All Posts Tagged ‘nature’

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Regarding the Nature of Fear

April 26, 2019
13 comments

 

 

In order to have psychological fear, psychological time is a fundamental necessity.  (Thinking and psychological time are not two separate things.) Without some protrusion of thought about some distant event in the future, there would be no psychological fear.  That distance (that the mind fabricates about the future) necessarily involves space (and sequential duration)… which are projected by (and “as”) the mind.  “In the future, something terrible might happen.”  “In the future, I might not have enough friends.”  There may be innumerable fears, such as the two aforementioned ones, that can plague a human’s mind.  Then one may say that one would like to get rid of the many fears that one has.  Somewhat ironically, the very desire to get rid of these fears is (in a real way) an extension of fear; it (itself) is, in a big way, an extension of (or precursor to) more fear.

Who is dealing (internally) with the fears?  If one is looking at the fears with a feeling of control or manipulation, then one is assuming that the fears exist at some distance (to somehow “manipulate”).  However, (psychologically, whether we like it or not) the manipulator is not separate from the manipulated; the two are both part of the thought/thinking process… and (in a big way) are not two separate things.  Trying to “get rid” of the fear causes the mind to fabricate the controller, the “I” or the “me” who is allegedly separate from the fear. 

Many types of sequential thinking (i.e., many forms of sequential thinking) — in most people — trigger thoughts that project (often needless) fear about what may happen in the future (along with thoughts of an “I” or a “me” that will be dealing with things).   (Sequential thinking that reflects order is very good; sequential thinking — especially the muddled, psychological kind learned from miseducation — that reflects disorder is bad.)  A keen perception that observes this whole process (and that goes beyond fabricating a separate “me” apart from the fear) has gone beyond friction and then has tremendous energy, wholeness, and insight.  Insight is timeless energy; most people, unfortunately, waste energy.   Timeless energy is beyond the chaos that manifests as mere psychological time.  (In true silence there is great energy/insight; however, there is no “I” or “me” who can take one to that silence through the process of sequential time.) 

 

 

Drops from Above … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Magic and Earth Day

April 22, 2019
24 comments

 

Today is Earth Day and i will undoubtedly shed a few tears today.  (Today, with the following, I’m telling you like it is, and not merely singing about daisies and butterflies.)  The ability to have very accurate premonitions runs in our family; my mother had it and i seem to have a strong dose of it too.  When i was in high school (in around 1966) i had a premonition that humans would quickly ruin the earth with excessive manmade pollutants. Yesterday, the very intelligent Fareed Zakaria had the famous environmentalist Bill McKibben on, as part of his show.  Bill, 30 years ago, wrote a book — the first book about global warming — warning about the threats of manmade pollution; since then, he says that little has been done to change things for the better.  Arctic ice is 50% gone and the oceans are 30% more acidic.   We all need to change and do more to change things.  Additionally, it is far more prudent/globally-compassionate to stay local and not go long distances for vacations and entertainment.

 

(Down below is a link to the conversation between Fareed and Bill.)

 

If i had a magic wand
that would
when waved
make people
care
understand
look without separation
clean up the environment (that they are)
and look without a false center…
i’d use it

No such
magic wand
from any mystical magic shop
exists
but that doesn’t mean
that real magic can’t happen

Real magic can happen
Profound mysteries of life assure you
real magic can happen

 

 

Ants Caring for the Aphids that they herd and that they milk like cows … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/04/21/exp-gps-0421-mckibben-full.cnn

 

 

 

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The Turbulent Mind

April 19, 2019
29 comments

 

 

People who are not serious will not care about this.  The turbulent mind, the mind that is constantly reacting, constantly chattering (internally), constantly being agitated, is much different than a placid mind of true quietude.  A quiet mind is analogous to a small boat in the middle of a pond, with little haphazard movement, with its oars still and not disturbing the water.  Then, in such stillness, the surface of the water may be mirror-like, accurately reflecting everything.  Contrastingly, the constantly chattering mind, the agitated mind, is like a small boat — in the middle of a pond — that is endlessly rocking, rowing circuitously, and splashing.  Then, in such unending agitation, very little of the water’s surface reflects accurately; then there is a great deal of distortion; this is when a lot of twisting takes place; this is when a great deal of misrepresentation and misinterpretation can take place.  

I will not offer you (like so many of the charlatans do) concrete methods and techniques — meditative or otherwise — to make the mind still and quiet.  Any such concrete techniques (that you can practice) will only make your mind more mesmerized, more robotic and dull.   For many, the “I” or “me” can allegedly “make” the mind quiet.  However, the “I” and the “me” are protrusions of thought/thinking; any such “quietness” that they supposedly conjure up is inevitably an extension of a false and deceptive process.  One conditioned reaction cannot make other conditioned reactions quiet, at least not in any legitimate sense; one form of agitation cannot cause similar forms of agitation to be quiet by using “control” as a means to an end.  Only natural, simple, unpremeditated observing of what is going on (without dependence on antiquated patterns and suppositions) may — perhaps — allow an effortless, non-concocted quietness (beyond gross separation) to take place.  Deep intelligence perceives the whole.  Thought/thinking is primarily choppy, primarily fragmentary. 

 

 

 

First Butterfly — a Red Admiral — of the season; they were eating sap dripping down the Birch bark. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

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One Multiple Now

April 15, 2019
25 comments

 

 

One multiple now at the opening of all why
blossomed out because
beyond reasons

Echoing spritely
time and time again
outside when’s known seasons

 

 

 

Mushroom Time … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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A this and that must wear its hat

April 8, 2019
22 comments

 

 

A this and that must wear its hat
while hoping for balmy weather
The meaning of life is to give life meaning
 us on this ship together

This hole of fate in a piece of cake
in a jumble of rhyme and reason
A warm cup of Joe for Larry and Moe
while Curley’s out of doors just freezin’

A sitting duck amongst the muck
as the hunter takes keenly careful aim
It’s like shooting fish in a barrel for him
he’s happy as a clam but it’s himself he’ll maim

We all run the tough gauntlet in this crazy rat race world
many down in the dumps without a clue
The smoke and mirrors gunshots and tears
must do an about turn and fathom out what is true

 

 

Upcloseandpersonal … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Opaque Perception Personified

April 5, 2019
10 comments

 

 

One might say that the Iris flower in the accompanying photo is very beautiful.  However, real (profound) beauty surpasses what is superficially evident.  Profound beauty goes far beyond mere recognition and superficiality.  Hitler, for instance,  loved flowers; he often gave them to others as gifts.  Most of us see, but don’t see.  Most of us are neither dead nor alive.  It is very ironic, actually.  We take for granted that we can see… perceive.  We look with separation — between a so-called “center” and “what is seen.”  Is seeing partially, seeing fragmentarily, seeing with tainted (i.e., corrupt) eyes… really seeing at all?  Most of us accept the authority of others and we look at things in the ways that authority has dictated.  We have wholeheartedly accepted a life of imitation, slavishness, being tied to systems, jobs, and routines that are making us more and more robotic, more and more mundane; and we automatons don’t see anything wrong with it.  We perceive what we were programmed to perceive; we accept what we were programmed to accept; we fear what we were programmed to fear; we loathe what we were programmed to loathe.  We dupe ourselves into thinking that we are somehow out of the box when, all along, we are firmly inside the box.  We are the box.  We fit into the pattern — that they fabricated — quite nicely, and then we die.  That is how most of us (supposedly) live.

That can change if one is serious enough.  The integrity and health of the world depend on such seriousness and profundity.   Oneself and the world are not two separate things.

 

 

Flowering out of the box… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Please don’t be an April Fool all year long…

April 1, 2019
14 comments

 

 

Frivolity, caught in the little
details of the competitive games
and traditions,
never was 
the serious pondering about the whole.
That’s why it remained
as frivolity.
Frivolity can wear awesome shoes.
Frivolity can wear a first-rate hat.
Frivolity can appear to be intelligent,
in frivolous ways.

 

 

Mushroom Gills … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Miseducation

March 29, 2019
16 comments

 

 

It is so easy to psychologically get into a muddle with things and (still) think that one is doing well.  We get situated in a psychological morass without suspecting that that is the situation.  We continue to feel that we are performing sufficiently.  Self-deception is so very easy, so very possible (with dire consequences), yet few of us look deeply into it and investigate whether it is affecting us.  In my blog, for instance, sometimes existing beyond the “self” or existing beyond the supposedly central “I” is sometimes discussed.  Many people tend to shun such talk; it makes them feel less comfortable, less psychologically secure, less self-asserting.  Ironically, however, it may be metaphorically like remaining in bed all day (under the sheets) to keep oneself “safe” and “unharmed.”  However, all the while in such a situation, one is not getting the exercise and joy in life that is there (and the body ends up perishing sooner with many problematic issues).

It is so easy to be duped in life… so easy to be misled.  Miseducation has a lot to do with it, and miseducation is rampant in most societies.  Learning to be a nurse or a carpenter is one thing (which is good), but many — if not most — of us are brought up and miseducated in ways to bind us to psychological mayhem.   One thinks that one is separate from the fears that occur, for example; then one tries to control the fears from an (internal) distance.  That very distance reinforces the concept of “I” that thinks that it is separate from the fears.  Many fears are protrusions of thought/thinking about what the future might be; the concept of “I” (or “me”) is also a protrusion of thought/thinking.  One protrusion thinks that it must control another protrusion; one conditioned reaction projects that it must control another reaction.  However, there is a fundamental absurdity with this.   

Fear dissipates (fundamentally) not by pseudo-manipulation by a false process but by deep understanding and penetrating insight.  The utter chaos, friction, indifference, and violence of our current society is a projection and reflection of the inner disorder within each one of us.  Hate is not something that one merely has; it is what one actually is.  When hate is a reaction (in one)… one is the hate… one is not merely something that has hate.  Hate involves separation, friction, and distance… much like the separation, friction, and distance between the “I” (or swollen ego) that thinks that it is different (or apart) from the fears that take place.  

Many of us can transcend the muddle that we are in — that we exist as — and that takes understanding and insight… not mere internally deceptive effort.  Don’t be bamboozled by false processes that were absorbed in (and “as”) the past.

 

 

Blossoming beyond friction… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee

March 25, 2019
36 comments

 

 

Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee
walked through some woods, but one had to pee.
Said Tweedle-dum to Tweedle-dee,
“I need to pee, but so you 
can’t see.”
“But I don’t want to go blind,”
said Tweedle-dee.
So Tweedle-dum did
not pee,
and remained good friends
with Tweedle-dee.

So the next time you are
walking deep in the observative woods,
hold it all in
as Tweddle-dum knows you should.

 

 

Spotted Green Tiger Beetle crossing the Urinary River … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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War and Barbaric Friction

March 22, 2019
15 comments

 

 

Wars, for humankind, have been going on for eons.  War is where and when we often spill each other’s blood over systems and ideas.  Apparently, in war, systems, ideas, (and control) often become much more important than any universal brotherhood, any universal oneness.   

Countries of the world are divisive and most are based on (and extensions of) an antiquated feudal system; “you pay us money (i.e., taxes) and we’ll protect you from ‘others’; we’ll be your ‘leaders’ with power and authority.”  

It is so easy to be lead by ignorant men who, themselves, have little or no deep understanding about order and the wholeness and fullness of life.  It is so easy for sloppy disorder and hatred to trump order and compassion and then be “followed” by others.  We aren’t solving the fundamental problems concerning human against human friction, overpopulation, and environmental degradation but, rather, are chaperoned to dwell in relatively superficial realms that deal with barbaric, mundane things.  We were miseducated to stay quiet and to keep quiet and to “fit in” and keep our mouths closed.   Most of us merely blindly conform and see nothing wrong with it.  It is easy for dullness to accept dullness.  It is easy for mediocrity to accept mediocrity.

 

 

Crab Spider with Butterfly Prey … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Texting While Driving

March 18, 2019
32 comments

(Not long ago, while driving home, one observed people texting — with their heads facing down — while driving; (this was observed, that day, in two separate automobiles).  It is observed happening, while on road, all too frequently.  What is fundamentally wrong with people these days?

 

 

I perceive a so-called human being
driving from the opposite direction
with an
indifferent, addicted head 
facing down;
blundering stupidity and callousness
thinks that it can multitask while driving.
There are families
with precious children
on the road that that immense stupidity is gambling on.
What messages are so important (so profound) 
that they warrant perilling multiple lives?
Thanks for putting 
us all in 
dire
risk!

 

 

Wasp coming head-on… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Questioning

March 14, 2019
16 comments

 

 

We all need to question more.  Many of us, as we get older, lose the joy of deep questioning and become dull and stagnant.  Many of us, as we age, begin to merely accept what others have poured into us.  Then we look with secondhand eyes (which is really not any kind of real looking).  Boredom and mediocrity, then, set in.

If a philosophical question is merely a spring-board to get a result (i.e., a quick answer), then it is giving more emphasis to the end rather than the beauty of the means.  Real questions have a life of their own; they are not merely a shallow means to an end.  The indoctrinated, the blind, do not question deeply enough.  They have embraced superficial answers and have become hardened by inflexible, statue-like, rigid traditions and old, stale viewpoints.  Then they become rather apathetic, indifferent, and subservient.  Of course, they’ll come up with a million reasons to “justify” such behavior.  Blind conditioning works in ironclad (though malignant) ways.

If questioning is merely limited by the language (or languages) that one happens to use, and limited by traditions, then such questioning is very circumscribed and tainted.  Deep questioning goes beyond the cage-like barriers that language impales, beyond the confines of tradition.  Profound questioning — being true intelligence — is often accompanied by deep empathy.  What is pure and unsullied often naturally radiates compassion.

 

 

 

Crab Spider in Wildflower Foliage … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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I am a kid!

March 11, 2019
44 comments

 

 

I am a kid
trapped in an old man’s body
i fly kites
i perpetually chase insects and frogs
i still often gaze in wonder through a magnifying glass
i still think that grown-ups are yucky
i love watching toads in the woods
i keep fish and shrimp as pets and stare at them for hours
i hunt fossils and love everything about dinosaurs and prehistoric life
i unendingly question
and i still learn best away from
boring school

 

 

Mr. Toadster … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Conditioned Responses and You

March 8, 2019
28 comments

 

 

To be one series of conditioned responses after another, each and every day — and please excuse me for saying so — is a rather lackadaisical way to be.  It merely entails letting what was poured into you (over time, by society) internally flutter around to emerge out again (externally) slightly modified, slightly altered (but essentially being the same-old-thing).  It is the way most people are, and it is the way the bureaucrats want you to remain.   They want you to emit what was injected into you.  The powers-that-be don’t want any Walt Whitmans, John Lennons, or Rosa Parks questioning things.  No way!  The powers-that-be want to everyone to robotically conform and nicely fit into their prearranged patterns.  Period.  They want everyone to remain being the cogs in the nice prearranged machine.   The powers-that-be are themselves part of that humongous machine and they will use domination, force, and will blindly do anything to preserve it.  Reacting, day in and day out, only like you were programmed (or miseducated) to react… is a very mechanistic/machine-like way of being.  Most people do not question enough.  Most people do not perceive enough.

Real freedom exists beyond mere conditioned responses.  To dwell in (and “as”) real freedom may be an arduous task that may not (at all) be possible for the halfhearted.  Real freedom may involve getting laughed at, ridiculed, hated, spit on, and ostracized.  Real freedom may involve going beyond a fallacious essence that was given to you to exist as.  Real freedom is a precious jewel that no money can buy, that no amount of bartering can acquire. 

 

 

 

Spider Web Sugar Candy … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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The Cadence of Song

March 4, 2019
24 comments

 

 

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

 

 

 

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My Visit with T.S.Eliot

March 1, 2019
21 comments

 

 

 

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

 

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Exams

February 25, 2019
29 comments

 

 

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

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Free Will

February 22, 2019
28 comments

 

 

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

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Snowingly

February 18, 2019
35 comments

 

 

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

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Enlightenment

February 15, 2019
42 comments

 

 

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

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Another New Year that really isn’t New… (and further note about my wife Marla’s surgery)….

January 2, 2019
15 comments

 

 

[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

 

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What is a New Year? (and note about my wife Marla’s surgery…)

December 30, 2018
14 comments

 

[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

 

 

 

 

 

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When everything without feeling happened (… and further note about my wife Marla’s surgery…)

December 29, 2018
27 comments

 

[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

Post

Do you feel small? (poem)… and note about Marla…

December 26, 2018
25 comments

 

 

[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

Post

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

December 25, 2018
10 comments

 

 

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

 

 

Post

The Story of Lo Zu and the Mountains (Another short Lo Zu tale)…

December 23, 2018
12 comments

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

Post

A little Snowball Wish (to you)…

December 22, 2018
9 comments

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

Post

Hoping You Have a Great Holiday Season!

December 21, 2018
41 comments

 

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

Post

Highwire acts are a breeze

December 19, 2018
11 comments

 

 

 

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

Post

A mind came upon a wall

December 16, 2018
23 comments

 

 

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

 

Post

I’m A Texas Longhorn

December 15, 2018
20 comments

 

 

 

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

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Explanations Smell Like Hell

December 14, 2018
15 comments

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Post

Nature Lionizes Trees

December 12, 2018
19 comments

 

 

Nature lionizes trees
and roars:
“Mankind!  Stop
abusing life!”

 

 

 

Nature Personified … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Post

Insights or Non- (Part 9)

December 9, 2018
19 comments

 

 

 

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

 

 

Post

Well

December 8, 2018
40 comments

 

 

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

Post

They Better Not Try To Fool My Heart

December 7, 2018
30 comments

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

Post

Lenses

December 5, 2018
40 comments

 

 

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

 

 

 

Post

Recent Environmental News

December 2, 2018
55 comments

 

(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

 

 

 

Post

Mankind

December 1, 2018
28 comments

 

 

Mankind must take the kind
in “Mankind” and be a lot kinder
to nature.

 

 

Widow Dragonfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Hell

November 30, 2018
21 comments

 

 

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

Post

To wake up unaware

November 28, 2018
17 comments

 

 

        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

Post

Looking vs. Seeing

November 25, 2018
30 comments

 

 

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

Post

But if all haves

November 24, 2018
18 comments

 

 

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  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post

The Night Sky and the Stars of the Universe on the Butterfly’s Wings…

November 23, 2018
27 comments

 

 

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

Post

one little here

November 21, 2018
21 comments

 

 

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

Post

Insights or Non- (Part 8)

November 18, 2018
17 comments

 

 

 

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

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On Timelessness

November 17, 2018
30 comments

 

 

One must put up barriers to keep oneself in time.

 

 

Wild Chicory … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Post

Puff Ball Fairy

November 16, 2018
40 comments

 

 

 

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

Post

The day we kissed

November 14, 2018
35 comments

 

 

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

Post

Separation, habitual dominance, and wholeness…

November 11, 2018
6 comments

 

 

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