silent thunder

Their straw like proboscis mouths are in two parts when they emerge... Watching him flex them as they slowly fuse together to form the tube structure. When Evades the Wasps, emerged, I spent a bit of time confused as I could only spot four legs... I just never saw the third pair. More research into this and it turns out the third pair of legs are not observed being used very often, but they are present and remain close to the body located right near the face/head. They do seem to use them to help align the two halves of their proboscis though. Just incredible to witness this. So small, so intricate, such a stunning process to transform from egg to a full flight Monarch. Weighing a quarter of an ounce and able to travel thousands of miles to a place it's never seen, aside from in the memories of ancestors, which is what I've always considered 'Instinct' to be... one being able to recall the memories of one's ancestors as one's own. Just incredible... humbling and inspiring simultaneously.

Agreed my friend. Houdini emerged about an hour ago, just before 8am. His wings are drying now. Gal got his emergence on video. Pretty sure he's a he. Though it's tougher to tell when their wings are closed. Here he is just after inflating his wings hanging out while they dry... What a truly stunning process. Talk about Alchemy!

Tonight, Houdini made significant shifts... likely emerging tomorrow, mid-morning.

These women in Kenya working together are shifting anciently held patriarchal inertias in their communites... while protecting what they love. True high skill. Team Lioness: An All Woman Wildlife Ranger Anti-Poaching Force in Kenya.

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Fiction seems to go down a little more smoothly (and is less likely to be rejected by the potential host) when dosed with a tinge of truthfulness...

I'm a proponent of Entheogens and their benefits and usefulness in exploring one's awareness and the underpinnings that lay often beneath/beyond the ken of our usual consciousness to access. I've experienced two breakthroughs and the catalyzation of realizations of life changing proportions and magnitude through the influence of the spirit of psilocybin mushrooms. Two trips in particular were paramount in releasing the inertia of trauma and coming to understand the destructive underpinnings of behaviors and methods I'd been utilizing to manage trauma energies for decades prior to the wakening experiences. Those two experiences catalyzed insights that were invaluably beneficial and whose influential shifts still abide to this day. The Entheogen classes of hallucinogenic plant spirits are potent non-habit forming aids in my experience and can have lasting sustainable insights brought to the fore. I'm deeply grateful for their lessons.

We usually go camping for the Perseids. Our favorite spot is @ 7,800 feet near the top of Black Mountain in Boulder Basin campground. At that altitude the viewing is nothing short of gobsmackingly good. Next year...

Here's Liziqi working some edible outstandingness with lotus.

We've been working on our Carnitas recipe and this popped up while doing some research...

Was recently asked the question: what is the goal of your spiritual path? My pat answer is 'enlightenment'. Which is wholly unsatisfying to me these days. It is like a sound byte I've regurgitated from some Saturday morning talk show. What does it mean? When I thought about it a bit more I refined it into more practical terms. I want to heal the old pains I still hold onto. I want to be more open and loving and aware. I want to release those things that hinder loving kindness and inhibit greater awareness. Awareness is the most tangible thing I could point to in my pursuit of a spiritual path. I want to expand my awareness and simultaneously pinpoint and anchor it deep within. And then a strong mental image blared in my head. A spiral path along a toroidal sphere. As above, so below I've always been obsessed with spirals. When viewed from above, or head on, they look like a circle. When viewed from outside, they are ascending or descending, depending on the perspective. In my new understanding, I see my path as this spiral along a toroidal sphere. The sphere represents my awareness and as I transverse it, it expands and contracts in a natural cycle. Oscillating energy outward and upward, then inward and down. Like waves, as they grow when they arrive at the point of highest extension/yang, then duality is expressed and the weight of the wave, the force of its excessive yang tumbles into its opposite/yin and the wave softens and yields to the conditions around it striking balance. A drawn bow settles in balance, this is one expression of the energy of Tao. My own path follows a natural cycle. Periods of growth (learning, seeking), upward and outward and then a natural retreat, into solitude and introspection. Discovery, adaption and synthesis leading to greater awareness, which triggers in me a desire to reach out again with this new awareness to look at all I saw before with new eyes and before I know it, I'm back, expanding outward, reaching out and exploring again. Although it can appear to be redundant and repetitive, I have not found this to be the case. Each trip around the sphere results in another aspect of awareness. The work is cumulative. One analogy I like is the ball. If I experience a ping pong size awareness and I read a book or have a conversation, I will have a ping pong ball sized understanding. If I experience a planet sized awareness... Much like working through emotional problems, it can feel like we are repeating the same cycles over again and simply reliving the past. But I have found similarly, that this is also cumulative, at least in the context of actual spiritual introspection and work. If you are really pursuing to experience the source of your suffering, you will peel layers of the built up injury over time. Much like an onion is peeled. It will often feel like you've done this so many times before, why am I still here? Am I making no progress? etc... In my experience I have found that I was not simply spinning in place, but peeling the many layers that built up over time. I have experienced in a couple areas of my life, peeling the onion to its core and finding nothing. The story I was carrying, I realized after peeling enough away, was a story that no longer applied to me. Dropping that emotional baggage was then as easy as dropping a heavy bag at the airport. My path is beautifully spiraled. Cyclical and cumulative, leading to a more natural, open and loving awareness of life. Think it might be time for me to ask my teacher to introduce me to Bagua. edit: add pics

“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.” ― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.” ~ Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha

We are all linked by a fabric of unseen connections. This fabric is constantly changing and evolving. This field is directly structured and influenced by our behavior and by our understanding. Ultimately, all moments are really one, therefore now is an eternity. To change your reality you have to change your inner thoughts. ~David Bohm David was a physicist in the 20th century, a contemporary of Einstein and Oppenheimer who was ostracized by them and at Oppenheimer's direction at several meetings with influential physicists declared persona non grata among the theoretical community of that time... "If we cannot silence him, we must ignore him." Oppenheimer was quoted to have said. All due to Bohm publishing his musings on several key and influential areas of quantum physics particularly regarding the observer and consciousness, that turned out to be decades ahead of their time, but in the moment, were not welcome by the community. The ostracization eventually led to David losing his position and leaving the country at Oppenheimer's continuous and intense coercion. Eventually after living (and still publishing) in Venezuela and Israel in obscurity, he happened to meet J. Krishnamurti in 1961. This moment would change both of their lives. It is said when the two sat to speak, an instant deep connection and affinity developed and when the topic wove to Consciousness and the nature of how humans perceive reality, versus how it really is, it was as if two sides of the same coin came together. At one point Krishnamurti was said to stand up and exclaim "Yes! You understand!" Their relationship spanned 25 years where they worked closely together, each from their respective approaches to the fundamental notions of awareness and consciousness, to the benefit of both... and me too. https://www.kbohm.com/

Bet I know what she's hoping to lure in...

Hey @old3bob Just had a thought. Have you tried cold brewed coffee? I have an Aunt who experiences severe lower GI reactions to regularly brewed coffee, but has no reaction to cold brew. Significantly lower acid content in cold brew from what I hear which is the difference maker for her it seems. cheers...

It's been a while... but after writing about the dark coffee... I'm going to break out my Ibrik and make a nice sweet cuppa Turkish Mud soon.

I took years off of coffee and like I mentioned when I returned to using it, I shifted to light roasts and straight versus dairy n sugars. I appreciate it so much more now. The flavoring in the various beans and the manner they're roasted. Grinding my own for desired consistency. It's become a lovely ritual in the early morning. (we share the same wakeup time). I can't drink the work coffee any longer, it's good for degreasing tool parts. What I do now, is fill my travel mug with the remnants of my press that i make in the morning which is about 3 cups. When it's about half empty, I top it off with hot water. I keep doing this throughout the day and by the end of my 10 hour shift, I'm drinking hot water. This has been a nice shift as I used to absent mindedly over-drink coffee routinely.

My wife cannot abide coffee at all any longer. She misses it but has, through thorough trials and testing, finally accepted that no matter how well she's feeling, drinking coffee is usually equivalent to eating a grenade for her. Her lower GI tract just goes berzerk with it. We're exploring some wonderful teas together now though... My own coffee drinking has shifted entirely. I used to be drawn to heavy, dark dark roasts, Turkish Mud coffee I called it. With lots of milk and honey. Now I brew very light roasts and drink it straight.

Hey Mig. Yea, I have no idea what the Chinese mind, or any other mind understands, I'm just sharing my own. I understand only a few words of Chinese and no Classical Chinese at all, so every word I've ever read about Daoism has been in english, or spanish, the two languages I know a bit, so all daoist ideas have been translated. So too, interestingly have all the thoughts in my own mind... I find my own cognitive process, when shifting experiences to conceptual notions in the realm of words, is a translation itself, even within my own awareness. My life as thought about, is interpreted and translated from the subtle into the conceptual, every time I try to formulate words for experiences, or have thoughts arise about them. C'est la vie. My process has, interestingly to me, without seeking, naturally unfolded away from literality and certainty and occupies a more poetic sensing... Every experience and perception of life I've ever had, or am having now, when trying to convey them in words seem to equally have been interpreted by my own perceptual translations. All of spoken life, is a translation to me these daze... and these daze, I allow space for the chinese mind and all others to have their own full take on life, that may or may not be what mine is... but I find I abide in deep comfort with the one seeming certainty that even though we may not be experiencing these concepts the same... we are each of us, having a complete experience in and of it, our self. Tzujan... of itself. We all experience life from the center of our own awareness. ZZ resonates humor and play for me with unparalleled high skill. His words, undoubtedly translated many times (even among the chinese... how many read the classical?), reflected in many mirrors, are at their core, reflective of human experience and in this, there will be resonant harmonies and similarities that instinctively resonate with all humans, each in their own subjective manner. It's interesting to see how my interpretations adjust as i move through life. Particularly in revisiting old texts after years away, how differently the same words may be encountered after years of experience. I wonder how I'll be experiencing the interpreted words of ZZ in another decade? I know it's remarkable to even reread my own old journal musings. I see why my masters have prodded keeping journals of thoughts. It's remarkable to re-encounter my own thoughts and see how they are translated after some time engaged in the shift of life.

That's not funny!

About 6pm Houdini started making the anchor for his Chrysalis. He latched on fully and entere J Pose @ 10pm. He held J pose for 17 hours and 20 minutes. Then, in 3 minutes and 50 seconds, transformed from this: to this: 17 1/2 hours in one inverted crunch pose... Universe: alright, you get wings now...

*sigh* This truth, is driven home succinctly by this OP. You can explain things to folks, but you can't understand it for them. Wilfull Forced Ignorance is a seemingly insurmountable force, as one may continually reinforce their own ignorance indefinitely without tiring. Now, when I encounter it, I usually just exhale gratitude and then leave that person to converse with themselves as, well that's what they're doing whether other people are involved or not. peace.

I appreciate the open and subjectively accomodating Japanese concept of wabi sabi when regarding the unfolding of the perception of life. It seems to wisely bypass a notion of creation, [which implies a creator(s)] and accomodates space for individual awareness among the ever unfolding present.