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?
Lower Falls 04/25/2007 Oil Paint Rendered — Hanging Rock State Park, North Carolina
I think we can't live our life--
the life that is uniquely ours to live--
showcasing our original nature
and innate virtues/specialties,
while living like life
is being lived around us.
I think we have to draw a frame
around ourselves,
set ourselves apart,
listen to our own body,
heart,
soul,
self.
Tune into ourselves,
and live from inner to outer,
doing it the way we would do it,
not the way it is being done
by "everybody."
What would you wear
if the people you hang with
did not select your clothes for you?
What would you eat
if they did not select your menu choices?
What movies would you watch?
Would you watch TV at all?
Etc. and so forth
up and down your life.
How much of you is you,
and how much is somebody else?
Sunflower Field 07/04/2015 Oil Paint Rendered — Draper Wildlife Management Area, York County, South Carolina
Jesus was a fully Woke human being.
Luke 21:36,and Revelation 3:2
are starting points for you,
but the entire Bible is a textbook
for Wokeness,
demanding that everybody wake up
and live Woke lives all the way
to Beulah Land.
If you are not Woke,
you are a Sleeper!
And you know what happens to Sleepers!
Sleeping their life away
and their Afrerlife along with it!
My brother likes to say,
"Bureaucracy is the end of Democracy!"
Of course, he is right about that.
Bureaucracy is the gift of Sleepers,
and is a systematic way of being,
and remaining,
asleep at the wheel--
preferring as it does,
doing things as they have always been done
with nothing changing ever.
Sleepers always want to return to
the days when things were done right,
and institute level after level
of bureaucracy to make sure nothing
ever changes again,
unless it means making money,
and then they are all for it,
the more the better.
The Russians have paid the Sleepers
in Congress to sell out Democracy,
which they have gladly done,
and will continue to do,
until they have all the money there is,
and then they will print more.
The Government is an endless gold mind,
printing money and lowering taxes
on themselves and their favored corporations,
and raising taxes on everyone else,
telling the people, "Don't be Woke!
We gotcha covered!"
(Which means, "We are robbing you blind!).
You can Sleep through it all if you want to.
I'm going to be as Woke as I can be,
banging on the tops of metal garbage cans
all the way!
Just like Jesus did it,
and would have it done!
If you are not Woke,
you are a Sleeper,
sleeping your life away!
The Beach at Sunrise 10/01/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks North Carolina
You know the story of Adam and Eve?
Well, "except for the names and a few other changes,
when you talk about us,
the story is the same one" (Neil Diamond).
We have squandered, wasted, thrown away
more than Adam and Eve did
by letting Democracy slip through our fingers
in favor of fascism and greed.
What a trade-off.
The Lenape Delawares are enjoying their revenge
(They traded Manhattan Island for beads and mirrors,
or so the legend goes).
We traded Democracy for what?
What are we getting out of the deal?
As far as I can tell ABSOLUTELY N-O-T-H-I-N-G!!!
We are getting a (If they were crows,
we could call them a murder) of fascists,
who cannot agree among themselves,
to tell us what to do.
If you vote Republican,
that is what you are voting for.
When you get them,
then what are you going to do?
With no Social Security,
no Medicare,
no retirement until you are 75, maybe 80,
no public schools,
no public anything
(Including golf courses!),
no bridges,
no roads,
no safe drinking water,
no air to breathe,
and that's just the beginning.
The Lenape Delawares hope you are happy.
Me, not so much.
I hope you realize just what you have done
because you thought someone was going to
take away your AR-15's
and make your children go to school
with trans kids.
The Lenape Delawres are rolling on heaven's ground,
laughing.
I don't think it's funny.
Leaving Swanquarter 10/28/2005 Oil Paint Rendered — Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Hyde County, North Carolina
In a world where we cannot trust anyone,
everyone is a predator and a victim,
and no one can trust anyone
to be who they say they are.
We all have to be self-reliant
and savvy,
and stay well within our
comfort/safety zone for life.
It helps immensely
to have a family
and long-time friends
to depend on,
and woe be unto those
who have to fend for themselves
all of the time.
Only they know how oppressively
stressful and exhausting
that grows to be over time.
Just to tag out
and be able to trust someone!
To be able to relax
and enjoy the company
of strangers!
What a simple thing to ask.
What a terrible thing to lose!
And yet,
and yet...
Here we are.
Making it our place,
individually,
around this small circle
of a writer
and his readers,
to take it upon ourselves
to form communities of innocence
among our "friends"
and associates,
with the only requirement
of membership being a place--
a person--
where others are safe to be.
Ask two people to join you
and keep it small,
with 8 to 10 being large.
Several small groups
are much to be preferred
over one large group.
Meet to just talk,
to just be together,
over lunch,
over coffee/beer/wine,
to say what's up with you today,
and see where it goes,
knowing that you are less alone
than you were when you started,
and how sadly wonderful that is,
anyway, nevertheless, even so.
Glade Creek Mill 10-27-2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Babcock State Park, Clifftop, West Virginia
What catches your eye?
Sit with that,
exploring the connection.
What does that reveal to you
about you?
What has been your relationship
with the things that catch your eye?
Water does it for me.
And cypress trees.
Give me water and cypress trees
and forget about me.
I'll be fine.
Where are you fine?
Where is your solace and comfort
to be found?
What fills your heart
and restores your soul?
Spend time with those things.
Enjoy being blessed by their presence,
even though you may never understand
why them and not something else.
It is enough to know what catches your eye
and to allow it to be caught.
Too much thinking
breaks the link
which does not exist for your brain,
but for your body, heart and soul.
We feel/sense our way to life,
to the flow of life through life,
to the Tao that is the energy of life
carrying us through life.
We fine aspects of it
by knowing what catches our eye.
Mount Whyte Oil Paint Rendered — Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies, Alberta, September, 2009
The flow of energy through life
was called "The Tao" in 500-and-earlier BCE,
for lack of a better term.
"Tao" is gender-neutral
and free of the cumbersome baggage
of theology,
and cosmology,
and astrology,
and all of the other "logy's"
we have developed over time
to control/master/explain/exploit
the mystery at the heart
of life and being.
Tao is all we need.
On any level
And how many levels are there?
Inquiring minds would love to know,
and so,
we have made it all up through time,
answering all the questions,
and "accepting on faith"--
which comes down to refusing to say
we have no idea about any of it,
and can, therefore, invent
what pleases us
about all of it,
and thus we have life
as we understand it to be,
ignoring all we do not understand,
while pretending
to know it all.
Tao puts this to rest,
and walks with us
into the darkness
and mystery
of knowing what we know
and don't know
about the things we experience,
joyfully,
with amazement and wonder
every day,
all the way,
"dancing and singing in the rain"
and with the rain,
in the transcendent glory of it all.
Dunes 04 10/29/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
If we are in tune with the flow of energy
that draws us to some things
and repels us from others,
we will always be off limits
to the noise/complexity/drama
that diverts the rest of the world
from its appointed tasks,
and pipes the tune that leads it
into the wasteland of forgotten purposes
and lost dreams.
Original nature,
innate virtues/specialties,
balance and harmony,
integrity,
sincerity,
spontaneity,
aligned with the flow of energy
(that has been called "the Tao")
in the service of life and spirit,
protect us from the intrusions
of noise/complexity/drama,
and enable us to maintain
our connection with
doing the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right way
in the right place.
Which is the recipe
for life lived as it should be lived,
and the path to peace and well-being
over time.
Roaring Fork Creek 04/16/2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Roaring Fork Motor Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Gatlinburg, Tennessee
When we have nowhere to turn,
that leaves us with turning to ourselves--
to our original nature
and our innate virtues,
the things we are good for,
the things we do best,
the things people turn to us for.
We turn to ourselves for the same things.
To ground us,
steady us,
stabilize us
for standing firm
and stepping forward
to meet whatever needs to be met
here/now,
rising to the occasion
and assisting the circumstances
in becoming what they might yet be
in each situation as it arises
one step at a time.
We always have who we are,
who we have become
over the full course of our life
to right here,
right now.
Here we are.
Let's see what we can do!
We can start by being still
and silent,
emptying ourselves
of our fear and uncertainty,
looking/listening
for what arises,
emerges,
occurs to us in the silence,
as a way of dousing the future
a little at a time.
Take a step in that direction
and see what opens up
and where the path might go
from there.
We have what got us here,
and we can count on it from here,
with balance and harmony
keeping us grounded/centered,
and the flow of energy
leading the way
we have what we need
to meet the day
and do what needs to be done there--
"as it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be,"
the path without end!
Amen! Amen!
Tracks and Trestle 09/21/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Canadian Rockies, Jasper National Park, Alberta
We work to keep it going
for the good of all concerned.
The good of all
is our social contract
with one another.
It is essential that we make it,
and keep it--no matter what.
No matter what we think of each other,
we work to keep it going
for the good of all concerned.
We do not evaluate the value
of one another--
we recognize and embrace the value
of all.
Everyone is of value!
And equally deserving
of the good of all.
To demean and despise the value
and rights of Trans Children,
as the Mississippi Legislature has done,
is a despicable desecration
of the social contract
that we all must acknowledge
and uphold.
Democracy is a gift
that flows around the circle
from each one of us in the circle,
and we must all do our part
in sustaining and maintaining
the gift of democracy
by acknowledging and honoring
our duty to one another
to keep it going
for the good of all concerned.
This is basic humanity,
human decency,
extended to one another
over the entire course
of our life together.
The Big House Oil Paint Rendered — ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Hollywood, South Carolina
What do you love to do?
What do you do best?
What do you spend your time doing?
How does what you love to do
and what you do best
fit into your life?
Getting the ratios right
is your primary duty and obligation.
Why say more?
Why do I need to say
anything at all?
Two Ducks at Alligator Pond Oil Paint Rendered — ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Hollywood, South Carolina
The natural world follows
the path of energy
through the seasons
and rhythms of the spheres.
Our own nature is equipped
to follow the same path--
"the path of heart"
is the path of energy
flowing through us,
connecting us with the way
that is our natural way.
But.
We have our ideas about
how our life should go,
and divert the flow of our life
down paths foreign to us,
and wander into the far reaches
of the Wasteland,
having abandoned the wisdom of our ancestors
in favor of our own plans and agendas.
Left to our own devices,
we create a world we can't live in,
wanting what we have no business having
and seeking wealth and success
rather than satisfaction and well-being.
Balance and harmony
are the foundation
of an orientation centered
on the flow of energy
along "the path of heart,"
within the boundaries
of our original nature
and our innate virtues (specialties/traits/
the things we are truly good for).
Keeping the eyes of our heart
focused on the flow
of the energy of life
provides us with guidance
and direction
all days that remain.
Go with the flow of energy
guiding you through your life
to life spilling over,
pouring out
as blessing and grace
upon you
and all those
who come your way.
Follow the flow of energy
as it leads you where you need to be,
trusting your sense of Yes and No
from here to there
day to day.
What has energy for you?
Go there!
Do that!
What drains you of energy,
shrivels your soul
dries up your well?
Stay away from that!
Have nothing to do with it!
Where are you spending your time?
With what has joy and life for you?
With what is only dry sand and hot winds?
Where do you belong?
Where do you have no business being?
What else do you need to know?
Whose permission do you need
to choose life
and live to be alive
in the time left for living?
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 