Three beautiful blue wishes,
circumscribed by a rigid limitation.
Soon they will emerge beyond
weakness and constraint
and will fly free enchantingly.
Do you think that you are beyond your
enclosing limitation?
Most are circumscribed by more
rigidity than these three ever were.
Most will never break free
but
because of blind beliefs
darkly will remain
bound in rigidity forever.
Three Beautiful Eggs from Mother Robin … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Note… Our internet is out due to a violent storm. Hence, I will not be able to correspond, etc. (My postings have been prescheduled so will continue to appear.) Using a little cellphone to type this, which stinks! Hopefully, we’ll get it fixed in a week or two. Lightning hit our large old-fashioned, rural tower antenna; the sound was unbelievable! Our neighbor’s television, garage door opening system, and phone fried; she smelled sulfur after the hit. Our internet and phone fried.
Most of us do not question enough. We accept, we conform, we remain stale, and we pretty much fit into the norm of the way things are. There are many who think that they are not of the mentality of the masses; however, essentially, fundamentally, despite what they think, they still are. There is a real art to questioning intelligently. In wise questioning, the answers exist curled; they are there. Can a highly shackled mind, a cuckoo mind, a mind that is heavily conditioned by society, ask extremely profound questions? Probably not. When the mind is tethered to a limited point, it has a limited circumference; its field is partial and restricted and it remains within (and exists “as”) limited bounds. A truly dynamic mind, however, perceives with more unlimited vastness; it is open rather than closed; it is free rather than enslaved.
Indifference, uncaringness, is a form of prison. A mind of indifference hasn’t questioned enough, hasn’t looked beyond restricted, little boundaries and domains. Such a mind is satisfied with merely feeding and caring for the little. Its space of confinement and separation — which is itself — is its very own prison; such a prison doesn’t require cold steel bars; it does require a coldness of a different variety. Intelligent questioning often consists of a warm benevolence that encompasses all, without learned boundaries, without power manipulation, without an isolated center.
The Outdoor Cuckoo Clock (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017
The Outdoor Cuckoo Clock (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017
Note: Our internet crashed due to a violent storm. I cannot correspond with any of you until it is fixed, hopefully in a week or two. My postings have been prescheduled, so they will continue. It’s storming as this additional note is being typed on a tiny cellphone.
Note: The following reflects my personal outlook regarding the best types of poetry; if the poetry that you write or that you happen to be fond of is not of the type that i most admire, it does not mean that it is not valid poetry for you; (it does not mean that it is not interesting to me ; one finds many types of poetry interesting). Everyone has different tastes. Please do not be offended if the following poem does not reflect your viewpoints on poetry.
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If it takes your breath away
and helps you see the world with less fragmentation,
then that’s poetry
If it encourages you to take better care
of Mother Nature and of yourself(who is part of her),
then that’s poetry
If it goes beyond mediocrity,sameness,and bourgeois values…
causing you to not merely see through others’ eyes,
then that’s poetry
If it takes away the crass separation between
the observer and the observed,
then that’s poetry
If it merely enthusiastically entertains you
without a profoundly deeper meaning,
then that’s not poetry
If it merely helps you to fit in
with the copiers,the mimics,and the perpetually indifferent,
then that’s not poetry
If it fixates you with more mere details to maintain a blindspot
regarding truth for the rest of your so-called life,
then that’s not poetry
If it helps you to see
beyond the ordinary,
then that’s poetry
If it peels away your stiff,robotic dependence
on the patterns and symbols of others,
then that’s poetry
If it comes to you uninvited,silently in the middle of the night
bringing immense insight,true bliss,and vast understanding,
then that’s poetry
If it helps you to actually feel
rather than to merely mechanically react and think,
then that’s poetry
House Hunting (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017
House Hunting (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017
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When we are young, we are like fledglings, depending on the those who are more mature to help us to do well and survive. However, at some point, we (if we are to really soar in life) have to leave the nest. As human beings, many of us never actually leave the nest; we continue to depend. We cling to the ideologies, patterns, religions, politics, traditions, and habits imprinted upon us by others; and so we never really independently soar. Most of us “feel safe,” nested in their ways and traditions. For human beings, however, true enlightenment is never merely within the circumscribed confines of a limited, little nest (or prepared space). Most of us are afraid to take the plunge, to let go of all the habits and traditions that we have been nesting in. Most merely cling to symbols, words, representations, ideologies, and learned concepts of (and including) a central “I”… and never ascend from being supposedly “safely nested” in those limited conceptions. That is why most never soar, and it is as simple as that.
.
Hatched and Hatching. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015
Unhatched. Photo by Thomas Peace c.2015
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Many are prejudiced against animals… and look at them as inferior.
.
[A pair of Mourning Doves; the male is on the left. Pairs tend to mate for life. The male and the female work together to feed their new babies. (We live along some woods where you can hear hunters shooting these often. How any human being can shoot these (with a gun instead of a camera) is beyond my comprehension. I, just yesterday, heard on the radio about how Passenger Pigeons went extinct due to over-hunting.)]
Exploring together! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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The subject thought that it was separate from the object. At least that is what it was taught. But without all the objects, what would the subject be?
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[Young Long-tailed Jaegar in a Pine Tree.]
Resting by the lake… Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
