April 24, 2026

Black eyed Susans — Pike Nursery, Charlotte, North Carolina

I am working on the 5th edition of my eBook “The Tao of Jesus,” on Kindle, and I am using Microsoft Word’s AI, Copilot, to do my proof reading, and putting a “clickable Table of Contents” together, cleaning things up (like what I call “Free Radicals” in the form of empty spaces and page breaks scattered throughout the manuscript.

The AI experience has been quiet informative, learning as I go. For instance, AI remembers nothing and is good only for this conversation right now. If I want to continue the conversation I cannot end the chat, I can only close things down while I go to bed, eat lunch, get my hair cut, etc. My computer can shut down, but the conversation has to remain open in oder that I can pick back up where we left off. I have lost a wealth of work, sending bits and pieces of the manuscript in for inspection, closing down the chat, and opening it up the next day thinking we were starting where I stopped. We were starting all over. Like nothing had ever gone on before.

AI is linked to all the information there is, but. I have to know what question to ask to get to what I need. The experience has been more frustrating than helpful, but the “Clickable TOC” will be very nice. My experience of creating one manually with hyperlinks placed where they need to go was grinding things out and not snapping things into place. I will be glad to have it done and look forward to being free of having to be so exact in taking the steps that need to be taken.

The other hitch in the process is that I cannot upload the entire manuscript, because it is too large to transmit, so I have to break it down into a couple of chapters at a time. Attention to detail is not what I do best. I have learned to put my socks on before my shoes, but that’s about all I’m good for in respecting the right order for all of the processes in my life. I will let you know when the deed is done.

April 23, 2026

Flower Arrangement 01 — Pike Nursery, Charlotte, North Carolina

Every time we lose the way, noise is to blame. Diversion, distraction, intrusion. Every time we return to the way it is through emptiness, stillness, silence. What disturbs the still water? Noise, confusion, complexity. Drop into the silence, etc. Take refuge in the emptiness, etc. It is the way to the way, and that makes it the way as well.

April 22, 2026

Rhododendron Tunnel — Roan Mountain, Carver’s Gap, Tennessee

The experience of intuition merging with the external reality of time and place (“The here and now) of our existence creates the felt physical sense of magic and wonder which is generally interpreted as “The work of God.” Projecting onto an Invisible Other (That which has always been called ‘God'”), and creating religions replete with theology, creeds, doctrine, rituals, holidays, and holy wars, all well beyond the scope of anything intuition is capable of imagining and intending. When the personal and private goes public and corporate, things get quickly out of hand and out of control. As the history of the world exhibits for all who care to see.

April 21, 2026

Linvlle River Mirror –Linville Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

When Jesus said, “The Father and I are one,” he did not mean that exclusively for himself alone. Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is within you. Meaning all of you. Meaning everyone. He was saying, “The Father and you are one.” Now if you will do me the favor of removing everything you have ever heard that would discredit me for saying that and deny the truth of what is just said. If you will empty yourself of all the false doctrine that you have heard from the time of Jesus to right now, and if you will sit in stillness and silence free from the burden of the lies you have heard from everyone claiming to be Christians, so that you only know that Jesus said “The Father and I are one,” and “The Kingdom of God is within you,” if you will sit quietly with that, you will know that I am telling you the truth that you and God are one thing, that the Father and you are one. And I will tell you how you know that. You will know that intuitively. Your intuition knows that you and God are one. It has always been so and it will always be so. We are of God. We all are of God. And we know that is so intuitively, because our intuition is of God, and is God within us, and the power of Jesus is that he knew that, too, and said it out loud. Jesus is set apart from all other people, not because Mary became pregnant miraculously by the Spirit of God, but because Jesus was bold enough to know that he and God were one, and he knew that God is one with everyone, and he said “The Kingdom of God is within you.” His power was his being truthful. The truth was his power, and he said what needed to be said. And if you read the Gospels from this point of view everything will fall into place and you will understand what Jesus was saying and doing. Not because he died for our sins. The Garden of Eden was an old story that was not literally true. The Garden of Eden did not exist. It did not have latitude and longitude. It is a metaphor, imaginary. There was no forbidden fruit. There was no original sin. There was no fall. There was no need of redemption. There was no need for atonement. No one had to die to appease the wrath of God and save everyone from going to hell. We all are of God. We all are God. God is not separate from us. If you will sit quietly with this, you will know that it is so. You will know that you know intuitively that it is so. And we all can begin living out of the knowledge that God is one with us. And we can start living as though we are God with one another. We can be God to one another. And that will change everything. And when everything is changed The kingdom of God will be here, now. Right here, right now. Among us as it always has been–it has been spread upon the earth forever, as the Gnostic Gospels say, and no one has seen it, because no one knew they were God and no one treated each other as though they all were God, and so the Kingdom of God was concealed because no one knew they were God. We have always been God but did not know it. If you will sit with this quietly and listen to your intuition, which is God in you, in all of us, and always has been, you will know that it is so. And the Kingdom of God will come on earth when we treat one another as though we all are God, because that is true. We all are God.

April 20, 2026 – B

Watkins Glen — Watkins Glen State Park, New York 2015

We tend to take our perspective seriously. “Hell, Jim,” he said, standing in his cotton field in Panola County, Mississippi, talking with me, his pastor at the time, about racism, “This ain’t how I SEE things! This is how things ARE!” His perspective wasn’t just his perspective–it was the TRUTH!!! “I know when it’s time to change the subject,” I said, and asked him how the current drought was impacting his cotton crop.

How do we get outside of/beyond our perspective in order to see ourselves seeing and know when to question our conclusions because we are projecting too much of ourselves into “how things are” to be able to distinguish facts from feelings about facts, and see that our seeing isn’t taking our feelings about things into account when we are talking about things we have a serious stake in?

We cannot talk about things that matter to us the way we can talk about things that don’t matter to us. We have to be able to distance ourselves from what we see in order to see what we are looking at with objectivity and accuracy. This is the way medical personnel have to see patients who are wheeled into emergency rooms everywhere. The cannot allow their feelings about the person to interfere with their ability to treat the person as an innocent human being who needs help. And how a doctor would have to excuse himself from treating an accident victim he, or she, was married to. The more we have at stake in the outcome of our interaction with what we are looking at, the less likely we are be to see objectively, impersonally.

There is much that we look at every day that we cannot see because of the stake we have in how we see certain things. Bias and prejudice skew perception by way of projection, and keep us from seeing what we look at with any reasonable degree of accuracy, because it matters to us that things ARE the way we take them to be.

And so, the need for copious amounts of emptiness, silence and solitude in which we might “just sit,” empty of all emotion, fear, anxiety, desire, interest, concern, etc., so that we might be entirely objective with nothing to gain or lose in our encounter with what arises of its own accord in the silence (etc.) to call us to action in the service of doing what is called for, when, where, how it needs to be done, as though we are a medical attendant in an emergency room tending whatever comes through the door in the right way, here, now.

April 20, 2026

Sunset Mirror — Stonington shoreline, Deer Isle, Maine

Shifting our orientation from getting what we want, when, where and how we want it to doing what is called for and needs to be done in each situation as it arises is a personal project within a universal, cultural, bias. We are born into a welcoming environment in which the common assumption is that the meaning of life revolves around having what we want. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” comes at us from every side. Wanting and having wants satisfied is the way the world does business. No one anywhere (Except for indigenous people everywhere) ask us how the Guide, Voice, Impulse, Leader within is directing us to do.

We are not taught about the importance of emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing, not three), or told to listen within for guidance through our life. It is all about wanting and having our desires fulfilled. What an empty, paltry, inadequate way of meeting our innate need to know and serve the essential core of our being. And we are empty and unfulfilled all of the time. And are never taught, urged, or expected to probe, explore, inquire, wonder who we are or what is ours to do. If we are lost or in a funk of depression, we are encouraged to buy, spend, amass and consume. To lose ourselves in diversion, distraction, denial. The culture devours its own in this way. We are given a life style that serves the economy and dismisses our soul. Our only way out of the downward spiral from birth to death is to find the Way that is the Way by seeing, hearing, under-standing, knowing what’s what and what’s happening and what’s called for here, now, and do what needs to be done with the gifts of our original nature, innate virtues (What we do best and enjoy doing most), inherent intuition and intrinsic imagination, allowing that to reveal to us who we are and what is ours to do in the time left for living.

April 19, 2026

Attraction or Compulsion?

Inner quiet is the solution to all of our problems today, any day, every day. Dropping into the silence and observing all things without reacting to anything, just looking, just seeing, just knowing, provides us with the perfect still point for moving in the direction of the most significant response to what is called for in every situation as it arises with right doing, right being.

Achieve silent perception and trust Intuition and Psyche to take it from there. Live relaxed in the company of Perception, Intuition and Psyche. There is nothing more to want or need. The most powerful threesome throughout history–producing right seeing, right knowing, right doing, right being–no matter what.

April 18, 2026

Dune Walker — Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley, California

The Four Pillars of Democracy are Liberty, Justice, Equality, Truth. Trump doesn’t care about, and much less stands for, any of them. And 77 million people voted for him. More than half of the people we pass by every day voted for him, and have no place in their life for the Four Pillars of Democracy. That puts Democracy in peril. More than half of us don’t care at all for Liberty, Justice, Equality, Truth. We cannot be counted on to care about the quality of life of fellow Americans nation wide. We are lost in distraction, diversion, denial, sex, drugs and alcohol. We need to sit in emptiness, stillness, silence and wait for the mud to settle and theh water to clear in order to know what’s what, what is called for and what needs to be done about it with the gifts of our Original Nature, Innate Virtues (The things we do best and enjoy most), Inherent Intuition, and Intrinsic Imagination. The future of the world and each of us depends on our knowing who we are and what we are about, and living in the service of those things every day for the rest of our life.

April 17-C, 2026

Road to Botany Bay 2014 — Botany Bay Historical Preserve and Wildlife Refuge, Edisto Island, South Carolina

Seeing what we look at. Hearing what we listen to. Knowing what we know. Can happen only in an environment of emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing, not three). How noisily do we live? How quickly do we see, hear, understand, and think we know? We cannot be here, now without slowing down and recognizing where we are, what’s what, what is called for and where do we go from here, when, and how. We cannot live well without the experience of being alive in each moment of our living, and how often does that happen? Babies, infants, toddlers and young children do that without knowing that they are doing it. We can learn to do it by knowing that we are doing it, simply by being here, now, and being aware of being here, now. Jon-Kabat Zin’s mindfulness exercises are excellent ways of knowing where we are, when we are, how we are and for what purpose we are in the moment of our living (Watch his shortest videos first).

In doing this, we are becoming aware of being aware, of seeing what we are looking at, of seeing ourselves seeing, and we are “turning the light around “by becoming alive to the life we are living. And that changes, or, at least, strongly influences the alteration, of everything about our life.

April 17- B, 2026

Jasper Wetlands — Jasper National Park, Canadian Rockies, Alberta

All religion worldwide (Cosmos-wide) throughout the ages is nothing more than collections of collections of projections of projections. Religion is projection. Religion is based on theology and theology is a collection of projections. “Revealed truth” is imagined truth, is Projected “truth.” Which has to be “taken on faith” because it has no actual, tangible, real, truthful foundation. It is merely saying what someone else has said that someone else has said.

Jesus did not come to save the world, or “humankind.” The Garden of Eden did not have latitude and longitude. It was not a physical reality. It cannot be located anywhere on earth. Adam and Eve did not exist. They are metaphorical fictions to emphasise the point of the importance of not being driven/motivated by our wants and desires–a theme that many of the world’s religions proclaim.

There was no Original Sin. There was no Fall. There was no need for redemption or salvation. No reason for the cross as the atonement of the sins of humankind. It is all fabricated. Made up in the 392 years between Jesus’ execution and the closure of the canon at the Council of Rome in 392 CE. Made up primarily by the Church of Rome and proclaimed throughout the Roman Empire and then through out the world, giving the Church of Rome its self-proclaimed authority to say what’s what and what had to be done about it to be saved from the hell that waits for all unrepentant sinners upon their death. A brilliant ploy for guaranteeing the survival and future of the Church of Rome, never mind that it was a lie from the start, and the persecution of the Gnostics and so-called Heretics was necessary to keep the lie going through the centuries to this very day. But enough!

We turn the light around by being clear about our being born with everything we need to find what we need to do what needs to be done here, now in every situation/circumstance as it arises, seeing, hearing, knowing, understanding what’s what and what is called for with the gifts of our Original Nature, our Intrinsic Virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most), our Inherent Intuition and our Innate Imagination. The spiritual foundation of life is the intuitive center of each person which has been called the Psyche and is synonymous with the energy flowing through the Cosmos–the light that produces particles of matter which collide and produce more particles of matter throughout time which eventually produces life and here we are. Miracles of the process identified by the Taoists 5,000 years before Jesus was born as “Circumstances begetting circumstances.” And where we go from here, now is merely a matter of time and chance, which the Bible says, “happens to us all.”

April 17, 2026

Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Bar harbor , Maine

As a photographer, if the weather doesn’t go your way, you look for photographs anyway. And that is a good carryover to the rest of life. Why do we make such a thing over having our way? It is eventually going over into, “Okay, now what?” anyway. Why not just switch what we want into exactly what we have and treat it as though it is what we have always hoped we would be able to deal with? Attitude and perspective are everything. The sooner we square ourselves up with having a way being an invitation to gloom, sadness and woe, the less of that we have to deal with. By preventing our preferences from becoming anything more than that, we set ourselves up for enjoying the next best thing, or the one after that, without flipping out, listing to starboard and winding up on the rocks.

April 16, 2026

Banff Depot — Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies, Alberta

Religions everywhere throughout time have all been grounded upon and expressive of the projections of those who created the religions. Religion is projection. As is practically everything else. We experience something internally and explain it by using a vocabulary based on external experiences. A volcano explodes and we explain it as the anger of the gods, or of The God. We explain outward events in terms of inward imagination and fear. Early on, we were little more than a physical bundle of imagination and fear.

Ghosts and goblins, witches and warlocks. Imaginary stuff that lead to witch hunts. Tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes were all explained with ideas, theories, guesses, imagination that we relied on to create a “reality” that never existed and never will–and in so doing, scared ourselves into being religious to escape, avoid, placate, our own creations.

The Garden of Eden had neither latitude nor longitude. It never existed as an actual, factual, physical place. The same goes for heaven and hell. Yet, heaven and hell have been imagined in one form or another by practically every religion that ever existed. And Eden is the basis of Christianity. But there was no original sin. There was no Fall. There was no need of redemption. No need for Jesus to die on a cross. It was all projection. Every last bit of it.

And faith is conjured up as the cure for all that threatens us–the cure to the things we make up and scare ourselves with. And why would we take any of it on faith? Or, better, if we are going to take anything on faith, why not something else instead? Something better? Something like we are born with everything we need to find what we need to do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises? Why not believe that? And instantly be cured of of our phobias, anxiety disorders, depressions, etc.?

We can free ourselves of the demons we have created. It only takes waking up to do it.