There’s a big difference between perceiving holistically (beyond conditioning) and thinking (with such thinking being conditioned). As we have often said, thinking is limited, conditioned, fragmentary, and symbolic. With thinking, you can believe all sorts of things (as people robotically tend to do). With thinking, one can believe in all kinds of governments, religions, leaders, gurus, priests, saviors, and the like. These various factions inevitably cause separation and conflict between people in the world.
True holistic perception is not what is merely learned or absorbed from another. It exists beyond secondhand methods and laid-out practices. Such perception goes beyond the falsities and the needless conflicts and separations. Deep perception is timeless, and thoughts are isolated reactions of time (in time, and “as” time). Deep perception exists beyond the circumscribed, secondhand, fallacious reactions.
My Blog primarily consists of close-up nature photos (that I've taken locally) combined with original holistic-truth oriented prose and/or poetry involving mindfulness/awareness. I love nature and I love understanding the whole (not merely the parts and the details). I'm a retired teacher of the multiply handicapped.
I have a number of interesting hobbies, such as fossil collecting, sport-kite flying, 3D and 2D close-up photography, holography, and pets. Most of all, I am into holistic self-awareness, spontaneous insight, unconventional observation/direct perception, mindfulness, meditation, world peace, non-fragmentation, population control, vegetarianism, and green energy.
To follow my unique Blog of "Nature Photos and Mindfulness Sayings" and for RSS feeds to my new posts, please access at: tom8pie.com (On my regular Blog posting pages, for additional information and to follow, simply click on the "tack icon" at the upper right corner... or, on my profile page, you can click on the "Thomas Peace" icon.)
Stay mindful, understanding, and caring!...
I don’t know my butterflies, except the more-common ones, but this is a beautiful butterfly you have here Tom – it blends into the wooden post exactly.
If you care to label it… it’s a Painted Lady. They used to be common around here. Now, few butterflies are common. I can’t believe all the smoke here today from the Canadian forest fires. The poor birds and butterflies!
I didn’t recognize that Painted Lady – sorry Tom. I have seen them in the past, but it’s been awhile. That smoke is terrible and I heard a stat today that Detroit was the worst city in the nation dealing with the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Yes, the birds and butterflies have nowhere to hide from all the particulate matter … I’m wondering how it affects the wild birds as to their singing. Are all our warblers going to have respiratory issues? For example, having had two canaries, I learned that their throats are different from say a parakeet, many that we had over the years. A canary’s throat structure, which enables them to sing for prolonged periods of times can be damaged by Teflon for example. We had to move our canary to another room if using an ironing board with a Teflon cover, cooking with Teflon, using an aerosol spray, even opening the oven door and the ingredients on the oven walls could contaminate the bird’s delicate vocal sacs. No telling the damage to these delicate creatures … our world gets sadder, not to mention smaller, by the day.
Unfortunately, it (i.e., pollution and smoke) may be why a lot bird species are going extinct across America. I kept the windows of the house closed today. I felt very bad for the little bunny and the birds that i saw outside.
Friends of mine who also had pet parrots, years ago, were cooking with a Teflon pan in the middle of summer with their windows open. They overcooked a bit, and their very expensive parrots began dropping dead all over the house, like flies. I use ceramic non-stick pans and never use Teflon utensils.
Poor animals, there and here, not to mention along the way with the smoky haze and particulates. We were not bad today – no haze, but it is coming back on Monday after the rain tomorrow. At least we are not being subjected to the Sahara Desert dust plumes here in the Midwest.
That’s terrible about your friends’ birds. My friend’s 25-year-old African Grey pet parrot died of asphyxiation after her husband was baking bread and the stove rack fell down and the bread pan and bread caught on fire. They couldn’t move the bird away quickly enough. That was Winter and the house filled with smoke quickly.
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
I don’t know my butterflies, except the more-common ones, but this is a beautiful butterfly you have here Tom – it blends into the wooden post exactly.
If you care to label it… it’s a Painted Lady. They used to be common around here. Now, few butterflies are common. I can’t believe all the smoke here today from the Canadian forest fires. The poor birds and butterflies!
I didn’t recognize that Painted Lady – sorry Tom. I have seen them in the past, but it’s been awhile. That smoke is terrible and I heard a stat today that Detroit was the worst city in the nation dealing with the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Yes, the birds and butterflies have nowhere to hide from all the particulate matter … I’m wondering how it affects the wild birds as to their singing. Are all our warblers going to have respiratory issues? For example, having had two canaries, I learned that their throats are different from say a parakeet, many that we had over the years. A canary’s throat structure, which enables them to sing for prolonged periods of times can be damaged by Teflon for example. We had to move our canary to another room if using an ironing board with a Teflon cover, cooking with Teflon, using an aerosol spray, even opening the oven door and the ingredients on the oven walls could contaminate the bird’s delicate vocal sacs. No telling the damage to these delicate creatures … our world gets sadder, not to mention smaller, by the day.
Unfortunately, it (i.e., pollution and smoke) may be why a lot bird species are going extinct across America. I kept the windows of the house closed today. I felt very bad for the little bunny and the birds that i saw outside.
Friends of mine who also had pet parrots, years ago, were cooking with a Teflon pan in the middle of summer with their windows open. They overcooked a bit, and their very expensive parrots began dropping dead all over the house, like flies. I use ceramic non-stick pans and never use Teflon utensils.
I continue to see smoke across the farm fields.
Poor animals, there and here, not to mention along the way with the smoky haze and particulates. We were not bad today – no haze, but it is coming back on Monday after the rain tomorrow. At least we are not being subjected to the Sahara Desert dust plumes here in the Midwest.
That’s terrible about your friends’ birds. My friend’s 25-year-old African Grey pet parrot died of asphyxiation after her husband was baking bread and the stove rack fell down and the bread pan and bread caught on fire. They couldn’t move the bird away quickly enough. That was Winter and the house filled with smoke quickly.