Simply taking a slow, deep breath out in the woods in the Adirondack region of New York State is so near to a transcendent experience by itself that whenever I arrive there I feel confident in my ability to achieve an even more intense transcendent state with some effort and focus. When I was a … Continue reading Adirondack Dreams
A passing train howls in the distance. A cool breeze brushes up against my face, and the full moon reflects the sun's light toward the half-darkened earth. As I scan the evening sky, I deeply inhale the brisk autumn air and turn my gaze fondly upon my silent friend, the backyard tree, which slowly sways, … Continue reading Conversation with a Silent Friend
The only means of strengthening one's intelligence is to make up one's mind about nothing-- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. - John Keats (1795 - 1821) No matter what aspect of conscious experience we wish to consider, whether it involves a clearly temporal action or event like wrestling an alligator, … Continue reading The Dynamics of Consciousness
This week, I was finally able to view the film "The Tree of Life," directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain. As expected, I was deeply moved by the powerful emotional, psychological, and spiritual experience of this masterful rendering of the experience of life. There is much of value … Continue reading The Tree of Life – a film by Terrence Malick
NASA / ESA and Jeff Hester (Arizona State University) The Hubble Space Telescope has caught the most detailed view of the Crab Nebula in one of the largest images ever assembled by the space-based observatory. When I look out into the night sky, especially when I consider the vastness of space and contemplate the cosmic … Continue reading Discovery and Wonder
Radio Telescopes - ESO - Chile There wasn't any reason in particular to step out into the mitigated darkness of late evening, other than to follow an urge to move past the sometimes bewildering blur my life has been of late. Somehow, as I turned my gaze to the canopy of stars in the cool … Continue reading Victory over Disharmony
Some years ago, I photographed Roy Rogers at a meet and greet in New Jersey. A friend of mine recently forwarded an email which reflected on some of the television characters from our childhood years, like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Sky King and Superman and Sgt. Friday, Captain Kangaroo, … Continue reading Nostalgia and the Future of Humanity
I wrote the following in response to a WordPress blog entry noted at the bottom of this entry: It's always interesting to me when anyone tries to distinguish between terms which are interdependent, and which require each other in order to describe each other. What we describe as "information" and what we describe as "knowledge," … Continue reading Information versus knowledge.
Back in June of last year, I began my first serious reading of “Out of Our Heads,” by Alva Noë, and immediately I started to feel a high degree of admiration for his courage in addressing the philosophical, scientific, and biological approach to understanding human consciousness. His premise that “We are not our brains,” strikes … Continue reading Are We “Out of Our Heads?”
As the ten year mark arrives of the awful tragedy of the loss of so many lives on September 11, 2001 in America, so much is being written about it and broadcast in the 21st century media about that terrible day, that it seems almost impossible that any sort of balanced perspective might result from … Continue reading Looking Closely at Our Life On Earth and the Importance of Perspective
John's Consciousness 