Animal Zen Masters: The Albatross

Gerard S. Hoff3 Comments

Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

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Albatrosses are the biggest birds on earth.
Some of them can have a wing span of 370 centimeters (12 feet). The bones in the wings are hollow to save weight and at the same time make them ultra strong. The front of the wing bone has a rounded shape for aerodynamics.

Albatrosses spend most of their life in the air.
They fly highly efficient and can lock-up the wings in with a special muscle and shoulder joint. By only moving their head they change direction, using dynamic soaring and slope soaring. That way they can fly distances up to a 1000 kilometers a day, effortless.
The only exertion is when they take off.

Life is not about carrying weight,
it’s about floating in the air.
Lock your wings.

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Animal Zen Masters: The Earthworm

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

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Earthworms have a major impact on the soil structure. When we walk the earth, billions of worms dig tunnels and break down plant material, making the soil airy and healthy.

The most amazing thing about earthworms is their power to regenerate their body.

Segments of their body can be detached and then simply re-formed again. Even from internal organs it is known that the nervous system can regenerate.
Imagine.

To grow in life is to detach,
the soul will regenerate.

Animal Zen Masters: The Baby Giraffe

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

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Giraffes spend most of their lives standing up; they even sleep and give birth standing up. That makes the birth of a giraffe baby, one of the most violent births in the animal kingdom. A drop of 2 meters, right off the smoothing womb.

The giraffe calf can already stand up and walk after about an hour is able to run the first day. Within week, it starts to collecting its own leaves.

Wisdom begins in wonder – Socrates

Animal Zen Masters: The Bee

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

A bee is living in a hive with hundreds of thousands of other bees, where every bee plays it’s own distinctive role. Outside the hive the bee is on its own, but its role even more significant.
For us.

Bees are important for the pollination of many plants and therefore have an indirect role of about thirty percent of all of the chain in the human food.

Next time you see a bee, be aware of the importance of it.

Be yourself, everyone else is taken.

Animal Zen Masters: The Spider

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

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The web of the spider is an ingenious object. One sticky thread after the other creating the base and then weaving the circles until it’s finished.
It takes a day to make.

After it’s finished the spider retreats in a corner out of sight and waits. All flies have seen him making the web, so avoid being near it. But the spider waits and  waits until the flies forget and one gets trapped in the sticky threads.
Then it moves.

Patience may be one of the largest bases for success

Animal Zen Masters: The Anglerfish

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

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Perhaps not the most attractive fish in the ocean, but definitely an interesting one. Its luminescent organ, called the esca, is lit by symbiotic bacteria that dwell in and around it.

The organ lures a prey in dark, deep-sea environments. The beak, that stretches over the complete width of the fish, falls opens up while sucking in the water.
Including the prey.

The esca also serves to call males’ attention to the females to facilitate mating.

At all time
it is I who can decide
who to be.

Watch the first anglerfish on camera here.

Animal Zen Masters: The Caterpillar

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

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A caterpillar starts eating the day it is born from his tiny egg. Green leaves and fresh grass is paradise, all you can eat, especially on a sunny day.

It’s also the fastest growing organism on the planet. Up to 10.000 times its birth weight within 20 days is the record. A caterpillar moults up to 5 times during its short life, as it literally bursts out of its skin.

Imagine the face of the caterpillar, after all this eating, when it finds itself trapped in a cocoon. What am I doing here?

Now imagine the same face after breaking out of it. As a butterfly.
Life of a caterpillar is pretty amazing.

Any stage
is a stage to grow
into something more beautiful.