, at last (T.S. Eliot).
Beach Stones — Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine
Doing an internet search for "who put the bible together and when" does us the favor of moving the conversation away from "GOD," and enables us to consider the question, "What did those Roman Catholic Men stand to gain from putting the Bible together as they did, in terms of 'What to leave in and what to leave out?'"
When we look at what those men stood to gain by including what they included in "the Holy Scriptures," and then declaring what "God said" in quoting the very scriptures they had put together in their power struggles with the Roman Empire, and in their unending quest to expand the membership of The Church (Their Church) by proclaiming what "God said," in 350 BCE, and following, it becomes clear that the men who said what the Bible says by making sure it was in the Bible, had everything to gain--for themselves and for The Church-- in seeing to it that the Bible says what they wanted it to say.
And the fact that those men, or those like them, from 50 to 350 BCE were also guilty of persecuting, killing, bullying, exorcising, purging, expelling, etc. all those who disagreed with their version of "revealed Truth," clarifies to all onlookers that the church benefits handsomely by what the bible says and says not, and that its spokespersons are hardly disinterested participants in the process of determining what God has to say about anything.
In other words, "Isn't it convenient that the Bible says what the church says the Bible says? It's another miracle! And a wonder of Grace at work in our lives!" Wink, wink, nod, nod.
High Mountain Lake Mirror Created by copying the top half of the image, flipping it upside down and reattaching it to itself. Instant mirror. It gets better. The left half of the top half was made at Morton’s Overlook in the Smokies. I copied it, and flipped it side to side, attached to itself to create the top half of this image. Mirrors are everywhere. Reality is not to be found (Here or anywhere else).
I have said here before that my fifth grade teacher told my mother in one of those parent/teacher conferences, "Jimmy looks out the window a lot."
A lot of that was because Jimmy was safer out the window. The adults in my life were intent on molding me after their image of me. So I withdrew without knowing what I was doing like an oyster into its shell.
I read a lot. Mostly Hardy Boys and science fiction. And spent a good bit of time wandering in the woods near our house, and building model airplanes and ships from plastic kits. And fished with other boys my age.
I did not know an actual flesh and blood adult who was any help to me whatsoever.
Mad magazine provided a foundation of sorts with satire and humor, but I lacked any real sense of stability, purpose and direction.
That began to take shape in the time I spend reflecting on what interested me and how I might make sense of things.
That really took off when I graduated from seminary, and could get away from people telling me what to think in order to ask my own questions and seek my own answers to those questions.
My education began when I left school.
I read everything that caught my eye from all fields of study. And everything raised more questions. Even its answers raised questions. And my experiences with life generated even more questions. And here I am. Still asking questions! I don't expect my death to slow it down!
I'll be looking out the windows still, even then. But then, as now, with purpose and direction.
Doing what needs to be done when, where and how it needs to be done, is the work that needs us to do it with the gifts that are encoded in our DNA-- but we don't devote ourselves to that, and while away the hours daydreaming of smooth and easy, having our way and getting what we want.
Lethargy and laziness, fear and desire, have their way with us, and our life never has a chance at us.
We are our life's only hope. We have to wake up, realize what's what, hand ourselves over to our life, say, "Okay. Now what?" and sit in the right kind of emptiness, stillness and silence, waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear so that the way (Which is the way to our intrinsic intuition) beckons and we follow in the service of that which is ours to do, our life to live, throughout the time left for living, and far into what is beyond for as long as time lasts.
Green River Canyon 2010 B — Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah
We have to get into the habit of taking stock, or call it "taking a reading," or call it "tuning into our body," and checking out with our body what's what, and how are things going, and what is our body feeling/responding/reacting to the things we are experiencing externally and internally here/now?
We let things "pass in review"-- things outside of us and things inside of us-- to get a sense of how things are here/now.
And reflect on what we are responding to; on what has had the biggest impact on our internal assessment system, and what we might do in adjusting our response/reaction/attitude to reduce our stress level and calm ourselves down and restore our balance and harmony.
We have to consciously help ourselves regain our sense of stability and okay-ness in responding to our life here/now throughout the day by checking in to see how our body is reacting to things. And perhaps doing some grounding/centering/focusing work to get back on track, in the saddle, and underway again.
We have to monitor/moderate our response/reactivitity simultaneously as we are responding/reacting. Tricky, but someone has to do it!
There is wanting/striving/getting/having, and fearing/hiding/running/denying.
And there is seeing/knowing/listening/hearing, and being who we need to be to do what needs to be done-- and rising to meet the occasion, time after time.
There is knowing what our business needs to be and taking care of our business the way our business needs taking care of.
And there is the old golfer's adage, "The more I practice (Or, "The harder I work), the luckier I get."
The people who do their work-- who take care of their business-- and tend their intuition are the luckiest people in the world.
Everybody hears something like that somewhere in their developmental years. Those who grasp it and apply it find what they need to do what needs to be done and are blessed by what appears to be magic all along the way.
The trick lies in doing what needs to be done. When it needs to be done, where it needs to be done, how it needs to be done, as long as it needs to be done, all along the way.
You can't plan it out. You have to live it all the way through. Not implementing strategies, doing this so that will happen, going here to get there, like you are some kind of smoking genius ringing bells and racking up the wins.
The people who know answer the door capable of saying "Yes" to what needs a yes, and "No," to what needs a no.
Get that down and you have it made, as much as you can have it made, on a moving scale between abundance and want.
Being okay with enough and true to your original nature in service to your inherent virtues/virtuosities (What you do best and enjoy doing most) without undue attention to personal profit and financial gain, will place you close to the center of the normal distribution curve, and you can trust your intrinsic intuition to bring you all the good luck any of us require to keep us in the business of doing what needs to be done in the service of what is called for in each situation as it arises-- and that is all that can be asked of any of us, all our life long.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 