Be Still Buddy

Be-Still Buddy, Kailua, HI, May 2020, Nikon D600 with FX 18-300mm VR lens, 300mm,
1/320 sec @ f5.6, ISO 500, -0.33 EV, no flash © Steven Crisp  [Click on the photo to enlarge]

This is a Red-Crested Cardinal (really a Tanager) holding a Be-Still flower in its beak, and drinking its nectar.  These cute songbirds bounce through these trees (also known as Yellow Oleander), plucking flowers, holding them like trumpets, and then dropping them.

So many fall to the ground you could make quite a beautiful Hawaiian lei with them, except that the flowers (and all parts of this plant, especially the seeds) are poisonous to humans (and many animals).  Hence the name -- the result of someone eating parts of the tree -- they would literally stop moving and "be still."  Even the nectar, gathered by bees and transformed into honey, ends up containing toxins.

And yet will you look at that ... poison to some is nectar from the gods for these birds.  Nature certainly is fascinating.

And I'm quite fond of our Be-Still Buddy, reminding me to, "Be Still, Buddy" 😬.   But in my version, this is more like the inner stillness found during meditation.

Here's hoping that you -- my blog Buddy -- can spend some time today both in Stillness and in Nature ... and each and every day going forward.

Namaste!

Dancing Minnows

Dancing minnows 

What do they know?

Of water or sunlight or shadows

And what do they think

Of ripples or waves or vast ocean

Look!

They just flow within it all

No effort or worry

Just one more dance among the cosmos

Why must you do any more?

Pay no mind ... No Mind! 

Find your way with choiceless awareness 

Have you sensed it?  

That tingling ...  that connection 

Among, within, and as a part of Nature  

To all beings ... to all that IS. 

Your mind will protest ... that’s understood

 This is beyond your your thinking mind

Beyond me, my, and mine

Beyond I'm right and your wrong

Beyond past regrets and future plans

There is a wholeness 

Just ... Be ... Here ... Now ...

(Thank you Ram Dass)

Where preferences are a hindrance,

opinions are burdensome, and

beliefs are anything-but True faith
Where opposites just flow together

Can you accept good ... and evil?

Can you accept us ... and them?

Can you accept life ... and death?

Not separate ... nor superior

Just Reality as it IS

So simple ... even a child can understand

Let go of concepts that keep you old and stale

Become child-like again ... see everything fresh and new