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 Horse Barn 11/19/2019 Oil Paint Rendered — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
Fear holds us back.
Desire pushes us ahead.
These are the clashing rocks.
Anger, jealousy, guilt, shame, greed, hatred, depression...
These are the heaving waves.
Between the rocks and the waves,
we have too much to manage.
And so it is said,
"The world is too much with us,
late and soon" (William Wordsworth).
If we want to give ourselves a chance,
we have to avail ourselves
of the three weapons
and the four guides,
and make it our practice
to live in their service
in each situation as it arises.
The three weapons are
the right kind of emptiness,
stillness
and silence.
The four guides are
our original nature
the virtues that are ours
from birth to serve and to share,
and integrity and sincerity.
These seven companions
are with us along the way,
and will never abandon us
or leave us bereft.
To make them real,
we only have to treat them
as though they are,
by honoring them with time and attention
throughout each day.
Otherwise,
we make the journey
more difficult than it needs to be,
with all that "late and soon" stuff.
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02
Beulah Land 62 Oil Paint Rendered — Wild Gardens of Acadia, Acadia National Park, near Bar Harbor, Maine, 10/16/2009
The Gateless Gate is the fulcrum,
the swing point between worlds,
brought about by a slight shift in perspective,
which is the gift of enlightenment,
"turning the light around"
and enabling us to see "this world"
of rational, logical, intellectual, factual, concrete
understanding of how things are,
and "the other world"
of metaphorical, symbolic, instinctive, intuitive, wholistic,
non-linear, seeing-knowing
ways of understanding how things are--
always including a "felt sense" of what to do about it,
that logic and reason can't grasp at all,
or, grasping, dismiss it instantly as "woo-hoo-woo-hoo,"
and have nothing further to do with it.
I've included my symbol of the Gateless Gate in 62 images,
with two more to go.
The number 64 is wholeness itself,
is complete, is good, and is a doorway,
or a gateway, itself into infinity,
reflecting as it does the implied presence
of the Gateless Gate in every landscape,
in every photography,
in every moment
of every situation as it arises
through-out time.
64 is 8 squared.
8 is the symbol of infinity.
Infinity squared is beyond thinking/experiencing,
and is way more than is necessary
(One would think)
for getting the transitional/perspective shift
that takes us from this world into that world
and opens us to the wonder of the mystery
of Just Seeing, Just Knowing
and, therefore, Just Doing what needs to be done
when it needs to be done,
where it needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done,
because it needs to be done,
and that's that.
That. Is. All. There. Is.
And 64 hints of Gatelessness is all we need to get it,
if we are ever going to get it,
because it is already here, now
along with the Farther Shore,
and there is nothing to do to get it,
beyond the shift in perspective that produces it.
Like the optical illusion it is.
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03
Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River 04/15/2008 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
What would be helpful?
It all depends
on what we are trying to do.
What Adam and Eve were trying to do
and what Jesus was trying to do
would not be helped
by the same things.
What are we trying to achieve
in each situation as it arises?
What ends are we serving?
Toward what are we living
What are we doing?
Our life has its own built-in compass.
It knows where true north lies.
We need help reading the compass.
And we aren't interested in that kind of help.
We have our own ideas
about how things should be,
and we need help arraigning
the elements of our life
to fit our idea of where they belong.
We need help having our way NOW!
We are at odds with our life
from the start,
or shortly after the start.
And have to find the way to in-sync-ness
the hard way.
By living our way there,
one false turn after another.
Until then,
the help we need
and the help we will accept
are different kinds of help,
and "What would be helpful?"
is learning sooner rather than later
what the right kind of help
consists of
and how to be receptive
when it knocks on our door.
The Tree, A Collaboration, Oil Paint Rendered — A friend took the picture of the tree on their way home from work, and I added the composition with Photoshop’s help
It is perspective all the way down,
and Mystery at the bottom.
Or, as Lao Tzu liked to say,
"Darkness within darkness,
the gateway to mystery."
We will never make sense of it.
All the explanations and theories
get in the way of enjoying
the experience of Mystery.
Once we get that it is all Mystery,
we can't quit going, "Wow!"
and laughing out loud for no apparent reason.
And that reminds me of the story of the guy
going into a cafe in the deep south
and ordering "Coffee, cut the cream."
And the waitress replies, "That'll have to be milk,
Honey, 'cause we don't have any cream."
Don't try to make sense of it,
just laugh a lot.
And look forward to more.
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02
Beulah Land 61 Oil Paint Rendered — Moraine Lake Banff National Park, Alberta
The only difference between a bad day
and a good day
is a shift in perspective.
Flipping perspectives is the role
of the Gateless Gate.
The essential act of turning the light around
is the back-and-forth,
"edge-of-the-coin"
optical illusion transition
from rational/logical/left-brain seeing
to metaphorical/symbolic/instinctive/intuitive/right-brain seeing.
If you can master that vantage point,
you will be straddling the Gateless Gate,
looking right and left,
or left and right,
and seeing different worlds
"without leaving home."
That puts you "at the still point
of the turning world" (T.S. Eliot),
at the fulcrum between worlds,
able to shift one world into the other
just by changing the way you think about
what you are seeing.
Nothing is only what it appears to be.
Everything can appear to be something else
just by the way we look at it.
Practice it on your parents,
and on your children,
on everyone you meet.
Become proficient in seeing everything
"from all sides."
And don't let anyone get by with
one-way-only-seeing--
particularly yourself!
Tunnel View 04/15/2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Yosemite National Park, California
There are millions of pregnant women around the world
at this moment
who cannot carry their pregnancy to term.
I said CANNOT!!!
There inability to carry their pregnancy to term
trumps any right their fetus may have to life
and any heartbeat or brainwave restrictions
regarding when someone says "Life Begins."
It doesn't matter when life begins.
They cannot carry their pregnancy to term.
As far as the brainwave designation goes,
I have a particular bias in favor of
no brainwave no life (not that it matters
as far as beginning goes).
I and millions of other people
have living wills which explicitly state
that when my brainwave ends, pull the plug.
No brainwave no life.
If you allow me to pull the plug with no brainwave
at the end of life,
allow someone to pull the plug with no brainwave
at the beginning.
The CANNOT is the end of the matter.
It is all that needs be said.
They have the final say as to whether
they can or cannot carry their pregnancy to term
No legislature.
No church.
Nobody.
Has the power or the place to usurp their place
in the process of giving birth.
Their decision is sacrosanct.
If God objects,
he can send them to hell,
and me along with them.
On this side of hell, however,
we remain in charge of what we can and cannot do.
Here we have the power of decision
in matters where we are solely responsible
for bearing the burden of decision.
And we will make it as we determine
that it needs to be made.
So back way off.
You are in our way.
And if you are tempted to say,
"Well, why not? Why can't they
carry their pregnancy to term?"
I will you it doesn't matter why.
What matters is CANNOT.
And no one has to have your permission
to justify their CANNOT!!!
You are still in our way.
BACK OFF!
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02
Beulah Land 60 Oil Paint Rendered — Glade Creek Mill, Babcock State Park, Clifftop, West Virginia
It doesn't matter what our chances are!
We are here to do what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
the way it needs to be done,
no matter what.
Live out of that orientation
and you have it made,
whether things work out
to your profit, benefit, gain, advantage,
or not.
But, there is a catch:
You have to be right about
what needs to be done.
That means you have to be able
to change your mind on a dime,
which is a ridiculous phrase
until you think about it.
Turning your mind around on a dime
gives you absolutely no thinking room
to work with.
It has to be instantaneous,
spontaneous,
sincere
and spot-on,
like that (snaps fingers).
You have to know what you are doing
without thinking about it
in a See-And-Do kind of way.
And you have to be right about it.
Which means no preconceptions.
No plans.
No agendas.
No idea about when to do what where and how.
It means you are living day-to-day,
moment-to-moment
out of your own personal experience,
and out of your ability to see what you look at
and size things up immediately,
and respond appropriately
in ways fitting to the occasion
with nothing to guide your actions
beyond seeing what is happening
and knowing what to do
in response.
You have to be ready for anything.
You have to live out of your own integrity
all of the time.
No scheming,
no conniving,
no striving to arrange outcomes
favorable to you.
No keeping the rules.
No bondage to the way things ought to be.
No hard-and-fast ideas about Right and Wrong.
No allegiance to any ideas, convictions,
beliefs and opinions
beyond the absolute importance
of doing what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done
no matter what.
What is happening?
What needs to be done about it?
Out of your own gifts
and your ability to size things up
and respond in the moment
in ways that are what they need to be?
What does the situation call for?
Do that!
No matter what!
We make it up as we go.
And we have to be right about it.
Better start practicing
if you want to have it down
with everything on the line
and no time to waste
thinking about it.
Wizard Island 05/23/2009 Oil Paint Rendered–Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
Finding the way forward
is as easy as finding the thing
that needs to be done here and now.
If we can be right about that,
we can be trusted to find the way forward
simply by doing what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
when it needs to be done,
how it needs to be done
simply because it needs to be done,
with no ulterior motives attached.
And, if we are wrong about what needs to be done
here and now,
this is not a problem.
Experimentation and attention
are quick and easy fixes
for not being sure what the right thing is
that needs to be done.
It is like making good soup
or good pizza.
Attentive experimentation
is all it takes.
Live your life that way,
and Boom! as John Madden would say,
finding your way forward
is as easy as that.
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02
Beulah Land 59 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, Boone, North Carolina
We have what we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done.
And always have.
We have always wanted more.
This is the theme of the Garden of Eden,
metaphor though it is,
and people have always missed the point.
It is not disobedience that is the problem.
It is not eating the "forbidden fruit,"
and "knowing the difference between good and evil."
It is refusing to do what is asked of us,
what is called for,
what needs to be done.
It is turning our backs on the moment,
wondering what is in it for us,
saying, "First I need you to do me a favor."
The profit motive is the original sin.
It has been "Profit At Any Price" from the start.
We refuse to do what needs to be done
until someone sweetens the deal.
Jesus understood what the problem is,
and refused to play the game.
"See what needs doing and do it!"
said Jesus
with the Parable of the Prodigal Son
and the Parable of the Good Samaritan,
and the Parable of the Talents,
and the Parable of the Unjust Steward...
And he died on a cross
for the sake of his own integrity
and sincerity,
and calls us all to follow his example
in doing what needs to be done
even if it means dying in the service
of what is good
whether it does any good or not.
If we can't do that,
how good is the good we call good?
If we won't die for it,
how good is that?
See what needs doing and do it!
No matter what!
In each situation as it arises!
Our entire life long!
What's so hard about that?
Do it anyway!
Yellowstone River 07/10/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Proudful, willful, arrogance, meanness, ignorance and stupidity
comes to mind in reference to Jesus' exhortation,
"Do not throw pearls before swine,
or give dogs what is holy."
Walk on by
in search of kindness, compassion, grace, peace, safety and sincerity--
knowing that those who seek these things
will find them,
and join together with them in making wherever we are
a truly good place to be.
If you can do better than that,
by all means, do!
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02
Beulah Land 58 Oil Paint Rendered — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
What would it take
for you to be at one with yourself,
at peace with how things are,
at home in the time and place of your living?
Why would you want more than that?
What would you do with more than that?
Of all that you are doing,
what is yours to do?
How much of what you do in a day
exhibits/reflects/expresses/reveals/incarnates
YOU?
How much of you is unknown to you
because you won't allow it
to come forth into your life,
into the world?
Why hold anything back?
What are you trying to get,
gain, have, acquire
by holding it back
that is more valuable
than it would be
if you granted it full expression?
How is what you want
interfering with who you are?
Whose side are you on?
Upon what does being at one with yourself,
at peace with how things are,
at home in the time and place of your living,
depend?
Fence Row 01/14/2012 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina
Where do you find your succor?
Where do you turn in time of trouble?
Where do you go to "recover from the past
and store up for the future"?
Traditionally, people have found spiritual support
and sustenance
in art, music, nature, literature, poetry
and the right kind of conversation,
in community with the right kind of people.
What works for you needs to be close at hand
in times such as these,
to ground us,
sustain us,
urge us on
and carry us forward.
Emptiness,
stillness
and silence
connect us with
more than words can say,
and offer the possibility
of finding the source
of life, and light and being
as a welcome presence
near at hand.
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02
Beulah Land 57 Oil Paint Rendered — Peggy’s Cove Lighthouse, Nova Scotia09/23/2008
Fascism broadly considered
is more than a political force for evil.
It is also social,
cultural,
theological,
ideological,
cliquish
and pervasive.
Fascism's fundamental orientation is,
"It's people like you
who make people like me
hate people like you!"
It's primary operating assumption is
"I am only safe
with people like me.
People not like me
are the enemy
and are to be feared
and despised--
and treated in ways
that keep them far away from me."
How often do you encounter
grace,
kindness,
welcoming presence,
compassion
and the benefit of the doubt
on social media?
How often do you encounter
ruthlessness,
viciousness,
sarcasm,
meanness,
ridicule,
mockery,
derision
and shaming?
Fascism is experienced universally
as "I HATE YOU! Get Out Of My Life!"
And it is everywhere.
"People like me" is a delusion
fostered by false equivalence
and gang rituals, signs, symbols,
vocabulary, beliefs
and boundary markers.
Community seeks common ground
among a wide variety of people.
Gangs go to war with everybody else.
Fascism is built for war.
And is all in on killing everyone
not like WE are.
The best move for the rest of us
is to recognize fascists by their
words and behavior,
vote them out of office
and all leadership positions,
reduce their media presence
and increase their marginalia
across the board,
around the world.
How Many Snows? 02/11/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Faires Coltharp Cabin, Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
Enlightenment is a flip in perspective.
It is changing our mind about what is important.
That is the only difference between
seeing what's what
and not seeing what's what.
If we are going to see what we look at,
we have to be able to change our mind about what that is.
It is not that we don't see.
It is that we have so much at stake
in seeing the way we do
that we cannot change how we look at things.
There is nothing sacred about how we see.
How we see keeps us from seeing
what is to be seen.
We have to be willing to change our mind
about what is to be seen.
We have to be willing to change our mind.
How many times have you changed your mind today?
How many times have you called into question
how you see things today?
The world isn't going to change
until we change our mind
about what we see
when we look at the world.
Start looking at your children differently.
And at your parents.
And at your spouse/partner.
And at your dog/cat/chores/job/etc.
Call it your spiritual practice,
and start looking differently
at everything you see.
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02
Beulah Land 56 Oil Paint Rendered— Kolob Canon, Zion National Park, 05/25/2020
The life of your dreams
is a simple matter of adjusting your dreams.
Or, to put it another way,
of changing your mind
about what's important.
Nothing is more important
than being right about what's important--
and living in its service.
We all think we know what's important.
How many of us are right about it?
Growing up is about
changing our mind about
what's important--
to the point of being right about it.
Maturity is being right
about what's important,
and doing what that implies,
requires.
It's a function of time
spent in the right way.
Enlightenment is the outcome
of time spent in the right way,
so that we see (at last)
what is important and do it.
This is also known as salvation,
changing our mind about what matters most,
and being right about it,
and paying fealty to it
all our life long.
This kind of change of mind
is the function of the Gateless Gate
in our life.
Everybody lives to have what they want.
How do they know what to want?
How many of us want what we ought to want?
How many of us care about
what we ought to want?
There are things we ought to do
that have nothing to do
with what the culture/society/duty
say we ought to do.
We ought to do what our life
wants us to do
whether we want to or not.
This is the battle of the oughts.
We ought to do what is ours to do--
what needs us to do it--
whether or not anyone agrees
that it ought to be done.
We live to know what is important,
to know what needs to be done,
to know what ought to be done,
and to do it,
even if society calls us a heretic
and burns us at the stake.
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03
Dandelion 03/19/2018 Detail Oil Paint Rendered
Everything depends on our making the connection--
the Mysterium Coniunctionis--
between "this" and "that."
For example, there is "the task,"
and there is our enthusiasm for "the task."
What is the connection?
Upon what does our enthusiasm for the task,
any task,
depend?
Everything depends upon that!
Everything depends upon our enthusiasm for the task,
no matter what task it might be.
If it needs to be done,
that should be all that is necessary
to evoke our enthusiasm for doing it.
But we know it doesn't work that way?
Why not???
Upon what does our enthusiasm for the task depend?
We think we have to care about the task,
as though the task elicits our response to the task.
If it is a task we deem to be worthy of us,
if we are drawn to it as a moth to the flame,
well fine, of course, we will do it,
gladly, exactly as it needs to be done.
We do not do lovingly any task
that does not inspire love within us for it.
We wait for a task we can feel like doing
with all our heart.
But.
Why hold anything back?
Why not love everything just as it is?
"Do not judge," said Jesus.
"Live as though you love your neighbor
as yourself, whether you do or not,"
said Jesus.
"Live so lovingly with your neighbor
that your neighbor can't tell
if your love her/him or not!
Live so lovingly with your neighbor
that YOU can't tell whether you love
him/her or not!!!" said Jesus.
Get it?
The mystery in the Mysterium Coniunctionis,
is how we disappear in acting
as though there is no contradiction
involved in doing what needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
where it needs to be done,
how it needs to be done,
because it needs to be done.
We disappear in doing the deed
that needs us to do it.
This is what we were born for.
This is who we are.
What do we mean by holding anything back?
Whose side are we on?
Get it?
We step through the Gateless Gate,
and disappear.
Pied-billed Grebe 11/12/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — The Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina
Judas took the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth--
the stone that the builders reject
which was in fact the chief cornerstone,
and we toss it into the pile of rubble
to be used for ballast for ships
with not enough cargo for stable passage
back home--
Judas took the Word of God Made Flesh
and traded it for thirty pieces of silver,
and hung himself
when he realized what he did.
And we are still ignoring the Word Made Flesh
in favor of the wonderful old pastimes of the ages,
sex, drugs and alcohol,
greed and gluttony
and passing a good time
before time sweeps it all away.
Missing the point,
which is living a life worth the effort.
Because we have no idea
where we might find one of those.
They come right out of our own imagination.
Right out of our own heart and soul.
Ready to be found by anyone willing
to empty themselves of all distractions,
fear, desire, worry, anxiety, guilt, shame, suffering, etc.
and wait in the stillness and the silence
for something to stir to life within,
arising, emerging, appearing
with a call to life--
not the life of our dreams,
but the life that is ours to live
if we have the resolve of Ulysses
who said in the Odyssey,
"I will stay with it and endure!
And when the heaving sea
has shaken my raft to pieces,
then I will swim!"
Or, will we put it off
with "Not now.
Maybe tomorrow.
Or next week.
Some other time.
Maybe one day.
Soon."?
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02
Beulah Land 55 Oil Paint Rendered — Bright Angel Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
It takes a "We" to make an "I."
We think "It takes two "I's"
to make a "We."
As though any two "I's" will do.
If it isn't the right two "I's,"
it will never make a "We."
And it will never make an "I" either,
no matter how many babies it produces.
In order for two "I's" to be right
for a "We,"
each "I" has to be mutually accommodating.
And if one "I" can't manage that,
the other "I" has to accommodate
its failure to be accommodated,
and still make being with it
a really good place to be.
In order for one "I" to be able
to do the work of two "I's,"
it has to be that wheel turning
out of its own center
that Nietzsche talked about
being the goal/essence of maturity.
To do that, that "I" must be
incredibly gifted from the start
in seeing what is needed on all levels
and doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises.
That's an Old Soul from birth for you,
and there aren't many of them around.
There aren't many of the right kind of "We's"
around, either.
Mostly, we are a collection of "Wannabe-I's"
drifting lost and alone through the Wasteland,
packing together in a collective "Wannabe-We,"
seeking what they need to be a Self,
snarly and pissy, woebegone and depressed,
because they don't have the right combination
of possibilities for it to happen.
Nails the culture pretty well, I must say.
What to do about it is what matters most.
How does an "I" successfully self-emerge?
Without an adequate "We" to give it birth?
By learning and applying the trick of
"Adequate We-ness."
"Adequate We-ness" is a communal affair
where "Insufficient-I's" come together with
"Sufficient-I's" to form a community devoted
to providing an environment conducive to the
self-development of its members.
We grow each other up by being a safe place
for each other to be
while we consciously experience/explore the agony
of self-emergence.
AA can be this kind of place.
Some religious organizations can do it.
Maybe a bridge club or a poker group can manage it.
We are looking for the right kind of
family substitute--
the right kind of artificial "We"--
to create, sustain, maintain and direct
the development
of the right kind of "I."
And, whether natural or artificial,
the right kind of "We"
that is capable of producing
the right kind of "I"
has to make the Gateless Gate
the essential feature of what it has to offer.
–0–
03
Little River Cascade 03/01/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Townsend, Tennessee
The work of being human
is the work of maintaining
the balance and harmony
between two worlds,
the conscious world of visible,
apparent, reality,
and the world we are unconscious of,
the world of metaphor, mystery, symbol,
insight and knowing.
We know more than we know we know.
And where that comes from,
and how we know it
is Mystery dancing before us,
winking and laughing,
inviting us to hear the music
and join in the dance.
The work of being human
is dancing with two worlds
perfectly balanced and harmonious,
laughing all the way.
Carl Jung called this
"the Mysterium Coniunctionis."
The mysterious conjunction,
the mysterious contradiction,
the mysterious dichotomy,
paradox, contrary, polarity,
yin/yang
that has to be recognized,
embraced, accepted and worked out--
day by day,
moment by moment,
in each situation as it arises,
all our life long.
We take up the task
by recognizing the obligation,
knowing the difference between the worlds
and stepping (metaphorically) into
the space between them,
and making a home for ourselves
between the worlds
to which we belong,
and in which we "live and move and have our being."
Doing so consciously makes
balance and harmony possible.
Laughter lightens our load
and enables the dance to become
a regular part of our life "between the worlds."
Moonset 11/19/2013 Oil Paint Rendered — Hunting Island State Park, Edisto Island, South Carolina
Joseph Campbell taught at Sara Lawrence College
for 38 years.
Each year, he conducted
what amounted to exit interviews
with each graduating student
who had taken his classes.
There were a large number of Jewish women
at Sara Lawrence,
but one stood apart from the others
when she said,
"Mr. Campbell, if I weren't a Jew,
I would not know who I am."
That's the People of the Jews
coming out in one individual Jew.
"It is the People that are the
heart, the backbone, the center, the essence
of Jewishness," Campbell would say
in later lectures.
"It isn't Abraham, or Moses,
or David, or Elijah--it is the People
who enable the Jews to stand apart."
And that is the mythological crisis
that mythology addresses.
Mythology gives us a "We,"
and calls us forth out of the "We"
to be the "I" that we are.
In my nuclear family,
me, my wife and our three daughters,
we had a wall of extended family photographs
going back several generations.
Whenever there was a problem
with willing what should not be willed
on the part of one, or more,
of the daughters,
my wife or I would take them
to the wall of ancestors
and say, "This is not the way We do it!
None of the people on this wall
would do it like you want to do it.
The way you want to do it
is not the way it is to be done.
All of us (pointing to the wall) say so!"
The problem with this country
and with the world
is that we do not have a We Wall
to stand before.
There is no sense of We-ness
holding us together.
We do not know who we are
or who we are supposed to be.
We are in free-fall through the Wasteland,
with each going their own way,
having no idea of what The Way actually is
because there is no We to point it out for us
and instruct us as to how it is to be done,
whatever "it" might happen to be.
We have lost the We,
and are lost ourselves because of it.
We have no mythology
to connect us with a long line
of generations of People like the Jews
who knew how to do it
and who point out to us how it is to be done.
But. And here is the catch.
It is the place, the role, of the We
in our life
to create an "I" who is capable
of standing apart from the "We"
in knowing and doing what must be done
in each situation as it arises--
because situations are always arising
which have never been faced before
by any "We" that have gone before us,
and we must be capable of finding The Way
through the clashing rocks
and the heaving waves
that no one has ever seen.
So, Jesus could ask his disciples,
"Who do men say that I am?"
And then, the killer,
"Who do YOU say that I am?"
It is not "What do the People say?"
It is "Who do YOU say?"
This is the mythological crisis
that myth exists to guide us through.
We find examples in the myths--
in the magical stories we tell ourselves--
of heroes who find the way on their own.
And so, in "The Quest for the Holy Grail,"
comes the legend, the myth, that calls us
into the Adventure that is ours alone,
and no one can help us with.
There we read that the knights who went
in search of the Grail
"agreed that all would go on this quest,
but they thought it would be a disgrace
to go forth in a group,
so each entered the forest
at a point that he, himself, had chosen,
where it was the darkest and there was no path.”
It is the role of the We in our life--
of the People in our life--
go get us to the point of asking,
and answering,
the essential, all important, question,
"Who do YOU say that you are?"
And in answering that question correctly,
we become, ourselves, "The Great I AM!"
Living "like a wheel turning
out of its own center."
This what the We, properly understood,
enables/creates--an "I" capable
of living the life "I" alone am capable of living.
It is the role of a living mythology
to create the We
that creates the I
that creates the We
that creates the I
and that is the Circle of Life,
"a wheel of fortune and pain."
And here we are, wondering together,
"Who do YOU say that YOU are?"
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02
Beulah Land 54 Oil Paint Rendered — Mabry Mill, Blue Ridge Parkway, Meadows of Dan, North Carolina
It is the role/place of mythology
to move us from dependence to independence--
from being a "We" to being an "I,"
without losing our capacity for "We-ness."
It is a tight rope walk across gaping chasms.
Many do not make it,
because they do not trust themselves
to the weapons and the helpers
that are theirs to use.
The weapons are the right kind of
emptiness, stillness and silence.
The helpers are our original nature,
the virtues that come with us from the womb,
sincerity,
integrity
self-transparency
and reliance upon the Mystery--
the Source--
at the heart of life and being.
We do not trust ourselves to these things
because we have a better idea.
Our better idea consists of what we want,
what we desire,
what we crave and must have:
our way NOW!
And so the theme of death and resurrection
that runs throughout mythology.
We have to die to our idea of what our life is to be
in order to live the life that is our life to live--
in order to have the adventure that waits for us
to say, "Let's go!"
Look around you.
The Ukrainian's are the only ones
putting their life on the line,
in serving their destiny
at the expense of their desire for their own life.
We see in them the model
for how to do it
in being gripped by a mythic vision
of our life,
and serving that vision above and beyond
all else.
We cannot take refuge in
Mama and Daddy substitutes,
or in the addictions of the day.
We have to stand up and step into our life,
the life that calls us to live it--
the life that needs us to live it--
the life we are born to live,
with an original nature and its special virtues
perfectly suited for the live we are to live,
no matter what.
Doing what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done,
never-mind what we would like to be doing instead
with the diversions, distractions and entertaining
pastimes of the day.
The Adventure waits while we demur,
looking for a way out
of doing what is ours to do.
Hung Out to Dry 09/14/2010 Oil Paint Rendered — Guilford County, North Carolina
We cannot have a living mythology
without a close personal relationship
with the Mystery at the heart
of life and being.
If we cannot honor the Mystery
with fealty,
filial devotion
and liege loyalty,
we are spiritually dead
beyond the hope of resurrection.
Spiritual life
flows from what we know
without knowing how we know,
and without being able to explain
what we know.
Words do not go where
the spirit lives.
Talk, talk, talk
cannot say what silence can reveal.
Awe, wonder, radiance, splendor, fascination...
carry us beyond words
into the presence of Mystery,
beyond which we cannot go.
But, we must be able to go
at least that far
to have a sense of more than words can say.
The beginning of understanding.
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02
Beulah Land 53 Oil Paint Rendered — Guilford College Woods, Greensboro, North Carolina
What means the most to you?
Start there.
Live in ways that enhance
your relationship with that.
Allow your relationship with that
to lead you into what's next,
all along the way.
What means the most to me are:
Sincerity
Integrity
Fealty
Devotion
Loyalty
Affection
Compassion
And spending time in the presence
of those exuding/exhibiting/expressing
those things.
Just finding people like that
is more difficult than it ought to be.
So I live seeking
what's worth living for.
Don't we all?
"Be what you seek" is the best
guidance I've found.
That's hard enough.
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03
Goodale Sate Park 17 11/06/2013 Oil Paint Rendered — Adams Mill Pond, Camden, South Carolina
It takes too long to grow up.
By the time we are at the point
of living out of what we know to be so,
instead of what someone else
tells us is so,
we are too old to do much of anything,
and can't remember where we put the car keys,
or the checkbook.
Some good maturity does us.
We need more time
with our faculties up and operational.
It's hard to find anyone to talk to
who knows what they are talking about.
Everybody is saying what they heard
someone else say.
You hardly ever hear anyone
talking about what they know to be so.
It's all about what they believe to be so.
Opinions are everywhere.
God is an opinion.
A large collection of opinions.
Heaven and hell are opinions.
Hearsay.
We have people parading around as experts
on God, heaven and hell,
saying what they got from someone else,
who got it from someone else,
who got it...
Here's what I know to be an absolute,
incontestable fact:
It's nothing but chance
all the way down,
and nothing but Mystery
at the bottom.
If anybody tells you anything different,
they are just making it up.
Peach Trees 11/25/2010 Oil Paint Rendered — York County, South Carolina
Everybody has a way
and everybody wants to have it their way.
Everybody has to grow up first,
before anyone else does.
It is amazing how Tabloid Journalism
has taken the country to the psyche ward
with everyone having something more
outlandishly absurd to say than anyone else.
But.
Here we are.
And a lot of these people control state legislatures,
and are bent on taking over the US House and Senate
along with the Presidency.
"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World" came out on 1963.
The current world is soooooo much more of a madhouse
in real time.
I don't know of anyone who can turn things around,
flip the script,
and have people begin acting out of good faith
and a genuine concern for the best interests
of all concerned.
The general public needs to be sent to their room
until they learn to behave in public
the way they are supposed to behave in public,
with their grown-up face on.
And, that isn't going to happen.
Someone would say that violates their right to free speech,
and that they can do anything they want to,
and no one can stop them.
This crowd has not heard of self-restraint and self-discipline.
And that suggests it is going to be
an awful, terrible, no-good, very bad summer even at the beach.
No one has the answer to this situation.
Each person is responsible
for seeing what they look at,
interpreting it correctly
and doing what must be done
in ways appropriate to the occasion--
and no one can know beforehand
what that will be.
Each day is its own test.
Our weapons for the journey
through the days are
emptiness,
stillness
and silence.
No agenda.
No opinion.
Just seeing.
Just knowing.
Just doing.
If we see clearly
and know properly
and do what truly needs to be done,
that will be that,
and all will be well with us.
Sincerity,
Original Nature,
And the Virtues
that are ours from birth
are our helpers along the way.
With the three weapons
and the three helpers,
we have all we need
to find what needs to be done
and do it in each situation
as it arises
through all the days that lie ahead.
Take heart!
Mind how you go!
Peace be with you!
All along the way!
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02
Beulah Land 52 Oil Paint Rendered — The Farm House at Caterpillar Hill, Maine
Without a grounding,
organizing,
motivating,
directing
cultural mythology,
we are lost,
at loose ends,
with only money
as our reason for living.
Money for what?
We don't know.
All we can come up with is
for making more money.
Maybe we will go into space.
For what?
What is there?
Nothing.
So we just zoom around a bit
and come back
in order to talk about it.
We have to have something
to talk about.
So we go big game hunting,
do drugs,
do sex
and talk about it.
We have to have something to show for it.
For having lived.
We live for nothing.
We can't talk about nothing.
So we talk about each other.
Juice ourselves up hating each other.
It is almost like being alive.
We are drowning in the wrong kind of emptiness.
It is the emptiness of being filled
with dread, hatred, anger, anxiety...
It is not emptiness at all.
We are afraid of the right kind of emptiness.
There is nothing there.
We are terrified of nothing.
But, nothing is our last hope.
If we can sit still
in the silence
and open ourselves to
the experience of nothing
long enough,
something will stir to life
and call our name
out of the Mystery
on the other side of nothing.
That is the beginning
of the construction
of our own personal mythology.
Whereof the Mystery?
What's there?
The Mystery is the Ground of Being--
where we come from,
where we return to.
We are extensions of the Mystery,
aspects of the Mystery.
We are the Mystery ourselves.
Being open to the Mystery
is the great adventure of being alive!
Being closed to the Mystery
is having to make up our own reasons
for being alive.
Money is all we can come up with.
Money for what?
For making more money
is all we can think of.
Sitting on the Mystery,
we count our coins
and call it really living.
We are really living now, aren't we?
Isn't this the life, though?
Look at all this money!
Isn't this something?
It is nothing.
And we are filled
with the wrong kind of emptiness
because we won't open ourselves
to the Mystery,
the Wonder,
the Radiance,
at the bottom of it all.
Because we are afraid there is nothing there.
Clutching nothing,
we huddle in fear of nothing.
When nothing is our only hope.
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03
The Great Wagon Road 11/05/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Walnut Cove, North Carolina
Confronted with the Mystery,
we have no choice
but to construct a mythology
to explain,
to make sense of,
the Mystery.
That mythology has to take everything
into account--
has to see and say
how this connects with that,
flows from that,
leads to that,
and here we are.
A mythology that works today
to settle us into the world we live in
as servants of the Mystery,
here and now,
has to speak to us in ways
that harmonize us with all we know to be so.
The old mythologies worked fine in their day,
but Copernicus and Galileo and Einstein
and their ilk
laid all those mythologies to rest
without offering an up-to-date mythology
in their place.
And, worse than that,
they declared "There is no Mystery!
It is all nothing more than facts
waiting to be discovered!"
There are no facts
that aren't mysteries
waiting to be perceived!
Honored!
Revered!
Mythologized!
Mystery is the Ground of Existence and Experience!
Mystery is the Heart of Life and Being!
It is Mystery all the way down!
It is our place to recover the lost sense
of awe and wonder,
reverence and radiance,
in response to the realization
of the Mystery
of who we are
and why we are here, now.
And create a mythology
that honors it all.
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04
Table Rock Reflection 10/04/2014Oil Paint Rendered — Table Rock State Park, South Carolina
Our mythology has to incorporate
our own personal story
within the story of the world
up to right here, right now,
encompassing where we come from
and where we are going--
with particular emphasis upon
our original nature
and the virtues that are ours
to serve and to share,
and their origin being our origin
in the Mystery
out of which we come
and to which we return.
We are here to tell the story
that we write
with our life--
with all of our lives
fitting together
as the story of the species,
to be told and retold
around campfires,
or their equivalent,
through eons to come.
We start with who we are
and what is ours to do,
issuing as they do
from the source
that brings us all into being
with, "Here you are,
and this is what you have to work with--
see what you can do with it
in the time that is yours to live!"
How we balance our original nature
and our virtues
and live in harmony
with one another
within the context and circumstances
of our life
is the story that is ours to tell/live out
as it unfolds before us
in each situation as it arises
day by day
throughout our life.
Our mythology is what we tell ourselves
about our life experience
to make it all possible,
to organize our life,
guide and direct our boat
on its path through the sea,
sustain and motivate ourselves
through the trials and ordeals
that must be surmounted
all along the way.
Who are we?
How do we know?
What is ours to do?
How do we know?
What is deepest, truest, best
about us?
How do we incorporate,
exhibit,
express,
that in the life we live
within this context
and these circumstances
every day?
What helps/enables us
in the work that is ours to do
with the virtues that are ours
to work with?
Our answers to these questions,
and all the others
that beg to be answered,
constitute our mythology,
the things we say to keep us going
in light of our experience
of all that is.
What say you?
How do you articulate what is you
and yours to do
within your experience
of being alive?
Saying what needs to be said
and asking the questions
that beg to be asked
constitutes the work
of mythologizing our life
and our reason for being.
What say you?
It is our place--
our work--to perfect ourselves,
not in light of some moral ideal,
but in service to our original nature
and the virtues that are ours
to serve and to share
throughout the time left for living.
Our challenge is to be who we are,
in sync with that which is
deepest, truest and best about us,
in conjunction with the time and place,
context and circumstances,
of our living.
We are rarely welcome to be who we are,
but, without resistance/opposition,
we would never come forth
by rising to the occasion
and doing what calls us to action
on the field of action.
Joseph Campbell said,
"It took the Cyclops
to bring out the hero in Ulysses."
It takes our life
to bring out what we are capable of doing.
We would never think that into being.
We have to live ourselves into
our essential self--
birthing ourselves all the way to the grave.
This means integrity is the ultimate value,
not wealth.
Success means aligning ourselves with ourselves,
understanding that when we are
transparent to ourselves,
we are "transparent to transcendence."
That when we are our natural self,
we are as the Buddha was,
"one thus come"--
one fully come--
as the Christ was,
and can say about ourselves
as Jesus said about himself,
"The father and I are one"
(Substitute "the Source" for "the father,"
and you say all that can be,
or needs to be said).
Our work is our life:
To be one with the Source,
with the Mystery at the center of us all,
and to live in ways that make that plain.
This is the parent page for posts during the second quarter of 2022. Hope you are glad to be here!
Zen Sunflower on Black, Oil Paint Rendered
Seeing happens in its own time,
in its own way,
if we stay out of the way
and allow things to unfold
according to their own accord--
just waiting,
just watching,
for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.
Too much noise and complexity
in our life
keeps that from happening
until we learn the secret
of dropping into
emptiness,
stillness
and silence
amid the clashing rocks
and heaving waves,
becoming the still point
of the turning world
by remembering the Gateless Gate
is nothing more
than a slight shift in perspective.
And just like that,
we ""turn the light around,
"a door opens where there was no door,"
and "a new day has begun."
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 