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?
Penobscot Bay in Morning Light — Stonington, Deer Isle, Maine
Tranquility/serenity/peaceful abiding here, now. Which is the gateway to seeing, hearing, knowing what’s what and what is called for and doing it when, where and how it needs to be done in every situation as it arises all our life long.
The older I get the less respect I have for theology and doctrine and the more I’m finding worth exploring in experience and our own inner knowing as the source of guidance and direction in knowing and doing what is called for in each situation as it arises.
And I think doing that is the only thing that matters. Doing the right thing in the right place at the right time in the right way was the Taoist idea of the Tao, or what is called for here, now. And having the innate capacity (Intuition) to know/trust that is my idea of faith at work in our life.
When we just sit down with what we know, it amounts to a lot. I think Jesus lived out of what he knew.
And the Church of Rome invented sin and salvation in the 400 years between Jesus’ death and the closing of the canon—the most brilliant and successful con in the history of scams! And I have a retirement pension to prove it!
Marsh Road Sunset 01-A — Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina
When the President of the United States decimates and disregards Democracy, it is because the people who elected him no longer believe in Democracy themselves. When over 50% of the people who voted in the last election do not believe in Democracy–do not treasure, honor, esteem, venerate, serve and celebrate Democracy, we have become as a nation the shame of our founders and of all of those who have lived and died in the service of Liberty! Justice! Equality! Truth! for the 249 years we have been in existence.
We are a nation of traitors betraying the trust of all of those who have gone before us and failing to believe in and be devoted to the values the Founders found to be worth dying for. Donald Trump is just such a traitor, as are all the MAGA members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and citizens of the United States. And they deserve the fate reserved for traitors through all the years this country has been a Nation proud to be the Land of the Free and champions of human rights for all people everywhere.
Black Australian Swan Mirror — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina
The meaning of a thing, anything, everything, is what it means to someone, everyone. There is no intrinsic meaning anywhere in/to anything. It is all imposed, projected, imagined. When someone declares, “It’s all meaningless!”, they say it as though the meaninglessness of everything is very meaningful to them. It all cannot be meaningless if its lack of meaning is that meaningful. Even if its lack of meaning is its only meaning, that still makes everything meaningful.
Take note of the meaningful things in your life. They say something significant about you. The meaningful things are mirrors reflecting you to you. Emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing, not three) are probably the most meaningful thing to me. That and looking out the window, which has nothing to do with actually looking out an actual window. It is an expression that means, for me, the same thing as a meditation cushion means to a Zen master. I can “look out the window” anywhere, everywhere, just by dropping into the emptiness, stillness, silence and being there for as long as it takes to “get at” whatever it is that meets me in the silence.
I know when I need to drop into the silence/look out the window, and it is essential that I heed the need and check in with the silence to see what is there waiting on me to check in. I think we all are like that, or could be if we attended the silence and developed the sense of needing to look out the window at any point throughout the day, every day.
I’m saying meaning can be anywhere, though it is not necessarily everywhere, but it needs us to be alert to its presence so that we know meaning when we see it, when we sense it, and pay attention to what’s what and what’s happening and do what needs to be done about it. Throughout the day, every day.
Aspens at Muleshoe — Banff National Park, Alberta, Canadian Rockies
Getting our feet under us and stepping into each day as the day needs to be met is a simple matter of having the essential elements in place and following the routines of orienting ourselves in emptiness, stillness, silence to the point of peaceful abiding, here, now, and being clear about what’s what, what’s happening, what’s called for and what needs to be done about it, when, where and how–and allowing our life to flow spontaneously from there through all situations and circumstances as they arise. That is the daily game plan that flows into a life well lived. It is the way all the saints of all the nationalities of all the ages have done it and will continue to do it for as long as the days come and go.
It is not about having a plan to get what we want. It is a plan for living in response to the day’s deliveries in ways that honor the drift, rhythm and flow of each day and going where the day takes us, doing what the day needs of us, no matter what, day by day, and being fully content with whatever that means, which means having no agenda, no expectations, no requirements or demands for our own benefit, profit, gain, enjoyment beyond doing what we do best and enjoy doing most in serving the needs of the day, every day, allowing our direction and purpose to be subject to the drift, rhythm and flow of circumstances throughout our life.
Adam’s Mill Pond BW — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolinai
The plan is to be who we are, doing what is ours to do, in response to the situation and what is happening here, now, and what is called for in light of everything that is impinging upon the moment. We can rise to every/any occasion with what we have to offer from the gifts we are born with: Our original nature, our innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most), our inherent intuition, our intrinsic imagination, etc., and allow one thing to lead to another just by doing what is called for here, now, where it is called for, how it is called for in one situation after another all our life long.
Wanting and caring shape themselves around what is needed/necessary in light of the true good of all concerned. We don’t think about it so much as find ourselves doing what is called for, carried along by “circumstances begetting circumstances” from one situation to another, trusting the Knower within to be our companion and guide along the way that is the way, day by day.
The Garden of Eden did not exist. Adam and Eve are not real people. The story is about the danger of wanting the wrong things, of caring about things that do not matter. It is a great story. And terrible theology. All theology is terrible. Theology is a collection of opinions about hearsay. There is factual evidence supporting evolution–“we have found the bones.” But theology requires us to take its pronouncements “on faith.” Why not take something else on faith? Like, for instance, we are born with all we need to find what we need to live a life of integrity, generosity, meaning, purpose, etc.? Why don’t we take that on faith? Many of us do, spontaneously, naturally. Good for us!
Carl Jung, on his own, recognized that he had two personalities, his ego, wanting, liking, desiring, etc., and The Knower within who knew the Way of the Tao, we might say, though Jung never, to my knowledge, used that term, but it would be natural to do so because the Tao, call it what you will, is the source of our knowing what is right in any situation, what is called for, what is required, needed and necessary that is beyond what we want or what we are told we should do. The knower within knows what is called for, what is the right thing to do, and the right time to do it, and the right place to do it, and the right way to do it, and our ego is right to tag along, doing what needs to be done, when where and how it needs to be done.
Those of you who have been with me a while know my story about knowing. When I was a junior in high school I knew I needed a typewriter. I bought a used Remington typewriter when I was a freshman in college. When I was a sophomore in college, I lived at home, and was walking through the living room with the old black and white TV on with a made for TV movie with Robert Wagner playing a private detective. The scene was a swimming pool with a pool table and a 35 mm camera on the table. I saw the camera and fell in love with it instantly. I felt the attraction in a “have to have that” kind of way physically, in the core of my body. And writing and photography have been the core of my life from that era until now. That Which Knows dwells within.
More than one person have told me as they were getting a divorce, “I knew it wasn’t going to work when I married him/her.” We know. And we know that we know, but we do not always listen. Life is learning to listen. And to do what is called for in each situation as it arises, when, where and how it needs to be done.
We can seek out the Knower within and live as their partner in life, and do just fine. Self-induced trance states are perfect for communing with the Knower within. Prayer is a good way of observing what we have to say to the Knower within, and a good way of listening to the Knower within. Self-induced trance states can be writing as I am doing now. I’m taking dictation right now. I’m not making any of this up. I’m merely writing it down. The Knower within is doing the dictating. Painting, playing the piano, long-distance running, or just running, anything where it is just you and the thing you are doing, puts you in a trance-like state of receptivity where you are not directing the action only being aware of it. All indigenous peoples have ways of inducing trance states and communing with the Knower within. It is a Thing worldwide throughout time. Without theology, though a ton of theology is based on the experience with the knower within.
The psychological mechanism of Projection is all we need to turn our experience with the Knower within into a religion based on God this and God that. We are making it all up and transferring it, projecting it, onto “God.” Whatever. We are at the bottom quite capable of living a life without theology finding our way along the way of Tao to doing what is called for, where, when and how it is called for, as we have done as a species throughout time from the earliest moments of the species to here, now. By knowing what we know and doing what is called for here, now. No?
We cannot help how we see things, the way we think about things. We can change our mind about how we see and think about how things are, but not by force of will–only by growing up, some more, again.
It is almost as though we can’t be held accountable for the way we see things, the way we think about things. We can’t help it, It is “just the way we are,” and we don’t do anything trying to be that way–we “just are that way.” And it changes as we grow up. And it never changes if we do not grow up.
Growing up seems to be a magical force all its own, having to do with the interchange with the events and experiences of our life, but some people have the same experiences without being changed for the better, and are still doing, being, thinking the way they did when they were 13 all their life long.
And everything hinges on changing the way we see and think on our way along the way. There is no help for those who do not do that.
The two orbs, spheres, balls represent all that is. They are symbols/metaphors for the mystery of being and non-being. They are different sizes to represent the duality that is oneness but not sameness. All of which is of no significance (importance) to anyone but me. These two orbs, spheres, balls represent to me all that is, enabling me to have an actual, physical, visible object (The two are one remember) to ground and center me in my relationship/association with reality and my place within reality. They remind me of how things are and also are, orient me in time and space/place, and assist me in taking all of it with no more seriousness than it deserves–enabling me to smile and get back in the business of the Sisyphean task of rolling the stone up hill and following it downhill throughout each day.
The two orbs, spheres, balls are the stone I/we all roll up and down the hill of life and being throughout our life. They are the mystery of existence and non-existence, about which we can say nothing more than we can say about Tao or Psyche. And, in reminding us of that, enable us to take up our task of doing what is called for, asked of us, in each situation as it arises and letting that be that, as Lao Tzu advised all those years ago, going back to the beginning of our awareness/realization/recognition/enlightenment regarding how things are and what we can do about it–which is all we need to do what needs to be done here, now, and enabling our “peaceful abiding,” throughout the time left for living.
Early Risers — Jennette’s Pier, Nags Head, Outer Banks, North Carolina
Take away the psychological mechanism of projection (Which is our ability to imagine/make-up stories about what we experience) and nothing makes sense. We make up the sense we make of things by telling ourselves stories about them. We imagine the entire apparatus into existence. We look at this image and see it because of the stories we tell ourselves about it. A baby fresh from the womb wouldn’t be able to make sense of it at all. We have to learn how to make things up correctly in order to see the things everybody else sees in roughly the same ways they see them. We learn to agree about what things are and what they mean in order to make our way through our life. Behind/beyond the sense we make of things lies the mystery at the heart of life and being, waiting for us to perceive enough of it to make up stories about it. And all of it that lies outside of the range of our senses of perception are forever unknown and unknowable. Yet, we swagger around like we know everything there is to know. Ho, ho.
Cypress Geese — Private Pond, Down East, North Carolina I got up early enough to drive an hour and a half to be there for sunrise. Watch me do that again today, ha!
“All we ever wanted was smooth and easy,” said Ogi Overman, explaining the foundation of alcoholism. If that is the cause, the cure is simple as doing what is called for when, where and how it is called for with no fanfare, bucking, snorting moaning, complaining, whining, shouting, stomping, sobbing… Just get up and change the baby’s diaper or take the dog outside, etc., and do it well, do it right.
That’s all it takes. No kidding. Life comes down to doing what needs to be done the way it needs to be done no matter what all our life long. If we can adjust ourselves to that, we have it made.
P.S. Adjusting ourselves to that is called “Growing Up.” Growing up is all it takes.
Why is that so hard?
If MAGA members would only grow up! Right?
How many MAGA members are also members of AA? Or need to be?
The logical extension of this trend is the realization that how we see things is how things are–or may as well be for all the difference it makes in the way the world works, no?
Hidden Falls –Jenny Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Jackson, Wyoming
What associations do you make with this image? What does it bring to mind? Follow the train of associations as one leads to another. See where it takes you, and where your refections go.
Do the same things with the list of words below, though not in one sitting. What do they stir to life within? What paths do they open up for you to explore? Where do they take you?
Morton’s Overlook — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
If we sense our way into the rhythm and flow of our life, and trust ourselves to it completely–apart from plans, schemes and dreams–we will be placing ourselves at the sweet spot of our unfolding, not knowing or caring where it is going.
We aren’t trying to make anything happen. We don’t have any idea about what needs to happen. We are simply focused upon remaining aligned with, upon living in accord with, the rhythm and flow of our life–in a “What’s happening?And what’s called for here, now?” Kind of way.
This is to be living in sync with the Tao, attuned to Psyche. Which is the way the natural world does it every day. At one with the rhythm and flow. For what? We do not know.
We do not have a life plan. We are not trying to get anywhere, to accomplish, achieve, acquire anything. We are just living at one with the rhythm and flow.
What do we have to have to be one with the rhythm and flow?
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 