Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

"The world is too much with us
late and soon" (William Wordsworth).
And, because of that,
we have to take extreme measures
to save ourselves from the impact
of the world
and restore our souls.

We have to take regular retreats
into the silence,
into the natural world
(Taking "Nature Baths," for instance),
into Art, Beauty and Music.

We are the hope of the world,
and the hope of ourselves,
but not automatically,
not "naturally."

We have to mean it,
intend it,
be deliberate,
regular
and routine about it.

We are nature's way of 
recovering the way of nature
and instilling it into the makeup
of daily life.

Native Americans
and indigenous peoples around the world
would understand what I'm talking about.
Everybody else, not so much.

It takes being still and quiet
on a regular basis
to hear and see what is going on. 

We have to withdraw from this world
that is too much with us
in order to engage the world beyond this world,
and know what needs to be done,
when, where and how,
about our alienation from the natural world
of wonder and beauty--
which is our natural habitat--
and restore our rightful place
in the natural order of things.

And live from there
in being stewards of the earth
again,
finally,
at last.

–0–

Putting ourselves "in accord with the Tao"
and "living aligned with the Tao,"
are synonymous with "trusting ourselves to our destiny,"
stepping onto the path
and walking confidently into our future,
allowing it to do whatever it needs to do
to be what it is.

Spoiler alert: Our destiny
is to be who we are,
how we are,
where we are,
when we are,
here and now forever
no matter what--
doing what needs to be done,
when, 
where,
and how it needs to be done
here and now forever
as only we can do it.

Being who we are,
doing what needs to be done,
what needs us to do it,
here and now forever
is all there is to it.

Get that down and we have it made.

The only difficulties involved
with getting it down and having it made
are noise, complexity, drama and trauma--
which are offset by,
disappeared by,
the right kind of emptiness, stillness and silence
on a regular and recurring basis.

This is the story of Jesus
and of all those who knew what was what
and what was called for in response to it
and did it as it needed to be done,
when,
where,
how it needed to be done
for the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of doing it
no matter what what forever.

This is our story,
our destiny,
waiting for us to step into it
and live it out,
day by day,
in each situation as it arises,
through all of the circumstances,
times and places 
we have to work with,
all our life long,
beginning right here,
right now.

Got it?
Do it!
It is your destiny!
And mine!

–0–

Being well is a function of 
doing things the way they need to be done.
That's all there is to it.

All of the untutored sages
I have ever known are in full agreement here.

They also agree on the importance of
not listening to people
who don't know what they are talking about--
which is, generally speaking,
just about everyone you come in contact with 
in a day.

And is the particular purview 
of those who know best and must be pleased.

Children generally make the best companions,
and the more childlike we can be
without being childish,
the better our chances are 
of being well
on all levels of existence.

–0–

It is 5:33 AM.
I woke up at 3:31 thinking about Nikki Haley.
If she becomes president, she, 
like Trump if he becomes president,
(and in saying she will do what he does,
she isn't playing her voters to vote for her,
she is playing Trump to name her as VP,
because, Tra-la-la, it's all a game
to get what I want and have my way,
anyway I can,
and it is sick to the core
because it is fascist to the core
and fascism is the disease that ends the world)
would end all association 
with all people in the world
not like she is,
which is also not like she wants the world to be,
and with withdrawing from the world
is more practical than killing the world,
which is the quick way to rid the world
of everyone not like she is,
which is what she would do with everyone in the U.S.
not like she is--
she would rid the world of us
by ending all the "entitlement programs,"
(And don't tell me that tax cuts for the rich and powerful
isn't an entitlement program!),
ending Social Security and Medicare
(Which she also thinks of as entitlement programs)
and thereby throwing most of the people who vote for her
on the trash heap of those unworthy
of being her kind of people,
but don't get me started.

And I moved from here
to thinking about Native Americans,
and how we all would be better off
if they were in charge of things,
and how I would be glad to pitch my tent
in with them,
just to see, if for no other reason,
how long it would take for them
to fold their tents 
and disappear into the night
to get away from me.

They would never kill me, or ask me to leave,
like fascists would,
they would just pack up and move away in the night.
And I would like to see if they would do that,
betting that they would not.

And that flashed me to my friend at the time
Bailey Phelps
who told me,
"Jim, you are like someone jumping out of the bushes
exposing himself to people
to see who would abandon him
if he exposed himself to them."
And I told him it comes from having an abusive father,
and needing to know who I can trust
and who I can't trust early on,
because I don't have time to waste
and don't want to drag things out
wondering who can take me and who can't.

And that flipped me over into the Opposite Game,
in which we all identify ourselves
by choosing which side of polarities
we would choose to be on.
For instance, between celibacy and promiscuity, 
I would choose celibacy, 
and between teetotaler and alcoholic,
I would choose teetotaler, 
and then it got sticky
because between light and dark
I realized that is a false dichotomy
because light if it is bright enough
is darkness because you can't see anything there
just like you can't see anything if it is dark enough,
and I would choose enough light to see what I'm looking at,
but it is not an opposite.
There is no opposite to light or to dark,
just a range of too much and not enough.
And THAT is where we all need to be!
And why can't we realize that,
which is what I think Native Americans all do!

They make room for all people to fall out 
along a continuum from too much to not enough,
and allow them to be wherever they are
for as long as it takes for the to adjust 
their position to somewhere else along the continuum,
knowing that we all have to work out for ourselves
where we belong at different stages in our life,
and no one has to say "Here I am! THIS is ME!" 
because not one of us is capable of being ME!
just like I AM NOW forever.

And then, I said to myself, "I'm going to lose all of this
if I don't get up and write it down right now!"

And that is how we got to be here/now.

–0–

We live in the service of what?
Money is the thing of highest value we can imagine.
And the high rate of addiction 
and suicide among the wealthy
suggests that money may not be it.
And to miss the point of our life--
living in the service of the wrong things--
is the worst kind of hell
forever.

No do-overs.

The wise among us 
spend their life finding out.

The Search for the Holy Grail
is the search for what we are here for.
What is the source of vitality, exuberance, bliss?

It is not drugs/sex/alcohol/shopping/partying or money.

The spiritual quest comes down to
finding what it is
that is life itself for us.

What have you ruled out?

What do you think it might be?

What are you doing to know?

Here's my best hint:

Attend your nighttime dreams.

And your pile of rejects.

–0–

Relax into the Now! Take care of the moment!

We are being carried along by forces quite beyond us.
Sit back.
Pay attention.
Be aware. 
Be present.
Enjoy the ride.
Saying the things that cry out to be said.
Asking the questions that beg to be asked.
Doing what is called for,
as it is called for,
in each situation as it arises.
No one could do more,
and that is all that is asked of us ever.

–0–

I spent the last seven years of my ministry participating in the creation/development of “the church as it ought to be.”

It was called simply, “The 9:20 Service,” because we met at 9:20 on Sunday morning–9:20 because that was late enough to allow the people who needed to sleep-in to feel like they had, and early enough to keep the 11:00 o’clock service undisturbed and in place.

It was started with a gift of $4,000 and a “See what you can do with this” from a person who didn’t understand why more people weren’t coming to the 11:oo o’clock service.

I gathered a group of six to eight people of “like mind” to think out seeing what we could do with it, and agreed to ask all of their unchurched friends, “What would it take to get you to a church service twice a month?”

The answers were wonderfully revealing: No sermons! No prayers, particularly prayers of confession! No bible! No hymns! No creeds or confessions of faith! No organ! No offerings! Etc.!

In other words: “No Church as it currently is!”

“Okay,” we said, and crafted a series of ads in the local paper, paid for with the $4,000, around the theme of “No Bible, No prayers, No hymns, No offerings, No kidding!” with the location, time and place for the first meeting.

We used some of the $4,ooo to hire musicians–local singer/songwriters and individuals/groups who were paid $100 a “gig” to play their kind of music with “no religious music allowed.” We had pianists doing their thing, cellists doing their thing (Solo Cello is super), blue grass quartets, doing their things (Wonder of wonders, this sometimes included Rhiannon Giddens–Laurelyn Dossett/Pole Cat Creek and Steep Canyon Rangers were part of our Saturday Night concerts, but that’s a story of its own). It was a truly magical time over a period of seven years.

The service opened and closed with ten minutes of music. Ten minutes of silence followed the opening act. A time for “community sharing followed that and I followed that with a loose arraignment of thoughts like those I post here. We were done within an hour to make way for the 11 o’clock service and that led me along the path of “re-thinking church,” which I am walking to this day, and beyond.

Which gets me to this: There is nothing to “being the church,” but. There is a catch. We can’t “be the church” and pay the bills. My salary was a significant bill. A building to meet in with heating and cooling, repairing and painting, etc. were significant bills.

The early church for the first 200 years or so didn’t worry about paying the bills. There were no bills. Organized religion came on the scene as a way to “save the world” with a catch, “Organized religion exists to pay the bills!”

It took two centuries for the priests to take over religion and sell eternity for the low, low price of tithes and offerings. And in that moment, the church as it had been, and needs to be, ceased to exist.

So, I’m rectifying that situation by throwing out theology, creeds, doctrine, the Bible, hymns, offerings, etc. and offering in their place the right kind of emptiness, stillness and silence (and music).

I carry in my shirt pocket a few business cards which I pass out to people I feel would be open to the idea they represent. They have a photograph on one side, with my name, my ClickASnap link and nine words: balance, harmony integrity, sincerity, spontaneity, vitality, emptiness, stillness, silence.

I tell the recipients that the card represents a three-fold meditative process. The image and the link are connections to the natural world, and they are a part of that world, and are to explore their own original nature and innate virtues/specialties/interests, the things that are natural and automatic with them, and they are to look through my images on line, and become sensitive to the scenes they walk through each day, looking for what catches their eye, and look closer, examine/explore fully meditatively what is there that attracts them, that connects with what is “in here,” within their own heart/soul/self.

And they are to do the same thing with the words–adding to the nine terms on the card their own words, like beauty, truth, justice, equality, etc. and meditate on the meaning these terms have for them and how they might adjust their living in order to serve/express/exhibit those words in their life.

In following these three avenues/paths of meditation/awareness, they will be opening themselves to themselves and to how their life needs to be lived to exhibit/express the truth of who they are in ways that are appropriate to each situation as it arises throughout the time left for living.

And, in so doing, they will be being the church as it ought to be, without the hymns, doctrine, theology, etc. And they will be creating/discovering their own symbols which will serve them as guides on their path through the sea of life and being. Which is all we need to find what we need to do what needs to be done. Which is all that can be asked of any of us ever.

–0–

We live to see/hear/know/do.
A life grounded in,
flowing from,
returning to
emptiness, stillness and silence
has the best chance 
of seeing/hearing/knowing what's what
and doing what needs to be done about it
in each situation as it arises
no matter what
all our life long.

A life grounded in fear/greed/hatred
has no chance at all 
of seeing/hearing/knowing anything
beyond what it wants 
and doing whatever it takes
to have its way.

–0–

Stability,
dependability,
reliability,
trustworthiness
are foundational elements
for the creation
and maintenance
of balance and harmony.

Balance and harmony
are fundamental
for integrity, 
sincerity,
spontaneity. 

Living on the edge
of uncertainty
generates anxiety
and keeps us from settling into
a safe and secure pattern of life.

Enter fascism and its love for
knocking things over
and burning things down,
and you get a sense of the absurdity
of life under fascist rule.

What percentage of the Russian population
can count on running water,
natural gas
and regular garbage pickup?

How's their balance and harmony?

Fascism is threatened to its core
by balance and harmony.
It survives by not allowing anyone
the privilege of relaxing into 
a comfortable routine.

Americans don't have a clue
about what they are asking for
in a Trump run autocracy.

How can educated people 
be so f-ing stupid?
By allowing their fear, hatred, desire/greed
direct their living
and ruin their life.

Deliver us all from wanting more
than we have any use for!
Ever and always!
Amen!

–0–

How many "Y's" constitute our life?
How many more will there be?
I don't know how you "do it,"
but here is another possibility to consider:

Empty yourself of all thoughts and emotions,
memories and judgments.
Stand at the fork as empty as the space between breaths.
And without thinking,
without resorting to reason and logic,
without "doing it" as Spock would "do it,"
wait in the emptiness, stillness and silence,
until you find yourself walking,
without having decided/chosen to walk,
to the right,
or to the left,
or turning around and walking back the way you came.

It will be better than flipping a coin twice.

Or, perhaps, just different.

–0–

Our imagination is a mirror
reflecting us to us. 

What are the themes running through
your imagination's wanderings,
which are not actually wanderings at all,
but recurring stories
to reaffirm,
entrench,
solidify
the patterns that are ingrained
in your mind's worn path of rumination?

Sex addicts think like sex addicts.
Fascists think like fascists.
Preachers think like preachers.
...
You think like you.
I think like me.

All we have to do is think about our thinking
to realize who we are
and know what matters most to us.

Then we think about what we think about that,
and what we need to do to change
the nature of our life--
or to maintain it just as it is,
if it suits our fancy just fine.

But from now on, 
we won't be kidding ourselves
about ourselves.
We will be being ourselves,
full bore all the way.

The question then becomes
"Are we being who the situations/circumstances
of our life need us to be?

Or, are we escaping the situations/circumstances
of our life with endless fantasies
about how we wish things were
and what we want things to be?

And how we might go about aligning ourselves
with the life that needs us to live it?

Do we care about the life that needs us to live it?
About being "the obedient servants"
of the life we are built/born to live?

Aligned with the Tao, the Flow,
the Source of life and being?

Or do we just want to be left alone
with our pornographic images,
our fantasies about endless wealth
or world domination?

–0–

People kill themselves
and other people
because they don't like the way
things are going.

Why don't they just change their mind
about what is important?

Changing our mind about what is important
is the solution 
to all of our problems today.
Every day.

The right kind of meditation practice
is about changing our mind about what is important.

Sitting in emptiness, stillness and silence
is a shift in emphasis
regarding what is important.

Allowing things to arise of their own accord
is so different
from forcing our will for the world upon the world.

"Thy will not mine be done,"
when the "thy" is simply the drift of circumstances,
the flow of life,
what needs to happen here/now,
and getting out of the way
in order that what needs to happen
is allowed to happen,
is the grounding foundation
of all that is meet and right.

Joseph Campbell has a wonderful meditation
on Carl Jung's term "Active Imagination,"
where he says,
"If  you take in some traditional image proposed to you by your own religious tradition, or your own society's religious lore, proposing it to yourself for active imagination, without any strict game rules defining the sort of thoughts you must bear in mind in relation to it, letting your own psyche enjoy and develop it (carrying you away into thoughts and images that arise spontaneously, of their own accord--JD), you may find yourself running into imageries, experiences, and amplifications that do not fit into the patterns of the tradition in which you have been trained. What are you going to do about that? Are you going to let yourself go, following your own activated imagination? Or, are you going to cut the run short at some critical point?"

Are we going to go with what needs to happen,
or stick with someone's idea of what is supposed to happen?
Are we going to trust ourselves to the inner thrust of our life,
or impose our will and wants on the world around us,
killing ourselves or someone else
when things don't go our way?

–0–