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. True poetic insight is graceful because its sensitivity crosses boundaries and perceives all as one.
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. Happy Mother’s Day! And let’s all especially wish a happy Mother’s Day to Mother Earth too. She is all we have, and we all need to take better care of her (by recycling, using green energy, and planting more trees and such), not neglecting her. We can’t (as many foolish scientists suggest) leave home to go to another planet when things get bad here; some scientists are suggesting the wrong things; we have to wake up and treat her much better! Mother Earth is not at all separate from all true, good mothers!
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. Excerpt of a Navajo Native American Song (which, as a song of wisdom, occurs within my book):
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Song of the Earth
All is beautiful,
All is beautiful…All is beautiful, indeed.
Now the Mother Earth, and the Father Sky… Meeting, joining one another,
Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful… All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
Sisnajinni, Tsodsichl,
Meeting, joining one another,
Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful… All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
Now Doko-oslid and Depenitsa… Meeting, joining one another,
Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful… All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
And the night of darkness… And the dawn of light… Meeting, joining one another… Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful…All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
Now Hastyeyalli and Hastyehogan… Meeting, joining one another,
Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful… All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
And the white corn and the yellow corn… Meeting, joining one another,
Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful… All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
And the corn-pollen and the Ripener… Meeting, joining one another,
Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful… All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
Life-that-never-passeth,
Happiness-of-all-things… Meeting, joining one another,
Helpmates ever, they.
All is beautiful… All is beautiful… All is beautiful, indeed.
Now all is beautiful,
All is beautiful,
All is beautiful, indeed.
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. You might think she’s ugly… but she has tied a little webbing — on her rear leg to the cement — to remind herself not to leave any time soon… and (though rather emaciated and hungry) she is not moving; so she is a very caring and good mother. That, my friends, is beautiful!
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. (Fishing Spiders get quite large. Some, legs included, can be over 3 inches long. Some can dive underwater to catch prey, or they catch prey near the surface of the water, even minnows. It is unusual for spiders to eat vertebrates, but these do! Females guard their eggs sacs for quite a long time… often over a month, not eating while doing so. The one below was on cement on the bank of a river. It was rather strange about how i came upon it. While at home, i had a premonition that if i went to the river bank… i’d see an unusually nice, large spider there. I grabbed a camera and walked to the river bank; as i approached the bank, the spider could be seen from quite a distance and one realized immediately that that was what the intimation was about. It didn’t budge while i took shots; then i politely left it with its highly precious orb.)
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. The door to success in the entertainment world… may be illusory.
. Real success is in finding truth, helping others, and ending suffering… not in showing off like some kind of monkey, getting all the apish stares!
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. Multi-photo: Thirteen really isn’t unlucky… and neither is the blackbird that flutters in the mind.
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by Wallace Stevens
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. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship. — R.W.Emerson
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The following is a Badger fossil that i am posting in response to fellow blogging friend Running Elk’s request, after i made a comment in his blog on Badgers (http://shamanicpath.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/spirit-of-badger/).
This is a fossil i’ve had for quite some time. It’s a fossil Badger from the Miocene Period (around 12 million years old) from the Gansu Province, China.
Badgers are very tidy, orderly, well-groomed animals and keep their deep burrows and bedding scrupulously clean. They sometimes team up with Coyotes to hunt. What the Coyotes can’t catch, because the prey scurry into holes… the Badgers dig up. What the Badgers can’t catch, because they can’t sprint fast, the Coyotes capture.
People ought to, instead of being so competitive, be more cooperative. Additionally: Most Badgers understand that going deep is prudent; i wish a lot more of those (humans) satisfied with the superficial – instead of just getting upset about petty details, though making a mess of their lives while neglecting the whole – would be more orderly and go deeper!
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. Deep intelligence sees that the psychological dichotomy between the “controller” of ideas and the “ideas” is essentially fallacious and illusory; one’s ideas and feelings are what one actually is… not — as we were erroneously taught — something at a distance that one “has.” Your reactions and thoughts are not truly separate from what you are. Conflict inwardly can project as conflict outwardly.
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. Years ago when one was in parochial school, we were required to attend mass, in the church, every day before classes. As a youngster, kneeling in church as the requisite rules called for, i remember thinking: “God is not here (locked up for us to visit), God is outdoors among nature and the good, great outdoors.” I remember feeling like being in prison… but i realized that, some day, i would get out. Later, while in college (and away from home), i purchased a rock music album that happened to have lyrics that really “hit home” with me. The album was entitled “Aqualung”… and the second half of the album contained lyrics helping one to question orthodox perspectives about spirituality and, instead, think (and discover) for oneself. This album, among others, was integral for me regarding my independent search within the realm of the spiritual/philosophical. That search became far more important to me than girlfriends, far more important than having a good time, competing in the job market, or being admired by others in the social realm. I am very appreciative of that album and others like it. I feel that my writings and photos (and especially my book) attest to the fact that independent inquiry (including intelligent doubting and searching) is not only worthwhile… but very noble, fruitful, and magnificent. (Of course, one may be all wrong about this… and may still be primarily just a fool.) 😉
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Later in life, it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the historical Jesus himself seemed to not be in favor of — as my book is indicative of — orthodoxy, temples, and the priests within. It was the high priests, the Sanhedrin (in their fancy robes), that accused him of things and arranged to have him killed by the Romans. After the death of the historical Christ, there were many gospels and versions of gospels that many people could choose from. Ironically, it was high priests that eventually chose the ones they wanted people to adhere to; they (like they did to the historical Jesus) arranged to have those that cherished other versions… to be terminated and destroyed. Likewise their (banned) bibles were destroyed and discarded.
Many of the top biblical scholars of today acknowledge that the ancient Gospel of Thomas — discovered by a peasant in 1945 in an earthenware jug, (and also in Greek fragments in an ancient dump heap) — was very likely existent before the Gospels of Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. The apostles did not, it is well known, write the four orthodox gospels. The gospels called Luke and Matthew copied Mark; some scholars contend that John is a rebuttal against the Gospel of Thomas.
from the ancient Gospel of Thomas:
Jesus said, “Why have you come out to the countryside? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a person dressed in soft clothes, [like your] rulers and your powerful ones? They are dressed in soft clothes, and they cannot understand truth.”
From the Gosp. of Thomas, Greek dump heap POxy 1 fragment:
[Jesus says], “Where there are [three, they are without] God, and where there is only [one], I say, I am with that one. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there. Split a piece of wood, and I am there.”
Lyrics from the song Wind Up… from the Aqualung album by Jethro Tull:
“Wind-Up”
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. If you look for the truth outside of yourself,
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. — Tung-Shan (807-869 A.D.)
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. You don’t have to believe in anything to enjoy and love nature; you don’t have to swallow dead doctrines to love others and all of life’s creatures.
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. There isn’t anything really new about New Year’s Day… but, nevertheless — though this may sound odd in these non-spiritual times — the sacred (i.e., the timeless) is new (and truly is something beyond the framework of time). The following is an excerpt from my book, The Eternal Fountain of Youth. It (i.e., the book) shows how Archibald MacLeish is among the best — and most famous — poets of the world who intelligently and eloquently/poetically write about limitation and relationship, such as the eternal return (and the possibility of going beyond it). I feel that these famous poets have touched upon something that goes beyond the limited writings and proposals of many… (even, in my calculation, beyond the proposals of the best of philosophers). Nietzsche, for example, did not go far enough; what he delved into was far too limited. My book is a reflection, i feel, of what many of these famous poets expressed; it is also an attempt to help others transcend limitation and separative ignorance intelligently and holistically. Please, regarding this, intelligently realize that having attained the status of a major (famous) poet is not easy whatsoever and — in the overall scheme of things — is only remotely likely at best. Additionally: If you don’t care about this or about my book… or grow from what i have written here… that is just fine; but i’ll tell you one (perhaps expanding, perhaps universal) thing for sure: I know of more than one ten foot poet among inchlings.
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Excerpt:
Obviously, it is not what we are “accustomed to” or “used to.” However, sometimes change happens that way, and for the better, in the long run. Before the time of Columbus, they used to think that the world was flat, that there was an end to it; they thought that you could fall off the flattened part and then perish. Many of us think that when you are dead, you are dead; they think that you come to the end, and that is it… finished. However, if our universe is truly in a cyclic-oriented dimension, then what occurs happens over and over again, endlessly. There is a possibility, when you die (if the omnipotent “otherness” does not temporarily intervene), that your consciousness will not exist until the “next round” of the cycle. Since “consciousness” (that depends on brain cells) does not exist after you die, then psychological “time” does not exist after you die. One must be “conscious” to realize “time.” Without consciousness, there is no “time.” The time, from when you die, within universal cycles, to when you are again “reborn” as the same person that you (in the exact-same repeated cycles) were, does not exist psychologically; therefore, it does not exist as “consciousness.” Therefore, as soon as you die, no time elapses until you are again born to the same mother, and are again conscious of “time.” So, in a real sense, as soon as you die, you are again (for all practical purposes) immediately born to the same family as you were born to before. Time is not recorded, from when you die to when you are again reborn. This is not reincarnation. You do not come back into another body; in one echoing, mirroring sense, you remain exactly the same. In a sense, you never really die. (Of course, you are incapable of remembering what happened before, in the previous cycles.) Like our earth, our universe is globular, circuitous, and cyclic. People, at one time long ago, thought that the world was flat. People think, at the time of this writing, that time is linear and non-globular, without the same things recurring repeatedly. They may be crudely erroneous.
from Archibald MacLeish:
Lines for a Prologue
These alternate nights and days, these seasons
Somehow fail to convince me. It seems
I have the sense of infinity!
(In your dreams, O crew of Columbus,
O listeners over the sea
For the surf that breaks upon Nothing—)
Once I was waked by the nightingales in the garden.
I thought, What time is it? I thought,
Time—Is it Time still?—Now is it Time?
(Tell me your dreams, O sailors:
Tell me, in sleep did you climb
The tall masts, and before you—)
At night the stillness of old trees
Is a leaning over and the inertness
Of hills is a kind of waiting.
(In sleep, in a dream, did you see
The world’s end? Did the water
Break—and no shore—Did you see?)
Strange faces come through the streets to me
Like messengers: and I have been warned
By the moving slowly of hands at a window.
Oh, I have the sense of infinity—
But the world, sailors, is round.
They say there is no end to it.
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. In the deck of cards that life hands to you, you can dig for diamonds with spades — yes you can — but don’t just (though you may stand with others) belong to separative, little clubs (i.e. isolated, institutional groups) that divide some hands from others while viewing those “others” (as separate and inferior) without a lot of heart.
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