Experience and reflection on experience 
lead to associations and connections,
trains of thought and streams of inquiry,
examination and realization,
all of which form another level of experience,
and the cycle repeats endlessly over time--
unless we interrupt it
by refusing to ask the questions that beg to be asked,
or say the things that cry out to be said,
or see what we look at,
or hear what is being said,
particularly what we are saying 
and failing to say
in light of all that we are experiencing
and failing to experience,
although it is right there,
awaiting awareness. 

We keep doing the same things
waiting for things to change.
Our luck, for instance.
Or our station in life.

Transformation follows courage,
which is forestalled by recurring rounds
of drugs/sex/alcohol/diversion/distraction/denial,
anything to take our mind off what's what
and what needs to be done about it here/now
and the beat goes on and on
like the tides through time. 

–0–

Getting, acquiring, amassing, owning, having, possessing, doing,
achieving, winning, etc.,
add noise, complexity, drama and trauma
to our life,
disrupts our balance and harmony,
increases turmoil,
bedlam,
chaos
and uncertainty,
and has us where we are.

Everything has to serve 
balance and harmony,
integrity,
sincerity,
spontaneity,
spirit,
energy
and vitality--
in the service
of our original nature
and our inherent virtues/specialties/qualities.

Intuition,
instinct,
inclination
and resonance,
are proper guides
to life, being and action,
and are accessed best
through
emptiness,
stillness and silence.

All of which culture and society abhor.

Leaving us with decisions to make
regarding 
how we spend our money
and how we spend our time
in answering the questions,
"Who are we?"
"What are we about?"
"Where do we go from here 
with our life?"

–0–

How many people do you know
who talk without saying anything
worth thinking about or remembering?

Social chatter consumes our lives. 

Hair salon talk.
Bar talk.
Church talk.
Family reunion talk.
Dinner party talk.
The list is long.

We spend a lot of time saying nothing.
Hearing nothing.
Wasting our life
on things that don't matter.

What do we have to say that needs saying?

What enables and sustains
your balance and harmony?

Where do you go to talk about that?

What disrupts, unsettles, destabilizes your life?

Where do you go to talk about that?

What vitalizes your life,
infuses your life with wonder
and joy,
radiance,
delight?

How often do you spend time with that,
talking about that?

Where do you find the flow of vital energy
in your life?

How often do you experience that flow,
merge with it,
live in sync with it?
Deliberately?
Consciously?
Intentionally?

What upsets/destroys that flow? 

Where do you go to talk about these things?

–0–

Nature, virtues, vitality.
These are the three aspects 
of our life
that have to be in sync
for our life to be
what it is capable of being.

Notice that our external circumstances
matter not one mote.

We are capable of living anywhere,
with anything
as those who are true 
to their original nature,
their innate virtues,
their essential vitality
just by the attention/intention
we give to those things
over time
no matter what.

Who are we?
What are we about?
Where is our joy to be found?
When are we going to start
serving those concerns
with all our heart, 
and mind,
and soul,
and strength,
every day,
in the time left for living?

A daily meditation 
on our original nature,
our intrinsic virtues,
and the things that generate
joy, radiance and vitality within 
is quite in order
all the time.

–0–

It occurs to me 
from time to time
that we alone are responsible
for our safety and well-being
throughout what remains of the time
that is ours upon the earth.

We make the decisions/choices
that produce the future
that is ours to live,
one decision/choice at a time.

We each know--or could know,
if we were interested in knowing--
what assists/enables our balance and harmony,
and what disrupts/destroys it.

We know, as Joseph Campbell was wont to say,
"when we are on the beam,
and when we are off it"--
where we belong
and where we have no business being.

We know what does it for us
and what doesn't.

What overrides what we know to be so
and leads us away from who we are
and what is ours to do
with the life that has yet to be lived?

What helps us, aids us
in being who we are,
doing what is ours to do,
and what hinders us,
blocking our way,
concealing our path?

What we spend our time doing
and thinking about
carries us into where we are going.

We help ourselves or hinder ourselves
all along road through our future.

We do our future to ourselves
by how we live in the present.

What we do today determines,
or strongly influences
what we do tomorrow.

What are we doing?
What are we thinking about?

How does that square with who we are
and what is ours yet to do?

Are we on the beam or off it? 

–0–

It is a mess   
everywhere I look, 
created and compounded
by people trying to have their way
and force it on other people.

We all need a 50-year time out.
We could start with one
of any length.

No one seems to take a time out
any longer.

Everything begins with
and flows from
time out.

Sitting down.
Being quiet.

Where do you go for quiet?

I have a pair of ear protection
headphones used on shooting ranges
that I take a nap wearing every day.

And no TV in the house.

The music I listen to is by choice
using ear buds and YouTube.

And I do not do social events
of any variety.

I go for quiet regularly
and repeatedly.

Everything comes from the silence.
And is found there.
Being quiet enough long enough
will tell you all you need to hear.

If you ask the questions that beg to be asked,
and say the things that cry out to be said.
Of everything.
In the silence.

If you are just plotting your revenge,
or planning your next move
in the service of having your way,
it's a waste of time. 

–0–

I have over 1,000 images up on ClickASnap, and am particularly proud of my "Beach Erosion" Album there, depicting the destruction of nature by nature--which, it seems, is one of the things nature does very well--of the beaches at Botany Bay, on Edisto Island, and Hunting Island, both in South Carolina.

Here is the ClickASnap link:

https://www.clickasnap.com/jim-dollar

Drop by for a "walk about" when you have the time. 

–0–

The Joy of life and being
is never more than a perspective shift away.

It resides with seeing all things
as being "transparent to transcendence"
(Joseph Campbell),
and knowing that we are capable
of realizations that transport us
to realms of joy and wonder,
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so,
no matter what.

What something "is" to us
is dependent upon the weight we give it
and the place we allot it 
in our life,
which is to say in our time and attention.

Some people find their joy
and their vitality
in horses,
hammocks,
books,
music,
trips to the mountains
or to the sea...
and some people don't.

Where do you find yours?

Wherever it is,
spend more time there,
devote more attention 
to its experience
and its company,
which means giving less time
and attention 
to the things that rob you
of joy and vitality
throughout your life.

Turning the light around
is as simple as that.

–0–

Summer is a great time  
for seeking out the essence
of vitality, 
joy,
gladness
and radiance of life--
and obliging ourselves to its experience
and service,
with liege loyalty 
and filial devotion
throughout the time left for living.

If we take the parables of the prodigal son 
and the good Samaritan seriously, 
hell has no place in our life--
and purity 
(represented by the elder brother, 
and the people walking past) 
itself is a stumbling block, 
and Christianity has no foundation
or reason for existence.

So, there's that.

And spirituality is free to develop
its own ground-of-being
in the places where we find
our own vitality,
enthusiasm,
gladness,
joy,
radiance
and life.

So that it is no longer 
fleeing from the punishment of hell
and the terrors of "an angry God"
that move us,
but the goodness of our experience
with each other
and the wonder of life and being
that provide us with the sustenance
and love of being alive.

Which the people who know
have known for thousands of years.

And we will all feel lighter
with the burden of sin
thrown out to sea. 

–0–

Wu-We is action without deliberation.
Doing that is not agenda directed.
Spontaneous, not arranged.
Jazz isn't conducted.
"It just happens."

Living that way
is living in harmony
with the moment,
with the circumstances,
with the time and place,
conditions and context
of our living.

That said, a lot goes into
"just being."

I drove to the Smokies,
and to the spot,
where this photograph was taken.
Etc.

Nothing "just happens."
Intention and purpose
get jazz musicians together
for a jam session.
And there probably isn't
a bagpipe in the crowd.
And it probably isn't a crowd,
but four or five carefully selected musicians
with the right kind of instruments
coming together
at an agreed upon time and place.

It has "agenda" all over it.

I have a very precise Order of the Day,
which I follow regularly,
and I do not cotton to intrusions,
knocks on the door, say,
or telephone calls with sales pitches
on the other end.

I carefully place myself in position
to harvest random thoughts
and occasional realizations.

It is like yoga for the mind,
trusting something will occur to me
when I place myself in the path
of occurrences.

If you want to be hit by a train,
it helps to sleep on the tracks.

Accidental and intentional overlap,
and the things that "just happen"
have an association with sleeping on the tracks.
The things that occur to us in the shower
depend on us being in the shower.

We are more responsible than we think
for the things that we think. 

We are more responsible than we think
for the life we live
and the way it all turns out.

We can "blame it on the moon," but.
Being out at night has something
to do with it,
and if we are out every night,
it may not be the moon's fault at all. 

–0–

We know more than we know we know, 
and we don't want to know it
because it would get in our way--
it would get in our way
of having our way.

All we want is to have our way NOW!!!

Knowing what we know puts an end to that.

Knowing what we know
means knowing what we ought to want.

That is not what we want.

What we ought to want
is not even what we ought to want,
not what other people think we ought to want
which is what they want us to want.

Everybody wants us to want 
what they want us to want.

And we want what we want,
but not what we ought to want
us to want.

Wanting the right things--
not what the culture deems to be right,
but what is truly right for us
in the here/now of our living.

In any situation--
in each situation as it arises--
there is what is right for us
and there is what is wrong for us.
Which have nothing to do with morality/ethics.
And which have everything to do with
what our heart wants,
and what the situation calls for,
and what is truly best for us long term
(And, hence, short term, too).

And we know what that is,
or have the potential to know that,
but, we don't want to know it,
resist knowing it,
refuse to know it,
deny knowing it,
and will have nothing to do with it.

And, here we are.

Nothing happens toward the good
that is truly good for us
until we open ourselves to knowing
what we know,
and doing what needs to be done
about it.

Our refusal to do that
is the source of all the noise
in our life.

Noise, complexity, drama, trauma
constitute "the heaving waves
of the wine dark sea,"
and prevent us from
the emptiness, stillness, silence, solitude
necessary for knowing what we know.

All those Vision Quests and Sweat Lodges
are about opening ourselves
to the stillness and silence
emptiness and solitude
which are the doorway
to knowing what we know,
to realizing what's what
and what needs to be done about it
which is the heart and soul of enlightenment.

We aren't enlightened until we know that.
And do it.

But.
We had rather talk about it
than do it--
than know it and do it.

And, here we are. 

–0–

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