Praying Mantis

All Posts Tagged ‘Praying Mantis’

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Halloween Praying Mantis

October 28, 2019

She prayed,
and when she prayed,
the whole world prayed with her.

Her eyes, those large bulbous eyes,
saw everything worth praying for,
and everything needed preying.

She preyed on butterflies, bees, moths,
and on a number of other things. It was what she preyed
that mattered, and it was the way she preyed.

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[Note: This is a very unusual (very rare) Praying Mantis for our north-central Illinois area. It is probably a Carolina Mantis. These are southern mantids but, due to global warming, are moving more north. This one has wonderful chameleonic abilities. Note how it amazingly blends in with the different color tones of the park bench. It is a female and seems to be loaded with fertile eggs. It may not have mated with a male at any time whatsoever. Female mantises can lay many completely fertile eggs without a male. When this happens, the offspring are perfect clones of the mother.]

**Chameleonic Praying Mantis. … Photo by Thomas Peace c.2019**

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On the Precocious Mantis and the Ominous, Hideous Creature…

July 30, 2019

30 comments

Walking just walking along
gingerly and slowly swaying
waltzing alien-like from leaf to leaf

Stalking just stalking along
stick-like & Oh so lean
happily wondering whom next i can eat

Suddenly out of nowhere
a huge ominous creature appears
thrusting a blackish lens-thing right up to me

In a flash, I quickly leap away
and am so very glad
that the huge hideous creature didn’t eat me

[Note: This photo was taken about a month ago. This was the first Praying Mantis that i’ve seen this summer; it was young, just around 3cm long. And, yes — with blackish lens-thing macro camera in hand — i am the ominous, hideous creature. (You must admit, we ominous, hideous creatures are pretty huge.)]

Young Praying Mantis (praying that I don’t eat him) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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September 19, 2018

36 comments

As if he crawled
  out from M.C.Escher’s Dream Woodcut
  he watches the camera
  and the camera manipulator
  waiting for
  the aloneness
  that he cherishes and lives by
  beyond mere supplication

Praying Mantis Hanging Around… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Bipedal

November 3, 2017

13 comments

[Note: The following poem is not about the Praying Mantis; it is about the species who manufactured the metal rail that the Mantis is walking across.]

Bipedal

Hairy

Tends to dominate other species

Some act with great order and understanding while many are indifferent and uncaring

Often fights other imaginary sub-groups of its own kind

Takes far more — in terms of the domain of other species — than its fair share

Overpopulates its own kind over the entire planet

Covers life-areas with dead concrete

Feels intelligent and superior (while it — all along — ruins the planet)

Most do not realize that they are not separate from the world as a whole

Some are very caring, considerate, and compassionate

Mentally feeds on symbols and images rather than reality

Often uses others for profit

Often blindly follows/obeys power-hungry tyrants in high positions

Some fire projectiles from held devices to put holes in other species or in others of their own kind… rendering them lifeless

Some warmheartedly stay local, recycle, use alternative energy, and actually help nature and others of their own kind

Others hypocritically claim to love nature while they often needlessly fly for long distances in aircraft that spew out deadly fossil fuels in vast quantities

Most foolishly think that their species is separate from other species

Some refrain from harming multitudinous species who highly value their own existence

Some have real empathy while others are mere thinking/reacting machines

Most abandoned life in the trees and woodlands to become the obedient working slaves of others

Only an extremely small number have been visited by that sacred, eternal energy that is beyond the realm of standard causality and rigid boundaries

Many believe in a dominating super-organism who — up above — happens to be a tail-free ape like themselves

Most subscribe to the very primitive notion that the observer is separate from the observed

A small few exist beyond the shared madness

Shadow of Mantis in the World of Man (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Shadow of Mantis in the World of Man (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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The Profound Mind…

August 6, 2017

27 comments

It is essential to be attentive throughout life. If one is a mind that endlessly chatters (internally) about trivial things, with a lot of “noise” going on, which one is only half-aware about, then the mind becomes more and more cloudy, more and more dull. If reactions are going on, internally, it is prudent to be aware of them, not to have them occur while one does not perceive their occurrence or implications. Most of us are addicted to being in a realm of reactions; we crave more and more reactions to cling onto (and to exist as). Without merely resisting reactions, be attentive to them; perceive how the mind habitually depends on them (and exists as them). Merely resisting having reactions is another (additional) reaction. Without merely resisting, but just by simply observing without separative friction, the mind can be extremely attentive and alert. That attentiveness, that great alertness and listening may, at times, allow the mind to exist without merely depending on reactions.

So, many are — and exist “as”– mere reactions. Reactions are always secondary, mechanical, reactionary, residual; merely being “them” may not be real living whatsoever. There can be a stability that is beyond the mere limits and fragmentary attributes that mere reaction entails. That stability can be deep and profound. That profundity will perceive beyond all of the superficial illusions, all the fallacies, all the nonsense, all the petty escapes. It will be compassionate, caring, sensitive beyond measure, and will perceive far beyond the ordinary. A rather ordinary mind who meets such a mind, who meets a person with such a profound mind, will likely merely see “someone” who just seems to be another regular person. However, that profound mind is far from regular. It will have seen so much more than what most have seen or will ever see. It will have done so by not traveling an inch (to get something).

[Note: The top photograph is of a young Praying Mantis on a Lily Flower. The photograph below it is of a young Praying Mantis fossilized in 20 million-year-old Dominican Amber.]