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?
Knowing what is called for in each situation as it arises and doing what needs to be done, by listening in the silence/emptiness/stillness for clarity and realization and offering what is needed with the gifts of our original nature, innate virtues (The things we do best and love to do most), inherent imagination and intrinsic intuition, is our basic plan for approaching what remains of time upon the earth.
There never has been more to it than this, and never will be.
This is the cover of the next book in the queue, coming out as soon as I'm done. The most recent book, "The Tao of Jesus" is in its second incarnation as "The Tao of Jesus II" due to a number of proof reading goofs and small additions and improvements. I'll let you know when "Buddha" is up and going on Kindle, and look forward to being able to do that.
Lewis River Valley — Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The Way is not across the impassable mountain ranges, nor beyond the heaving waves of the wine dark sea, nor over the deep divides of canyons and winding valleys, nor through the endless caves and caverns of lost ways and hopeless cliffs.
But it is right here at your very bedside and by your rocking chair by the window. All you have to do is listen to your dreams and follow your intuition in sync with your original nature and your innate virtues (The things you do best and enjoy doing most). So that you know what's what and what is called for in each situation as it arises simply by doing what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, with the gifts that are yours to serve and share for the joy of doing it and the satisfaction of having done it no matter what, day by day, just like a newborn baby would do, spontaneously, without an agenda or a plan, like one might eat when hungry, or rest when tired, out of your deepest, truest, best self dancing as one with the circumstances of your life throughout the time left for living.
"There's nothing to it but to do it" (Maya Angelo).
The old Taoists held that all this is--and "this" is all of it, the entire cosmos-- the result of "circumstances begetting circumstances" over time.
The Los Angeles fires are direct evidence of that principle in action, in a "you can pay me now, or you can pay me later," kind of way.
The human impact on the environment worldwide (and soon enough, galaxy wide) cannot be denied as a bill coming due.
And we will be paying that bill for generations yet to come.
"Oh, well," is the sad refrain to reaping what we have planted-- as though we did not know what we were doing, when we were denying every opportunity to know, and refusing to consider the "inconvenient truth" of our actions over centuries of environmental abuse.
How many species are going extinct daily? They certainly have no sympathy for our playing fast and lose with their world. Nor do I.
Pamlico Sound Sunset 10/19/2012 — From the Swanquarter to Ocracoke Ferry
Who knows you best? Why die unknown? We know ourselves in the act of articulating who we are to someone who cares enough about us to listen.
I think it was Carl Jung who said "We have the problems we have as a world because people don't have anyone to tell their stories to."
You know how we have churches on every block? Nobody goes there to tell their stories. They go there to hear the same old tired story year after year.
We should bust up that monopoly, take it over, and start telling our stories to one another. That would be good for everyone. And good for the churches!
Stonington Harbor 09/01/2012 — Stonington, Dear Isle, Maine
Your mistakes are new doors to new paths. Look at them as opportunities, and mine them for the gold they have to offer.
Joseph Campbell said, "Where you stumble and fall, there lies the treasure."
Don't miss the chance for the future that is waiting for you. Sit with the goof, pondering the inherent good, until something begins to stir, catches your eye, and calls you to adventure!
Adams Mill Pond 07 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina
Our life unfolds according to its own intention and design. We do best to serve its becoming by attending our intuition and imagination, our original nature and our innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most).
As we do so, the magic happens. Doors open and close, almost on schedule, opportunities appear out of nowhere, and it seems that invisible hands are at work behind the scenes, arranging and directing to smooth our path and point the way.
And that works in tandem with the other scenario: Every day is a struggle to pay the bills and we are challenged again and again to quit, calling for the recurring requirement to look again into our heart and determine if it is really set on this course for the rest of our life.
And something keeps asking, "Do you have it in you to take rejection after rejection and keep showing up to audition again and again with no suggestion of any "big break" anywhere in sight?
How important is the payoff that never comes if the work we put in is deepening our resolve and sharpening our ability to perform at a level that we would be hard pressed to attain otherwise?
What does "success" mean? How is it measured? Is our heart in what we are doing? Are we confirmed and affirmed by our satisfaction in what we are doing?
Joseph Campbell talks about "following our bliss" and yet also writes about the challenge of the hero who returns with the yield of her quest only to find no one who is interested either in her bounty or in her tale of adventure, and she has to live out her life unrecognized and unknown.
What will appease our heart? What will draw a "Well done! Well done!" from within? What form will our own satisfaction take, and upon what will that depend?
The Two Questions go unasked too often: Why do we see the way we do? Why don't we see the way we do?
Everybody thinks the way they see things is the way things are.
And that is the bane of our existence.
Sit down with the way you see things. Who/what has been most influential in determining that to be the way to see things?
Which, in turn, determines how you live in relation to things.
The life we live is lived in relation to how we think things are. If we change the way we think, we change the way we live.
It would be helpful if the way we think about things is closely aligned with the way things are-- instead of assuming that the way things are is equivalent to the way we see things.
Start questioning everything!!!
What makes us think that the way we think about things is the way to think about things?
All of our judgments, evaluations, decisions, conclusions are false assumptions based on our preferences and inclinations.
And we all are essentially tribal based. We see the way our tribe sees things. Magas see things the way Magas see things. Woke people see things the way Woke people see things. Hindus see like Hindus. Fundamentalist Christians see like Fundamentalist Christians. Drunks see like Drunks...
All because we don't see the way we see things. All because we don't see who is responsible for our seeing.
Who is responsible for the way you see things?
I remember the Mississippi delta of my youth, and the Deep South of my youth and young adulthood. And the work to throw off the inculcated attitudes absorbed from my environment in my twenties and continuing throughout my life, based on being aware of and questioning my assumptions, presumptions and uncritical inferences.
Which was made possible by my "stumbling" (No one ever "stumbles" onto anything, or "falls" into anything. We are either willing recruits of our intuition, or we are defiant champions of our willful stupidity) into the influence of General Semantics in my mid-twenties, and living to question everything from that point on throughout my life.
Throw it all away and start over with what/how you see, think, understand things to be.
Why do we see the way we do? Why don't we see the way we do?
Watkins Glen 09/23/2015 — Watkins Glen State Park, New York
Today, I step into my 81st year, and I'm glad to be here, now.
The work remains the same whenever and wherever we are, knowing what is called for and doing what we can about it with the gifts that are ours to serve and share: Our original nature, our innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most), our inherent imagination, and our intrinsic intuition.
If we focus on bringing these aspects of us forth in the life we are living all will be as well as it can be with us given the nature of our circumstances and the quality of the cooperation we get day to day.
Jesus and the Buddha could have used more help than they got. So, we can't take it personally, or let it keep us from doing the best we can given the givens at work in our time and place.
I'm in my 81st year! What do my detractors expect? Let's see how they do remembering their street address their phone number, zip code, and the last four digits of their Social before breakfast!
Sunset at Morton’s Overlook — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
What associations, connections, do you make with this image? What memories stir? What comes to mind? What emotions come to life? What thoughts spin off other thoughts until an entire chain of associations, connections are created just by looking at a photograph?
What comes to life in you just by making a space for it to do so?
Do it frequently.
Give your inner life a chance to share your attentive awareness, an opportunity to be present in your conscious life, and allow it to say--to bring to life, to light-- what it has to say at this point in your life, and how that informs your here, now from times long forgotten.
We bring ourselves to life this way, particularly if we do it frequently.
Been Together for a While — Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
What do we have to show for it? What has our life brought forth in us? Who have we shown ourselves to be through the process of being alive?
By sitting still and reflecting on what comes to mind to the point of new realizations and making connections and seeing what's what and what needs to be done about it, I have evolved into letting things be as they are and seeing how that impacts me like the Cyclops impacted Odysseus.
I call it being changed by the silence, though it is a lot like being changed by our nighttime dreams reflected on to the point of new realizations.
Reflection and realization work together to transform our lives if we do it out of curiosity and stay away from shame, guilt, remorse and sorrow.
We just look for associations and connections and what they bring to mind and allow the magic to do its work in making our life increasingly like it needs us to be all along the way.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 