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?
I Went Down To The River To Pray — Steele Creek, Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
The intuitive guides are reliable standards of faith and practice. We only have to be tuned into what is present with us throughout the days of our lives.
Resonance/resonation are "Yes!" Enthusiasm/vitality/energy/exuberance are "Yes!"
repulsive/revolting/disgusting/obnoxious are "No!" disquieting/apprehension/discontent are "No!"
Once we get "Yes!" and "No!" down everything else falls into place around that.
Being alert to what we are dismissing, discounting, denying/ignoring will go a long way toward keeping us centered on the beam and true to the path.
We have to make sense of our life. Who are we? What are we about? What are we doing here? Where are we going? What is going on?
We are gradually waking up over the full course of our life, and yet, we are constantly putting ourselves to sleep with the hypnotic repetition of what we have been told of the corporate story of our existence as a species and what it means to be who we are here, now.
So there is our inherited story, and the story that we make up out of our own personal experience which we work to blend together into a narrative that makes sense while blurring from time to time into utter nonsense.
Taking what we are handed and fitting that into our lived experience in a way that corroborates and affirms the steady flow of how things are comes to grief time and again upon the facts that things do not fit.
God doesn't fit. Compassion runs afoul of greed and selfishness. War comes out of nowhere, yet never goes away. We live in ways that do not support life. The lists of how this conflicts with that are endless. The Cosmos is not a harmonious, well-balanced, and mutually supporting whole that makes perfect sense. We have to make allowances and ignore contradictions and conflicts all the time, while closing ourselves off from noise, disruption, complexity and confusion everywhere we can, in order to drop into the emptiness/stillness/silence and tune into ourselves to take a reading, know what's what, what is called for, here, now.
The essence of Buddhism, Christianity and all religion is diversion, distraction, denial, pretension, addiction, delusion,hokum and nonsense, where we mostly ignore what we know in order to affirm what we are told to think/believe "for the good of the whole."
It is a collusion conspiracy that we are all a part of for the sake of the peace and consolation of ourselves. And it is running aground upon the facts, like climate change, that will not be denied forever.
No one is in charge and Trump has lit the fuse.
My advice is to trust ourselves to our intuitive sense of what's what and what is called for here, now. Do that when/where/how it needs to be done without needing to know and do more than that.
Start with learning to know and trust your intuitive sense-- which used to be called, "Listening for God's will."
It got us to this point. It is well-suited to take us the rest of the way.
Steele Creek 08-03-2019 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
Authenticity and affection are the two missing qualities in wannabe knights of the realm throughout time and place. The heroic characteristics in the comic book hero's left out by artists and authors who themselves are amiss of insight and knowhow, and are carried away by the culture's captivation by power and might, authority and control.
The Buddha and Jesus and those of their bent caught the drift of the flow of the way, however, and lived with hearts of integrity and compassion and eyes on the essence of what matters most.
Cone Flowers 08/03/2019 — Pike Nursery, Charlotte, North Carolina
Drop into the emptiness/stillness/silence and wait to see what meets you there every day for the rest of your life.
Treat what comes with the highest degree of honor and respect as though it is a visit from your intuition with insight regarding what's what and what is called for in the near here, now, and reassurance about being with you with what is needed along the way.
I have hitches and lapses which give me pause, and lead me to wonder why annual physicals don't come paired with annual psychologicals.
We all could use evaluation and correction across the board at leas annually.
And that realization led me easily into wondering how long it has been since Donald Trump has had a psychological appraisal. I've never know a more certifiably insane person to be anywhere close to what Trump oversees. He sneezes and the stock market drops 500 points. Why are not candidates for the presidency given the usual battery of psychological exams people are subjected to for menial positions of employment? How does Trump get by with the things Trump gets by with? And why do 77.3 million people think that is just fine?
Blue Ridge Sunrise — Transylvania County, North Carolina
We make of it what we can. We have a stake in our life. We are invested in the time we have to live. It is our chance to see what we are made of-- to see what we can do in the time left for living, even now, even yet, even so. What haven't we done that we still might do, or do more of? Why hold anything back?
Take this into the emptiness with you. Sit with it, waiting for clarity regarding what is called for, here, now. What is sitting with us, saying, "Ahem"?
Being who we are is our life's work. It requires listening in the silence to be clear about what's called for and rising to do it when, where and how it is called for in each situation as it arises as only we can do it with our original nature, innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most), our inherent imagination and our intrinsic intuition throughout our life.
Attending/serving our intuition with our other gifts of being is the secret to being ourselves as those thus come, with integrity and authenticity-- the ethos of spirituality and character coming forth in our life when we live as only we can.
Blue Ridge Sunrise — The latest book cover, on Amazon Kindle
Here is the blurb that goes with the book:
A Handbook for the Spiritual Journey II lays out for the interested reader the nature of the path which was first stated in Deuteronomy 30:12-14--"This commandment that I give you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not in heaven that you should need to ask, 'Who will ascend into heaven to get it for us and proclaim it, that we may obey it?' And it is not beyond the sea that you should need to ask, 'Who will cross the sea to get it for us and proclaim it that we may obey it?' But the word is very near you--it is in your mouth and your heart that you may obey it."
We already know what we seek. No one has to tell us what we are looking for. The spiritual journey is simply a matter of dropping into emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing, not three) and waiting "for the mud to settle and the water to clear," that is to say, for the clarity required to see, hear, know and understand what arises, emerges, appears, and becomes clear in the emptiness (etc), namely, what is called for here, now, and needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, in each situation as it arises, moment by moment. No one needs to know/do more than that. Jesus and the Buddha could not do more than that. That is all there is to it. So, go! Do it!
Swamp Denizen — Santee National Wildlife Refuge, Summerton, South Carolina
Who are we? What are we about? Answer those questions correctly and you go to the head of the class.
Joseph Campbell said,"We know when we are on the beam and we know when we are off the beam."
A-buzz with addictions is a good sign of being off the beam.
Being listless, lethargic, disinterested, not present, are also giveaways.
Being alert, energetic, enthusiastic, vibrant, with a "The Game is ON!" orientation screams "Beam Time!" for all to see.
We find our way to the beam by having an eye-to-eye with ourselves.
How long has it been since you have done something you love to do?
What used to make your little heart sing and your little toes dance? Why don't you do that any longer? When did you lose your gusto? What can you do to get it back?
Everybody needs the right kind of friend. What happened to those who used to be yours? What potential candidates exist for you to talk with about the things that matter most?
Without friends/family to trust and enjoy, that leaves you with writing about the things you would like to talk with someone about. Write and toss, write and toss... You aren't writing anything to save, unless it's something you would like to revisit, deepen, enlarge, expand... The point is to address the issues that need to be addressed. Regularly. All the time. And see where it goes.
Little Blue Heron with Body Guard (A Wood Stork) — Woody Pond, Harris Neck Wildlife Preserve, Savanna Georgia
Jesus and the Buddha were about 500 years apart. Jesus and I are nearly 2,000 years apart. And I think we could go back about 6,000 to 8,000 years to the Shaman who got things rolling when the last ice age reseeded enough to make things livable. It is shameful that the species has made no more spiritual progress than it has over that length of time.
That's some bad preaching going on! But where did people have to go to learn to think for themselves?
The Buddha and Jesus took to the wilderness and pondered things for themselves. And Jesus argued with the scribes and Pharisees of his day-- and his "You have heard it said, but I say unto you" bespoke an authority that came from within that others admired. And the Buddha recommended "Peaceful abiding, here, now."
We would have been saver alone than being subjected to all that bad preaching.
What are you doing, have you been doing, to develop your thinking for yourselves?
Keep it up. It is the best practice I can recommend!
I hope I spend my remaining years like I have spent my recent years. Which is to say that things are fine as they are. Content. Comfortable. At peace. Or, as the Buddha might say, "Peaceful abiding, here, now."
I may have plenty to be anxious about with Trump at the helm, but it's quite out of my control or even influence, so I'm concentrating my energy on doing the things I enjoy and letting time pass according to its own good pleasure.
I'm five chapters into my next book, and I'm interested to see if I finish it in what remains to be lived. After that, if there is an after that, I will trust the road to carry me where it will. There has been plenty to like up to now, and I have no reason to expect the future to be much different that the past. And if it is, maybe I can find something to like there anyway.
I look forward to sharing the way with you all--lets see what we can do with what comes along!
Carl Jung said, "We are who we always have been, and we are who we will be."
And he also said, "There is within each of us, another whom we do not know."
And it is our place to be who we are in the time left for living.
For me that can only mean spending copious amounts of time in emptiness, stillness, silence, waiting to see what meets us there, and going where we are led, knowing that "The path that can be discerned as a path is not a reliable path" (Martin Palmer), meaning, I take it, that the path can be seen only in hindsight, and that we trust ourselves to our intuition in finding the way that is the way for us-- which is what the Buddha did under the Bodhi Tree, and what Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, and see where it goes.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 