April 04, 2026

Silhouettes in the Fog 02 — Sioux City, South Dakota

Today is my 82nd April 4. And I am increasingly curious about my end of life possibilities. How many more April 4ths remain? What will I do with the time from now to then? What will be The Event that will be the turning point between life as it has been to life as it will be until my last breath? What will matter to me during however many days remain? How many realizations are left to me? I think that is my greatest curiosity. How many realizations remain?

Realization is my greatest pleasure. I fish for them with questions. Making inquiries is what I do best. How many more questions can I generate through all of the days left to live? I am driven by inquiry. What remains to wonder about? What needs to be known? I love the idea of the prospect of remaining quiet and alert to all of the questions I have yet to ask. What will pique my interest today? Through all of the days left to be lived. I hope you will be with me all along the way!

April 03, 2026

Two Pelicans — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina

I invite you to join me in thinking of dying not as dead and gone, but as a transition state where energy, which can neither be created or destroyed, is being transformed or converted, and we are all, at that point in our life, moving on. And we won’t be gone, necessarily, but moving on to the next transition point. And we all will be transitioning throughout forever. I hope you will also join me in looking forward to it.

April 02, 2026

Aquarium 02 — Hendrick Honda Aquarium, Charlotte, North Carolina

Doing what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done takes precedent over every other thing. If the entire world worked together in putting this into effect, the entire world would be a better place to live, like that, he said, snapping his fingers. And, if we act to enact it in our lives individually, it will improve our life like that, he said, snapping his fingers again.

April 01, 2026

Cypress Mirror — Down East, North Carolina

There is trying to please someone and there is simply being who we are. There is striving to have/get what we want, and there is simply being who we are, letting come what comes and letting go what goes.

There is nothing more important than being who we are, doing what we need to do to be true to ourselves with sincerity, integrity and authenticity, when, where and how we need to do it in just being who we are here, now–not trying to serve our advantage or win the grand prize. The prize is to do it like we would do it. To be ourselves enjoying ourselves regardless of the outcome. How long since we lived like that?

What do the cypress trees get out of being cypress trees? Yet, what could be more wonderful than this scene of cypress trees doing their thing for absolutely nothing more than the joy of being cypress trees in the early morning light? What could they do that would be better than this?

Become a cypress tree. Let the world stop and be blessed by the blessing if it wants to.

April 2026

Castle Mountain and Bow River — Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies, Alberta

To be one with God, as Jesus was, is to be one with our own inner Psyche. In sync with the movement of life here, now. Not opposed to it. At war with it. At odds with it. Opposed to it at every turn. No “MY WAY NOW! We cannot live to have our way. To get what we want. To force what is important to us into being. None of that.

To be one with God is to be soft and pliable. Easy to get along with. Eager to please, to comply, to do what is called for–when, where and how it is called for. In each situation as it arises all our life long. Like God’s “observant servant.” Only the God we serve is our own center, source, essence and ground of our own being.

In doing God’s will, we are doing what we most need to do to exhibit, express, exhibit who we are in the service of what is called for here, now, by “peacefully abiding, here, now.”

God’s will for us is our best interest. Our most necessary, essential, imperative, most vital concern. And it likely has nothing to do with what we want. What does wanting know? When has wanting ever met the criteria for value and worth? Sand in the sugar bowl. Dust in the wind.

In order to be one with God we have to be transparent to ourselves. At that point, we are “transparent to transcendence.” And people who see us, see God. Our work is to align ourselves with the God within. Some call her Psyche. She is one with our integrity and our intuition. Getting to know those facets of ourselves is getting to know God. It is being God by becoming who we are.

We do not get there by planning, scheming, striving, stying, but by relaxing into being who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are by doing what needs to be done in the right way, at the right time, in the right way, in the right place. And we do that by knowing what is called for here, now, and doing it where, when, and how it is called for. No matter what. Whether we want to or not. Just being who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are. At one with ourselves, at one with God.

Just like Jesus, getting up and doing what needed to be done, moment to moment, just by being himself. No one special doing nothing special. Just being true to himself here, now in the time and place of his, of our, living.

March 31 – B, 2026

Bridge from (to) Rough Ridge 01 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

God is not a spiritual being. “God” is the name bestowed upon a psychological process that is experienced/known by every living thing. This process is also known as “Psyche,” “Tao,” “Flow,” “Intuition,” “Atman,” “Brahman,” Etc., and is experienced as Presence, Intuition, Guide, Director, Peace, Aid, Etc. “God,” “Psyche,” et al, are just alternative ways of thinking about spiritual experiences. And are where we tend to turn in time of trouble, where go to be comforted, guided, directed, encouraged, reassured, etc. They are where we go for comfort and consolation, balance and harmony. To be stabilized, made fit for what is being asked of us and returned to action.

God, Psyche, Tao, etc., is/are as close as emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing, not three), and are the source of all of our insight, realization, enlightenment, awareness, understanding, comprehension, knowing, grasping, getting it, “being born again,” etc.

I do not know why this is not explained to us early on in our life. It would likely make quite a difference for the better on all levels.

March 31, 2026

Bog River Upper Falls — Adirondack Park, Tupper Lake District, New York

If you look closely at the water it will move for you. It is an optical illusion, of course and. How much of our life is? How much of what we think is so is not so? If we say something about anything, anyone, and what we have said says more about us than it says about who we were talking about. It says more about how we see them than about who they are.

And we make associations with the things we see–this image, for instance–that no one else will make. The impact the image–and our life–has on us is personal. We respond to our life, the people, the experiences in our life, as we alone would respond.

Knowing who we are means observing ourselves in action, reflecting on what we see, making inquiries about where our responses originate–what is it about us and our background that makes it easy for us to see, feel, think the way we do?

We do not live isolated from everything that has occurred to us in our life. Everything has had some degree of impact on us psychologically, emotionally, physically, and we remember things long forgotten which stir to life when “reminded” by something similar in our present experience. We do not out grow, or out live, the things we have experienced which influence our responses to things that happen in our present experience.

How do we separate ourselves from what has happened to us? We can sit with what is currently happening that might stir old memories to life, and make inquiries, examining, inspecting, investigating what might be going on inside, but shutting ourselves off entirely from the impacts of the past may be beyond our best efforts. It may just be that we make our peace with having been impacted, and make room for the old emotions to be welcome in our present life.

Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” comes to mind as a helpful way of dealing with our past, and being a softer place for our present experiences to land.

March 30, 2026

Delicate Arch — Arches National Park, Moab, Utah

The force that centers us, grounds us, balances us, harmonizes us, directs us, guides us, has been called the Tao at work in our life for thousands of years.

We can think of the Tao as the flow of life and being. As that which moves all life and every thing. As “circumstances begetting circumstances,” as the old Taoists put it.

Being at one with the Tao is being at one with ourselves, and each other throughout the planet. But. We cannot achieve oneness with Tao by thinking about it. By striving to realize it. To make it happen. Realization is simply waking up to it. We roll over and there it is.

In this sense, Oneness with the Tao is like waking up without the aid of an alarm clock. In this sense, Tao is like Enlightenment in that both can be realized but they cannot be attained. They can be realized but not acquired. They are like seeing what we are looking at. Looking does not produce seeing. I can look at my watch to see what time it is, but I may not see what I am looking at, and have to look again.

We become enlightened, awakened by relaxing into our life, into life. Not-wanting, not-striving, not-trying, just breathing, just walking, just sitting, just being. Just doing what is called for, where, when and how it is called for.

When chopping wood, we chop wood. When taking a shower we take a shower. We meet each situation as the situation needs to be met, situation after situation. When we read the paper while eating breakfast, we read the paper while eating breakfast.

And life carries us along through the day without our being deliberately conscious about shifting roles throughout the day, now I am reading the paper, now I am eating breakfast. And we do what needs to be done by meeting the day as the day needs to be met.

No striving, no forcing, no making anything be more than it is, out of place, out of time, out of step. Tao. Enlightenment. Awakening. Here, now.

March 29, 2026

Mt. Rundle Sunrise — Vermillion Lakes, Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies, Alberta

It is ridiculous, obscene, ludicrous, absurd, to think that any of us need to be saved from the fallout of the supposed sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

All that any of us need ever is to be who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are, doing what is ours to do, in each situation as it arises, all our life long–doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place–as the old Taoists said between 5,000 and 500 years before Jesus was born.

What’s keeping that from happening? What is keeping us from being who we are, doing what is ours to do? In each situation as it arises? All our life long?

March 28, 2026

Blue Ridge Lake — Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

It is easy to think that the dead are better off but. It is ridiculous to suppose so because we can’t get to the facts without being dead. And if we think the point of living is to have it made with joy and gladness all around, that is also ridiculous because there is nothing about the assumption beyond wishful thinking. The only thing we know with a reasonable degree of certainty is that here we are. And what we are going to do about it is quite up to us, here, now. Here we are, now what? That is our call to make in each situation as it arises. How do we go about making it? What are we to do with the time left for living?

We all must answer for ourselves. I propose that we not rush to conclusions about anything, but that we take our time. That we stop, here, now, and wait for clarity regarding what’s what, here, now. What is happening? What is pressing us to make up our mind and be done with it just to escape the pressure of deciding what to do next and why that matters.

Putting aside all pressure to decide what to do here, now, and waiting for clarity in the matter means waiting to know what is called for here, now and giving ourselves to its service with the gifts we bring to the moment: Our original nature, our intuition and our imagination, our virtues–the things we do best and enjoy doing most, and our ability to empty ourselves of wants, desires, fear, anxiety, uncertainty, etc., and simply wait, watching, listening, looking for something to arise to call us to action upon the field of action in the service of our truest/best sense of what is called for and give ourselves to it wholeheartedly, doing what we take to be the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place and let that be that–in each situation as it arises throughout the time left for living.

If you can come up with a better idea about how to proceed here, now, by all means, have at it!

March 27, 2026

Beech Tree Fall — Guilford College Woods, Greensboro, North Carolina

Understanding “projection,” not as a psychological defense mechanism where by we imagine others to be as we are, and see in them characteristics that are actually true of us, but as a tendency we have to project our bias regarding an entire class of people as being true of those people. Racism is a white person’s projection of personal expectations and beliefs upon people of color.

We tend to see things the way we think things are (Or, we think things are the way we see things). And we cannot stand apart from our assumptions, presumptions, inferences, beliefs, convictions, prejudices, etc., in order to see our seeing and know that we are imposing our slanted view of the world upon the world. We are victims of our own false assumptions as much as the people we project our views upon are.

Scientists have long recognized the tendency of people conducting experiments with microscopes in laboratories to discover results they expect to find in the experiments they run. We do the same thing with our lives, seeing what we expect to find wherever we look and confirming thereby what we already assume to be so, everywhere we look.

We are trapped in our own views of the world and cannot get outside of ourselves to see. Liberals see the way liberals see. Conservatives see the way conservatives see. And we are the blind condemning the blind unable to look objectively at any aspect of reality because every “fact” we look at has to be interpreted subjectively!

So what are we to do? Do not rush to judgement as the first rule. Acknowledge our tendency to see as we always have seen and never see anything new or different about the people, and/or, the things we see–and catch ourselves in the act of “being ourselves again” whenever we say things we always say about other people and other classes of people.

We have to become unceasing observers of ourselves in action, keeping in mind Rumi’s observation, “If you are not here with us in good faith, you are doing terrible damage.”

March 26, 2026

Louisiana Morning 01 — Natchitoches Parish Swamp

All of us are waiting to see what the next few weeks bring. The war-racked economy impacts everyone worldwide. And Trump thought he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize. He will take publicity and recognition for anything, at any time, maintaining his status as a loose canon careening around on the deck of Planet Earth, firing away anytime he feels like it. The international economy is a long time away from settling down. As goes the economy, so goes our lives. Prices, salaries, livelihoods, and a future we can count on, all up in the air.

So, where do you go to calm yourself and begin to restore your balance and harmony? I recommend Emptiness, Stillness, Silence (One thing, not three). But, of course I would! The biggie is emptying ourselves of our anxiety, insecurity, uncertainty, and fear of the worst. Take your favorite rock with you to the place you sit in the silence. Consider the rock. The rock has no fear. No concern. No worries. Become the rock. Be the rock. If you cannot carry the rock with you through the day, carry the memory of the rock with you, and allow it to connect you to the Emptiness, Stillness and Silence. If nothing else, it will break your habit of constant anguish and agony regarding our prospects. The rock has no prospects. Become the rock. Be the Rock. And smile.