September 20-A, 2022

Through The Trees 11-06-2005 Oil Paint Rendered — Down East North Carolina
What answers are you seeking?
What questions are required to elicit them?
How do need to phrase the questions 
necessary to get to the answers?

What are you seeking?
How are you looking?
What questions are you asking?
How might your questions be restated
to deliver the answers you are after?

What is standing between you
and just right all over?

Wendell Johnson said, "There is no failure in nature."
Failure is our invention.
We have aspirations that our efforts to achieve them
do not realize
and we think we are failures.

Johnson said if our expectations are unreasonably high,
or unrealistic, or unclear 
they are going to be unachievable
and destined to fail.

Trying harder without changing what we are doing
will result in similar results,
producing over time
the highly predictable, 
"Who cares? What's the use? Why try?"
song of the forlorn loser.

Which lends itself to a propensity
for slow burning seething rage
toward any person, place or thing
deemed to be blame-worthy,
and a victim mentality that feeds
on any available excuse for not doing better
with their opportunities--
and the refusal to make anything
of any opportunity,
and creating enemies out of
the most available population.

All because we failed to understand failure
as being unclear about what needs to be done
in the beginning.

What needs to be done?
What questions will get to the heart of the matter?
Do not do anything until you know
the best answers to both of these questions.

–0–

September 19-D, 2022

Blue Ridge Farm 10/07/2010 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina
Wendell Johnson said that Aristotle realized that the citizens of Athens, 2500 years ago, acted as if three things were so, and Johnson labels them, “The law of Identity" (A is A and not B,C, D etc.). “The Law of The Excluded Middle" (A thing is either A or Not-A). And “The Law of Non-Contradiction" (A thing cannot be A and Not-A).

Johnson says these three laws constitute what we call “common sense,” and form the foundation upon which people do business with one another worldwide.

These laws also describe a world of duality, that is, a world in which A can only be what it is and not anything other than what it is, although characteristics of A may well apply to B, C, D etc.  For example, the races of homo sapiens appear to be quiet different from each other, while, at the same time all belong to the same species.

Differences can disappear or appear, depending upon how we view what we look at, and may not actually be differences at all. Waves and particles have a tendency to be what they do not appear to be and to be where they have no business being.

If Aristotle were making observations today, he would have to rearrange his "laws of physics" to reflect a world quite different from the one he lived in.

How flat was the world in Aristotle's day? The way things appear isn't necessarily the way things are. Questioning appearances and assumptions, inferences and logical deductions, opens closed worlds and introduces observers to possibilities they might not otherwise consider. 

Question everything. Assume nothing. Nothing is what it seems to be.

September 19-C, 2022

Jonquil Oil Paint Rendered
"Spiritual" can be Bad Religion
with its theology, 
doctrines,
dogma,
dharma...

And, "spiritual" can be Good Religion
with its first-hand experience
of encounters with the Numen,
the numinous,
the ineffable,
the sublime,
the wonderful,
the awe-filled...

"Spiritual" can be thinking,
logic,
reason,
analytics...

And, "spiritual" can be feeling,
awe,
wonder,
speechlessness...

Everything turns on 
which kind of "spiritual" we mean
when we say, "spiritual."

–0–

September 19-B, 2022

Cunningham Cabin 02 06/24/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Grand Teton National Park, Jackson, Wyoming
To get a sense of the world beyond theology,
we would have to go back to the Garden of Eden.
Once Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit,
theology was born,
and we had the world as it is today.

The Knowledge of Good and Evil
is theology.
"This is Good, that's Evil!"
is theology.

Drawing lines.
Closing doors.
Saying how things ought to be.
And what will happen to those
who don't do it that way...
And giving us the world as it is.

That's theology for you.

It is amazing how many people like theology
and do not want to live beyond it.
Having to choose for themselves 
what needs to be done
and when, where and how to do it
is too much for them,
and they demand that someone 
assume the responsibility from them
and tell them what to do,
when, where and how to do it,
with the authority of God and Ages Past,
or they cannot go on.

Live beyond theology if you dare.
Otherwise, do what they tell you to do.
The choice is yours.

–0–

September, 3rd Week, 2022

Around Price Lake 04 10/17/2016 Oil Paint Rendered — Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
If you are contented,
comfortable,
at peace,
satisfied,
and glad to be where you are
stay there.
Continue doing what you are doing,
exactly as you are doing it.

Go with balance, harmony and well-being
all the way.
Do not disrupt what is working.
People all over the world
are quite at home in their lives.
It would be wrong for them 
to live any other way.

"Do your work and step back,"
said Lao Tzu.
"And let nature take its course."

Excellent advice
from one who knows!

–0–

September 19-A, 2022

Shem Creek 01 12/06/2017 Oil Paint Rendered — Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Finding your life and living it
means knowing what constitutes life for you,
and what takes the life right out of you--
and doing more of the things on the first list,
and fewer of the things on the second list.

Since my wife and I retired,
we don't do much at all on the second one,
and relish the time spent with things on the first.

Reading, writing, photography,
emptiness, stillness and silence,
integrity, sincerity, spontaneity,
conversation (Zooming) with friends and family,
yard work, napping, grocery shopping
and eating with our children fill our days.

And we like it that way.

Liking it is a good indication
that your life is alive for you.
The more you do things that you love,
the better.

–0–

September 18-E, 2022

Adams Mill Pond 12 11/10/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina
Heinrich Zimmer said the best things cannot be told/said/
explained
because the best things are experiential/feeling things.

We can't talk about experiences/feelings.
We can't say what they are,
what they mean.
We say, "I love you," thinking we have said something.
Or, "I believe in God."

You get an entire congregation standing and saying together,
"I believe in God the Father Almighty..."
and none of them believe in the same God in the same way,
and all of them believe different things about the God they believe in,
and they all talk about "God" as though they are talking about 
the same God everybody else is talking about.

So Zimmer says, "The best things can't be talked about."

And we can recognize that 
and work on feeling the things that have to be felt
and thinking the things that can only be said,
and reminding ourselves to know the difference
between feeling things and thinking things.

We have to feel our way into knowing what to say/do,
for example.
We cannot think or way there,
or if we do think our way there,
we have to realize/remember that
what we think we are doing 
may not be what we are doing.

Just try working a job you thought up.
Or living in a city, or a house, you thought up.

We have to feel our way into what we do for a living,
and into what we live to do.

We all have to pay the bills,
and there is the job we do to pay the bills,
but the work that is ours to do 
is the work we pay the bills to do.

What is your job?
What is your work?
We have to feel our way into both things.
We cannot think our way into either
and feel great about being there, doing that.

Satisfaction is a feeling 
that cannot be thought into being.

And we stand a lot better chance 
of being satisfied
than we stand of being successful.
We know when we are satisfied,
but we have no idea of when we are successful.

Successful as a state of being does not exist.
We succeed in flying solo,
or in landing the airplane,
but does that make us successful over the long term?

We cannot feel successful over the long term.
We can think we are successful over the long term,
but are we kidding ourselves?
We can't be sure, thinking about it.
How would we know, thinking about it?
But who can feel successful always, forever?

There is thinking and there is feeling,
and the two are not the same.

–0–

September 18-D, 2022

Spring Beauty 02/18/2018 Oil Paint Rendered — Pineville, Louisiana
Wendell Johnson said that we are all born
into a culture/society/family
that has a certain idea
of how things ought to be.

But it is never articulated as such.
Everybody just knows how things are supposed to be done,
and how they are not supposed to be done,
but the rules are never spelled out, explained.

We are always crossing lines we did not know were there,
and being chastised,
punished,
humiliated
for not knowing what no one ever told us,
until we get, eventually,
some vague, general, idea 
of what the idea is.

Ideas permeate the culture/society/family
of which we are apart,
and impose their weight and will upon us
unconsciously,
and we live burdened with things 
we don't know are there.

In light of this, 
Johnson formulated what he called 
"The IFD disease,"
for Idealism (the way we are--
the way things are--supposed to be),
Frustration (With our inability to be,
or to get things to be,
what we, they, are supposed to be,
and Demoralization, a low-level--
or not-so-low--
sense of depression/anxiety/panic
stemming from not knowing what's wrong
or what to do about it,
and no way of finding out.

This is a spiritual problem
requiring a spiritual solution,
and spiritual in this sense
has nothing to do with theology,
and everything to do with the world
of "the spirit," 
the invisible world of intangibles
that are felt/intuited/known
that the world of thinking/logic/reason
cannot enter--
like "ideas" that control our lives
which are assumed but never clarified,
specified, identified, discussed, talked about,
because, as Heinrich Zimmer said,
"The best things can't be talked about/articulated,
and the second-best things create misunderstandings
(because they try to articulate what cannot be articulated
in a 'You have to know what I mean
in order to understand what I am saying' kind of way)
which leaves us talking about the third-best things:
News, weather, sports, opinion, and gossip).

Which leaves us with having to become spiritual
in the right kind of way--enlightened/illumined/awake/
aware/tuned-in/realizing what's what and what is going on
around here and what to do about it.

The sooner we get to work,
the better for all of us.

–0–

September 18-C, 2022

Old Sheldon Church Ruins 04 11/12/2017 Oil Paint Rendered — Yemassee, South Carolina
Wendell Johnson said,
"All of our problems stem from
our inability to state clearly and specifically
what the problem is."
(Or words to that effect).

We assume that things should be a certain way,
but things are not that way,
and we are lost in a fog of things being
not right somehow,
but we have no idea how.

We live unconsciously. 
Our problem is a spiritual problem.
Spiritual in a way that has nothing
to do with theology.
Spiritual in a way that has everything
to do with enlightenment--
with illumination--
with seeing/perceiving/understanding/
realizing/knowing
what's what and what needs to be done
in response to it.

Spiritual in a way that has everything
to do with our essential nature
and our innate virtues that are ours from birth,
which we know nothing about
because we are unconscious 
of all of the important stuff.

Our problem is becoming conscious/aware
of the problem--
of waking up, being enlightened,
illumined, tuned in, aware, alert, 
understanding, knowing
all that we are unconscious of.

Becoming spiritually astute,
savvy, discerning, perceptive/intuitive/etc.
in ways that have nothing whatsoever
to do with theology,
and everything to do with being who we are,
where we are, when we are, how we are here/now.

This is the work of being human,
of being alive.
It is the work of being awake and aware.
In each situation as it arises.
All our life long.

–0–

September 18-B, 2022

Lake Haigler Fall 04 11/02/2017 Oil Paint Rendered — Anne Spring Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
Life is a great place to practice being alive.

It is a proving ground,
a laboratory,
a testing facility,
where we get up every day
and find ways of being who we are,
living true to ourselves,
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so,
no matter what,
for as long as we breathe.

Breathing is the key,
the foundation,
the anchor stone.

Being conscious of our breathing
is being conscious,
and being conscious is the prerequisite
for being grounded,
for being oriented,
for being in accord with,
in tune with,
aligned with,
at one with,
the things that truly matter.

Things like Yin/Yang.
Our essential nature.
Our innate virtues.
Emptiness.
Stillness.
Silence.
Integrity.
Sincerity.
Laughter.
Peace.
Compassion.
Kindness...

The list goes on...

Life is where we come alive
to the things that truly matter,
and live to experience/express them
no matter what.

How we handle/deal with
disappointment,
dismay,
dejection,
depression, 
despair...
is a function 
of how determined we are
to be alive to the wonder of life
in the time and place of our living.

We stand between elation and despondency every day.
We are the balance spot,
the fulcrum,
the still point of the turning world.
Everything depends on our point of view.
Our way of seeing.
Our perspective/attitude/degree of enlightenment/
awareness/realization/illumination/understanding/...
all the time.

"But it's SO HARD!"
"But The Pain! The Pain!"
"But It Won't Let-up Or Go Away!"

So, we can't give up and quit!
We are only a perspective shift away
at all times,
in all places.

It all comes down to how we look at things,
at how we see things,
at how we feel about things,
at what we select to emphasize,
and how we respond to it,
all the time,
everywhere.

We make it all up,
what it means,
how much it matters,
every moment
of every day.

We hold all the cards.
What we say goes.
In terms of our response
to what happened last
and what happens next.
Here and Now.

Are you with me here, now, or not?

Addendum:

True seeing is seeing things as they are
and as they also are,
at the fulcrum
the balance point
the still point,
and living in response to them
so that they might become
what they are capable of being.
Moment to moment.
In each situation as it arises.
Here/Now.

–0–

September 18-A, 2022

Christmas Eve Refection Oil Paint Rendered — December 24, 2016
The things we cannot control
make us crazy,
but we can control being crazy
by refusing to allow 
things we cannot control 
to make us crazy.

Exercise control where you have control.

Controlling how we respond
to having no control
is controlling what we can control.

Finding our stability,
grounding ourselves on our essential nature,
living out of our innate virtues,
expressing our identity,
being true to ourselves,
focusing on doing what needs to be done here/now,
maintaining our harmony and balance,
being at one with the things that matter,
allowing things to be as they are
because they are,
and not having to have things 
be different than they are
brings order into play
and permits us to breathe
in sync with our pulse,
aware of the moment,
alert to what is called for,
ready to respond
to what is being asked of us,
now and forever.

–0–

September 17-C, 2022

Pitt Street Sunset 10-B 12/05/2017 Oil Paint Rendered — Charleston Harbor from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
The old formula has held its value undiminished
throughout the ages:

No expectations,
No plans,
No agendas,
No opinions.

The right kind of emptiness,
stillness
and silence.

Sincerity,
Integrity,
Spontaneity.

Original/Essential Nature.
Innate virtues from birth.

Lead with feeling,
not thinking.

Re-adjust,
make corrections
as needed,
trusting ourselves 
to see, hear, understand,
know, do, be  
in ways appropriate to the occasion
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

If you can beat that, do!

–0–