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?
Smoky Mountains Morning 04/11/2015 04 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cherokee, North Carolina
We are never far away from,
"Here we are.
Now what?"
But, we are rarely there
long enough.
We rush past "Now what?"
to "Anywhere But THIS!"
It's the not-knowing we despise.
Or fear.
Or despise because we fear.
Not-knowing is the worst imaginable torture.
We are here, now
because we could not bear the pain
of all of the "Now what's?"
in our past,
and we jumped for the first possible
(The worst possible)
way out of there,
to where we did not care--
it had to be better than there.
Not-knowing what.
Not-knowing anything.
In in all of the places like those
remaining in the time left for living,
we have to wait,
bearing the pain
of not-knowing,
for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.
We have to wait
to get a feel for the flow,
for the drift of the current of life,
for the movement of pace and timing,
here at the transition point--
"the still point
of the turning world"
(T. S. Eliot).
What is leading us,
calling us,
asking us to listen,
to feel
in our body
the shift happening,
meeting circumstances,
looking for the door to open,
waiting for the door?
How long can we wait for the door
to open?
Before we have to do something,
door or no door,
even if it is wrong?
How long do we have?
How long can we wait?
We owe it to ourselves
to find out.
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02
Yellowstone Canyon 09/15/2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The inner guides are easily dismissed,
discounted,
disregarded,
denied,
rejected,
ignored,
forsaken,
abandoned,
castaway.
Their essential strength
is their refusal to quit
or withdraw.
They are forever
calling us to wake up,
grow up,
stand up,
face up,
square up
and meet the moment
every day.
Regardless of how we
have treated them
in every moment prior
to this one,
they are right there,
right here,
now,
offering what they have to give
in terms of wisdom
and courage,
direction
and hope.
If we are breathing
there is still a chance
of doing
the right thing
in the right place
at the right time
in the right way--
redeeming and atoning for
all the other moments
we met with less
than the best we had to offer.
Here is another now
needing what we have to give.
The guides are ready and willing.
We only have to sit still
and be quiet
and listen
and look
and wait for the mud to settle
and the water to clear--
for all of the noise
of the 10,000 things
to shift to the background,
and the whispers
of the still, small, persistent voices
to be felt, heard, sensed and seen.
Our place is to clear a space
for the guides to speak
with feelings, sensing,
realizing, knowing,
beckoning, urging,
calling, compelling...
and then to follow
in a "thy will, not mine
be done" kind of way.
Moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises,
seeking the rhythm,
finding the flow,
of balance and harmony,
day-by-day.
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01
Country Cemetery 02 05/16/2015 Oil Paint Rendered — Lancaster County, South Carolina
Doing the right thing
in the right place
at the right time
in the right way
requires us to be present
with what is present with us,
to know what's what
and what is called for
in the unrelenting service
to Freedom!
Justice!
Equality!
Truth!
in light of the true good
of the whole
in each situation
as it arises.
This is where our focus
needs to be,
where our attention
needs to be,
where our concentration
needs to be,
where our devotion,
allegiance,
duty
and utmost concern
need to be.
Moment-by-moment
the questions are,
"What is happening?
What is called for?
What needs to be done about it?
How can I help the sitution
for the good of the situation?"
Do you have any sense
that this is being done
anywhere?
At any time?
How about we letting
it start with us,
right here,
right now?
Smoky Mountain Views 04/12/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cherokee, North Carolina
Doing the right thing,
in the right place,
at the right time,
in the right way
is all there is to it,
but.
Who is to say what "right" is?
We are!
And, there is a catch:
We have to be right about it.
The trick is that "right"
cannot be spelled out,
defined,
explained,
said,
told,
even known before hand--
before the moment of its doing!
Jesus said, "The spirit is like the wind
blowing where it will."
This means that not even the spirit
knows what it will do next.
"It all depends upon"
the circumstances,
the time and place,
the situation,
the here and now
of the moment of decision.
What is called for?
Do that!
In the moment of acting
within the field of action
everybody knows what is right
and what is wrong--
but are they right about it?
Only time will tell.
In the meantime,
we have to trust ourselves
to the time that is at hand
and make our best guess
regarding what is called for
and how to respond to it.
The good part of this process
is that we sometimes get the chance
of redeeming what we do
in this moment
in the very next moment.
And sometimes we don't.
We have to live with that.
The pitcher who makes
the wrong pitch
in the bottom of the ninth
of the seventh game
of the World Series
has to live with it forever.
So does the first baseman
who lets the would-be final out
roll under his glove.
Our lives have too many lost moments
that changed everything,
and we have to live with it--
hoping to do better
in all the moments yet to be.
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01
Fall Woods Panorama 10/11/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, Little Switzerland, North Carolina
People sometimes wonder
if I am a Christian.
Having retired after spending
forty years and six months
as a minister
in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
I'm ready for the question.
My answer comes in two forms.
1) "Unconditionally!"
2) "In exactly the same way
that Jesus was a Christian!"
A third response would do as well:
"Forest Gump might say,
'Christian is as Christian does!'"
The test of anyone's faith
in anything
is the degree to which
their faith is evident
in their life.
We do not Believe In anything
we can live without.
I believe completely,
totally,
fully,
undoubtedly,
absolutely,
etc.
that Jesus would join me
in embracing
the unequivocal truth
of the statement:
"Live to do the right thing
in the right place
at the right time
in the right way
moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises,
all your life long,
and let that be that."
Jesus and I believe
that if everyone believed and did that,
the world would be transformed,
and the fullness of life
would be a blessing and a grace
upon every living thing.
Smoky Mountain Views 04/11/2014 04 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
We are looking for
what is meaningful
when we take up The Quest,
and go forth in search
of what exactly we do not know.
We only know "this" is not it.
Because "this" is not meaningful.
And we cannot think up meaningful.
We cannot decide what will be meaningful.
Meaningful is like falling in love.
We do not make it happen.
It Whams! us,
right out of nowhere.
We don't see it coming,
and it always catches us by surprise.
We find meaningful
by not ruling anything out.
"The stone the builders reject,"
you know.
We don't want to miss meaningful
by deciding beforehand
what it would never be.
We have to be open to everything,
and get out of the way
with our "Maybe this,"
and "Maybe that."
We have to quit looking,
stop searching,
forget about seeking,
and wait.
Go about our life,
waiting,
watching.
Open and alert,
but not pushing any agenda,
giving ourselves to things
we find to be interesting.
Looking closer at things
that catch our eye.
Letting nothing get by unseen,
unnoticed, ignored.
We examine it all.
Listening to see
what calls our name.
The search becomes meaningful
in this way.
We are just being aware of our life
in the moment of our living.
Being interested in what is with us
here, now.
Enjoying the moment,
while we wait, watching.
That is doing our part,
and we let nature take its course,
looking forward to hearing
our name called
by some white rabbit,
flashing around a corner,
then peeking back around at us,
winking.
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03
Spruce Islands Oil Paint Rendered — Penobscot Bay, Deer Isle, Maine
It comes down to this
and never goes beyond it:
Doing the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right way.
Moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises.
That's it.
There is nothing beyond that
to ask,
or seek,
or desire,
or wish for,
or hope for.
Old age is where I remember and regret
all of those times up to now
where I did not do the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right way.
What was I thinking?
Absolutely nothing!
But that can't hamper me
from beginning now,
today,
being consciously aware
of the importance
of doing the right thing
at the right time,
in the right way.
Doing it, of course,
is another matter.
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02
Sunrise 10/23/2012 Oil Paint Rendered — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
How we spend our time
is a reflection of our values,
which is another way of saying
what is meaningful to us
(What are values that are not
meaningful?).
How does the way you spend your time
actually exhibit/serve
what is meaningful to you?
What is meaningful to you?
Meaningful is what you would do
for the sake of doing it alone--
what you would do whether
you got anything else out of it,
beyond doing it,
or not--
what you would pay to do
because you love to do it.
What is that in your life?
How does the way you spend your time
reflect/express that?
Could anyone tell what is meaningful to you
by the amount of time you spend doing it?
The only fair estimation of the value
something has for you
is the amount of time you spend with it,
doing it.
What holds the place of high value in your life?
What is your evaluation of what you value?
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01
Country Cemetery 01 05/16/2015 Oil Paint Rendered — Lancaster County, South Carolina
Fascination meets mystery,
as Ortega e Gasset might say,
"at the edge of the coin."
Fascination is the hallmark of mystery,
mystery is the ground of fascination's being.
We are fascinated by that which
we neither expect nor fully comprehend.
DNA fascinates me.
Our DNA comes packed with stuff
beyond imagining.
How did it get in there?
Light waves exist in a spectrum
that stretches from LA to New York.
We see about a half mile of that spectrum.
Sound waves reverberate from hydrosonic
to sonic to supersonic to hypersonic.
Who knows what we are missing?
We are immersed in mystery!
Awash in mystery!
We don't know 1/2 of 1 percent
of what is to be known!
And we take ourselves to be something
because of all we know and can do.
What sits us down?
What leaves us agape and agog?
What fascinates us
and swathes us in mystery?
How long has it been since we were
silenced by the mystery of existence?
Start with nothing.
How do you get a rock?
Start with nothing?
Why is there nothing?
Where did it come from?
What is it up to?
What does it dream of?
Hope for?
Would it know what to do
with a bowl of homemade ice cream?
Would it have to invent us
to find out?
Where did we come from?
What are we doing with our time?
Trail to Triple Falls 10/14/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Dupont State Forest, Cedar Mountain, North Carolina
Our life is an end in itself.
Life is an end in itself.
We live to be alive--
fully, completely, wonderfully,
fascinatingly, joyfully alive.
We do not live to get anything,
or anywhere.
Where do we think we are going?
The experience of living
is all life has to offer.
We think it is about being happy.
Being happy is about being absorbed
in what is meaningful.
We do not ask if something is meaningful,
we ask if it will make us happy.
Only what is meaningful can do that--
and whether something is meaningful
is up to us.
No one can tell us what is or will be.
We have to find it ourselves,
by experiencing life to the fullest,
and returning to the meaningful experiences
again and again.
There is no steady state of being happy.
Happy comes and goes.
Let come what's coming
and let go what's going,
and do what needs to be done about it,
in response to it,
while it is here, now.
And don't keep score.
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02
Cornfield Sunrise 07/06/2012 Oil Paint Rendered — North Carolina
Where do we draw the line
between what we want
and what we do?
If getting our way
and having what we want
doesn't guide our actions,
what does?
Should/Ought/Must?
Who says so?
Should/Ought/Must
is a great guide IF
who says so
dwells within!
If who says so
has some outer origin--
our parents,
God,
the Bible,
culture/society...
forget it.
If you aren't doing
what you know must be done
because you know it must be done
and to do otherwise
would be to betray yourself
and your deep sense of what is right,
necessary
and essential
to being true to yourself
and living in filial devotion
and liege loyalty
to your own center
and grounding sense of direction
and purpose,
you are off track
and wandering lost and alone
in the wasteland
of your own wishes and desires.
There is only one thing to do:
Sit down and be quiet.
Seek the inner source
of purpose and direction.
And wait for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.
How long will that take?
Longer than you want it to,
but not as long
as you are afraid it will.
Your wants are preferences,
vanilla or chocolate?
You musts are your guide.
What must you do
without reasons,
without explanations,
without justification
or comprehension?
Do that!
"It's the pirate's life for me,
Gibbs.
I have no say in the matter!
Savvy?"
–0–
01
Lake Jeanette in the Fog 01/11/2013 Oil Paint Rendered — Greensboro, North Carolina
Our wants
and our way
are leading us
by the nose
down roads we have no business traveling,
into places we have no business being,
into things we have no business doing.
What is our business?
Why aren't we about it?
It is time we found out.
It is time we took control of our life,
and started doing things our life's way.
Our life has a life of its own.
Our life knows more than we do
about what's what
and what needs to be done about it.
We need to sit down,
shut-up,
look and listen.
What is it going to take
for us to
sit down,
shut-up,
look and listen?
We have to look and listen
until we see and hear.
Our life has things to say,
our body is trying to tell us
what our life would like to say.
We aren't listening.
We are looking only
for what is in it for us,
for what we stand to gain,
for how to maximize our opportunities,
for how to squeeze each situation
for its personal benefit
and profit
potential.
All we want to know
is where we are better off
and how we can get there now.
Meanwhile, our life
is trying to get our attention,
our body is telling us
things we don't want to hear.
What is it going to take?
Fragile and vulnerable,
we spend our life
wishing it weren't so,
pretending it isn't,
hiding,
lying,
denying,
building walls,
shopping malls,
nothing to it,
money will do it,
power, too,
delusional,
institutional,
wrapped in our refusal
to be who we are,
where we are,
when we are,
how we are,
fragile and vulnerable,
all the way
to the end
of the line.
Waking up
is growing up
is squaring up
is wising up
is standing up
and letting things be
exactly what they are
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so,
no matter what!
"When you leave home
to seek your life
and live it,
the birds of the air
will shit on you--
do not pause
even to wipe it off!"
Seek your life and live it!
Anyway!
Nevertheless!
Even So!
No matter what!
Find what you love and love it!
Anyway!
Nevertheless!
Even So!
No matter what!
Fragile?
Vulnerable?
So What?
Take it in stride!
Don't let it stop you!
Or even slow you down!
Courage!
Faith!
In what?
In YOU--
and what is important
to YOU,
and what is meaningful
to YOU!
Live in good faith
with yourself!
Be true to YOU!
Believe in YOU!
YOU are the only you there is!
And.
YOU are
fragile and
vulnerable,
so there is no time to waste
worrying about the birds of the air
and what they might do to your hair!
Pick yourself up!
And live each day
as though it might be your last!
Bring your best to bear
on each moment,
in every situation
throughout the day!
Why hold anything back?
LIVE while you can!
As fully as you can!
For as long as you can!
Beginning now!
Why not?
Canadian Rockies Reflection 09/29/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Jasper National Park, Alberta
James Hillman said,
"If I do what I really must,
it will kill me,
yet, if I don't,
I will die."
We get to choose
the kind of death
we will die.
Our choice is "the secret cause"
(James Joyce)
of our dying.
The life we live
is the direct consequence
of our death.
We bring about our death
by our choice
of what constitutes our life.
If we say, "Yes,"
it will kill us,
if we say, "No,"
we will die.
Which kind of death
will we be most proud of?
Most satisfied with?
Whichever death it is,
that will be the death
that is "just like us."
Will we live consciously,
embracing ourselves
and the life that will lead
to the death that is "just like us"?
Or, will we live unconsciously,
refusing to make a choice,
and saying, "No"
by failing to say anything--
and living the life that will lead
to the death that is "just like us"?
Will we live as we must,
or live as we also must
because we cannot bear
to live as we must?
"The secret cause" of our death
is our answer to these questions.
We feel balance and harmony
in our body.
We know when we are in sync,
in tune,
in the flow,
in the groove,
and out of it.
How do we get back
where we belong?
By sitting still,
being quiet,
and finding
where we are kidding ourselves.
We are naturally built
for balance and harmony,
for living at-one with ourselves.
When that it is not the case,
it is because we are seeking ends,
or enlisting means,
that are not legitimate ends,
that are not authentic means.
It is because we are
trying to get
what we have no business having.
Living at-one with ourselves
is the key to what we are seeking
with money and power
and the accoutrements of success:
peace and well-being,
contentment and satisfaction.
These things are always "right there,"
for the low, low price
of serving the right ends
with the right means.
Remaining alert to what our body knows
is the way
to remaining on the way,
staying on the path,
living on the beam,
through all of the circumstances
of our life.
–0–
02
Blueberry Barrens 10/15/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Hill, Maine
What do you take your time with?
Look there for what is meaningful
in your life.
You may spend more time
with something else,
like your job,
or mowing the grass,
but what you take your time with
tells the tale.
We take our time with the things
that matter to us,
that are important to us,
not only because we enjoy
being with them,
but also because we want to
do right by them,
to keep faith with them.
These are the things where
our spiritual side is fed.
We may "go to church"
and "talk about/to God,"
and "study the Bible,"
and call that being spiritual,
but being spiritual is about
keeping faith with the meaningful things
in our life--
living in good faith
with what we love.
This is the sine qua non
of spirituality.
It isn't what we talk about.
It is how we live our life.
It is where we take our time.
If your ideas, beliefs, opinions, and convictions
about reality do not square up with,
and flow from,
your direct encounters with reality,
you are in trouble,
and the people around you
are being harmed by your presence--
and it is best for all concerned
that you go sit quietly
and reflect long enough
on the discrepancy between
how you think things are,
and how you wish they were,
and how you need them to be,
and how things actually are,
to be overwhelmed and undone
by the disparities laid bare before you,
and begin making amends.
How we believe things are
is never precisely how they are,
but it helps to be close.
Scientists are closer than witch doctors are.
We have to be close enough
to do more good than harm
with the things we say
about reality,
and do in response to reality.
And we have to have a perspective
regarding our perception of reality
that takes our perspective into account.
We have to see ourselves seeing,
and know when we are relying on inferences
and conjecture and wishful/magical thinking
to orient ourselves in time and space
in response to what is happening now.
So much of what we tell ourselves
about what is so
is not so
that we need to be cautious
and conscious of everything
we say about what is so,
and take "What makes us think this is so?"
and "Who says so?"
And "Who says not-so?"
into account.
If somebody tells you
the COVID-19 vaccines
will make your children sterile,
ask them where they got their information,
and why they think it is so,
when nobody has had time to test
anybody's children's capacity
to have children.
We live in strange times.
Examine carefully the validity
of everything you hear
and half of what you see.
Hold it up to the light
and shake it to see if it rattles.
Conduct experiments.
Make inquiries.
Know when you are making assumptions,
particularly unwarranted assumptions.
And stop doing it!
Dawn’s Light 10/22/2013 Oil Paint Rendered — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
Before retirement,
I spent my time tending matters
that I haven't tended since retirement.
They were all necessary aspects
of my employment,
and I did them well enough
to not know where I stopped
what I did for a living started,
but when I stopped doing it for a living,
my life became my own,
and now I do what I do
for the sake of doing it alone.
Makes a difference.
In one sense,
I don't get anything out of what I do,
and in another,
I don't do anything I don't get anything out of.
I am free to live in ways
that create/produce
contentment,
satisfaction
and joy
without having to meet production
or make anyone happy.
And I find myself doing
the things I love to do
with a commitment to detail
that I find to be remarkable,
given that no one is going to notice
how well or how poorly
I have done it.
I see it as a testimony
to the degree of importance,
the level of meaning,
the activity has for me,
and my responsibility for doing it well
is a good faith expression of devotion
to myself and the activity
that is an extension/incarnation
of myself in my life.
"What I do is me," said Gerard Manley Hopkins,
"for that I came."
Sometimes we have to live to retirement
to discover what that means.
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01
Bryce Canyon Bristlecone 09/23/2001 Oil Print Rendered — Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
The world is awash in,
and aswirling with,
antithetical,
clashing,
irreconcilable,
hostile,
malicious,
realities.
Imagine the Puritans
and their witch hunts,
with the witches hunting back.
The reality is
that our realities
are increasingly at odds,
and violently opposed
to one another.
It is as though we all are shouting:
"If you don't see exactly as I do,
I hate you
and have to kill you!"
Peace and Unity
is just another reality
thrown into the mix.
I don't know how we get this sorted out.
The old Buddhists and their
Dharma Battles
have evolved over time
into "Whoever has the most
suicide bombers wins!"
Wins what?
The power to say what's what!
To whom?
For how long?
Never has the entire world
ever been in greater need
of a Time-out than now--
a self-reflective Time-out,
leading to self-realization,
self-transparency,
and mindful awareness
of the way things are everywhere.
Which is just another view of reality.
Or another reality with a view.
It's a mess any way you cut it.
Consciousness as interpretation
of reality
has brought us to the point
of being unable to agree
about the right interpretation
of reality.
We are going to have to revert,
or devolve,
into unconsciousness
to have a chance.
Blueberry Bushes 10/10/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Rome, Maine
I retired on February 1, 2011.
Today marks the 10th anniversary
of my retirement.
They have been the ten best years
of my life.
Upon retirement,
I took a vow of silence and solitude,
moved to the woods with my wife
and had no social interaction
apart from our immediate family
(3 daughters and their families).
I immersed myself
in things that are meaningful to me:
photography,
reading,
and writing.
Who wouldn't relish
a life like that?
I certainly do!
I won't be able
to get enough of it
if I avoid COVID
and live into my 100's!
But longevity is not a goal.
This moment is my goal!
To live here, now,
open to what is present with me
and alert to what is called for--
and to live in response to that,
in each situation as it arises.
I'm putting together a book
of my/our time in the woods
(Next door to the woods,
actually.
We live on a half-acre lot
next to the 22-acre Woods,
which will be the book's title).
It won't be a print version,
but a WordPress production.
I'll let you know how it's going,
and when it's done.
–0–
03
Bay Scene 10/14/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Penobscot Bay, Deer Isle, Maine
Jacob Bronowski said that we trust people
to say what they think--
but people do not always do so.
There is a credibility gap,
between what people think and what they say,
that has to be taken into account.
We have to keep that in mind
and live out of a skeptical,
"I hear what you are saying,
but what do you mean,
and can I trust that to be true?"
kind of orientation,
across the table,
around the world.
Bronowski said,
"My personal dictum
about all politics is this:
Make sure that everybody
tells the truth at all times,
and tell them when they are not
speaking truthfully.
We have to tell the truth,
as best we can,
and stick to that
through thick and thin"
(The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination).
In the same book,
he also said:
"We can only gain knowledge by being truthful."
"People have to behave
so that the truth shall be apparent."
"We cannot know what is true
unless we behave in certain ways."
We have to live truthful lives.
We have to be trusted to say what we think.
The search for truth
is a self-correcting activity.
Truth corrects truth.
Our picture of the world
is corrected
by our continuing to examine,
explore,
inspect,
probe,
question,
reflect on
the world as we perceive it to be,
in ways that allow it to show us
what it is.
Truth evolves toward truth
through countless revisions
and realizations.
When Jesus said,
"You shall know the truth
and the truth shall set you free,"
he meant the truth shall set us free
to know more about the truth
than we know now--
free from the "truth"
to discover the truth--
always and forever,
seeking truth by serving truth
in the search for truth,
always narrowing the discrepancy
between how we think things are
and how things are.
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Black Birch 07/11/2011 04-B Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, Rocky Knob, Floyd, Virginia
02
I live amid people for whom "staying safe"
means something quite different
than it means to me.
Which requires me to live at a distance from them
that does not equate to the same distance
they have to live from me.
Whose sense of "safe distance"
do you think applies to me?
If you said, "My own,"
you would be right.
Our safety is our responsibility.
We live out of our sense
of how our life should be lived.
Who says so?
WE do!
In every case,
great and small.
Our judgment is the only judgment
that guides our living,
that directs our life.
We have to live in ways
that reflect/exhibit/incarnate
our idea of how our life
ought to be lived.
Not even Jesus can tell us what to do!
We are the sole authority
determining what we do,
how we do it,
when we do it,
where we do it--
and we pay the price
in terms of the consequences
we create by our decisions and choices.
Which means going to hell
if that be the case.
So we cannot live lightly,
frivolously,
without awareness and consideration.
We have to consult regularly
with ourselves
regarding what is called for
and how best we might respond to it.
We can't live automatically,
heedlessly.
We have to be as informed as we can be,
with self-transparency
self-awareness
self-reflection
and self-correction
guiding us along the slippery slope,
the dangerous path,
like a razor's edge,
all along the way.
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01
Sea Oats at Sunset 10/24/2012 Oil Paint Rendered — Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
The magic is in the seeing
(And the hearing).
The magic in the seeing
(And the hearing)
is in the looking
(And the listening).
Look and listen
in order to see and hear.
Moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises.
All we need
to see/do what is needed
is always right before us,
waiting to be activated
by eyes that see
and ears that hear.
See what you look at.
Hear what is called for.
Respond as needed
to do what is needed.
Moment-by-moment.
In each situation as it arises.
Gautama and Jesus together
could not do more.
Be what is needed
moment-by-moment
in each situation as it happens
and magic will happen.
Anticipation,
expectation,
and arrogance
ruin your chances.
Each moment is a fresh moment.
Each situation is a new situation.
Just look.
Just listen.
Just do what needs to be done.
The way it needs to be done.
When it needs to be done.
Moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises
all your life long.
Be like the wind
blowing where it will
throughout your life
as a blessing
and a grace
upon all things.
Smoky Mountains Morning Panorama 01 04/12/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
What do you do for the sake of doing it alone?
Live to expand the list.
When there is nothing in it for you
beyond doing what you are doing
for the sake of doing it alone,
you are engaged in living
for the experience,
the expression,
the wonder
of being alive to life
and not to get something more
from it than that.
This is the essence
of a spiritual experience.
No spiritual experience
can offer more than this.
When we live for the joy of being alive,
we are dancing for the love of dancing,
and that is all there is
in the sense of
"There is only the dance"
(T. S. Eliot).
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04
Pamlico Sound Sunset Abstract 10/25/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina
What are your questions?
Not the questions you want answered,
but the questions that are yours to answer--
the question you live to answer--
the questions your life is an answer to.
What are those questions?
Here are mine,
the ones I am aware of at this point
in my life.
I am aware of growing into my questions.
My life lives me into awareness.
I assume it is the same with you.
My circumstances raise questions for me
I never considered until these particular
circumstances came along.
My life is teaching me to live
by answering the questions that are mine
to answer.
Maybe that is so with you as well.
Fraser Snowden said,
"The only true philosophical question is:
'Where do you draw the line?'"
That is certainly one of my questions!
And I answer it differently
in each situation as it arises.
In this I am "like the spirit
that is like the wind
that blows where it will,"
meaning the spirit makes it up
as it goes along.
The spirit isn't following
a recipe book,
a book of rules and ethical standards
regarding what to do when.
The spirit doesn't do what anyone
requires to be done,
or even expects to be done.
The spirit does what is called for
moment-by-moment.
That's me and drawing the line.
It all depends on what the moment
calls for.
This is my second question:
What is the moment calling for?
That also has to be answered
here and now,
in the moment that is being
presently lived.
I can't answer that from afar.
I have to listen to the moment,
to attend the moment,
to be alive to the moment
in order to know what's what
and what is being called for then and there.
The third question is implied
in the first two:
What is important?
What matters most?
Right here, right now?
My stock answer to this one
can be answered from afar,
and applied across the board:
Going to hell!
It is important that we go to hell!
By that I mean it is important
that we know clearly,
without ambivalence or hesitation
what we would go to hell for,
and going to hell for it
when the circumstances require it.
This means dying,
symbolically, metaphorically,
and, if need be,
actually, literally.
We live to die.
What would we die for?
When everything is on the line,
will we know it?
Will we do what is called for?
Will we go to hell, if need be?
If we would go to hell for it,
it's important.
Do we know what that would be?
That's where we draw the line.
And do what is called for.
No matter what.
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Lake Martin Reflections 04 02/08/2014Oil Pant Rendered BW — Beaux Bridge, Louisiana
Why questions should be disqualified
as a legitimate means of inquiry,
and left to gather dust in some museum
as an artifact with a pedigree of uselessness
from the start.
Why questions are all answered ultimately
in one of two ways:
"I don't know."
"Because I say so."
The other questions,
Who?
What?
Where?
When?
How?
are all valid and helpful methods
of getting to the bottom of our experience,
putting things together,
finding connections,
and coming to new realizations
and better ways of living--
particularly when we understand
that the primary function of questions
is to raise more questions,
in the work to ask all of the questions
that beg to be asked
in each situation,
and of every experience,
as it arises.
New discoveries flow from
questions that refuse to stop.
Why? is the search for a stopper.
No matter how much better I get,
I could still do better.
Better, I'm talking about,
on every level.
In every aspect of life.
Consciousness, for example.
You might think that by now,
I could at least be conscious.
I've been practicing being conscious
all my life.
I'm not conscious of half of one percent
of all there is to be conscious of
in any moment.
How's that for progress.
The same thing applies
to every other aspect of my life.
As far as I can tell,
human beings are the only sentient beings
who are aware of the possibility
of self-improvement,
of getting better.
Lions are what they are.
Pine trees just do what can be done
with what they have to work with
and let it be.
A human being who is "thus come"--
who is just who/what they are,
without any interest in being
different in any way,
is someone I have yet to meet.
Buddhists talk about the Buddha
as being "The one thus come,"
but.
The Buddha spent his entire life
becoming "thus come."
And so do all the Buddhists after him.
Being "thus come,"
is an ideal to achieve,
not a state of being to flaunt
and glory in.
Any flaunting and glorying
is evidence of having yet to arrive.
There is no arriving.
Carl Jung thought of Individuation
and an unending quest to be ourselves.
He talked about "circumambulation"
as the process of infinitely/eternally
spiraling around the Self at the Center
of our being
without ever attaining integration,
at-one-ness.
We can always get better at being who we are,
by being less concerned with perfection,
and more concerned with expression--
being in each moment who we are
as "thus come" as we are,
as true to ourselves as we are,
and letting that be that.
Like a lion would do it.
Or a pine tree.
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01
Filmore Glen 10/03/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Filmore Glen State Park, Moravia, New York
The Buddhists waste a lot of time
denying duality.
It is just a way of seeing.
A perspective.
It is a doorway to being
at one with everything.
At one with everything
is not one thing--
it is many.
As many as the jewels
in Indra's Net.
Pick a point--
any point.
How many points are there?
How many points are there
on the head of a pin?
On the point of a pin?
Let's take the point of a pin
as the point we pick.
Now, go to the center of that point.
And make that the point we pick.
Now, go to the center of that point.
You see where this is going.
But, you probably don't see the point.
The point of the number of points
there are
is that there are an infinite number
of points in every point.
Points upon points.
This is the point of the still point
of the universe.
The Axis Mundi.
The World Center is everywhere.
Hang with me here.
We talk about "living from the center."
Which center would that be?
Our center?
Great! Let's go there.
As we delve down to the center of ourselves,
there is the center of the center
to consider.
And the center of that center.
When do we reach The Center?
And everybody is seeking the center of themselves!
When we get there,
we will discover
that we are at the center of everyone's center!
At the center of ourselves
we are one with everyone's center.
We are one.
We are all.
There is no "I and Thou,"
no "You and Me."
Certainly no "Us and THEM!"
We all are WE.
All of us are aspects of all of us.
Each of us lives out the potential
inherent in--and expressed by--
the rest of us.
We greet ourselves when we greet each other.
Namaste!
When we get the point,
this is the point we get.
Hating me is ridiculous.
I am an extension of you.
At the center of ourselves,
are all selves.
What is true for one
is true for all.
Stop acting as though you are special.
You are an aspect of the whole.
In our duality we are one.
In our oneness we are dualities.
We are an optical illusion.
Now we are one.
Now we are many.
We are one and we are all.
So what?
So stop acting as though
there is us and them!
Live from the center of the whole!
Live in ways that are good for all!
Thou Art That!
Live as though it is so!
It is so!
Great Egret at Black Lake 07/18/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana
Making our peace with our life
and living in the service
of what is meaningful for us
is a reasonable
and attainable goal
for each of us.
Most of us want more than that.
We don't know what it would be
except that it would be
more than that.
And the distance between what we have
and what we aspire to
keeps us discontented
and at odds with our life.
The idea is to be aligned
and in accord with our life.
What that would take
is giving up our idea
of how our life ought to be.
We don't know what it would take
to make us happy,
but we know this isn't it,
and we think it has to be
out there somewhere.
But, we don't know where
and we don't know how to know.
Here's a suggestion for you:
Quit thinking in terms of being happy,
and start thinking in terms
of doing what is meaningful,
here and now.
Go toward what has meaning for you
here and now,
and happy will fall into place
around that,
or not.
And if it doesn't,
it won't matter.
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Yoho River Oil Paint Rendered — Yoho National Park, Field, British Columbia
The ideal I live in light of,
and the purpose for which we are born,
is to live out our life
in the service of becoming who we are,
incarnating/expressing/exhibiting
all of the qualities and characteristics
gifts/genius/virtues/spirit/energy/life
that came with us from the womb
in a balanced and harmonious way--
in communities of other people
who are living in the same ways,
so as to become who we are capable of being
as individuals and as The Collective,
over the course of our life
as a person and as the species.
We live on to pass it on
(Martin Hägglund in This Life).
That is hard enough if we were all into it,
doing it.
We make it impossible
by the way we respond to it,
in having nothing to do with it.
We have our eye on bigger and better things:
Fame, Fortune, Glory!
Which leads us down the path
to the way things are,
with it only getting worse
as we continue along the way.
Three to five thousand years
before Jesus was born,
voices were raised in favor
of The Way
and against the trend
of ignoring The Way
(In The Yin Convergence Classic
of The Yellow Emperor),
and here we are,
resolutely refusing
to have anything to do with The Way,
preferring instead to do it our way.
While The Way waits
for us to see the light,
or come to the end of our rope
(Which is too often the same thing)
as individuals
and as a species.
Yellowhead Mountain 09/24/2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Lucerne, British Columbia
What we see is a function of how we look.
How we look is influenced
by our expectations
and our past experience.
We don't walk fresh upon anything
and know what we are looking at.
Reality is an extension of our expectations
and our experience.
We cannot make sense of anything that is
absolutely new to us.
We see everything in relation to something else.
It is always appropriate to ask,
"What influences me to see what I am looking at
the way I am seeing it?"
"What makes me think I know what I am looking at?"
"What makes me think
that what I think is so,
is so?"
Our opinions about things
are just our opinions about them.
Everything exists as opinion.
Nothing exists as fact.
We treat everything as fact.
It would transform our life,
and the world,
if we started thinking about things
as opinion.
Of course, that is just my opinion.
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The Watchman Oil Paint Rendered — Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah
All it takes is being right about what is important.
Being right about what is important
is the best trick in the Book of Best Tricks.
The first thing to know
is that we do not know.
The second thing to know
is that there are different types of knowing.
The third thing to know
is that delusion and illusion
are powerful forces
at work in our lives,
and we cannot dismiss,
discount,
disregard,
ignore or deny
the possibility that
we are failing to see
what we are looking at.
The fourth thing to know
is that what is important
changes from moment-to-moment,
situation-by-situation,
day-by-day,
year-by-year,
generation-by-generation,
eon-by-eon...
The only thing that is static
and rigid,
unchanging over time
is that it is important
to know what is important
at all times,
in all places.
That's it.
Get the ratios right
among these things
and there it is:
what is important,
here and now.
Once we know that,
comes the question
of what to do about it.
That is the next most important thing.
Know what is important,
and be right about it,
know what to do about it,
and be right about it.
That only leaves doing it--
the way it needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
where it needs to be done,
for as long as it needs to be done.
That's it.
No one could do better than that.
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01
South Shore 09/21/2004 Oil Paint Rendered — Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta
Marriage is the easiest thing in the world.
All it takes is cooperation.
If you aren't getting the cooperation promised
at the start,
you can't be married
no matter what you do.
All cooperation takes
is doing what needs to be done
regardless of how we feel.
People who don't feel like being married
and let cooperation go
kill the marriage
by breaking the first rule of marriage:
Doing the right thing
requires you to do the right thing
whether you feel like it or not.
It is no different with marriage
than it is with anywhere else in our life.
Wherever we are,
we are asked to do what the situation requires
whether we feel like it or not.
In this sense, being married
is just like being alive.
Our life asks us to do what life demands:
To live like we mean it,
whether we fee like it or not!
This is the foundational commitment
to marriage and to life.
We can think of our life
as being married to our life,
and living our life as it ought to be lived,
is practice for being married
the way we ought to be married.
Doing one helps us with the other,
and it is practice either way.
The practice of being alive
is doing what needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done
when it needs to be done
for as long as it needs to be done
whether we feel like it or not
all our life long.
Get that down
and we have it made
wherever we are.
And, in marriage,
our partner has to be doing it, too.
No one can be married by themselves.
It takes cooperation.
And we take up the work of cooperating
with one another
in producing the miracle of marriage
at the very beginning,
by taking our vows seriously,
and living to carry them out
no matter how we feel.
In this, marriage is a lot like
the Velveteen Rabbit,
becoming real over time,
and once it is really real,
nothing can take it from you.
It lasts forever.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 