The cadence of song
saw its pinkish-purple notes
and yellow hues
while sweet nectar
was just icing on the cake
The Cadence of Song … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
The Cadence of Song
24 comments
My Visit with T.S.Eliot
Let us go then, you and I,
Eliot said, and so we went,
After the cups, the marmalade, and tea,
Beyond the porcelain, beyond the talk of you and me,
When the evening was spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
We went, we went through certain half-deserted streets.
We went to the bright retreats that muttered endlessly.
Some overwhelming question always had to ask,
Though it didn’t have to ask, “What is it?”
We went along and made our visit.
And at the first turning of the second stair
We turned and saw below, not far from the rose garden,
A familiar shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapor in the fetid air
Struggling with the business fool of the stairs who ascends
The deceitful steps of hope and despair.
At the second turning of the second stair,
We left them twisting, turning below;
At the third turning of the third stair
We finally went past all of the melodious distraction,
Music of the flute, stops and steps
Of the mind over the third stair,
Fading, fading; wisdom beyond hope and despair
Climbing and being the third stair.
We were the stairs,
We were the shapes and distractions,
And at half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, “Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.”
My visit with Tom in the rose garden never came to an end.
Jumping Spider in the rose garden, near the door we never opened. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Exams
When i was a student, i thought,
“Exams can go to grass!”
I never really deeply cared about exams.
They never could measure me
and they never will measure me.
As an adult, i still say,
“Exams can go to grass!”
(Sorry grass, you deserve
dandelions and insects,
not cadaverous exams.)
Damselfly with the Insect Prey that it caught … Photo by Thomas Peace c.2019
Free Will
No doubt, a large number of people will dismiss this or merely become irritated by it. Very many of us — most all of us, really — assume that we have a free will that freely does whatever it “wants” to. Suggesting otherwise tends to offend people, annoy people, and ruffle their feathers. However, the decisions we are involved in are all largely governed by the chemical processes in the brain, the physiological/biological/neurological networks and systems. Conditioning — by past sociological structures, such as education, religion, and other social networks — also, of course, plays a big part in this. It may be that your decision to read this blog up to this point was as inevitable as hydrogen and oxygen combining at a certain point to form water. Billions think and feel that they have free will.
It may be that any thought or any manifestation of thinking that one exists as, no matter what it is, is inevitably involved with conditioning. So, where is freedom in all of this and is there any chance for true freedom? Real freedom, perceptually, may come when the mind is of a stillness, a wholeness, that (at times) is beyond the sequential patterns and frameworks of thought/thinking. It involves awareness beyond what was merely taught or absorbed. It is of a newness that shatters all conceived and preconceived patterns. When it occurs, there is an intelligent cessation of thought/thinking; without inevitable, conditioned thinking, there is no learned, false center as the “me” or “I” being projected. Regarding true freedom, one cannot merely “know” that one is involved with it. Only a healthy brain can allow it to manifest but it is not what depends upon a healthy brain. It is not yours or mine; it is of a vastness that transcends all borders.
Royal Catchfly (Silene regia) This red blossomed plant is a very rare wild plant of the United States Midwest; it is very endangered in Illinois, for example. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Snowingly
We must profess
that driving in the white stuff
(when being elderly is the body’s current season)
is not our notion of palatability
We quaked with laughter
playing in — and eating — the fluffy stuff as kids…
Now its greatest beauty is its order
close up and (also at a distance)
as long as
driving in whiteout isn’t involved
or being immersed
in certain kind of great depth
Snow Pyramid Crystal … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Enlightenment
Wanting to become enlightened — to be in nirvana or satori or whatever it is — is a form of avaricious behavior that depends upon thought and psychological time. Desire and thought create psychological time. This time is always limited and based upon the past. (We are referring to psychological time, not necessary physical/chronological time, here.) In (and “as”) a person (often), there is a gulf (i.e., a chasm) — psychologically — between what one is and what one wants to become. Most of us do not mind such a gulf/chasm to exist psychologically; we were brought up and educated (or miseducated) to accept such a gulf fundamentally. We don’t see anything wrong with it. We don’t (ever) question it.
Additionally, there is often a tremendous gulf or chasm between “what one considers oneself to be” and “other people” or “other organisms.” Many people look with separation and see “their race” as better, “their culture” as better, “their family” as better, “their species” as far better, and “their being” as much better. Others are “at a distance” and they are separated from “oneself” by a gulf (a chasm), much like the chasm mentioned in the aforementioned paragraph.
You know, it is so easy to be duped. It is so easy to be deceived and defrauded to think that one is rich in the things of life. Fragmentation and psychological time are one hell of an illusion (wholly grasped by restricted minds). Be careful and attentive.
************************************************************************************************************************
[Note: My wife, Marla, is doing better following her recent shoulder surgery; she, however, will still require further surgery on that shoulder.]
Snow Crystals … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Another New Year that really isn’t New… (and further note about my wife Marla’s surgery)….
[Note: My wife Marla’s shoulder replacement surgery went well (so far, it seems) but she still has a long way to full recovery. She must have strong PICC Line antibiotics given to her intravenously via syringes multiple times per day for 6 weeks (and i am the one giving her these). Additionally, i am helping her with her enteral feedings (via tube feedings to her stomach) multiple times per day (because, at the current time, she is unable to do them herself, with only one functional arm.) The shoulder replacement that they put in is a special antibiotic-emitting kind and she will likely need a whole other “regular” shoulder replacement done (in the same shoulder), with a steel replacement, once this temporary antibiotic replacement fully heals and is bacteria-free. Apparently, the infectious bacteria that caused trouble in the first place — and that is hard to eradicate (since it lodges deep within the joint) — is a type of acne bacteria (which baffles us as to how she got it). Since i will be busy taking care of Marla for the next few weeks, i will likely not do postings after my already scheduled 01/02/2019 blog/posting; i will not have time to read others’ blogs or correspond with others re their blogs or my blogs. Hopefully, i can soon get back into blogging again once things settle down and i find more time to do so. Peace!]
Why doesn’t a smidgen of cream
dash itself into a cup of coffee for you?
Stirring itself, the cream
is part of this poem’s theme.
Coffelicious — Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
What is a New Year? (and note about my wife Marla’s surgery…)
[Note: My wife Marla’s shoulder replacement surgery went well (so far, it seems) but she still has a long way to full recovery. She must have strong PICC Line antibiotics given to her intravenously via syringes multiple times per day for 6 weeks (and i am the one giving her these). Additionally, i am helping her with her enteral feedings (via tube feedings to her stomach) multiple times per day (because, at the current time, she is unable to do them herself, with only one functional arm.) The shoulder replacement that they put in is a special antibiotic-emitting kind and she will likely need a whole other “regular” shoulder replacement done (in the same shoulder), with a steel replacement, once this temporary antibiotic replacement fully heals and is bacteria-free. Apparently, the infectious bacteria that caused trouble in the first place — and that is hard to eradicate (since it lodges deep within the joint) — is a type of acne bacteria (which baffles us as to how she got it). Since i will be busy taking care of Marla for the next few weeks, i will likely not do postings after my already scheduled 01/02/2019 blog/posting; i will not have time to read others’ blogs or correspond with others re their blogs or my blogs. Hopefully, i can soon get back into blogging again once things settle down and i find more time to do so. Peace!]
What is a New Year?… and is it really new? We humans, most of us anyway, have a very superficial sense of time, a very linear, rudimentary perspective regarding time. Many of us, even when we think that we are dwelling in (and “as”) the present, are, in reality, conceiving of (or recognizing) that “present” via past images, old, learned perspectives. So, it really isn’t “the present” at all (due to recognition via old, stored mental images). If one really often lived timelessly in the present, there would not be any concrete recognition of the present as the present (as something separate from the past and the future).
So many of us live almost exclusively in (and “as”) the past. Our recognition of things, our labeling of things, our habitual (repetitive) chattering of thoughts and mental images, are all fundamentally protrusions from the learned past. We have allowed our minds to become reacting mechanisms; reactions are essentially secondhand and mechanical (being part of a cause/effect continuum). If we have reduced ourselves to that — which, unfortunately, so many have — then we will remain as parts of a rather mechanical, sequential process (which is rather limited).
Can one look without the past dictating? Can one perceive, not fragmentarily, but wholly, beyond mere limited, learned reactions? One says that it is possible. Will a step by step method, that you absorb from others, get you there? Of course not! A radical revolution in consciousness has to take place. Will it take time to (eventually) get there. No.
Happy New Year! (ahead of time)! (… though, for decades one has realized that there is really nothing new about it.)
Lichen at the end of the “New Year” … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
When everything without feeling happened (… and further note about my wife Marla’s surgery…)
[Note: My wife Marla’s shoulder replacement surgery went well (so far, it seems) but she still has a long way to full recovery. She must have strong PICC Line antibiotics given to her intravenously via syringes multiple times per day for 6 weeks (and i am the one giving her these). Additionally, i am helping her with her enteral feedings (via tube feedings to her stomach) multiple times per day (because, at the current time, she is unable to do them herself, with only one functional arm.) The shoulder replacement that they put in is a special antibiotic-emitting kind and she will likely need a whole other “regular” shoulder replacement done (in the same shoulder), with a steel replacement, once this temporary antibiotic replacement fully heals and is bacteria-free. Apparently, the infectious bacteria that caused trouble in the first place — and that is hard to eradicate (since it lodges deep within the joint) — is a type of acne bacteria (which baffles us as to how she got it). Since i will be busy taking care of Marla for the next few weeks, i will likely not do postings after my already scheduled 01/02/2019 blog/posting; i will not have time to read others’ blogs or correspond with others re their blogs or my blogs. Hopefully, i can soon get back into blogging again once things settle down and i find more time to do so. Peace!]
The following poem has nothing to do with Marla’s shoulder surgery, by the way…
When everything without feeling happened for quite some time,
feeling came along and tried to make a difference,
but it wasn’t easy.
On the Forest Floor … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Do you feel small? (poem)… and note about Marla…
[Note: My wife, Marla, is still in the hospital — getting strong antibiotics through a PICC Line for the serious infection that has been occurring in her shoulder, following her recent shoulder replacement surgery — so my online correspondence will continue to be limited for the time being.]
Do you feel small
in this huge cold world?
Don’t feel large.
Don’t feel small.
Just express warmth…
the warm of compassion.
That’s all that really matters.
Golden Skipper Resting … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Happy Holi
days! 🙂
(Don’t forget what it’s really all about.)
It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
The Story of Lo Zu and the Mountains (Another short Lo Zu tale)…
An inquisitive, young woman approached Lo Zu and asked him, “Why do you leave our village every day and go wandering off into the mountains?”
Lo Zu, the great sage, answered, “I have talked to all of you many times about ‘no mind’ and that, in essence, I do not really exist as anything concrete internally. Yet, you all continue to see me as just another man.”
The inquisitive, young woman then pensively exclaimed, “I do not understand!”
Lo Zu then stated, “When this body is in the village, you say ‘Lo Zu is here.’ When this body is in the mountains, you say, ‘Lo Zu is not here.’ At least when one is in the mountains, you (in the village) speak the truth.”
Lichen … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
A little Snowball Wish (to you)…
A little happy Snowball Wish
around the corner’s edge of time
past spring and summer
though glidingly bringing rhyme
This is a photo of some of my pet Snowball Shrimp. The females carry white, round eggs that look like snowballs. The shrimp in the foreground is carrying fertilized eggs. The shrimp in the background is carrying eggs that have not been fertilized and are positioned higher up in her body (looking like a saddle); such females are called “Saddled” females. Happy Holidays!
Neocaridina Snowball Shrimp with Eggs … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Hoping You Have a Great Holiday Season!
I will likely not have time, the next few days, to be corresponding with people and/or visiting peoples’ blogs. My wife, Marla, is (again) having complicated reconstructive shoulder surgery and i’ll be too preoccupied with that; my blogs will continue, as they have been prescheduled (as they usually are). Marla requires extra help, nutritionally, with enteral tube feedings to her stomach, which she must always have due to complications from a prior neck surgery; most of the nurses in hospitals, believe it or not, are inexperienced with proper enteral tube feeding.
[Eternity is all around us.]
Together we
made a smiling snowman
who
(in magic, and he is we)
danced around
And when he melts
to those very last
drops
(of who we are)
he’ll be back again some day
Melting Away … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Highwire acts are a breeze
Highwire acts are a breeze
(as long as it’s not too breezy)
in this world of the (unfortunately) mentally unbalanced
The Great Unbelievable Highwire Act … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
A mind came upon a wall
A mind came upon a wall
and the wall necessitated separation.
That same mind came upon some
people of a different skin color…
and the “learned psychological prejudice”
necessitated separation.
Now here is the tricky bit:
The first separation was
natural and factual.
The second separation was
manmade and illusory.
A lot of people were taught to
look through psychological walls
of separation.
It’s so easy to deceive oneself,
to see what one was
programmed to see.
One man looked at a tree,
and only existed as an image of a “re-cognized,” distant tree,
supposedly separated from a learned image of “self,” apart
from everything else.
Another man looked at the same tree,
and there was, beyond stored images,
a bonding, blending, and sharing.
Bonding … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
I’m A Texas Longhorn
I’m a Texas Longhorn
as rugged as they come
I wish that people would gustatorily leave us alone
and not try to exploit most of us (one by one)
Since they don’t leave us alone
I’ll put my hands together and solemnly pray
that we bovine could somehow grow angel wings
and fly the hell away
Texas Longhorn … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Explanations Smell Like Hell
Explanations smell like hell
because words (being mere symbols)
pour out hypocritic gross empty spell
We’ll joyfully play beyond described sand
jump beyond reason
and hide from what old bureaucrats demand
Hiding from Bureaucrats … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Nature Lionizes Trees
Nature lionizes trees
and roars:
“Mankind! Stop
abusing life!”
Nature Personified … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Insights or Non- (Part 9)
Imperishable insight is life that perceives its true reality (far beyond the limited, dead norm).
If you try to anchor the ship of your mind in the supposedly safe harbor of orthodox security (i.e., traditional beliefs)… you’ll stay shallow and never go deep.
The wise mind goes beyond constant symbolic thinking; it does not necessarily always need to be recognizing things as it was taught.
The watery pool of the astute, reflective mind must be still to mirror the absolute truth. A mere agitated mind, merely full of turbulence and turmoil, reflects nothing.
To a truly wise mind, many supposedly tantalizing sensations are rather trivial and somewhat meaningless… because a truly wise mind is content in itself, not needing extraneous stimuli to (eventually) make it happy.
Movements can claim to be solid entities. Mere reactions can claim to have freedom. Few truly evolve.
Nature’s Bounty … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Well
Well, it’s a good thing
that matter solidifies as it does
and a miraculous thing that water flows at it does
and a wonderful thing that
the earth is just the right distance from the sun
and a crappy thing that
mankind pollutes the
skies and the oceans
Sweat Bee Study … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
They Better Not Try To Fool My Heart
They better not try to fool my heart
because they’d be wasting their time
There are plenty of other lost causes out there
whom they can easily fool
They better not try to harden my heart
because they’d be pounding on the wrong chest
There are endless cold cadavers around the globe
who would gladly help with the cruel beating
They better not pave the path to “truth”
because i have seen where their deception leads to
There are plenty of eager path-makers out there
though no path in time ever leads to the timeless
Shadow of a doubt … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Lenses
Plenty of lenses to see
what seeing has to offer
Plenty of directions
to move as life’s parameters
Will wholeness see
or merely the fragments?
Black Horse Fly Eye Study … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Recent Environmental News
(From news clippings from the Sierra Club that we belong to and donate to…)
A school groundskeeper who says his non-Hodgkin lymphoma was caused by Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is awarded $289 million by a San Francisco jury.
Atmospheric CO2 levels are higher than they have been in 800,000 years.
July in Death Valley is the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, with an average Temperature of 108 F. In parts of Japan it was 106 F, a new national record.
Fossil fuel companies have spent nearly $2 billion since the year 2000, lobbying the government not to take action on climate change, outspending climate activists by a factor of 10 to one.
Reductions in air pollution from coal-fired power plants, automobiles, and manufacturing are offset by increased pollution from wildfires.
Russian hackers seek the ability to disrupt the U.S. electrical grid.
Two-thirds of Republicans believe that humans are causing climate change and that we should do something about it but don’t speak out because they assume their GOP peers are climate skeptics.
As the population of rural Japan shrinks, bears move into towns. Drought causes emus to invade a town in Australia’s outback. Goats run wild in Boise.
French crows are being trained to pick up cigarette butts and other litter.
Pleistocene worms that were frozen in Siberia’s permafrost for 42,000 years are brought back to life.
North Atlantic waters are too warm to cool nuclear power plants in Norway and Finland, leading some to shut down.
Fall Splendor … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Mankind
Mankind must take the kind
in “Mankind” and be a lot kinder
to nature.
Widow Dragonfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Hell
from Kobayashi Issa (c. 1818):
“Never forget:
We walk on hell,
gazing at flowers.”
from Thomas Peace:
One of the problems about hell
is that most who are in it
do not realize that they are in it.
One of the problems of hell
is that a few in it
(realizing they are in it)
are not listened to or
understood by those
in it (not realizing they are in it).
Who in the hell has
all of the right answers?
Nobody!
Ant on Stella Daylily … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
To wake up unaware
To wake up unaware
remaining unaware
is a pseudo-blissful ignorance
which lasts lifetimes
until
it is
far
too late
to bury
the sealed
casket of
hell
Wild Grain Happening … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Looking vs. Seeing
Looking is easy. Anyone can (and anyone does) do just that. They can easily look at separate things…. things at a distance. But seeing is another matter. Seeing — real seeing — involves perception beyond all of that separation that you genetically inherited over eons of time (i.e., generations of experiences) or obtained from storing what was personally learned; it exists beyond what was gathered from accumulated learning. Seeing is not from accumulation; it surpasses and is phenomenally much more than what mere accumulation can offer. Most people look at what they were taught to recognize. Seeing cuts through barriers, surpassing them. Seeing puts the unfeeling, obtuse notion of “me” separate from “everything else” aside. But a lot of people are afraid to feel. They don’t have the courage or the moxie to feel. Real perception melts away the self and allows compassion to flower (beyond a dead consciousness). Real living involves real seeing… real perception.
Looking is easy. People, who merely look, throw bombs. Real perception — instead — is deeply compassionate.
Don’t be just anyone.
Silver-Spotted Skipper with extending proboscis … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
But if all haves
But if all haves
could seldom
see
past twisted crime
maybe some living compassion
could
free some dead slaves
from
time
Stink Bugs Feeding from Petiolar Glands (that emit nectar) from Wild Chamaecrist fasciculata Plant. (It was Linda, ‘shoreacres’, who found out just what these strange sections of the plants were… regarding an earlier article/posting we had on them. Note how the bug is using its proboscis to feed from the gland of the plant. ) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
The Night Sky and the Stars of the Universe on the Butterfly’s Wings…
Between)the great purchase
of life’s parameters,
the price was everything
while the cost was nothing…
and we had plenty of nothing to give,
since it constituted everything,
(such as the space between
protons and electrons)
which seems to begin
to sum up the whole thing.
Just don’t squabble about the price,
since it cost you nothing(while
rattling in pockets
is change
Southern Cloudy Wing Skipper … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
one little here
one little here
looking to there
another little how
moving past now
Bumble Bee hurriedly flying to Wild Purple Loosestrife … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Insights or Non- (Part 8)
It’s no mere coincidence that a narrow-minded brain can only see partially. Look with wide eyes.
Plurality won the referendum over “holistic insight and oneness” (because unity had insufficient votes).
If you were duped by miseducation and are cut off from the whole of life… then you don’t mind being indifferent to (or to be malevolently maltreating) “others.”
Don’t fall for all of the insincere claptrap which propaganda-oriented news and which commercialism provide; be an oasis from society’s calamity.
If you seek the truly unknown via a system or formula, you will have remained in the “known” patterns and methodologies of others.
This isn’t a fly-by-night universe (after all); what each of us does has infinite implications/consequences.
Mushroom Umbrella (with dew) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
On Timelessness
One must put up barriers to keep oneself in time.
Wild Chicory … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Puff Ball Fairy
Puff Ball Fairy,
when you floated past,
ever so gracefully,
ever so enchantingly,
i was, at once, captivated
by your spell.
As you gently floated away,
i, with camera in hand,
wished you would return
so that i could capture
some of your mysterious beauty.
Alas! You granted my wish
and again floated nearby,
alighting on a simple leaf.
Thank you, Puff Ball Fairy,
and may we meet again
someverymagicaltime in sweet eternity.
Puff Ball Fairy … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
The day we kissed
the favor.
The day we kissed everything,
everything kissed us back,
and
since
we are everything,
we
returned
Kissing Mushrooms … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Separation, habitual dominance, and wholeness…
We so habitually separate. We, psychologically, separate the perceiver from “that which is perceived” so readily, so habitually, just as we were taught… and just as primitive conflicting, opposing factors (over eons) have dictated. Time, additionally, is separated. Of course, chronologically, actual physical time (in many, limited respects) has sections, but we, psychologically, almost constantly live in (and “as”) the past, as learned (stored) symbols, words, and concepts (of the past) that we constantly use (and are protrusions of what was poured into us). What is projected internally (psychologically) is what we are (i.e., what we actually are) fundamentally. If we remain in the old and limited, we remain old (internally) and limited. Even our concepts about the future are extensions of past accumulated (old) symbols/patterns. (Even when we think that we often live in the present, we — in actuality — do not.)
One can’t choose to perceive correctly… any more than one can choose to be wise or choose to be a genius. Choice and will are not keys to vast understanding. Understanding takes place when limited perception and fragmentation are not dominating factors. Will and choice are crude extensions of limited fragmentation; the chooser separating himself (or herself) from the choice is a mere continuity of primitive, illusory, fragmentary opposites. When fragmentation and limited perception no longer dominate, then there is a wholeness that is not the result of a mold or a mere blueprint.
Wildflower Flower Pods … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018 .JPG
This
This if
to never
and never
to twice
when found
came then
and no
cried yes
In new
was always
and discover
climbed find
while was
wasn’t truth
and poetry
became mind
Swallowtail Caterpillar … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Sacrosanct
An indelible, sacred energy
that rarely visits…
Its immensity surpasses all
things within the world of the
opposites.
Though ineffable, it is the real flame beyond
all of the smoke,
the true light beyond all shadows.
Do not take my word for it.
Find out!
Looper Moth on Clover Flower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Beyond Political Quagmires
It’s a wonderful day
to look beyond the crime of politics
and, instead, perceive things without measure,
while realizing that simple, pure things are
(the only real treasure).
Common Blue … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Responsibility and Love
When there is the negation of what order and love are not, perhaps love will be there. There is no “you” that wills that negation, for the very self itself (i.e., the “I” or the “me”) must be part of that negation… not merely controlling it from (or “as”) a distance. Of course, we are not suggesting harm to the body in any way; such harm would not entail love. Love is not merely measurable (i.e., not merely of measure), so one cannot merely “know” that one has it. Thinking and time are of measure and a mind that is merely caught up in thinking and measurement (in and “as” time) cannot love deeply (though it can easily think that it can). Clinging to an isolated concept of “me” (apart from all of life) requires distance and a measurement of opposites. Psychological distance and measurement create the “I” and the “I” would not exist without such psychological distance and measurement.
A lot of people say “I love you” very easily (as if one knows that one “has” it… as if it entails an absolute separate subject and object). Is there really an “I” that is separate from what the whole world is? Is there really an isolated “you” — that is looking from a (learned) distance, an accumulated psychological space — that is separate from what the whole world is? Psychological separation, isolation, and conflict depend upon limited thought/thinking, and without limited thought/thinking, such separation wouldn’t exist.
Our minds are often so very distorted and not whole. The grocery stores, these days, are chock-full of fragmented, over-processed, pseudo-foods. And, in the United States, for example, there is more obesity and more cancer (and strange, deleterious syndromes popping up) than ever before. Too few of us eat real, whole foods like our grandparents did; we assimilate garbage both mentally and gustatorily, and we don’t mind being normal (and swallowing it all) one bit.
Yellow Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Enlightenment
While it occurs
one feels
a trillion times
more alive than
one has ever felt
before
Afterward
one doesn’t forget
the answer to the question
of whether the
immeasurably sacred
exists
or not
Lichen on Tree Branch … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Pinocchio
Pinocchio
you’ve told so many duplicitous lies
in your disingenuous politician style
it makes me wonder
if your incredible nose
could possibly grow
even longer
Boll Weavil (but at least it’s not voting to destroy the environment) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Halloween Dream Time (Part 2)
The skull of my face
is back again
to pull you in
as such a friend
The face of my skull
with all its might
will wrap you up
and squeeze you tight
Tiger Spider Argiope trifasciata (revisiting) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
U.S. Halloween Fright
(NOTE: The following poem is not against voting; it is opposed to voting by people who are easily duped and who turn their backs on the environment.)
This from the witch
of the stir from the brew
whose Halloween terror
came flying for you
She brings you bloody terror
wrinkled skin and loss of hair
and all the rats and spiders cheer
as she circles the air
But all the ugly terror
that she drapes as the night
doesn’t equal the brainwashed zombies
soon to vote with all their might
Halloween Wolf Spider … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Insights or Non- (Part 7)
Don’t be a second-hand, hodgepodge mix of what others (in your life) programmed you to be; perceive directly, without mere conditioning/reaction.
Quixotic, extremely idealistic behavior is often based on dead, old patterns; look at life afresh, without dead blueprints.
Don’t merely pigeonhole others with an old, categorizing-oriented brain; perceive with fresh and lucid eyes.
Many of us take immaculate care of our overly fancy cars while we guzzle sugar, starch, alcohol, and processed foods like there’s no tomorrow.
To habitually take refuge in old-fashioned beliefs may be like finding protection in a rainstorm by depending on an old, torn, metal umbrella.
Roses are red and violets are blue… wake up and realize that what you perceive is you.
Female Monarch Butterfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Another Halloween Visitor
I’m a bit scary
but I’m not nearly as scary
as American politics
Another Halloween Spider … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Meditation
Merely sitting on your can
with eyes closed
with legs crossed
while supposedly “controlling ‘your’ thoughts from a distance”
(in order to get something)
is not it.
Fruit-fly on a small leaf … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Ghosts and Goblins Month…
Spiders weave strings of time
between then and there
Tonight, dangle as dream
Zip up and down
crocheting the fabric of seem
Tonight, enter scream
********************************************************************************************
In reality, Elongate Long-Jawed Orb Weavers are not at all dangerous. People who turn their backs on the environment (and who vote for those that do) are what is extremely dangerous.
Elongate Long-jawed Orb Weaver … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
The Story of Lo Zu and the Atheist … (Another short Lo Zu tale)
The elderly Lo Zu was sitting on a huge fallen log next to a beautiful pond that was not far from the village. A much younger man, who was an atheist, came by and said to him, “Many people in the area say that you are a great wise man, a holy man, but if there is no God, then you are not a holy man, you are nothing.”
Lo Zu invited the man to sit next to him on the large, fallen log, which he did. Then Lo Zu, said (while smiling), “We two can agree on one thing; I am nothing.”
“Then there is no God,” the man pronounced with confidence.
Lo Zu then said, “‘God’, for most everyone, is an image (or series of images) that they have learned. (They will insist that it is something much more than absorbed images.) To these images, they associate power, dominance, kindly (special) protection, fatherliness, and unlimited knowledge. However, these images (and their associative emotions) are self-protrusions of thought/thinking.”
“And so not anything real?” asked the man.
Lo Zu then said, “The sign on the road, just outside of town, that has the name of the town upon it, is not the town. If someone steals the sign, they are not stealing the town. If someone wants to visit the town, they do not crawl up the sign. Additionally, to really be sure that the town is there, one must visit the town.”
“I see what you are getting at,” said the man. “So, you are suggesting that one, such as you, can visit God.”
“Not really,” said Lo Zu. “If one, through supposed will and choice, decides to visit ‘God,’ one is visiting one’s own learned images, one’s own learned thoughts and strong emotions associated with such thoughts. Such a ‘visiting’ is usually a self-deluding form of acquisition that involves greed.”
“So there is no real God,” the man insisted.
“Jumping to conclusions,” Lo Zu suggested, “may be as foolish as worshipping mere self-fabricated symbols, mere signs. A strong belief that there is no God may be as superficial and primitive as a strong belief that there is a God. Holistic perception inquires (without accumulated patterns) into what might be sacred; it inquires with a passion that surpasses beliefs of any kind (and actually finds out).”
“So what are you saying?” the visitor queried.
Lo Zu replied, “I am saying that I will not encourage you to worship or to cling to any symbols of power, any symbols of divinity. Worshiping self-created or learned images, that one projects (from what one absorbed from others), is similar to worshipping parts of oneself. It may be that the true answer has to come to you. (It cannot merely be visited, like an ordinary town.) The true answer is probably rather unapproachable, but that may be a real key; conclusions, accumulated images, and greed cannot expose it. It is beyond foolish grasping. The internal images of self are nothing when foolishness ceases. When all of the windows are open and the room is not filled with garbage… only then can the breeze, perhaps, flow through.”
With that, Lo Zu stood up and began walking with his meandering cane and said, “We must go; we see someone carrying a heavy burden and we will help them with it, to a certain point. You can come along also… unless you prefer to remain stuck where you are.”
Bumblebee covered with Golden Pollen … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Fungal Egg Nests
fungal eggs aplenty
ready to bounce into sweet life
far from all of the utter madness
*************************************************************************************************************
Per Michael Kuo (0nline):
These odd and fascinating little fungi look for all the world like tiny birds’ nests. The fruiting bodies form little cuplike nests which contain spore-filled eggs. The nests are called “peridia” (“peridium” in the singular), and serve as splash cups; when raindrops strike the nest, the eggs (called “peridioles”) are projected into the air, where they latch onto twigs, branches, leaves, and so on. What exactly happens next is not completely clear, but eventually the spores are dispersed from the egg. They then germinate and create mycelia, which eventually hook up with other mycelia and produce more fruiting bodies.
Bird-nest Cup Fungi (each one was around 5mm in diameter)… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 