Monthly Archives of: July 2019

Post

On the Precocious Mantis and the Ominous, Hideous Creature…

July 30, 2019
30 comments

 

 

Walking just walking along 
gingerly and slowly swaying 
waltzing alien-like from leaf to leaf

Stalking just stalking along
stick-like & Oh so lean
happily wondering whom next i can eat

Suddenly out of nowhere
a huge ominous creature appears
thrusting a blackish lens-thing right up to me

In a flash, I quickly leap away
and am so very glad
that the huge hideous creature didn’t eat me

 

 

[Note:  This photo was taken about a month ago.   This was the first  Praying Mantis that i’ve seen this summer; it was young, just around 3cm long.  And, yes — with blackish lens-thing macro camera in hand —  i am the ominous, hideous creature.  (You must admit, we ominous, hideous creatures are pretty huge.)]

 

 

Young Praying Mantis (praying that I don’t eat him) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

The Ecstasy in the Green Luscious Garden

July 29, 2019
18 comments

 

 

The ecstasy in the green luscious garden
flaps its wings in harmony
pert antennae sensing all the smells
in the rapture beyond the kitchen window

Lovely colors moving all around
flower to flower endlessly
cares not a bit about the past
or what the future might just be

Rubbing stamen amongst the stigma
in a style Oh so clean
purity in every blossom
here between the trees and golden honeybees

Collecting nectar sweet and no antiques
living fresh in every moment
time’s illusion not for me
beyond the world’s vast confusion

 

 

Ecstasy in the Green Luscious Garden … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Beyond Merely Being a Marionette

July 26, 2019
21 comments

 

 

If one is merely a marionette, repeating what others poured into you, then what you say and do will usually be rather robotic, quite puppet-like… though it will seem quite pleasant and socially acceptable to you (while you feel quite unique).  There are so many standardized lemmings out there.  To question things fundamentally, deeply, with substantial passion, takes great intelligence.  That great intelligence (naturally) is largely constituted of immense vastness, which inherently includes compassion.  Compassion acts beyond many of the limits of ordinary perception.  It perceives beyond all of the mundane, superficial, circumscribed borders.  It is not tethered by stale, dinosaurian, antiquated beliefs.  Such intelligence (i.e., such profound, penetrating insight) is extremely rare in the world as it now exists; miseducation has a lot to do with it.  Acceptance of mediocrity has a lot to do with it.  

 

 

Wild Spiderwort … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

Post

May I Understand Why People Don’t Understand

July 23, 2019
17 comments

 

 

May i understand why people don’t understand.
And why is there such a disconnect in people’s minds
betweenthings,
between them and all other things?
They look with (and “as”) sep
             ar
    ­A
tion,
each from a center that never was a true center
and that never will be a true center…
like bubbles floating in a glass of milk
each thinking that they are separate from
the milkiness.  

 

 

Beyond Separation … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

The Flower at a Distance

July 22, 2019
20 comments

 

 

The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.
The flower at a distance always looks better than the one you are standing on.
Separation is a definite illusion.

 

 

Young Katydid pining for a distant flower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Jumping Spiders and Awareness

July 19, 2019
32 comments

 

 

Jumping Spiders, those very alert arachnids, you know, have many eyes.  Some of the eyes are at the back of the head.  Some even have extra eyes on the abdomen (i.e., their rear section).  One of the reasons that they have eyes in such places is so that they can more efficiently see moving prey (that they can capture to eat).  Another reason for having eyes in such places is that other Jumping Spiders (or other spider species or insect enemies) may try to sneak up on them (to devour them).  Seeing such “attackers” affords quick reaction involving countermeasures.  

We might think, “Oh, how very primitive these spiders are, to be attacking and killing each other with such violence.”  Our species, it can be seen, however, still often kill each other on the so-called battlefield.   “Battlefield,” by the way, is just a word or accepted term for where humans go to react ultra-violently (i.e., primitive-ass crazy).  Many of us periodically celebrate those who were the most violent, calling them “great heroes.”  We seldom celebrate — we rarely celebrate — those who were opposed to war.  (We, instead of observing through separative countries, religions, and tribes, need to observe holistically and globally — which would help to end all wars — but most of us won’t do that, because of being firmly and stagnantly stuck in separative ruts.  So the unending nonsense will continue.)  To really go beyond being primitive and violent, we must observe without all of the separations that were poured into us.   

 

 

Jumping Spider Observing … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Sleeping White Tail Dragonfly

July 16, 2019
35 comments

 

 

What prey are you dreaming about
tonight, my adroit, winged friend?
What shifting air currents
are floating through your
fulfilled, slumbering mind?

 

[Note:  I was in the woods taking nature pictures and stayed quite awhile.  It started getting dark and as i was leaving i saw a White Tail Skimmer Dragonfly landing low in some wild plants on the forest floor, fortunately.  I knew that that meant it was preparing for sleep (there).  I waited a bit — for it to really dose off —  and then i slowly moved in to photograph it.  Poison ivy was all around me!  Please note how they wrap their legs around plants while in sleep; this stance affords stability for possible upcoming windy conditions.]

 

 

Sleeping White Tail Skimmer Dragonfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

The Sunset Stared

July 15, 2019
9 comments

 

Part 1

The sunset stared at separate birds
as he pendulously walked into what he thought he wasn’t.
His disconnection with everything  — like the day — was ironically complete:
A separate “me” scratching an arm that was “his” and
there to use from a “distance.”

Part 2

She was the blossoms that she helped grow.
Their colors were colors that were of purplish her.
She was that towering Oak Tree
but to her, it wasn’t an Oak Tree;
it simply was what it was (beyond labels)
and was not separate from any “me” within her,
for she was beyond all “me”s.
She was the beautiful blossoming of wholeness.

 

 

a little bit of her … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

Love exists beyond mere separation…

July 12, 2019
23 comments

 

 

Instead of being images “about things,” can the mind perceive beyond all of the absorbed mental patterns and labels that it has accumulated?  In actuality, most minds are a result of the accumulation; (i.e, they actually are the accumulation).  This “accumulation” often intrinsically involves “looking at things via separation” as one of its core attributes.

Perception beyond mere pigeonholing can take place.  (We are not suggesting that one should not label things; we are suggesting that one need not always be doing it habitually.  It takes dynamic intelligence to go beyond robotic habit.)  Real perception, beyond the mere separation between subject and object, can take place.  However, it takes real innocence, real simple-purity to do that and, unfortunately, the masses are (for the most part) incapable of that.  (However, corruption does have its trivial perks.)

 

 

Nothing between us… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

Post

So while looking into the mirror…

July 9, 2019
38 comments

 

 

So while looking into the mir-
ror at one
self,
one asks, “Did
I re-
member
to brush my
teeth this morning?”

Well then, “Oh, that’s 
right!  I don’t have any
teeth; I have a proboscis.”
Proboscises suck,
and it’s not that you “have them”;
they are merely part of what you are…

as are butterflies
and things to reflect on.

 

 

[Note: Butterflies use their long tube-like proboscises to suck nutritious nectar out of flowers.  They have a symbiotic relationship with flowers in that they help pollinate them by going from one flower to another.  Note the yellow pollen sticking to the “face” of this Painted Lady Butterfly.]

In the Mirror … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Not too many tears, dear

July 8, 2019
20 comments

 

 

Not too many tears
dear
be ever shed for Nature
that dies

Not too many tears
dear
trickle down from faces
not sky

Not too many tears
ever flood away
from smiling faces
in stores shopping

Not too many dry eyes see
there be fewer bees and
honey
in the ending of the begin

They say not enough concrete
to cover all da prairie fields
but Mr.
Progress be working on it

 

 

Prairie Trillium Wildflower, Illinois. These low-ground plants grow very slowly and they take around 10 years to mature enough to flower. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

The Patterns of the Mind

July 5, 2019
14 comments

 

The associative patterns of the mind, what are their functions?  Do they exist merely for us to acquire, accumulate, attain things (including food and shelter), and differentiate with (and from) an element of separation?  Do such patterns dictate — to us — what we see? 

We usually look at things through labels, through images that we have learned.  A person often distinguishes things (at a distance, separate from himself).  The patterns that we hold dictate what we see.  However, we are these absorbed patterns; we do not actually hold them; they are not separate from what we essentially are.  Real wholeness, real integrity, real love, may involve looking beyond the patterns, beyond the old, stuffy mental accumulations, beyond the labels, beyond the mental separative distance.

 

 

Three in One … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

Short Story about the Best Wooden Thing

July 2, 2019
36 comments

 

 

Once, there was a burly man who carved things out of wood.
Many people in his village would each ask him to carve something special for them, and he usually would, with great pride.
The man would often boast about what he could expertly carve.
Then, one day, a little girl — who had never asked the man to carve anything whatsoever — asked him what the best wooden thing is.
“I am not sure,” said the man, perplexedly, “Maybe it is the large horse that I once carved for Mr. Hayes.”
“No,” said the girl, confidently, “It is that large, beautiful, living Oak tree that grows in our yard.”

 

 

Very young Oak tree sapling just beginning to get there. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

The Stuffy Politicians…

July 1, 2019
21 comments

 

 

Many stuffy politicians can pull many
into their stupefaction
pull many into their (paid-for-by-
the-fossil-fuel-industries)
raisons d’etre
(which include bona fide lies)
but as for a rogue like me,
well, the cheese in their trap 
is made of distorted
­(though expensive and smelly)
­cardboard

 

 

Apolitical photo … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019