Time

The dictionary defines time as: ‘The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues.’

Since Einstein, many scientists have been referring to “spacetime,” wherein space and time are united and not separate.

When we look at time or spacetime in the ordinary way, we — as we were taught — look via the known… via limited measurement and inherited pattern-making. Such time (or spacetime) is circumscribed and very limited. We look via the known and usually see things in a circumscribed, bounded, finite, fixed, and confined way. Such looking is fragmentary, partial, and quite constrained. Very few of us look beyond the known, beyond the second-hand, beyond the restricted templates and limited symbolic arrangements. A beautiful psychological transformation or metamorphosis can enable us to exist beyond such bounded, limited perspectives. However, time is not a factor in getting there; that would be absurd. There is no path to the pathless.

Timeless … Photo by Thomas Peace c.2022

Beyond the Isolated

The mentally isolated are confined. They, by their own misperceptions and separative viewpoints, are (unfortunately) in a limited sphere that is not in touch with everything. (You can be in a large group of people and be mentally isolated, with a separative self.) Mental confinement is limitation; it occurs when the mind is not caring (about others); it occurs when the environment seems separate from what you are and when you are not very curious about it.

Today, because my wife has passed a little over a year ago, i had a pet sitter come to my house to see about possibly taking care of all of my critters (i.e., pets) should something happen to me (like needing to go to the hospital or something similar). I told my little miniature Dachshund, Lola, (in the morning) that a lady would be coming later in the day; i told her to be nice to the lady. The sitter was to arrive at 2pm. I didn’t say anything, but a little after 2pm, Lola began ceaselessly barking loudly; she never does that in such a manner. I looked outside, and there was no sitter, no car of the sitter out there. After about 5 minutes of ceaseless barking, the sitter arrived (with her two teenage daughters). She said she inadvertently passed my house but eventually circled back and found it. Apparently, Lola sensed they were near (even though they have never been here before)! Lola, and other dogs we have had in the past, seemed to have a form of perception that extends out past the “usual realms.” When my wife Marla was alive, she would tell me about how Lola, and previous dogs we’ve had, would “realize” i was coming home (in the car) 5 or 10 minutes or so before i actually arrived home.

When the sitter arrived, i briefly told her about my wife Marla’s passing… about how, for 12 years, Marla (because of medical complications) was unable to eat and was strictly on enteral feeding (i.e., tube feeding) to her stomach. I told the sitter that, before i retired, i was a teacher for the multiply handicapped and that some of my students were on tube feeding. I would be the one helping them to get their tube feeding nourishment (for years) long before Marla developed eating difficulties. The sitter remarked that our marriage was almost “meant to be”… (regarding how my unusual employment situation benefitted my wife later in our marriage). Well, it was “meant to be”; it was pre-arranged by a wholeness that extends past the “usual realms.” (It is very beautiful regarding how that pre-arrangement took place, but i am not at liberty to go into it in detail). Lots of things can happen beyond the “usual realms,” but if you merely crave for these, nothing will happen; they will come to you (perhaps) without you inviting them… come to you with your natural curiosity, especially if it extends beyond the “self.”

A Noiseless Patient Spider

BY WALT WHITMAN

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

**************************************

Thanks to monicat for his comments on spider webs in my previous posting, and check out this amazing article on Jumping Spider Visual Acuity (that pstachowski provided in his previous comments to my blog):

Jumping spiders’ remarkable senses capture a world beyond our perception

A Noiseless Patient Spider … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

Awareness

Awareness, in terms of mindfulness and meditation, is not a calculated escape into some kind of fabricated domain beyond what is all around you. The world is largely a big mess right now, chiefly because of man and the disorder that man propagates. The world of nature basically has a beautiful intrinsic order. Awareness perceives this order and also perceives the disorder (primarily involving man). Again, awareness is not some kind of escape into some kind of domain (fabricated by the mind to, supposedly, exist in a utopian, blissful state). Awareness is not sitting with one’s legs in a lotus position, thinking that one is achieving something extraordinary. That is usually a form of self-hypnosis, and there is nothing extraordinary about that.

Deep awareness remains with (and “as”) what is, but that “what is” is not merely the result of what one was molded and trained to see. Merely looking at things through a mental screen of words (which are mere symbols) and isolated images — in a separative, pigeonholing, divisive kind of way — is just a continuation of mindless, limited conditioning and, therefore, is not deep awareness. Deep awareness shatters through stale acceptances, worn-out systems of looking at things, dead traditions, and preconceived iron-clad concepts, and bursts beyond these mere reactions. Deep awareness is not mere reaction, it is action. Deep awareness acts and ends disorder. Again, deep awareness is action, not mere reaction. Deep awareness exists beyond effort; effort is always for a limited goal — in time — and is of reaction. Reaction is mechanical, robotic, rather dead, unalive, ordinary, and it comfortably fits into the current rotten society just fine.

Leafhoppers are not often seen because they are savvy enough to perceive a person approaching them and they subsequently quickly move to a portion of the plant, that they are upon, that is not visible to the oncoming individual. They are very visually and vibrationally perceptive, which is a limited type of awareness.

And while he observed the diminutive insect gazing out from the base of the leaf, there was no immediate labeling, there was no separation between the leaf and his consciousness, there was no separation between the insect and what he was. (They taught him that he was separate, but he didn’t listen.)

Gazing Leafhopper… there are over 20,000 species of leafhopper worldwide. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

Shorties

All of what seems to be parts of this universe are not truly separate parts at all but only mistakingly appear to be parts; still, most scientists fail to fully perceive this.

Like man, ants have an organized social structure; unlike man, ants do not ruin the environmental whole.

The mind that primarily perceives through (and with) its many accumulations and beliefs, largely sees — and exists as — what is old, stale, stockpiled, and unalive.

Needless fear blocks the mind from true order and from real freedom and understanding.

A universe without pain and suffering is like a phony plastic plant that need not struggle through the dirt and that is devoid of real growth and feeling.

Look at the map of life as a whole; merely concentrating on a single point or place (of supposed self) is fragmentary, limited, negligible, and ludicrous.

Are you just reading an ordinary poem, or is the magic of the poem unfolding what you are in a miraculous, transformational way?

Awareness is not what you cultivate over time; it occurs to the mind that (now) is passionately and holistically perceptive.

Mother and daughter Tree Frog. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

Inner Speech

Many of us think, at times, pictorially (via mental pictures) and emotionally. And to a large extent, many of us think via internal words and sentences (i.e., verbally). This verbiage is called “inner speech,” and it allegedly involves one talking to oneself. Is there a separate self or separate “center” that is truly separate from this inner speech? One does not think so. Regarding inner speech, the perceiver is the perceived; fabricating (mentally) a separate observer is a waste of energy and causes needless separation. Too many of us look at things — such as fear and such as nature — via mere separation. (We were taught to perceive things, internally and externally, via separation.) (By the way, not having the illusion of a separate, central self does not negate eternity/the eternal; on the contrary, it invites it.)

We think, internally, in a multitude of ways; most of us are constantly chattering, internally, about something. This inner chattering largely consists of words and sequences of words. Words are symbolic and are always fragmentary, always limited. (One often speaks internally with a virtual copy of one’s own voice.) Stillness — which allows for wholeness — is imperative. But one cannot “make” stillness occur. True stillness is not merely an effect brought about by some mechanistic, calculated cause. True stillness comes with holistic perception beyond mere cause and effect reactions. This is why you cannot decide to meditate. You cannot say you will meditate for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. This is why “practicing” mindfulness is ludicrous. True meditation occurs naturally; it is uninvited and is not the mere result of some premeditated cause or desire. (You cannot “know” that you are meditating, by the way.)

The watery pool of the holistic, reflective mind (in stillness) will mirror the truth. An agitated mind, full of clatter and turmoil, reflects nothing.

Monarch Butterfly… Only 10% remain after 20 years of manmade extinction. And there are still people saying that manmade climate change is not real. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

Some Possible Insight and Wholeness…

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 and turn comfortably numb.

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.

Clinging to what most of the ungracious masses of separative people have unceasingly clung to: It doesn’t ring true.

Fly free (like a butterfly) beyond unnecessary limitation…     go beyond the flypaper of stagnant orthodoxy (that so many cling to).

Buckeye … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

“Stop poisoning the air, water and topsoil” – Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to the future —

I met Kurt Vonnegut many years ago when my wife and i had gone to a book signing event in Chicago. I do not agree with everything that he says, but i am appreciative of the seven very sagacious terms which he seriously provides below. Will the people of our planet change to substantially improve the health of the earth as a whole? That is not likely (in substantial enough numbers). However, at least some of us are trying. Meanwhile, with the Covid situation improving, oodles of people are once again flying around in polluting jets and are long-distance traveling in fossil fuel vehicles to get vacations that they feel they are owed. The blue sky will be getting smoggy again and the crazy winds will continue to get even crazier.

Letter to the Future, From Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:

“Ladies & Gentlemen of A.D. 2088:

It has been suggested that you might welcome words of wisdom from the past, and that several of us in the twentieth century should send you some. Do you know this advice from Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true’? Or what about these instructions from St. John the Divine: ‘Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment has come’? The best advice from my own era for you or for just about anybody anytime, I guess, is a prayer first used by alcoholics who hoped to never take a drink again: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’

Our century hasn’t been as free with words of wisdom as some others, I think, because we were the first to get reliable information about the human situation: how many of us there were, how much food we could raise or gather, how fast we were reproducing, what made us sick, what made us die, how much damage we were doing to the air and water and topsoil on which most life forms depended, how violent and heartless nature can be, and on and on. Who could wax wise with so much bad news pouring in?

For me, the most paralyzing news was that Nature was no conservationist. It needed no help from us in taking the planet apart and putting it back together some different way, not necessarily improving it from the viewpoint of living things. It set fire to forests with lightning bolts. It paved vast tracts of arable land with lava, which could no more support life than big-city parking lots. It had in the past sent glaciers down from the North Pole to grind up major portions of Asia, Europe, and North America. Nor was there any reason to think that it wouldn’t do that again someday. At this very moment it is turning African farms to deserts, and can be expected to heave up tidal waves or shower down white-hot boulders from outer space at any time. It has not only exterminated exquisitely evolved species in a twinkling, but drained oceans and drowned continents as well. If people think Nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.

Yes, and as you people a hundred years from now must know full well, and as your grandchildren will know even better: Nature is ruthless when it comes to matching the quantity of life in any given place at any given time to the quantity of nourishment available. So what have you and Nature done about overpopulation? Back here in 1988, we were seeing ourselves as a new sort of glacier, warm-blooded and clever, unstoppable, about to gobble up everything and then make love—and then double in size again.

On second thought, I am not sure I could bear to hear what you and Nature may have done about too many people for too small a food supply.

And here is a crazy idea I would like to try on you: Is it possible that we aimed rockets with hydrogen bomb warheads at each other, all set to go, in order to take our minds off the deeper problem—how cruelly Nature can be expected to treat us, Nature being Nature, in the by-and-by?

Now that we can discuss the mess we are in with some precision, I hope you have stopped choosing abysmally ignorant optimists for positions of leadership. They were useful only so long as nobody had a clue as to what was really going on—during the past seven million years or so. In my time they have been catastrophic as heads of sophisticated institutions with real work to do.

The sort of leaders we need now are not those who promise ultimate victory over Nature through perseverance in living as we do right now, but those with the courage and intelligence to present to the world what appears to be Nature’s stern but reasonable surrender terms:

1. Reduce and stabilize your population.
2. Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.
3. Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.
4. Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.
5. Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.
6. Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.
7. And so on. Or else.

Am I too pessimistic about life a hundred years from now? Maybe I have spent too much time with scientists and not enough time with speechwriters for politicians. For all I know, even bag ladies and bag gentlemen will have their own personal helicopters or rocket belts in A.D. 2088. Nobody will have to leave home to go to work or school, or even stop watching television. Everybody will sit around all day punching the keys of computer terminals connected to everything there is, and sip orange drink through straws like the astronauts.

Cheers,

Kurt Vonnegut”

Fragile, Yes … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

Chronological Time and Psychological Time

There is chronological time — time by the watch — such as when you have to be at the doctor’s office at a certain designated time, or the fact that you have to be at work at a certain time. However, there is also psychological time, such as when the brain imagines (to itself) that it will be less fearful in the future. Psychological time often departs from real, substantive frameworks and oftentimes flows into the fictitious, the imaginary, and the illusory.

Take the psychological time-based situation of a typical person imagining that he or she will be less greedy in the future, for example. The person imagines the greed (that he or she is now) as being separate from what he or she actually is. It is something that can be controlled from a distance, to his or her typical perspective anyway. Then, a separate “I” (that is projected to be separate from the greed) is formulated to go beyond the greed, controlling it, over time. (The imagined separation from the greed is, itself, a form of greed.) That person does not fully perceive that he or she is not separate from what the greed actually is. So the typical brain separates itself from greed (during the very distorted perception of greed) and then imagines or projects a state of being beyond it, or of controlling it. The typical brain sees greed as what it has, or as what it can control, rather than as what it actually is. It additionally projects a “should be” (i.e., an imagined state beyond greed) and strives to get to that imagined point over time.

A mind of deep, holistic intelligence deals with this differently. With such a mind, psychological time is not so much a factor. It instantly sees (without the movement of time being a factor) the greed as being what it is… not as being what it “has” (or what it is contending with or controlling). Here, the perceiver is “that which is perceived”; the controller is not separate from the controlled; really, there is no controller in this situation (and, really, there never truly was, in all actuality). The greed, by the way, likely dissipates without effort due to holistic intelligence (which has its own energy and profound order); or it never occurs much in the first place. (The word “has” in the previous sentence does not mean or imply ownership from a distance. By the way, ownership from a distance implies greed, doesn’t it?)

Here is another extremely interesting time-oriented point. Many top scientists — Einstein among them, who formulated the philosophy of spacetime, with space and time being one thing — are now supportive of the Block Universe perspective. It is also referred to as Eternalism. It, in one fell swoop (and whether you like it or not), nullifies the notion of free-will; however, it does not nullify the responsibility that each one of us has for the whole, for all others, and for the entire environment. Watch the following short video if you are not familiar with it. (You can watch it for a time.)

Goodbye Ice Ice Baby … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

Tadpole to Frog/Toad Metamorphosis, Quantum Mechanics, and Psychological Boundaries

The following short video explains how Quantum Mechanics is involved in the transition of a tadpole into a mature frog or toad. Such metamorphosis is simply amazing; a lot of what nature does is very spectacular. The video probably explains it much better than i could with written words, and the video is a clip from that excellent Curiosity Stream segment that i mentioned to everyone in my previous blog posting. It’s certainly worth a watch! (When you were an embryo early-on in the womb, you had a tail.)

In the quantum world, boundaries can be penetrated. More of that needs to take place in the human psychological realm as well. When boundaries are truly transcended… that is when real eternity and sacredness can be perceived. But most of us are stuck in limited psychological boundaries. Too many of us hide behind (learned and absorbed) walls of racism, behind learned walls of indifference toward the handicapped and less fortunate, and behind (and “as”) learned walls of a “me” somehow separate from “others.” Have you ever considered that the learned walls of separation may actually help constitute what your consciousness is… and that without these mental (mis)conceptions, the separate “me” or separate “I” would not exist? Apparently, illusion and being “duped” is common, and “most-people” just accept it wholeheartedly without question. Little wonder why the world is quickly being ruined by a particularly odd, obtuse bipedal species. Will we wake up and transform beyond what is causing so much havoc in the world? Our biological clocks are ticking and there may not be much time left.

Please note the remnant tadpole-like-sucking-lips at the central area of this toad’s mouth. 🙂 Please note the eyes that are still very fish-like. Many of us — with our biological clocks — evolved (over time) from fish (but i won’t be eating our pet tropical fish’s food any time soon).

Mr. Toadster Head Study… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

Photosynthesis in Plants, Quantum Waves, and the Mind

—- In memory of George Floyd — (and those countries that were once free of dictators)

There exists some good evidence that plants, during photosynthesis, employ quantum processes to convert the energy that was captured from the sun into usable energy. During the light-absorption of photosynthesis in plants, a photon excites an electron in a chlorophyll molecule to create a structure called an exciton—an entity containing both the excited electron and the positively charged hole it leaves behind. This exciton then searches by moving until it reaches a protein complex called the reaction center where further processing of the energy is necessary.  According to traditional, incoherent processes, the exciton would have to hop from one chlorophyll molecule to another to randomly search for the reaction center. But that would take too long. In taking too long, its energy would be lost. It has to find the reaction center almost instantly.

In order to get there almost instantly, the exciton may actually be “quantum coherent” such that it travels like a wave, it can explore all possible paths simultaneously and only take the most efficient route. A television show that is featured on the Curiosity Channel offers excellent examples of this, but most of you probably do not subscribe to the Curiosity Channel. The Curiosity Channel explains that it is like a blindfolded man in a thick forest who has to get to the reaction center (which is somewhere within the forest). He can randomly search by bumping into tree after tree until he bumps into the reaction center; that is the standard way. But if he acts quantumly, he travels in all directions at once and quickly finds the reaction center. (It’s rather super-computer-like in a way!) If you throw a rock into a pond, the waves travel (in a way) in all directions at once. That is how the exciton may search; quantum tunneling may also be involved.

People who have clairvoyant tendencies may also somehow tap into this quantum oriented realm. Especially, a brain that does not merely depend on a man-made, illusory center may be able to penetrate beyond the ordinary, mundane barriers that restrict, that keep most people confined. That is when real meditation takes place. But there is no psychological center that can “make” real meditation happen. Eternity exists well beyond the confined, the restricted, the ordinary.

From Walt Whitman:

“The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

(Also please watch the short included video if you have time.)

Wild Lamium … Photo by Thomas Peace c.2020



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RSKI5A_lsg

Why are so few of “wholeness”?

Why do so few people perceive the whole? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Perhaps the question itself is a wrong (i.e., faulty) question. It may be that wholeness is simply “what is” beyond the dualistic, separative perception involving an “observer” and “that which is observed.”

Very few people are of wholeness, though (certainly) a good number think that they are. Most people are of fragmentation… perceiving from — and through — that fragmentation. We were taught, by elders, about how to perceive, how to react, and about what to believe in. We live in (and “as”) mental symbols; we accept those virtual-mental symbols as true realities. Most of us stay in the rut of that limitation, that conditioning, and remain that way until the day we die. Is that ever really living?

Throughout school, we were not encouraged to question things deeply; we were not encouraged to go beyond the accepted values and the accepted ways of perceiving things. Man, throughout the ages, evolved from animals; we (being so-called sophisticated animals) still harbor basic instincts for focusing on elemental parameters, (just like the animals do… only what we do is a bit more “sophisticated”). Few of us go beyond that. You could count those (living wholly) on one hand. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Through eons of conditioning over generations, people are locked into reacting as they inevitably do. The following video, by Donald Hoffman, is worth a watch; it has its limitations, but it helps to illustrate some about what one has been saying for a long time. (With other of his video/audio sessions, one feels that he relies too much on old, fragmented, mathematical, and speculative approaches that can leave us merely analyzing ad infinitum.)
Is, by the way, the watcher separate from the watched?

This is not a toad… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

Covid-19 and the Future

This Covid-19 thing is affecting us all worldwide. We are all in this together. Clairvoyance, or whatever you wish to call it, tends to run in our family. My mother certainly had it, and i tend to have it. I’ve told my wife, for many years, that a terribly virulent virus or germ would be devastating to the human race. I had that “vision” when i was a kid and never forgot what it meant. I also, when i was a kid, saw that humans would pollute the world in very globally lethal ways. (Just a few months ago, one Thursday morning, i had a vision that i was precariously going into the side of a fast-moving Mack truck; the truck was coming from my right and going to the left… in the “vision”. I always go to grocery shop on Thursdays, so i bravely went to shop at our local Walmart, in spite of my vision. I was very cautious. I got groceries and was almost all the way home and thought, “Well that was an unusual false-alarm, thank goodness.” Then, about a mere half-mile from home, i came to a four-way stop. I came to a full stop, was about to proceed when a huge Mack truck came barreling through the intersection without stopping. I was glad that i hesitated at that stop. I was facing south; the truck was coming from the west going east… coming from the right of me and going to the left of me.)

Nature has a way of teaching us lessons. Right now the air across America is getting cleaner — so the scientists say — and the environment is getting healthier, from far less jets in the air and fewer cars on the road. Healthy environments usually produce healthy organisms; sick environments usually produce sick, diseased organisms.
Nature has a way of teaching us lessons. But we have to listen.

Shrooms … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

Wordless Wednesday… Not!

Are you a word, an image
     that you cling to,
     that is claimed to have “control of all the other words”? 

Bumble in the Jungle … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Einstein, Spacetime, and the Fallacious Belief in a Central Ego…

 

 

Hermann Minkowski and Albert Einstein taught us about how space and time are not two entirely different things but are, together, one.  However, most people just do not get what that means, psychologically and fundamentally, including a lot of supposedly smart scientists.  Years ago, when i was much younger, i used to hang around the quantum physicist Professor David Bohm, whom Einstein fondly called his “spiritual son.”  Bohm was a famous scientist in his own right and when we discussed things, i was already well aware of the implications of spacetime and what that meant psychologically and on a larger scale.

Space and time are not two separate entities; together they are one.  If you look at nature and people merely with psychological separation, with psychological space, as most people do, that very separation helps to support and produce an abstracted, psychological “I” or “me.”  If you perceived without such (learned) separation, the “I” or “me” need not exist (which would be fundamentally way more accurate).  If you say, “I will be trying to be ‘good’ so that I can eventually get to heaven,” you are supposing that you are something separate from time (in time)… rather than the actuality of being what time is.   Your brain consists of matter (which often functions to react as thoughts), and matter is space, spacetime.   Of course, we have to use time (in the physical world) to get to work on time or to be at a specified meeting on time.  To use time to get somewhere psychologically or spiritually, however, is largely fallacious.   Wishing to advance over time spiritually presupposes that you are “in time” and are not what “time is.”  Mentally manufacturing a separation between you and time (except for certain time-oriented physical things, like the ones mentioned… and for using our crude, unfortunate language system) is often a process of wasting energy and is inviting great deception.  Both the aforementioned psychological space separation and the psychological time separation are illusory; together, both help to create the fallacious and selfishly separate ego.  (One cannot be in communion with the timeless if one is a series of fragments of time that erroneously presuppose that they are “in time” advancing spiritually.)

Eternal and orderly phenomena can exist (in humans) without the ego (i.e., without any psychological center).  As we have often suggested, the central ego is essentially fallacious and illusory.  Habitually looking from (and “as”) it is an illusion; it is a fallacy that most people habitually cling to.  Like a man who thinks that he sees vast water in a desert — you know that age-old mirage — and insists on fishing in it non-stop, stay completely with the ego if you wish.

When discussing things in public with people, we can still politely use the word “I,” while (all the while) being fully aware of its fallacious and deceiving attributes; it is one of the misfortunes of living in a society with a barbaric system of language.  Professor Bohm diligently worked on helping develop a more accurate and scientifically evolved system of language, which he called the Rheomode.  Later in life, Bohm learned of the Native American Blackfoot language, and also of other members of this Native American language family, all of which are very strongly verb-based and do not divide the world into solid categories (i.e., nouns) but, instead, describe in terms of processes and related movements.   Link to short Professor David Bohm Video.

 

 

Green Treehopper … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Jumping Spiders and Awareness

 

 

Jumping Spiders, those very alert arachnids, you know, have many eyes.  Some of the eyes are at the back of the head.  Some even have extra eyes on the abdomen (i.e., their rear section).  One of the reasons that they have eyes in such places is so that they can more efficiently see moving prey (that they can capture to eat).  Another reason for having eyes in such places is that other Jumping Spiders (or other spider species or insect enemies) may try to sneak up on them (to devour them).  Seeing such “attackers” affords quick reaction involving countermeasures.  

We might think, “Oh, how very primitive these spiders are, to be attacking and killing each other with such violence.”  Our species, it can be seen, however, still often kill each other on the so-called battlefield.   “Battlefield,” by the way, is just a word or accepted term for where humans go to react ultra-violently (i.e., primitive-ass crazy).  Many of us periodically celebrate those who were the most violent, calling them “great heroes.”  We seldom celebrate — we rarely celebrate — those who were opposed to war.  (We, instead of observing through separative countries, religions, and tribes, need to observe holistically and globally — which would help to end all wars — but most of us won’t do that, because of being firmly and stagnantly stuck in separative ruts.  So the unending nonsense will continue.)  To really go beyond being primitive and violent, we must observe without all of the separations that were poured into us.   

 

 

Jumping Spider Observing … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Sleeping White Tail Dragonfly

 

 

What prey are you dreaming about
tonight, my adroit, winged friend?
What shifting air currents
are floating through your
fulfilled, slumbering mind?

 

---

[Note:  I was in the woods taking nature pictures and stayed quite awhile.  It started getting dark and as i was leaving i saw a White Tail Skimmer Dragonfly landing low in some wild plants on the forest floor, fortunately.  I knew that that meant it was preparing for sleep (there).  I waited a bit — for it to really dose off —  and then i slowly moved in to photograph it.  Poison ivy was all around me!  Please note how they wrap their legs around plants while in sleep; this stance affords stability for possible upcoming windy conditions.]

 

 

Sleeping White Tail Skimmer Dragonfly … 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!]

 

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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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

(In this Halloween Month of October) You Are What You Eat!

 

 

Here’s a cozy little poem for you in this Halloweenish time of year:

 

Sleep well tonight my little darlings
    Here’s a little factoid to dream about tonight…
Scientists say that people 
    during sleep
each swallow an average of 
    around 8 spiders yearly

A nice warm dark moist place to visit
   Bon Appetit!   

 

 

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It’s not little spiders that will really harm you and your children, it’s miseducated, traditional, ordinary people who let the environment go to hell.

 

 

Spider on Wildflower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Some Plants in Illinois have Eyes! (Two-Photos… for Your Eyes Only)

 

             If you don’t like to be stared at,
don’t come to rural Illinois!

There are some rare plants here in rural Illinois
that are sensitive to the touch and that are quickly evolving.
             At first, besides their sensitivity to touch,
they began being sensitive to the sunlight.
Then, gradually over time, they developed 
photoreceptors that could better detect sun-
light and let them know when to fold their leaves for the evening.
           Now these photoreceptors are further evolving
into legitimate eyes.

      Some plants that i know have
      better response and better perception than
      a lot of the humans out there!

       I am a vegetarian,
       and i certainly am not going to eat these plants
       while they stare back at me!

 

 

Chamaecrista fasciculata, a wild plant of Illinois with an eye on each branch section and with leaves closed for the evening… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Chamaecrista fasciculata, a wild plant of Illinois with leaves open in daylight for photosynthesis…. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

Current News Regarding the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S.A. (and overcoming real corruption)…

 

The EPA will roll back the Obama-era auto-fuel-efficiency standards.  The agency threatens to revoke California’s waiver under the Clean Air Act, which allows it to require cleaner cars.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke denies that his department censors science.  A National Park Service report on how it will deal with climate change omits all references to human causation.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t want to give threatened species as much protection as endangered ones.

The Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program wins multiple court rulings: Now the BLM must disclose the climate impacts of fossil fuel development in the Powder River Basin; the Trump administration can’t overturn the ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic without judicial review; and the administration can’t delay increased penalties for automakers to violate fuel-economy standards.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry calls moving away from fossil fuels “immoral.”

The Bureau of Land Management blames a “breakdown of technology” for its failure to note 42,000 public comments in support of protections for the greater sage-grouse.

“I really don’t know” if humans cause climate change, says the head of the EPA’s scientific advisory board.

(The above information is from the Sierra Club that i belong to.)

************************************************************************************************************

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”  — Albert Einstein

 

Overcoming Real Corruption… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Limited Minds of Fragmentation

 

Thought, being sequential and fragmentary, depends upon — and is — time.  A fragmentary, sequential process, as part of time, will never fully understand the whole of time.  Yet, the scientists continue to operate through sequential and fragmentary equations and analysis.  Space and time are an integral part of one another; they are not two entirely different things.  The space between the perceiver and that which is perceived involves limitation and fragmentation and necessitates time.  Scientists do not generally transcend that limitation; they keep projecting fragmentary equations, theories, and use analysis based on what they have learned before.   Many scientists claim that they are close to having a theory of everything, yet scientists do not understand what dark energy is (consisting of 68% of the known universe); they also do not know what dark matter is (consisting of 27% of the known universe); they do not understand a lot regarding the basic essence of the cosmos.   There is evidence, for example, that the so-called constant speed of light may be changing.  New tests are exploring this.  The whole of physics is predicated on the constancy of the speed of light.   (Scientists may, however, understand some rather remarkable things at this point.  Leonard Susskind’s Holographic Principle of the Universe comes to mind; however, even principles such as this are, of course, limited and fragmentary.  I used to hang out with Loren Billings, who ran the Museum of Holography in Chicago and, decades ago, way before these expert scientists came up with this holographic theory stuff, we used to have wonderful discussions about the likely holographic nature of the universe… about how a large amount of the entire universe functions much like a hologram.)

The structure of the perceiver (psychologically) being separate from the perceived… is what is formulated by limited thought.  This thought also sees the past as separate from the future.  Fragmentation will understand things only in very limited ways.  That very limitation, however, can (and often does) contribute to conflict, indifference, hatred, competition, and suffering.  To step out of all that may not require time, struggle, theories, religions, authorities, practices, or any other piecemeal processes.   There is a fundamental psychological revolution that is beyond the framework of fragmentation and conflict.  Currently, science is replacing religion as a major contributor of the worldview.  If science tends to stress fragmentation, which it (for the most part, but not entirely) has been doing, then people will, unfortunately, likely remain stuck in fragmentary frameworks.  

 

 

Eye of the Toad… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Beddy-bye Haiku

 

Wisdom will go to sleep
while understanding the whole.
Scientists will not.

 

Ant on Tree Blossoms… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

The Human Condition

 

We humans — most of us anyway — have a preoccupation with forms which rely on demarcations and which distinguish surfaces.  We react to parameters just as we were instructed to, and we are satisfied to allow our brains to remain within those circumscribed fields.  Even the so-called great scientists are immersed in the same methodologies and modes of perception and analysis.  Most conform to standard patterns, even when they think that they are sophisticated and free.  Most have been taught not to trust experience and feeling until they have passed through (and have been filtered by) the organizing chambers of rational thought.  Most, rather like computers, have become mere information processors and, therefore, pitifully impoverished organisms.  

We still — most of us anyway — have subject and object, self and other, man and nature.  Most have very separative minds seeing things fragmentarily (with separation and division).  Concepts and conditioning can never perceive the truth, yet most, even the professional scientists, remain caught within the realm of concepts and conditioning.  Such conditioning can be modified and can evolve some, but it will never perceive and understand the whole over time… and conditioning and evolution are time. 

Is it possible for the mind to change radically, such that it goes beyond all influence and all authority of the past?  Tribal authority is “the past,” the past which is old, stale, and antiquated.  Many can reason very cleverly, very precisely, about a lot of complicated things; but that reasoning inevitably is the essence of a background of a particular conditioning.  Truth can manifest when influence and conflict cease, but any methods, beliefs, or systems directly employed to get there will be an extension of the same old game.  There is no recipe, in time, that takes one to the timeless.  The fabricated/learned psychological self depends upon conflict and time — actually, the separate self is conflict and psychological time — and most people will likely not care to significantly end conditioning; most will want to remain in (and “as”) that conditioning, yet conditioning binds and is suffering.  True silence is deep awareness, a selflessness, a timelessness… and true silence is not what the conditioned mind can cause to happen at any particular point in time; the silence of awareness is beyond the self (and self-effort).  Most are afraid of allowing the self to come to an end psychologically.  Only in the nullification of the false is there the whole blessing of truth and real insight.  Compassion and that truth are not two separate things, as is the “perceiver” and “that which is perceived.”

 

 

clinging to surfaces… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

in the heart of the tree… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Universe is Expanding…

 

Our universe is expanding(the slick scientists say)

            We’re headed in that direction,come what may

Elite physicists tell us all about energy and power

            But to me,they’re like a bug on a little,swelling flower

 

They’re studying their “Big Bang” and its incipient phases

            like a spider on a protuberant bud who inquisitively gazes

But the eternal whole can’t be understood by studying mere sections,

            nor by looking from a bogus center that is a primitive projection

Studying the Universe (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Studying the Universe (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

Two Special Poems about my dear Uncle Lefty

 

When my dear uncle Lefty was in prison

          he wasn’t keen about Loop Quantum Cosmology at all

He was much more interested in the thickness

          of his cold prison cell wall

 

When my dear uncle Lefty finally left prison

          he wasn’t interested in visiting me nor my uncle Ed

He was more intent on staying permanently stiff

          and forever remaining dead

*********************************************************************

[Note:    The attached photograph is either of my uncle Lefty (who may or may not exist) or of a model of a Neanderthal at the Chicago Field Museum.  Which is it?  I won’t tell you, but i do have a big smile on my face as this is being written.]

*********************************************************************

 

          When my dear uncle Lefty was in prison

he’d secretly dig at his cell wall whenever there was loud thunder

           When my dear uncle Lefty finally got out of prison

the digging was all conveniently done for him(as he was six feet under)

My dear uncle Lefty (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

My dear uncle Lefty (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

 

 

Pristine Order

 

When pristine order

            spreads out to apparently be disorder

well,we’ll be in the disorder then

            even though the spreading out

really is not separation

 

When the winged bird 

            spreads her wing feathers

well,we’ll be the flying then

            even though the wing feathers

do not dwell as separation

 

When the present time

            spreads out to apparently become the future

well,we’ll be the movement then

            even though the past and future

do not dwell as separation

**********************************************************

[Note:  We need to look at existence in totally new ways, ways that are intelligent (and no longer primitive) and that reflect real discoveries about reality and time.  Time is not what we have preassumed it to be.  One, personally, has realized this stuff decades ago.  This, spiritually and philosophically, has very deep implications.  It may very well be that the past is not just gone or that the future does not yet exist.  Take the time to watch the video that is at the bottom section of this posting (following my photos), please.  Additionally, there is a fuller version of this documentary; go to YouTube, and look up “The Illusion of Time, Full Documentary.”]

Well, we’ll be the flying then (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

Well,we’ll be the flying then (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Holographic Universe

 

For many years, i collected and made 3D glass holograms.  They are, i feel, superior to regular 2D photographs… since they also convey depth (without the need for wearing special glasses), not just the implication of depth.  Holograms, though most people (when they see them) really love them, never became very popular.  Depth in photography, like real depth in philosophy (i.e., the real “love of truth” pure philosophy), is rarely deeply appreciated by people.  (By the way, the 2D surface of a properly made holographic film, when illuminated by a decent light source, projects images that appear as 3 dimensions.)  As time went by, i personally made true (full) color holograms; true color holograms are very difficult to make.  I would get my blank plates, to make images on, from Yves Gentet, whom Discover Magazine proclaimed to be the best photographer in the world.  When making full-color holograms, i had to use multiple lasers and special dichroic glass filters… and everything had to be extremely precise, without any distortion whatsoever.  It’s the same thing with true philosophy and the concomitant real understanding of one’s mind (i.e., real self-realization)… there must not be any distortion whatsoever.  

When i was quite young, years before ever getting interested in holograms, i partook in one-on-one conversations concerning philosophy with Professor David Bohm, a world-renowned quantum physicist whom Albert Einstein wanted as an assistant.  We had many very deep discussions (but never once were holograms mentioned).  Then, years later, i was walking through a large mall with my wife, Marla, and saw some holograms displayed.  I was hooked!  I often visited the Museum of Holography in Chicago and was well known by Loren Billings who ran the museum.  Loren and i had many great discussions about the holographic nature of the universe (including space and time).  My book on philosophy deals a lot with time; it mentions holography in terms of its significance with regard to time and our human position.  Now, remarkably enough, scientists — most all of the very best, top scientists (worldwide) — are saying that our manifested universe is quite “holographic” in its very essence.  They are saying that the periphery of (not only black holes) but also of the entire universe behaves much like a holographic film… and that we are projections of what is contained on the surface of that film.  They are saying that there is an exact copy of what we are, were, and will be, at that peripheral region.  So, is that “surface” film more real than we are, or are we what is more real?  They say: take your pick; both are legitimate.  It may be that the past, present, and future are intrinsically enfolded into one another and are not at all separate.   Years after collecting and making holograms, i found out who the scientist was who was instrumental in the initial development of this holographic universe discovery; it was (coincidentally) Professor David Bohm.

Interestingly enough, when one breaks a hologram (of a rose, for example) in half and illuminates it with another laser, each half will have an image (though not quite as clear) of the entire rose.  Subsequently, break each of those halves in half… and each will have an image of the entire rose.  The wise man, who transcends the fragmentary, superficial, illusory symbols of man, may deeply connect with (and perceive) much of the whole, whereas those who exist superficially see little of reality; they are looking at the broken borders and boundaries; the wise mind is perceiving the whole (beyond the breakage).  (It’s a shame that so many write and blog about truth while, all along, they have not really seen much of anything… though they “think” they have.)  Regarding holograms, the parallax nature that they inherently have is very incredible; in other words, for example, you can look at a hologram of an open umbrella being held, and if you bend your head down you can actually see the inside of the umbrella’s top (that you couldn’t see until you bent down as if it were an actual umbrella being held)!  When you again stand erect, you see the very top of the outside section of the umbrella as you normally would.  With a hologram of a box, for example, you can stand in front and see the side that is facing you; if you move to the left, you can see another side of the box; if you move to the right, you can see yet another side of the box.  Of course, the universe is not some kind of giant hologram; it is living, dynamic, and much more than that.  However, the holographic model can be useful to explain certain dimensions of it to others.   Professor Leonard Susskind and other top scientists helped Stephen Hawking and others see that the holographic model had amazing potential, reality, and legitimacy.  The implications of all this are profound, and they affect what man can penetrate into spiritually, philosophically, and actually; but not many people are perceiving this significantly.  A few of us were seeing this long before the top physicists came up with their calculations; we were seeing much more than what the calculations could reveal.

[Note:

The following is a short 2D animation of one of my 3D holograms; it is of a floating “pear” with parallel lines behind it.  Of course, the crude 2D animation does not come close to doing justice to the actual beauty and quality of the hologram.  This particular hologram is a monotone green on black… but it (the “pear” image part) projects out into the viewing room at a very great and very impressive distance; you can move your hand through and around the pear… and it has very phantom-like attributes.  (The pear seems to float out in the space of the viewing room, and the parallel lines go very deep into the wall.)  Other holograms are of flowers, animals, and people… and they are very beautiful, some in full, natural color.   (Additionally, please watch the YouTube video below.)]

Pearallel-lines Glass Hologram. Video by Thomas Peace c. 2016                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           See  the YouTube video:                                                                                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Core of the Butterfly

                                  once upon a twice

wings folding unfolding

here within the universe’s

folding unfolding

twice upon a once

universes folding unfolding

here within the wings

folding unfolding

Pearl Crescent (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

Pearl Crescent (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

 

 

 

Beyond the intelligence of ignorance…

 

Fragmentation

                        is the scientists’ piecemeal 

way of ripping everything

a

     p

          a

               r

                    t

        to perhaps one day understand everything.

The true wise man,however,abandons

                   chopping things up,abandons dissecting things

little by little.

The wise man clearly sees beyond the bits and segments

         because his consciousness is devoid of mere bits and segments.

That is why he timelessly understands the whole better

         than any sequential calculation wearing thick glasses.

In flight (1). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

In flight (2). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

 

Double your pleasure, double your fun…it’s the right one, the Doublemint Gum!

 

An antimatter universe

is a reflection of our

universe

and our universe

is a reflection of

an antimatter universe

 

One can isomorphically soar away

from the other

just as the other

can isomorphically soar away from one

 

There is always something 

2 reflect upon in one

just as in one reflecting

something is always there 2

 

The two of us are

very far apart

2-gether

yet we are closer

than any-1

can ever imagine

Matter…Anti-matter. (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Matter…Anti-matter. (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Thinking about oneself, one saw what one was taught…

.

Things in the universe, though they may seem to be separate and very different, may all be reflections of a larger whole.  However, most of us were educated to perceive via fragmentation.  Even most of the top scientists of the world currently tend to dissect things and look more at the parts…  not so much at the whole.  The mind can intelligently perceive without merely seeing via standard patterns and images (that were instilled within it, formulating its constitution).  For many of us, even self-images consist of fragmentary concepts and images that were accumulated from learned paradigms.  Even when we look inwardly, we see fragmentarily… we see learned symbols/images.  Undoubtedly, there would be less wars and less indifference towards nature if more of us would go beyond the norm and perceive more holistically.  The right arm will not robotically wage war against (and try to vanquish) the left arm if it clearly sees the reality of the whole.

True independence is going beyond conditioning; it is going beyond the dependence upon old patterns and systems that were implanted by others (who absorbed and became them themselves).  If one remains in circumscribed patterns, one can’t go far; and, interestingly, such a “farness” is beyond distance and separation.  

. 

Perpetuity (1). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Perpetuity (2). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Beyond fragmentary ways… (Multi-Photo)

.

The understanding of how the universe functions doesn’t, interestingly enough, merely come about by way of a process.

.

Tulip Study. (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Tulip Study. (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Separated space… separated time… (Multi-Photo)

.

The space that apparently separates you from others is similar to what seems to separate the past from the future.

.

Sunbathing (1). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Sunbathing (2). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Welcome Sweet Spring… (Multi-Photo… 3 photos)

.

let’s Spring into action

be sure not to Fall

see Flowers where dirt was

as Life makes its sweet call

 

let’s evolve from what Fish were

turn Fins into Hands

plant seeds in terrestrial gardens

and walk upon Land

 

let’s breathe atmospheric air directly

and forget how to swim

let’s forget our past and Winter

and drink water at the gym

.

[Note:  The first photo is of a flower in Spring.  The second photo is of a fossil plate of a couple of specimens of Osteolepis macrolepidotus  (from the Devonian Period, Old Sandwick Fish Beds, Quoyloo, Orkney, Scotland).  Osteolepis was one of the first air-breathing fish, with lobed (feet-like) fins; it had many other features in common with the early tetrapods (the first land-dwelling vertebrates).  Some people tend to feel ashamed — or go into denial — about having evolved from fish; I (among others), on the other hand, feel that being part of evolution is an immense privilege and see the profound beauty and amazing splendor of evolution!  The third photo is of a newspaper comic of “Frank and Ernest” by the brilliant Bob Thaves.]

 

Spring flower. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Osteolepis macrolepidotus. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Comic by Bob Thaves. Photo by Thomas Peace 2015

Spacetime… (Multi-Photo)

.

Time is space and space is time

Mountains take some time to climb

Space is time and time is space

It takes some time to wash your face

 

Washing in space is movement in time

The soap and the bubbles say they feel fine

The clock’s hands move in a confined, little space

Along with the hands that wash your face

 

The face of the clock washed away time

As moving hands took away hours of grime

Our hearts keep on ticking at a regular pace

As helping hands smile at our round, cleanly face

 

The hands of the clock in each stage and each term

Say its time to wake up, to feel, and to learn

The chronology of you is swinging in space

A minute of love is an occasion of grace

.

Swinging pendulum in Space. (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Swinging pendulum in Space. (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

 

 

(Multi-Photo)*** Einstein, stick this in your pipe and…

.

between past

and future

is another realm

but few ever live there

 

they are too busy

thinking “as the past”:

about the future

or regarding the past

 

most think that 

the past changes

into the future

but perhaps neither fundamentally changes

 

they may not change

because each the other ‘s

the only thing that really changes 

is the undefinable,infinite now

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Tongue projecting Einstein (2). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Tongue projecting Einstein (1). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

 

(Multi-Photo)*** Concrete evidence…

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Breaking News:

Scientists — those fellows who are ever so clever —  say that the universe is spiraling and expanding… and we have found concrete evidence of that (as illustrated in the accompanying photographs).  The new, solid evidence supports the theory that the universe — at its current degree of expansion — is optimally suited for supporting life.

😉

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New, hard evidence:

New hard evidence! (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

New hard evidence! (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Walking on water…

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Plenitude of insight exists with (and “as”) direct and simple clarity (beyond mere symbols).

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[There’s some simple clarity here!  These aren’t skydivers dropping down to earth… they’re the insects known as Water Striders; they “walk” on water!  Water Striders use their forelegs to grab insects trapped by the water’s surface tension and also to make ripples to communicate with each other.  (We use sound waves when we talk/communicate!) They use their middle legs for rowing and their hindlegs for steering. There is a living clam to the lower left.]

Having the time of their lives! Photo by Thomas Peace 2014

 

In a rotten society, don’t be a mere pawn; act beyond the rigidity, the…

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In a rotten society, don’t be a mere pawn; act beyond the rigidity, the cold indifference, and beyond the crass mediocrity.

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[This caterpillar is a Salt Marsh Moth Caterpillar.  Although they are decidedly hairy, the hairs are not as dense or as stiff as those found in Woollybear larvae.The farmers in the area will tell you what all that extra fuzziness means… it means we are in for a terrible and harsh winter!  Prepare! 😉 ]

Get ready for a long, harsh winter! 😉 Photo by Thomas Peace 2014

 

Photos of Unusual Allosaurus Dinosaur Fossil Vertebra (150 Million Years Old)…

The name Allosaurus was derived from the Greek, and it means “different lizard.”  It was considered “different,” by paleontologists, because its bones were a lot lighter than in dinosaurs previous to its existence.  Its bones were much lighter because they were riddled with many more air channels and blood vessel channels that previous species of dinosaur did not have as much of.  This allowed it to be faster and more nimble for its size,  which are great benefits to a big, meat-eating animal.

As most of you probably know… Allosaurus was a huge, carnivorous dinosaur.  It occurred in the Jurassic Period, around 150 to 155 million years ago.  The following is a photo (not taken by me) of an Allosaurus skeleton on exhibit (at the San Diego Natural History Museum).

Allosaurus (San Diego Natural History Museum)

The following are photographs of an Allosaurus vertebra (backbone) that I purchased at one time.  The vertebra comes from southern Utah.  The vertebra was split in half; then each half was polished (on the side where the split occurred) to show the beautiful cells and spaces within the bone.  Certain dinosaur bones (in certain isolated localities) become (over millions of years) permineralized by various minerals that permeate into the bone cells over time.  Depending what the minerals are… the colors (within the bone spaces) can be of many different types… some very beautiful.  This particular Allosaurus specimen has white crystallizations within… which look quite nice.

After I had the bone in my possession for a while, I noticed that one of the halves had a couple of places (on it) that were entry ways for pneumatic diverticulae.  Pneumatic diverticulae, in the more evolved of the dinosaurs, were branches and channels — that would come from the air sacs and lungs —  that would bore into and through the bones, enabling air (from the lungs) to be stored and transported.  (So, unlike mammals, they could transport and store air within their bones!)  Some of these channels would (later) progress to the outside of the body (and allow gases to be emitted out of the organism).  Younger dinosaurs do not have these, at first; they grow and increase (and branch out more and more) as the animal ages.  Many birds have this.   A turkey wing — that someone is preparing for consumption — may have a little hole in the skin here or there.  These are the exit chambers of the pneumatic channels!  (A young turkey may not have these holes;  most turkeys sold — to consume — are young turkeys).   Birds are actually evolved from (and they are) dinosaurs.   Many mammals, including humans, have cranial pneumaticity (exclusively in their heads)… but only dinosaur/birds have the very advanced postcranial pneumaticity (as well as an advanced form of the cranial kind).

Mammals (such as we humanoids) do not have this advanced kind of respiratory system.  Ours is much more primitive.  You won’t hear this taught in public schools; they, of course, continue to put on airs of superiority for our species!  (I tell things straight, though, just as I do in my book.)  One of the reasons why dinosaurs had such a monopoly over mammals for millions and millions of years has to do with their superior respiratory systems.  In dinosaurs (and birds), special air sacs and pipework keep (new) fresh air coming into their lungs consistently.  Air flows into a bird’s lungs only in one direction.  Air from the (pre-lung) air-sac that puts air into a bird’s (or dinosaur’s) lungs is always being replenished with fresh air.  Air from another (post-lung) air-sac that comes “from” their lungs… always is pushing out “old-used” air.  The lungs never get the bad (used) air coming in with the fresh.  Air only travels in one direction through their (i.e., dinosaurs’) lungs; their lungs are not the inefficient “in and out” kind (like blowing in and out of a paper sack) like ours (i.e., the mammals’) are.  In fact, the lungs of dinosaurs (and birds, which are a small type of dinosaur) do not ever move; only the air-sacs around them move!   Our lungs (of mammals) that move with the ribs, muscles, and diaphragm around them, breathe in the same bad air that we were trying to exhale (and through the same pipework too);  that is very inefficient.  That is one of the reasons why dinosaurs reigned supreme for so many millions of years… until that 6-mile-across asteroid wiped most of them out (except for the birds); the impact of that asteroid also wiped out 70% of all species on earth.   Mammals, during the time of the dinosaurs, were always small, mostly nocturnal, and would hide under rocks (which is one of the reasons why we survived that impact); there were no large mammals during the time of the dinosaurs… because the dinosaurs were too dominant over the mammals.   Most dinosaurs were a lot more hot blooded — the average body temperature of birds is 105 degrees Fahrenheit —  a lot better at breathing… and (hence) a lot more sprightly and agile than the mammals.  (The dinosaurs were not “sluggish,” as we were once — not long ago — taught.)  If that asteroid would have missed the earth… they would still be the dominant ones… and who knows what they would have evolved into…

The following is a photo of the two halves of an Allosaurus vertebra with crystal cells (after polishing).  Weight: 5 lb 10 oz

The cells, which once were air channels and passageways for blood vessels, are now filled with crystallized minerals (various silica, calcite, dolomite and other minerals).

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Allosaurus Dinosaur Split Vertebra by Thomas Peace c.2013

Note (in the photo below) the larger oval crystal section around the center; look to the right and (especially) to the left of it to see where the pneumatic diverticulae have entry-ways (fossae pleurocels, or pneumatic pores) that enter the vertebra bone from the air sacs/lungs!  If you look at such a dinosaur vertebra, you will see little spots here and there on its sides; these are the entry-ways (fossae pleurocels/pneumatic pores) that go into the bone.  This vert was cut just at the “right spot” (i.e., right where the pneumatic diverticulae enter the bone… as pneumatic pores); the guy who used to polish these didn’t have the faintest idea about what these entry-ways were!    I’ve sent pictures of this to, and have corresponded with, a noted paleontologist.  (The action of the pneumatic diverticulae functions almost like an organism within an organism; it is a very advanced stage in regard to breathing physiology.)

(Left click on the photos to enlarge; hit left return arrows to return back.)

Allosaurus Vertebra (1) by Thomas Peace c. 2013

Some close-ups…(please note, in the first of the following photos, the entry-way — the pneumatic fossa, or pneumatic pore — going into the vertabra )…  It’s the “spear-shaped” chamber on the left.  (It would form a convoluted passageway throughout the vert in ways we can’t simply see via a slice-view.)

Allosaurus Vertebra (2) by Thomas Peace c.2013

Allosaurus Vertebra (3) by Thomas Peace c.2013

Allosaurus Vertebra (4) by Thomas Peace c.2013

Allosaurus Vertebra (5) by Thomas Peace c.2013

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[A subsequent post,we’ll have, is: Photos of fossil Troodon Dinosaur (the “intelligent” dinosaur)]

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Highly Recommended:

Cool DVDs of Allosaurus:

You can get these at amazon.com or at ebay:

Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special

Jurassic Fight Club:  Season One

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