There can be a holistic awareness without significant thought/thinking taking place, (in which the intelligent mind often sees without thinking and cognition interfering). There can be, for example, simple awareness of creatures upon flowers and of leaves lightly dancing in the breeze. However, thought/thinking is then not merely labeling, analyzing, comparing, or projecting what science has taught concerning these things. Then the mind may be of a sweet emptiness that is beyond the second-hand constructs of man. That emptiness (of mind) may be a blissful, effortless negation of inherited mental fabrications. Such mental nullification may be the highest positive, for neither is it handed down, replayed as monotonous imitation, conjured up via effort, nor dully rehashed. And it can deeply exist (too) beyond the ordinary, habitual recognition of things. It is always refreshingly new and beyond dead blueprint-like (mental) structuring. (Too many of us take words to be the equivalent of reality; they are not.) And, coincidentally, real love is always explosive, pristine, and not copied or imitated. The ordinary “once-lers” of the world are, unfortunately, not of it.
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
Great thoughts, Tom, and your photo is the embodiment of bliss!
“There can be a holistic awareness without significant thought/thinking taking place” YES!!!! and oh that beautiful picture – I love your posts.
Thank you much, Sara! 😊 Keep staying close to the magic of nature like you do!
You too Tom…. as we know it’s been a challenge this summer – here with almost constant wet weather – and some bad air days – and you with drought/ bad air.
Thanks much, Michael! 😊 I hope that you are doing well.
You too, Tom. It’s been a dozen years for me already, gets easier. Thanks!
Interesting photo entitled “Bliss” Tom – for the butterfly, the nectar is sweet and it is blissful, no matter how bedraggled the bloom is … we humans see only the tattered petals. That is a gorgeous Monarch you have here.
Thank you much, Linda! 😊 I don’t know about you, but i sure would enjoy some nice, cool weather (instead of this oppressive heat).
Same here Tom. I think parts of Illinois were under that severe thunderstorm warning today … that was a doozy of a storm. Parts of SE Michigan had tennis ball-sized hail. I am definitely ready for Fall and less volatile weather!
Lovely photo, and your words reminded me of the quote saying, “we live in the world but we are not of the world”, which always resonated interestingly and nicely, gives hope and and inner freedom somehow. 🙂
Thanks much! Good to read, Nicole! 😊
Tom, yesterday I saw Oppenheimer – incredible film juxtaposed with pink barbies – yea gods…
I saw Oppenheimer today too, Sara! Great movie, but sobering!
Like i’ve mentioned, Bohm refused to testify against Oppenheimer but Oppenheimer did not like Bohm’s hidden variables theories, so Oppenheimer (behind Bohm’s back) got other physicists to ostracize Bohm. That seems very unethical!
So glad you saw the movie Tom… Yes, I knew that Bohm refused to testify and I also knew Bohm’s theory was considered ‘radical’ – too out there for mechanistic science to grasp – Did NOT know that Oppenheimer led the damn pack – Oppenheimer was unethical – he suffered for it but he also did it – One more thing – I posted a brief note about the film – noting that the only mention of what los alamos plus did to the Pueblo peoples – an Indigenous friend in New Mexico reminded me that those years destroyed the life of many Indigenous peoples and left a wasteland in its wake – all this is absolutely true – and the only reference to Native peoples was “give it back to the Indians” – Indigenous invisibility does not change the fact that every single one of us lives on land that was bloodied by our human relatives – we need to own it – I have come to suspect that American violence/blindness may have roots in this bloodied soil.
Yes, Sara, i knew about the Native Americans being exploited to mine for uranium. Many ended up getting cancer but the U.S. government really didn’t care. Horrifying really!