Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Red-bellied Woodpecker

A red-bellied woodpecker lives nearby. This is a southern bird that i've never seen before in our neighborhood. At first, i thought it was a flicker (they're on succeeding pages of my bird book), but then i looked more carefully at the distinguishing marks. Surprise! It's a red-bellied woodpecker.

Our mind can fool us too. Then we look more closely at a particular thought, or a type of thought, and we find out it's not what we thought it was.

Desire feels good. But look closely at those desiring thoughts--desires for your children or grandchildren, desire for a vacation. We recall the pleasantness and bring it to mind time and again. Then we realize: desire is a stressful thought. It's not as pleasant as we thought it was :)

Take a closer look. Work on identifying those thoughts. Are they useful? Or useless?

Things are not as they seem. Let's aim to see life as it really is.

Photo from fsc.fernbank.edu

1 comment:

  1. I love this woodpecker, he makes visits to my feeder often. However, whomever named this bird needs his/her eyes checked. I can see no red on the red-bellied woodpecker's belly. I see it all on his head. The rocket scientists, (aka ornithologists or discoverer) who named this bird did not name him properly IMHO. The Red Headeded Woodpecker seems more appropriate.

    BTW Love your blog.

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