I have a long list of places I don't want to revisit. 
And no list at all of places I want to visit.
I call that content.
I know people who would call it boring.

I would also call it coming to terms with my life.

I have spotted a photo I want to take,
and I'm figuring out the details regarding how to do it,
given my limitations.
Working out the logistics and timing is far from boring,
and I am looking forward to pulling it off.

I think we have to have interests and enthusiasms 
to keep us focused and going.
And I have those,
but none call for long trips to places
I don't care about visiting.

I view that as noise,
and silence is more valuable these days
than in those that have gone before.

Distraction, disturbance, diversion
disrupts our focus and our flow,
destroys our silence,
devastates our world.

And so the importance of returning frequently
each day 
to the refuge of "Peaceful abiding here, now."

Practice dropping into "Peaceful abiding here, now,"
all the time everywhere.

Perfect switching from "this place" to "that place"
instantaneously.

Be out of reach "like that."

Just disappear.

Into "Peaceful abiding, here, now."

Ground yourself in emptiness/stillness/silence
wherever you are.

Understand this to be what Jesus had in mind
when he said, "Pray always."

Live out of that place in meeting your day every day.

Dropping into emptiness-stillness-silence here, now,
and being clear about what's what 
and what is called for
and doing what needs to be done
where and how it needs to be done
is living aligned with the Tao,
which is the flow of life and being,
the Force of Star Wars,
the intuition at the heart of who we are.

When Jesus said, "Pray always,"
this is what he was talking about.

Being one with what is called for
and doing what needs to be done about it
with the gifts that are ours to serve and share.

Do not bother with believing in Jesus.
Live to BE Jesus and all that you do
by being YOU, doing YOU, in each situation
as it arises.

Spontaneously, from the heart,
without thinking about what you are doing.

Or as Jesus would say,
"Don't let your left hand
know what your right hand is doing."

And, "The spirit is like the wind
that blows where it will."

Without scheming, planing, or conniving. 

The knowledge we carry within
that is so much more 
than we have been told or taught
is astounding beyond words.

How do we know what we know?

What guides our boat on its path 
through the sea?

Why don't we listen closely
and trust ourselves more?

Why aren't we taught about vision quests?
And Walk-a-bouts?

Why aren't we trained
to drop into the silence
and wait for clarity,
insight, realization, direction?

Why is our spiritual "education"
restricted to telling us what to believe
and to not ask questions?

Rather than teaching us to know what we know
and how to honor our intrinsic intuition
from birth on?

We are owed so much by the people
who didn't know what they were doing either.

Civilization has taken from us what we all know
and substituted in its place what we have been told.
There should be a reckoning.
An inquisition.
And restitution.

Ruling out an Elder Wand
leaves us at an impasse 
when it comes to a quick return
to life as it used to be.

The Dark Ages had nothing 
to commend them then,
and have nothing to commend them now.

My advice is to find a group 
of the right kind of people
and make a pact to encourage
and sustain one another
over the long haul.

Individually I recommend
sitting quietly and reflecting 
on your essential gifts that got
the species through terrible times
all along the way:
Be clear about what constitutes
1) Your original nature
(The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator might help here;

2) Your innate virtues--
What are the things you do best
and the things you enjoy doing most?

3) Your inherent imagination--
Where have you/do you use your imagination
in your life?

4) Your intrinsic intuition--
Our intuition is our secret weapon/tool/force/power.
Be conscious when it is leading, directing, guiding you,
and be conscious of its influence in your life.

Make these exercises a regular part of your life,
bring you to life in your life!
Depending on yourself to be a
reliable source of help in time of trouble!

The idea is to live in the service
of what is called for 
in each situation as it arises
with the gifts we are born with
in our original nature,
our innate virtues--what we do best and love doing most,
our inherent imagination
and our intrinsic intuition.

We have to train ourselves
to know who we are 
and to trust ourselves 
to know where, when and how 
to bring forth our gifts,
in ways appropriate to the occasion.

We become proficient with our gifts
like Luke Skywalker did in Starwars,
by spending time with emptiness,
stillness and silence,
and waiting there for awareness 
and realization to deepen,
for insight and understanding to develop,
for knowing to become automatic/spontaneous,
so that we live sincerely out of our own center
in responding to the moment at hand,
time after time.

We will be living the adventure of being alive.

We are quite on our own
and get by best by choosing
the right kind of others 
to be our Community of Innocence--
Innocent in the sense of having nothing at stake
in relationship with one another beyond serving
as a sounding board for each other,
enabling all in the group
to ask the questions that beg to be asked
and say the things that cry out to be said
about life as they experience it
and responses they make to it,
so that each person might hear what they have to say
by listening to themselves say it,
and coming to know themselves better thereby,
adjusting their lives accordingly 
by taking themselves fully into account.

What keeps you going? Seriously. 
What pulls you into your life?
What are the sources of attraction?
Of interest?
Of energy, vibrance, enthusiasm, joy and delight?

I get excited about making cobbler,
a good cup of coffee
and oatmeal-raisin cookies.
Reading and writing.
Sitting quietly.
Most anything with quiet attached.
Working with photographs.
Reflecting on various aspects of life
and coming to new realizations.

Like why we see the way we see,
think the way we think,
and why so many of us don't 
think about these things.
When pondering is one of my favorite 
things to do.

For instance, I'm curious about why
that picnic table in the photo above
is still in service.

In my younger days,
I would drive back out there
just to see if it has been decommissioned.

Change anything and we change everything--
and we are changing things big time.
With no regard for the implications of any of it.
At a rate where nothing has the leisure
of a comfortable adjustment to anything.

The impact upon the intuitive structure
of the entire cosmos is incalculable, but.
It will take a lifetime of emptiness, stillness and silence
over many generations 
to approach the stability of the planet
the day before the rock hit the moon
that knocked a piece of the moon into the earth.

In the meantime,
our best recourse
is to take the time to sit peacefully,
dropping into emptiness, stillness, silence,
giving our intuition a chance to settle us into
a pattern of recovery, reflection and realization,
enabling us to be who we are,
doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises
as best we can 
with the gifts that are ours 
to serve and share
in the time left for living.

Carl Jung said, "We are who we have always been,
and who we will be."

I practice "active imagination"
with conversations with Jesus and Buddha, and others
from time to time,
and recommend it to you and your own
meditative moments.

One of the things that "come through"
(From where, who knows) regularly, with Jesus
in particular,
is what a child of innocence and purity he was,
with no guile or inauthenticity about him,
and "Shocked, I tell you, shocked,"
at the disingenuousness of others.

He did not belong to this world
(Neither did the Buddha).

This comes through for me in Jesus' interview 
with Herod,
where he held back and did not step forth
in his own behalf, as I wish he had done,
but he couldn't.
It wasn't who he was at the time.

And I look back at my own life
and the times and places where that was so with me.

I wish my foundation had been then
as it is now,
but it took all 80 years and counting
for me to be here, now. 

There is no way I could have been then
who I am now.
But the Truth of me here, now,
was the Truth of me then, there,
I just did not have the chutzpah 
to "put myself out there"
(And good for me that I didn't,
in seminary, for example, saying,
"Theology is only a bucket of opinions
about hearsay!" I would have spent my life
selling shoes!)

But we are who we are always and forever,
and grow into being ourselves over time--if
we cooperate with ourselves and grow consciously into 
who we are to be, like an oak tree from an acorn.

Being what the moment needs
is being present with what is 
present with us
so that we see, hear, understand,
know, do, be
who we are needed to be
by what is called for here, now.

That is the ideal for each of us,
all of whom are distracted 
by "The Dust Of The World,"
and doing well just to have our clothes on.

But the process calls for practice,
practice,
practice...

You know the routine:
Dropping into emptiness, stillness, silence,
waiting for clarity,
watching, listening for what arises,
emerges, 
appears,
to catch our attention
and direct us to action
upon the field of action
as an impulse to engage the moment
and do what is called for,
where, when and how it is called for
with the gifts we have to serve and share
here, now, and 
throughout the time left for living,
in a "Here we are, now what?" kind of way.

There are connections between 
what happens to us 
and what we do about it,
between what is important to us
and what we do about it.

The response determines--
or strongly influences--
everything that follows.

The range of our response-ability
determines--
or strongly influences--
the outcomes of our life.

We wield tremendous power
over the course and direction 
of our life
by the ways we respond to
the events and circumstances 
of our living.

How conscious we are
of what we are doing
about what is happening
tells the tale.