One of the numerous highlights of 2017 for me, which also included several monumental family gatherings, was a long-awaited visit to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. After a whirlwind weekend of activity surrounding the wedding ceremony of my youngest daughter, the opportunity to see this historic home, which I had … Continue reading The Spirit of Jefferson’s Monticello
As 2017 winds down and 2018 approaches, I would like to extend my personal, heartfelt "Season's Greetings" to all of my readers and visitors here at John's Consciousness, and to express my gratitude for the many thoughtful comments and communications from visitors all across the globe. It has been a turbulent and challenging year for … Continue reading Tidings of Comfort and Joy
November has flown by with a swiftness of a fleeting blink of an eye. The autumn this year was reluctant to begin, with summer-like temperatures holding fairly steady well into October in the Northeast corridor, and the delay in arriving at more seasonal weather seemed to mute the changing colors when they finally began to … Continue reading Auguries of Autumn
As many of my regular readers may recall, back in 2012, my family and I suffered the personal loss of our dear brother, Michael, and at that time, our personal experiences surrounding that loss, and having to endure the profound sadness that accompanied those events, presented us with an unprecedented challenge of finding a path … Continue reading The Perspective of Time and Love
I found myself traveling today along the rural back roads near my home, on my way back from visiting with my children, and I had the rare opportunity to enjoy a pleasant drive through brilliant sunshine and vibrant blue skies, surrounded by farmland and the exquisite greens of a late summer afternoon. My heart has … Continue reading Why God Sent Us Mozart
An image from the Cassini spacecraft shows Earth as a point of light between the icy rings of Saturn. Credit - Space Science Institute/JPL-Caltech/NASA Thanks to the leaps in satellite technology, undertaken by NASA and others, as well as scientific advances as a result of humanity's efforts to conduct space travel, there now exist many … Continue reading Our Place In The Universe
A recent conversation with a psychologist friend of mine brought up the importance of our very human version of neurobiology, and how little we still understand about the complex neurobiological processes that are responsible for behavior and our ability to interact with our fellow cognitive creatures. While much has been discovered about the mechanisms of … Continue reading Mind Matters
Since there is so much conversation going on these days about Artificial Intelligence and what we might expect in the coming years as scientists and researchers advance in constructing ever-more complex machines, I thought it might be a good time to consider not only what it means to be "intelligent," but also what importance the … Continue reading What It Means To Feel
An extraordinary opportunity to travel to Center City Philadelphia this weekend made it possible to fulfill a longtime wish from my younger days to view in person some of the actual original works of Winslow Homer. As a much younger man, full of optimism and the creative spirit, I had thought to become an artist … Continue reading American Watercolor Exhibit
Winter has finally begun to lose its grasp on the world around me, and as it wanes, I find myself in a fairly predictable state of mind for this time of year. It generally feels like a sort of aching melancholy or some leftover winter suppression or vagueness in my personal emotional experience of life, … Continue reading Knowledge and Emotion
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