"Kung saan nagmumula ang sikat ng araw..."

I love my country warts and all /

Hauntingly Sad

Le Milieu Divin

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), the famous Jesuit scientist came close to being defrocked as a result of beliefs to which he clung until his death which fell on an Easter day.

The world is now rediscovering his writings one of which is my favorite 'Le Milieu Divin'.

Tao Ako!

Took this photo yesterday while my son Xavier was being initiated to UP life - a unique and memorable experience akin to being given a blank piece of paper - what comes out depends on what you write. Such liberalism! The UP Oblation, strong and endearing symbol of naked humanity... echoes of Ecce homo, immortalized by Nietzsche in his magnificent opus. What is a man? The most elemental questions are never answered...

Sleepy Shores

Pains numbed by the stillness of the night,

Wounds lost in the engulfing darkness

Like tears in the rain

The deafening silence

hides dying utterances

As my being recedes

to a dreamy stupor

Is this half-death?

RERamos

The things we miss

Dusk finds night creatures emerging from their nooks and crevices. Crickets, bats, snakes, frogs, and a multitude of yet unnamed forms assert themselves in the unrelenting struggle for survival. Sadly though we are hearing fewer croaks and seeing less bioluminescence. Where have all the native frogs and fireflies gone? Are these citizens going the way of the dodo? When I was a kid we used to catch tiny native frogs, beetles, and red dragonflies that herald the onset of the rainy season. Bird nests were everywhere and colorful avians nestled on low, fruit-laden branches, unmindful of our presence, as we frolicked in the bushes in harmony with the rhythms and whims of nature...

Like our molave ( Vitex parviflora )

Local folks call it mulawin. The wood is hard and also highly-prized, like the kamagong. Now rare, I consider myself fortunate to have one towering resident in my backyard.

Isn't it queer that while the government asks us to plant more trees, it simultaneously allows logging to continue? To those who become rich at the expense of our country's forests - may your tribe become extinct! To our hypocritical leaders who play footsies with chainsaw-wielding buwayas, may God remove you from the gene-pool together with these thieves!

The firetree and Kalayaan

This sprawling firetree beside Kalayaan Hall in UP Diliman is a mute witness to smoldering passions and fiery idealism. We entered UP during the dark days of our history as freedom-loving people... How can one ever forget our dedicated and super-intelligent professors like Augustus Mamaril (Embryology), Remedios Roderos (Genetics), Filipinas Natividad (Physiology), Prescillano Zamora (Botany), Reynaldo Yago (Invertebrate Zoology), Nanding Josef (Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy) and Lydia Pena (English) ? To them we are most grateful for the high standards they set. We really strove to abide by the famous bluebook inscription - honor and excellence. The main library became a second home where we pored over thick volumes, hid in-demand books behind shelves of nondescripts, wrote rejoinders to loathsome pages, slept and and feasted on a storck or two ... Heady days spiced by long walks, ikot rides, tedious hours in microscopy, indignation rallies, fraternity rumbles, Rodic's tapsilog, "terror professors" and police truncheons...

Tokyo Chill

A breath of fresh air, nippy and invigorating...

un homme et une femme

Henry David Thoreau

Ramos Pond in Barangay Macatbong, Cabanatuan City, Philippines, is home to several species of fish, notably Tilapia mossambica, mudfish, catfish, carp, small shrimps, and molluscs. The three ponds are surrounded by bamboo, narra, mahogany, mangoes, java plum, acacias, ipil, eucalyptus, and many other tree species. Migratory birds are often spotted hunting for snails at certain times of the year. I consider this place a humble version of Thoreau's famous Walden Pond. It is a shame that unthinking local authorities once attempted to convert an area adjacent to this picturesque place to a garbage dump. The feisty residents of this small village, who had better environmental sense, fought hard for their rights to a clean and healthful environment and won.

kamagong seeds ? mea culpa...

Today is a serendipity-filled day !
After searching for a long time I finally located the famous and highly-prized "iron tree", commonly known as kamagong (Diospyros philippinensis), now very rare because of greedy loggers. The proud owner of the kamagong tree, Mr. Ancheta of Poblacion Centro, Aliaga, Nueva Ecija, gave me 27 mature seeds for planting. I hope at least some of these seeds will grow into the mature tree that is known for causing chainsaws to snap and nails to bend...Updated June 13- It's not kamagong after all but dungon-late (Heritiera littoralis). The wood is just as hard though. Thanks to Mr. Ramon Bandung, herbalist of the UP Institute of Biology. Kamagong is mabolo, Diospyros philippinensis. I still consider myself lucky...

may offerings

summer colours

today we harvested a few macopas, tamarinds, indian mangoes, and duhat, providing an otherwise dreary day with a kaleidoscope of colours. summer is incomplete without this visual feast. the trees occupy special niches in our 640-square meter residence.

ebbing summer days

Summer is nearly over. The first rains of May came at dawn today and woke me from sleep. It came in sheets and I was unable to do my five kilometers. Why do I feel vulnerable each time summer gives way to long days of continuous rain? On the other hand, after succumbing to the reality of puddles and soaked shirts and mudtracks, the rains seem to offer a haven, an excellent camouflage for tears and sadness. Who will ever know one is crying in the rain?
reramos

firetrees

today i planted eighty firetree seeds in small plastic bags. firetrees are adored for their fiery red blooms that light up the summer skies. they grow to great heights and the bullet-shaped seeds are encased in a hard scabbard-like pod that requires quite an effort to open. of course i do not expect all seeds to germinate and become adult trees... if half or a third of them reach maturity that would be a good batting average already!

shifting gears

Clouds Over Macatbong

ethereal question

arakawa

"A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted." - John Ciardi