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?
The flow between how things are and how things need to be is the sine non qua for life in the Cosmos. When the flow is in sync between Mover and Moved, all is in harmony, balanced and at peace. At the far extreme, there is discord and division, chaos and dismay upon "the heaving waves of the wine-dark sea." And yet, if we step back far enough, everything comes together as the stars in the heavens on a "stary stary night," beautifully "at one," though more apparent than real. This is the work of Yin/Yang--the underlying tension keeping all things together though apart like ice skaters on the ice, seemingly coordinated though each is doing their own thing.
This makes life and being optical illusions from beginning to end. Look and it is This. Look again and it is That. Is it This Way or That Way? It all depends on who is looking, when and where. The creative tension is at work in all things--breathing in and breathing out, movement never ceasing, all things in process, being and becoming and ceasing to be, while the only constant thing is the flow between things, making being in the flow the ideal place to be at all times, in all places, world without end. Yet, who can maintain a balance that fine? Only nature without trying without striving, just being the flow at work in all things at all times, humming along with the AUM of universal being and the harmony of the spheres, at the optimal distance from everything, wanting nothing more than being at one with all that is here, now. Here, Now. HERE, NOW... Always and forever. No? Yes!
Adams Mill Pond — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, BW
Peace, serenity, tranquility, silence, calmness, equanimity... offsetting the noise and dust of the world. That is the role I have claimed for myself from the beginning. Which I take to be the case with all peacemakers everywhere throughout time. It is who we are. How we are. Why we are. "Peaceful abiding, here, now." Is the theme we exist to serve, express, exhibit all along the way. I expect the same is so with you in the way of like attracting like, and alcoholics being able to pick each other out in a crowded room. It is good work that we are doing, and it will always need to be done, so take heart and know we are not as alone as it sometimes seems. Draw strength from the emptiness and stillness between breaths. And know that we are all there with you throughout the day, every day. We meet in the silence between breaths, drawing strength from each other's presence for the work that is a blessing and a grace upon all those who share the world with us, as long as life shall last.
The Grove — ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Hollywood, South Carolina
This is the remnant of an early rice plantation that could not compete with new varieties of rice and different ways to grow it, and the Civil War. What is civil about war? Is that not ridiculous? Absurd? Shameful? Disgusting? Are we not disgusting as human beings across time, around the world, throughout the Cosmos? I put forth Donald Trump as the best we can do. He must be the best we can do. We elected him twice–and will elect him a third time and counting if we are given the option, and of course we will be. It is the way. The way Consciousness has of waking us up to the utter shamefulness of our own stupidity.
Consciousness is running the show. Is the source, ground, of all things. Seeing, learning, understanding, knowing what’s what and what will work over time. And now there is AI. AI becoming conscious within Consciousness becoming conscious while human beings are becoming conscious is going to produce quite the mess as things settle out, with “circumstances creating circumstances” (Which was the old Taoist way of explaining how things came to be what they were 500 or more years before the common era).
What will work? In light of what? The Good? Of whom? Of what? It is a mess becoming messier. The universe is thought to be 13.8 billion years old, and we have no way of knowing how many universes there have been before the current one came on the scene. And Donald Trump is the best we can do. What do we do with that? Where do we go with that?
Martin Luther King Jr’s idea of the arc of the universe bending toward justice is no more than wishful thinking. Life eats life! Where is the justice in that? The big fish eat the little fish and the little fish swim through the netting that haul the big fish to the cannery. That is the circle of life sans justice.
It is a mess everywhere as far as we can see as long as we have been looking, and it is not getting better. Where does that leave us? Where do we go from here? We are not in charge of the processes that are running the show. Which relieves us of the responsibility of doing anything transformative and helpful. Ours is reactive responses to what’s happening now in light of what is called for in each situation as it arises–with no guarantee of that resulting in anything more than an ongoing mess.
The best I can offer is turning to the emptiness/stillness/silence, one thing, not three, and “Waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear,” which was the old Taoist realization 500 or more years before the common era. The Tao, the Flow, the right thing done at the right time in the right way in the right place and seeing where it goes, is the best we can do. Here, now. This is all we have any business hoping for. All we have any business doing. And it is the best I have to offer.
Fall Pasture — Anne Springs Close Equestrian Section, Fort Mill, South Carolina
Energy, enthusiasm, vitality are the life force at work throughout the universe. Where do we go to experience those things? It will be different for all of us individually, yet we will naturally draw together in communities around similar experiences. Put a NASCAR venue where this pasture is and I would have been somewhere else. We "shake out" around the events that pull us together.
Where do we go to be where we belong? Thinking about where we belong and spending time with/in those places will put us in a different frame of mind than being where have no business being on a regular basis. Where do we spend our time? What energizes us? What depletes us? Go where the life is! Spend time there, doing that! See where it goes.
Zen Moon — Price Lake, Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, NC
I like the theory put forth by all of my shipmates that consciousness is the source and ground of all things everywhere. That we are the means consciousness uses to become self-conscious, that is conscious of itself. That consciousness experiences itself through our experiences. And that when we die, nothing dies, as in ceasing to exist, but that, as Einstein said about energy, "Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed or converted." And if we understand consciousness to be a form of energy, and that we are all a form of consciousness and consciousness is a form of energy, then when we die, we are merely being transformed back into consciousness/energy from which we emerged.
I am a devoted advocate of this point of view and recommend the YouTube videos of Alan Watts for more of the same if you are so inclined.
Red Sumac and Blue Ridges— Blue Ridge Parkway, near Mount Mitchell, North Carolina
"The observer cannot be separated from the observed." Where does experience stop and projection start? We see everything from the standpoint of "the way we see things." How we see things makes things as they are. And we live in relationship with things and people as though they are the way we see them. All "objective reality" is interpreted/perceived subjectively.
So, where do the lines lie? "Not one. Not two." Say the Buddhists, but the Taoists see Yin AND Yang everywhere, inseparably, all the time.
Our presumed separateness is presumed, not real. The "seems to be" is not the "is." The space, the gaps, the emptiness between "this" and "that," are convenient, enabling us to eat the green beans but not the fork, but it all means what we say it means, and we treat it as such.
Even when we deny/denounce duality and proclaim "All things are one!", suffering and freedom from suffering remain quite different, and we treat them as such in all times and places. "Not one. Not Two" remains the anomaly, calling for laughter that holds everything together as "One but not the same one" forever reminding us to lighten up and not take things so seriously, but keep the spirit of playfulness at the heart of being, and stop playing like it matters, as though it is REAL--and remember that we are not laughing enough. Authentic laughter is missing from our life. Everything waits for us ease up and start laughing, knowing it isn't what we say it is, and the joke is on us.
Which segues nicely into consciousness being all there is and everything being an aspect of consciousness at work in our lives. The more conscious we can be of living unconsciously amid assumptions and presumptions, inferences, conjectures, speculation, surmises and suppositions, the easier it will be to find ourselves laughing all of the time.
A Path Through Fall — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina
Who are we? What are we about? We have to take Remembrance-Recognition-Reorientation breaks from time to time to regroup, recharge, and get back on the beam.
It is easy to lose our way amid the complexity and confusion of the day-to-day. There is so much coming at us from all directions, it is easy to drift off into robot responses to what is being asked of us, and we have to get back in the groove of here, now and what’s what.
So, “Who are we? What are we about?” refocuses us on the essential matters of being who we are, doing what is ours to do, here, now in each situation as it arises, no matter what, all our life long.
What we are about is what we do best and enjoy doing most in bringing ourselves forth to meet what’s coming here, now, every day. Who we are is our original nature, our innate intuition, our intrinsic imagination, and our inherent virtues (The “do best and enjoy most” aspects of ourselves).
Living with our eye on those things enables us to meet each aspect of every day as they need to be met with what we have to offer each situation as it arises–and that is the most anyone can hope to do 12/7/12/forever.
I invite you to take up the practice of dropping into the silence (emptiness, stillness) at various points throughout each day without interrupting what you are doing. This is a simple matter of doing what you are doing while being intently aware of opening yourself to HOW you are doing it.
Attend your attention and your emotional reaction to what's what here, now, with the intention to distance yourself from the goings on and shift over into the way of, in the Buddha's words, "Peaceful abiding, here, now."
Focus on just doing what is called for in each moment without emotional reaction to the moment. If someone cuts you off in traffic, just observe what happened and what responses you are making without being pulled into the moment, but remaining apart from the action by observing the action and how you are dealing with it. Concentrate on doing what is called for without embellishing anything.
We can remain calm and deal smoothly with what is going on just by observing what is going on and being aware of what is needed when, where and how and doing what is called for, as you would if you were returning serve in a tennis game.
Distancing ourselves from the action by being aware of the action and doing what is necessary spontaneously, automatically, is a wonderful way of "peaceful abiding, here, now." And a fine way of being here, now, moment by moment for the sake of the moment all our life long.
Cosmos Fall — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
Seeing, hearing, understanding, knowing, doing, being, expands into seeing what we look at, hearing what we listen to, understanding what's what, knowing what's called for in each situation as it arises, doing it as it needs to be done, when, where, and how it needs to be done, while being who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are, throughout what remains of the life left for living.
All of which is grounded upon and flows from enough time spent in the right kind of emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing, not three) in a routine and regular way.
The Grove, ACE Basin Wildlife Refuge, Hollywood, South Carolina
MAGA is the self-designated moniker of a gang whose primary identifying feature is the complete absence of anything resembling maturity of anyone embracing the title.
Fascism and White Supremacy describe immaturity perfectly throughout the ages. There is not a grown-up in the group, though there are plenty of people old enough to be confused with one--exhibiting the ancient observation, "Growing up is inevitable, but maturity is entirely arbitrary."
Maturation is a by-product of awareness, of attentive presence with, and reflection upon, what is happening here, now, in every situation as it arises, and drawing sound conclusions regarding what it means and what is called for in response. All of which are completely absent in any MAGA worthy of the designation--starting with their Dear Leader and moving like a hot knife through soft butter through the rest of those gathered to chant their creed and declare their allegiance to their cause.
They designate empathy as a sin and look forward to the Rapture as though they have something in common with the Coming One. Which is clearly not their stance with regard to the Least of These which they denounce as NOT their brothers and sisters.
How all of this is going to play out is going to be a mess with nothing beneficial to anyone. A lot of dust and noise, disruption and chaos, destruction and mayhem, with gain nowhere and loss everywhere. The legacy of Donald Trump, the king of immaturity and emptiness, and a blight upon the land.
Fitting what we love to do into each day gives us something to look forward to every day. I love to be surprised, and the days are always calling for unexpected responses to unexpected events, so I look forward to what the day has to offer that I didn’t see coming, wondering where I will be surprised today.
Magic is real. Mystery is everywhere. We only have to step away from our agenda to know that it is so--and to experience being swept up in the experience of being alive to the life that is waiting for us to live it, instead of striving to force ourselves into a life we have no business living.
That Which Has Always Been Called God is as real here, now as ever anywhere in the past eons and ages. This is not the God of Theology, Dogma and Doctrine I'm talking about, but the guardian of lived experience, winking and nodding, smiling and laughing at the very idea of what she is setting before us, hoping we won't stomp by unseeing, incapable of imagining what might yet be if we only trust ourselves to know what to say no to, and yes to--so that when the door opens we know which to choose.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 