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?
Dogwood on the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River Oil Paint Rendered — Above Tremont, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Townsend, Tennessee
Our life brings us forth
as we bring it forth.
It is the merry dance of life
with itself
throughout the time left for living.
We do not think our life into being,
as in "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
We live our life into being
by doing what needs us to do it
in each here/now that is packed
into a lifetime.
What needs us to do it
needs something we have,
something to do with our original nature
and the innate virtues/specialties
that come with us from the womb.
We don't know what any of that is
by thinking about it.
We live it forth
by allowing it to come forth
through us
into the circumstances that
play themselves out in our life.
It is all quite magical.
It is all "of the mystery"
that blesses all of us
with its grace and mercy,
shocking us awake with things
we did not know we could do.
And cannot deny that we did.
We are a surprise to ourselves,
when we back off,
get out of the way,
and trust ourselves to meet our life
just as it comes to us every day.
Do that tomorrow.
You will be shocked at what you can do
in response to the call of life and living.
Talking It Over Oil Paint Rendered — Pamlico Sound, Outer Banks, Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina
Our life is bringing forth
what needs to be brought forth
into each situation as it arises.
What form does your creativity take?
How do you live to express who you are?
What do you have to say
that words cannot convey?
What is your art?
What do you serve
by the way you live?
Sand painting has been around
for thousands of years.
Wood carving from the beginning of time.
The Inuit stacked rocks
into shapes of people
to comfort themselves
and fellow travelers
across the frozen tundra,
as if to remind themselves
they were not alone,
and drawing courage
from each other's work.
Dancing,
singing,
chanting,
drumming,
making/enjoying music
is a central feature
to life
in every generation
from the earliest days
of the species.
We need our art
the way we need air and water.
We are built to address
more than words can say.
It is who we are.
Viaduct Fall 10/15/2008 Oil Paint Rendered Linville Cove Viaduct, Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls, North Carolina
Our work over the time that remains for work
consists of deepening/enlarging/expanding
our relationship with ourselves,
with our life
and with the world around us.
These three elements,
the world, our life, our self
form the matrix for our work/our growth/
our awakening/our awareness/our enlightenment/
our realization/our peace/our joy/etc.
The first thing is to empty ourselves
of all the assumptions that drive/inhibit
our living.
Desire/wanting cannot be allowed
to commandeer/command/direct
our thoughts and actions.
Our normal/routine/customary
way of doing business
is interfering with our ability
to live aligned with the life
that is our life to live.
Desire has been leading us away
from our heart's true path
from the beginning,
and it is our place to find our way
back to Eden
and pay the price of our return
which is, as you will remember,
death by the hand of the angel with the sword
guarding the way back in.
Death is a metaphor for surrendering our
will and our way
in the service of the "Thy"
in the phrase, "Thy will, not mine, be done."
That "Thy" is the genetic makeup of our Psyche,
our original nature
and the innate virtues/specialties
we are gifted with from conception.
We are talking to ourselves
when we say "Thy will, not mine, be done,"
and our self is ready to join us
in the partnership of selves
through what remains of the time left for living.
We hold up our end of the collaboration
with time spend in emptiness/stillness/silence
exploring our dreams
and the things that arise unbidden
with force and energy requiring our attention.
The life force that is strong within us
awakens as we grant it attention,
and will be our primary guide for choices
and decisions
as we consider whether this option/possibility
has heart for us--
that is, whether our heart is in it or not,
whether we can do it
with all our heart.
Must we do it?
How demanding/insistent is the must?
Is the must not?
We have to learn to read our heart
and the leanings of the life energy,
the resonance,
the tug,
the compelling urgency
that directs our steps--
and "go with the flow" of that energy,
against the current of popular ideas
regarding how life should be lived,
if need be.
"If need be" is the watchword
for the remainder of our life's journey.
We are searching for,
and enlisted in the service of,
what needs to be done,
what needs us to do it,
and as we wonder about these things,
and listen to our nighttime dreams,
and daytime fantasies,
the rule of thumb is:
Ask all the questions that beg to be asked--
particularly the ones raised by the ones
we start with.
Say (if only to ourselves) all of the things
that cry out to be said.
We follow the questions and statements
down the trail they blaze,
not knowing where we are going
beyond exploring, exploring, exploring,
allowing the way to open before us
as we start walking,
and doing what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
letting one thing lead to another
all the way.
Yosemite Falls 04/27/2006 Oil Paint Rendered Yosemite National Park, California
Bad religion is based on opinion and hearsay,
good religion is grounded on experience--
specifically, on experience, regular and ongoing,
with the numinous,
the transcendent,
the ineffable,
the undeniable,
the Really Real...
beyond all thought,
incapable of being explained,
defined,
said
or told,
only experienced,
again and again,
as wonder,
radiance,
sublime,
joy,
amazement,
delight,
astonishment,
laughter,
grace...
All bad religion is based on fear.
All good religion is founded on joy,
exuberance,
gladness,
bliss,
glory...
beyond arrangement and orchestration,
choreography and production,
and is as natural as a waterfall
and a rainbow,
and a starry, starry, night.
Atchafalaya Highways 02/10/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — The Highways being the river and the I-10 causeway across the Atchafalaya Basin
Death and resurrection are ever-present
companions along the path of growing up.
Everyone grows up against their will.
It is like dying.
We die to what we want
in order to do what needs to be done,
and needs us to do it,
when,
where
and how it needs to be done.
And we are resurrected to new life
on the other side
of our experience with dying.
We die to ourselves
in becoming ourselves.
This is the new life
we are born into.
We become ourselves.
In submitting to what needs us to do it
with the skills and gifts we have
from birth,
we become who we are born to be.
It is death and resurrection.
It is the way.
That has nothing to do with theology,
and everything to do with our believing
in ourselves
and devoting ourselves to the task
of doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises
to the best of our ability.
And our dedication to the tasks of life
rewards us with, us.
With ourselves.
We become who we are
by dying to who we are.
The way is the way of growing up
again and again
throughout the course of our life.
It is never easy.
It is always death and resurrection.
The way is this way all the way.
Death and resurrection are ever-present
companions along the path of growing up.
Everyone grows up against their will.
It is like dying.
We die to what we want
in order to do what needs to be done,
and needs us to do it,
when,
where
and how it needs to be done.
And we are resurrected to new life
on the other side
of our experience with dying.
We die to ourselves
in becoming ourselves.
This is the new life
we are born into.
We become ourselves.
In submitting to what needs us to do it
with the skills and gifts we have
from birth,
we become who we are born to be.
It is death and resurrection.
It is the way.
That has nothing to do with theology,
and everything to do with our believing
in ourselves
and devoting ourselves to the task
of doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises
to the best of our ability.
And our dedication to the tasks of life
rewards us with, us.
With ourselves.
We become who we are
by dying to who we are.
The way is the way of growing up
again and again
throughout the course of our life.
It is never easy.
It is always death and resurrection.
The way is this way all the way.
Death and resurrection, Kid.
Death and resurrection.
Steele Creek Trestle 02/13/2014, Oil Paint Rendered — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Norfork Southern, Fort Mill, South Carolina
What needs to happen
right here,
right now?
That is the question
we take with us
into every situation
as it arises--
into each moment
in every situation
as it arises.
Not, "What do I want to happen?"
What needs to happen?
Wanting/Wants/Desire/Desiring
have us where we are.
How many of us
want to be where we are?
That's what I'm saying.
We wanted ourselves
right here, right now.
And we want to be somewhere else,
some way else.
Wanting cannot be trusted
to know what needs to be known
and to do what needs to be done.
Wanting is escapist.
Wanting is a diversion,
a distraction.
What needs to be done?
That is the question.
And we need to be right about it.
And we need to do it.
Moment by moment,
situation by situation.
Ah, but.
Who is to say?
Who says so?
Who knows?
We do.
We see.
We know.
We say.
We do.
And, we have to be right about it.
That is all there is to it
Knowing what needs to be done.
Being right about it.
Doing it.
In each situation as it arises.
Is all there is to it.
How do we do it?
See.
Hear.
Understand.
Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
Say the things that cry out to be said.
Know what's what
by knowing what we know
about what's what,
and acting spontaneously,
one might say, "Thoughtlessly,"
from the heart
in doing what is called for,
what is appropriate to the occasion,
in each situation as it arises,
without waiting to be sure
we know what we are doing--
just trusting that it is so--
situation after situation
all our life long.
Trusting ourselves to
get better at it over time.
That's all there is to it.
Beginning right here.
Right now.
Rainbow at the Lower Falls 09/23/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
We are a squirming tangle of presumptions,
assumptions,
inferences,
prejudices,
biases,
preferences,
likes,
dislikes,
loves,
hates,
etc.,
and our seeing/hearing/knowing/doing/being
are controlled--
or strongly influenced--
by these invisible/unconscious/natural/automatic
responses to our environment.
We do not know why we feel the way we do,
and I feel that most of us
do not know what we feel any of the time.
We are moved/motivated by powers
we do not realize
or comprehend.
They come up in our dreams
and in our spontaneous reactions
to our experiences,
shocking us with their force,
urgency
and impact.
Leaving us wondering
where that came from.
There is nothing like
emptiness,
stillness
and silence
for introducing us to aspects
of ourselves
we do not know is there.
In the quiet solitude
of awareness,
we are exposed to aspects
of our mind
that are normally buried
beneath the noise/complexity/drama
of the everyday routines and demands.
How long can you last
without the diversions/distranctions/
entertaining pastimes
that normally protect you
from the experience of your experience?
Sit/walk quietly watching
what is going on within
the constant clutter/chatter
of mental activity.
Become intently aware
of the inner you.
See how long you last
before you have to turn up the volume
and increase the activity
to take your mind off your mind
seeking to find
what drives your boat
on its path through the sea.
This is a blended image, with the palm trees from Edisto Beach State Park in South Carolina and the beach and sunrise from Ocracoke Island in North Carolina.
In my dream,
I am sitting at a table
in a restaurant
with a black man,
about to order breakfast,
and looking forward to our conversation
about a movie we are thinking about making,
when a white man walks up to our table,
making a scene
because we are ruining his breakfast
by eating together in his range of vision.
I invite him to join us for breakfast,
and tell him if he doesn't
by the time I count to three
he will forget how to breathe.
I say, "One,"
and wake up.
It is a great dream.
On all levels.
With new levels to be explored
every time I think about it.
For instance, everything depends
upon what the overtly racist white man does.
The "movie" we are making together
will unfold in ways none of us can predict
or control
The angels in heaven bend low,
watching,
waiting,
themselves not breathing,
to see what transpires,
with who doing what where when and how
all yet to be seen.
We are--
all of us, here/now, in real time--
living an impromptu,
improvisational,
unscripted and unrehearsed,
scene-after-scene
of a movie/play
that is our life
every moment of every day.
We make it all up as we go.
We do it all the time.
We are great at it.
And we screw it up by
having ideas of how things ought to be,
and who ought to say and do what
in order to produce
the life we have in mind
for ourselves and each other.
While what needs to happen
in maintaining and serving
the balance and harmony
of the scene that is here/now
waits patiently for us to get out of the way
with our ideas of ought/should/must/mustn't/etc.
so that what the flow of the moment requires
can have a chance
to produce the miracles
it is capable of producing
on its own
with only the tuned-in awareness/presence
of the players required for the dance
that is here/now
in every moment
of each situation as it arises.
Missed in all of the here/now's that come along
by those who know best and must be pleased
all of the time.
There is the plot,
and the script,
and the narrative,
and the context
which we are continually trying
to impose our plot,
script
and narrative upon,
thinking we are the director
when we are only the actor
in a plot without a writer,
unfolding, ourselves,
along with it
as the circumstances keep evolving
according to their own good pleasure,
transforming the contexts of each day
and carrying us along with it
into new scenes
and different characters
while we remain stuck
with trying to force our idea
for the situation
onto each situation as it arises
when the impromptu,
extemporaneous,
spontaneous,
unrehearsed,
immprovisionational
nature of our life
keeps us spinning around,
crashing into the set
and the props
and the other players
because we refuse to comprehend
the nature of life
and cooperate with it
by becoming one with the
Epiphany of the moment,
reading what is happening,
knowing (Somehow. How can we possibly know?)
what is fitting and what is not,
and doing,
quite out of nowhere,
what is needed in each moment
of each situation of each day
as it opens before us,
scene by scene,
becoming all it is capable of being
in a dance beyond belief,
waiting,
as it is,
for us to give ourselves to it,
listening for the music no one can hear
until they begin to dance
with whatever is before them
in the moment that is at hand,
right here,
right now.
See?
When "the world is too much with us late and soon"
(Wordsworth),
where do we go to recover,
regroup,
revitalize,
revamp,
renew?
Emptiness,
stillness
and silence
are always right there.
A return to silence
is always in order.
Giving ourselves a time-out
can be the best choice
available to us
in a lot of situations.
Sometimes, I think I create
intolerable messes
just so I will call time-out
and sit gathering myself
in the stillness.
I excel in taking care of myself
in that way.
And recommend it to everyone
whenever I get the chance.
The difference between good and bad religion
is the position each takes on the question,
"Whose side is God on?"
Bad religion declares,
"God is on our side
when we love and obey God."
Good religion declares,
"Whose side is a rainbow on?
God is a rainbow
to be relished and enjoyed
for the sake of the wonder of God alone!"
Getting and keeping God on our side
is the essence of bad religion,
and all the participants
in bad religion
compete with one another
for the prize of the glories
of eternal life
with different lists
of ways to please God
and make God happy.
Good religion thinks it is ridiculous
that a rainbow could be delighted
or seething with rage
and goes about its business
of being rainbow-like
in the lives of others
for the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it alone.
Bad religion and good religion
have as much to say/reveal about their adherents
as they do about God,
disclosing what they think matters most,
and what they will do to celebrate it
and live in its service.
Our religion is a mirror
reflecting our heart and our spirit
for all who have eyes to see.
Our circumstances call us forth
in response to what is being asked for there.
Our relationship to our circumstances
ranks in degree of importance
equal to our relationship with ourselves
and to our relationships with other people.
We would do well to do an internal evaluation
of our relationships with these three aspects
of our life
in a recurring and regular way.
What is the quality of those relationships?
How much effort do we extend
exerting and maintaining control over them?
What are we conscious of trying to achieve
in each of them?
What are we trying to achieve in our life?
How do we know how we are doing?
I do a balance and harmony check
several times a day,
and keep an eye on my emotional fluctuation
throughout the day,
examining the cause, the degree,
the nature and the history
of the emotion I'm experiencing,
and what that has to say about
my stake in the situation at hand--
and how that serves as a mirror
reflecting me to me and enabling me
to make adjustments and alterations
in my desires and expectations,
assumptions and needs,
and what changes that implies
for the way I live
in maintaining my balance and harmony
and my ability to respond appropriately
to my circumstances.
The things we discover about ourselves
by simply watching how we respond to
the day, each day, leads us along the way.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 