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?
Into The Mudstones — Death Valley National Park, 03/2007, Putting things in perspective
The words that greet me in the night: Atrocity Outrage Obscenity Disgrace Justice/Injustice Inhumanity Absurdity Truth/Lie Racism Bigotry Brutality ...
I am a witness to it all, and that makes me a participant-- as in "Compliance with violence is an accessory to violence." And a victim-- as in, "A witness to violence is a victim of violence."
And there is no escape. Just as there is no justice. No amends. No compensation. No restitution. No atonement. No restoration. No escape.
What are we going to do? Apologize?
That would be a start. Public apology. Annually. A national holiday for mourning. Grief. Sorrow. Remorse.
A Victim's Rights Month. Highlighting all the victims all month long.
I suggest May. As in "May I just say I'm sorry? Still, even yet, again."
Mud Stones at Zabriskie Point — Death Valley National Park, 2007
Being true to our inherent intuition Is laying aside our wants/desires/pleasures/dreams in the service of our intuition's ideas of what is called for in each situation as it arises.
The guiding question is never, "What do we want?" And is always, "What is called for here, now?"
Knowing what is called for and living to do it when/where/how it needs to be done time after time is the sine qua non of a life well-lived.
Price Lake Mirror 2008 — Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
The way we respond to events and cirumstances determines-- or strongly influences-- everything that follows.
We create the future by the way we respond to the present.
And living willfully, defiantly, demanding and insistent is not the way to produce the kind of results we have in mind.
The way to experience smooth and easy is to be smooth and easy, open and receptive, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose in each situation as it arises.
Living with nothing at stake in the outcome allows us to do what is called for here and now free from the influence of what we want "no matter what."
Doing what is called for by the situation at hand is the foundation of a future we all can live with.
All it takes is relentless courage to discover that this is so.
Indigenous peoples have it right throughout time. Colonizers destroy the world. World after world after world...
The difference is living in sync with the environment and living to consume the environment.
And the flip is made when the population grows beyond the ability of the environment to meet the needs of the population.
Humans are intelligent enough to avoid dying off by killing off one another. Becoming so proficient at it that they kill off themselves by being so successful killing off others.
It's a fine balance, which nature finds through natural die-offs. And humans haven't been able to improve on the solution, and trying to impose their "solution" leads to the kill-off of life worldwide.
So much for the survival of the fittest idea. The survival of the most stupid is more like it. In the end, protoplasm outlasts everything.
Half Dome in the Merced River — Yosemite National Park, California
I wonder how we are ever going to make this right. This world I'm talking about. Greed, money and power wield tight control. Caring nothing about what they do in an "If a profit can be made, a profit will be made" kind of way.
I think the only solution to the situation is to let it burn itself out, destroying civilization as it exists, maybe by way of environmental disaster, maybe by way of atomic holocaust, and maybe by way of world-wide economic collapse.
However we choose to exit the playing field, it will open the way for nature to take over and restore order and common sense to the way things work.
A break from greed and chaos will be welcomed by all living things. And it can't happen too soon or last long enough.
Price Lake Mirror 03 2004 — Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
It's all going-- and we are going with it. There is no evidence that any of it lasts, and if it does, would it be like a museum somewhere for those with nothing better to do?
Whether it goes or lasts forever, our question to answer is: Did we love it enough when we had the chance?
Did we love sunsets enough? And rain? And moon rises? And children? And old people?
Did we love ourselves enough?
We have from now to the time we die to get our loving done.
Do not slack up even for a minute any day of those that remain!
Price Lake Mirror 02 2004 — Julian Price Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
In living with integrity, sincerity, spontaneously, in each situation as it arises, we live intuitively-- intentionally unintentional-- lives, 24/7/365.
That is all there is to it.
Once we have an ulterior motive we have a hidden agenda and it's all over.
Canyon Mist 2006 — Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Our intuition is a superpower designed in the evolutionary laboratory for meeting all of the challenges presented by every day.
Every day we meet physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual tests of our stability, creativity, stamina, will, resiliency, fealty, devotion, incentive, resolve, ingenuity, determination...
And we have to find what it takes to rise to the occasion, growing up some more again, time after time.
We do it by handing ourselves over to our inner guide, saying, "Okay. Here we are. Now what?" And waiting for something to occur to us out of nowhere that turns out to be a fitting response to our environment, and "the game's afoot" again.
Our intuition is superbly suited to meet and respond to anything that comes our way-- without losing the way of being true to ourselves, at one with who we are and what we are about in the deepest spiritual sense of the term.
We have the capacity to land on our feet and be ourselves, anyway, anywhere, nevertheless, even so, day after day after day-- by living from the emptiness, stillness and silence, and waiting for "the mud to settle and the water to clear," until the creative impulse arises to lead the way some more again today.
Iconic Zion — The Virgin and the Watchman, 2006 — Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah
Who we are and the way we do what we do are inseparable.
The way habitual intuition and enlightenment/awakening/liberation are inseparable.
Integrity is bound with/to intuition. When we are at-one with our intuition, we are at-one with who we are.
When we are enlightened we are "born again," and are ourselves, finally, at last.
Which is, of course, and amounts to, a dying to ourselves-- to our old way of being in the world, "as a snake sheds its skin," "as the moon sheds its shadow," we cannot be who we are without ceasing to be who we have been.
Every transition is a death. Every birth is a burial. The symbols/metaphors surrounding our coming to ourselves, to our intuition, are already there in the church of our childhood, just needing a re-interpretation to apply to our new life beyond theology/doctrine/ dogma/dharma...
Just waiting for a new hermenutic to be put into place-- a new way of framing who we are and what we are doing, and how we are to do it.
The prophets of the new age are about to take the stage-- which is where they have been, and what they have been doing, for the last 2,024 years.
Starting with the Gnostics, who were killed for saying what I am saying because saying/seeing what is to be said/seen is a threat to the established/comfortable ways of saying/seeing.
Waking up takes a long time, sometimes, no? And, sometimes, it is "just like that" (Snaps fingers, laughing).
Badwater Basin — Death Valley National Park, California
Integrity is being who we are, doing what is ours to do.
How do we know what that is? Knowing is where intuition comes in. Knowing is what intuition does best. When we know what to do, it often comes upon us out of nowhere. We are seized by the moment, in the moment, and hear ourselves saying, "Give me the ball!" Or its equivalent. And we are off in the service of what needs us to do it.
Intuition is just that way. And we would do well to get out of the way when intuition sparks us into action.
In between times, we can lie around wondering what's for lunch, but when it's time for action, we know it and have to be underway.
It is good to be able to count on intuition, and for our intuition to be able to count on us.
We make a team of two that way, with a whole lot of living to do!
Blue Ridge Fall 2004 — Vicinity of Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina
Balance and Harmony, serenity and tranquility, at peace with ourselves and our situation in life...
These are the conditions required to access our intuition and align ourselves with it.
And they are concurrent with emptiness, stillness and silence.
The right kind of emptiness is contingent upon the conditions required for alignment with our intuition.
It all comes together to lead us along the way of life everlasting-- which is the experience of life in its fullest, most vibrant and vital encounter.
When then and there is experienced here and now, that's it. There is nothing beyond "to ask, or seek, or imagine"-- just the continuation of the Eternal Now of the bliss of being.
Which, of course is gone in a wink, and we are left with "the memory of its passing and the dream of its hoped-for return."
But we know it is there for the experiencing when the conditions are favorable for the rest of life and perhaps beyond.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 