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One need not wince at one’s fears and endlessly run away from them if one intelligently realizes that one is not at all separate from what they are.
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[A couple of Fruit Flies and a hiding Lady Bug. Though the Lady Bug is carnivorous, the Fruit Flies need not worry; they are too large. The Lady Bug goes after even smaller insects, such as Aphids.]
A good day to explore. Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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The learner is the learned; the controller is the controlled; the reader is the read.
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[A Red-winged Blackbird informing me that I’m in “his” territory. I promptly departed.]
This vast spot is not big enough for the both of us! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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True insight is instantaneous (and timeless)… no time (or practice) is involved for it to finally come about.
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[From earlier this year… these are the Stamen of a red Lily Flower. The Anther is the top part of the Stamen and contains the Pollen, the male reproductive cells. The Filament is lower down and holds the Anther.]
Pollen machines. Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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Please don’t neglect the bountiful beauty of nature… which includes your own natural body and taking good care of it (and mother earth).
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[Polyporus squamosus , called Dryad’s Saddle or Pheasant’s Back Mushroom, is a mushroom that is low growing and has very scaly caps. This mushroom cluster is commonly attached to dead logs or stumps at one point with a thick stem. This mushroom is in a log crevice as the logs floats in a local river. It causes a white rot in the heartwood of living and dead hardwood trees. The name “Dryad’s saddle” refers to legendary creatures in Greek Mythology called Dryads who could conceivably fit and ride on this mushroom, whereas the pheasant’s back analogy derives from the pattern of colors on the bracket matching that of a Pheasant’s back.]
Polyporus squamosus Mushroom cluster. Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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Being naturally/effortlessly silent – at times, throughout the day – is majestic and joyously deep, beyond words.
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Searching together. Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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The ending of sorrow is the beginning of true and intelligent wisdom.
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[These are wildflower Chinese Lantern plants. They were found growing in a prairie near a local pond.]
Small but beautiful! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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Direct perception is timeless; it’s instantaneous. Greed, hatred, envy, and comparison all take time.
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[This is a Potter Wasp, some Hover Flies, a small wild Fly, and a Soldier Beetle. Potter Wasps make nests of mud that are pot-like. (They were all circling around the flower cluster, but the Soldier Beetle didn’t get the direction right!)]
Time for nectar energy! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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Instead of amplifying another’s faults (and pointing them out)… tell them what it is they are doing orderly and well that is what you admire about them.
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***This is especially important regarding the way parents interact with their children. Far too many parents say things like: “Joe, you didn’t clean your room; stop being such a slob and clean your room.” Well, in psychology, there is a thing called “The Labeling Theory”; that principle maintains that people (especially “youth”) may incorporate the labels placed on them and (subsequently) use those labels as “self images.” So, if parents tend to call their child a “slob” enough times… there is a good chance that such labeling may contribute to the child becoming more lazy and indifferent… due to an internal mechanism of being (and fulfilling) what was implanted as a self-image. Please… refrain from the negative labels… and whenever they do the smallest good, tell them how caring, helpful, and considerate they are!***
[A green Katydid of the genus Scudderia, moving through the labyrinth of life, helpfully carrying pollen along the way.]
You tread well among the lilies! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
. Each flutter of the butterfly’s wings is a true tribute to caterpillarism! Metamorphize too!
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Beyond mediocre! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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. Wow! Scientist’s have succeeded in creating a macro-photo of the system and intricate network of neurons composing the human brain (and the images that individual neurons contain)!
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Macro-photo of the Human Neural Network. And, as Elmer Fudd says:
“Finawee, here’s scientific pruuf dat humans are wey smarter den doze krazy wabbits and all doze udder animals!” Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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. Unfurling elephant, abstract seahorse, or expanding image that is not truly separate from what the present observer’s fern-like consciousness greenly consists of?
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What U C is What U R! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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. They are not just your thoughts and feelings; they are of all humanity and life!
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Exploration beyond what’s below! (Ant exploring flower) Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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. An ordinary mind will see things as being stale and humdrum; a profound mind will perceive things as being majestic and wonderful!
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There’s fungus among us! … cup fungi … photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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. To observe directly without deluding oneself with false images and beliefs is rare in this world… and is wisdom in action.
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Open wide, far beyond common, limited awareness! … photo by Thomas Peace 2014
Love and be the whole miracle of life… not limited, dead concepts and systems.
Intelligence goes beyond the boundaries of “them” and “us” and dissolves them forever.
It is easy to get lost in the shuffle.
A passionless mind is dead before it ever gets to the grave.
Anything, even a heartless machine, can exist as what it was programmed to exist as.
Separation (from others, for instance) is as a death.
You are responsible for the whole of life, because the whole of life is you.
True beginnings are entwined with (and engaged to) true endings.
The book, which I recently wrote, cannot fail, because even if you do not like it (which is highly unlikely)… it will have succeeded; it can only fail if you think that it is of the “languid orthodox” and that it is cherished by the “numb status quo”… and that cannot ever happen.
Regarding what most of the ungracious masses of separative people have unceasingly clung to: it doesn’t ring true.
Fly like a free Swallowtail… please do not cling to the stagnant flypaper of orthodoxy along with so many others.
Regarding my (i.e.,Thomas Peace’s) book please click on: www.eternalfountainofyouth.com
from Emily Dickinson:
Macro-photography pic taken by Thomas Peace:
I feel that what is important in life… is understanding. For understanding is life, not something divorced from it. If you merely look in a second-hand way — that is, according to accumulations and formulated systems/patterns that were handed down to you — then you likely will be far from being a mind that is truly alive and supple. What is truly alive and supple is not ever the result of rigid, traditional, habitual formulations. If you follow a rigid, fixed path… you might find comfort, but you will not be what directly perceives truth, and you likely will not be what discovers deep mystery. That deep mystery is too alive and unconstrained to be able to be touched by what is second-hand, premeditated, and stale. No dead, fabricated path can lead to (or hold) what is true and what is truly living.
Please read my new book, but please do not cling to it. People who cling to books, to systems, to traditions, to methodologies (in the realm of the psychological and spiritual) are often like flies that get stuck onto stagnant flypaper. They end up being embedded in the conclusions of others, and there they are forever stuck… not ever realizing, for themselves, what true freedom is. So please do not turn my book into something to cling to and to help one become “stuck” (to conclusions about life). Please use my book as a tool for questioning. Question yourself about how others may have indoctrinated you and molded you to become part of what is rigid, second-hand, and obsolete.
Please wisely go beyond my book and beyond me. I, Thomas Peace, am not what is important and I am not what you need to focus on. You are what is important… and you may be so much more than what the supposedly sophisticated intellectuals have told you what you are. Please go beyond what the cultural pundits have shoveled to you. Please share my book with others… not to get them to come to presumptions… not to affix more humdrum ideas into their minds — and, it seems, most all the orthodox ideas are rather “humdrum” — but to invite them to prudently question things for themselves. This questioning may help them to live peacefully and holistically beyond dead conceptualizations, and to fly free (from being secure in the wretched, flat flypaper of stale conclusions). Please learn, for yourself (and not merely from others) about soaring and flying in true freedom. Please do not remain embedded in the old, humdrum patterns that the languid status quo adheres to.
Discover my book at www.eternalfountainofyouth.com
It can also be found by searching for it (via the book’s title) on Amazon.com
In an indirect way, it may be like drinking directly from the Grail cup itself.
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 