Stubbing One's Toe

"The famous uncertainty principle, formulated by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, has shown that our knowledge of atomic phenomena is limited because the experimental procedures with which we must carry out our observations inevitably interfere with the phenomena that we wish to measure... When it comes to trying to predict its tolerance to perturbances, we are in the position of someone asked to deduce the whole of medicine by observing one human being. With respect to its individuality, then, the earth is not so much like a cell as like an individual person. Like a person, the earth is unique; like a person, it is sacred; and, like a person, it is unpredictable by the generalizing laws of science..."

-Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth

Rainbow's End

Dr. Zhivago - Poetry in Prose

Pasternak's poetic masterpiece is timeless for it deals with the human condition - love and the indomitable human spirit amidst wretchedness, war, hunger, and all the iniquities man has to endure. In this cauldron of human existence we find chords anchored to our hearts and each time a man is killed or maimed or made to suffer pain or indignity, we feel a tug on our hearts... ©2007 raulespinozaramos, md

Father's Scouting Unit

In those days boy scouts acted like real men. Imbued with sterling traits - honesty, loyalty, bravery, fortitude, and love of country, they proudly donned their uniforms. I guess it would now be difficult to find a lad who could tie different knots, identify trees and edible wild plants, pitch tent, use a bowie knife properly, or survive in the wild using basic lore. Bleeding hearts and apologists for today's whining hip-hop
generation hasten to rationalize this sad state of affairs as an adaptive mode of a confused lot... There is no tenacity to excel or to fight for a worthy cause, only whimpering about harsh conditions and seeking early relief or compromise... And the leaders we have today? We don't have statesmen in our midst - we merely have elected officials...

Lyrical Lines

" My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light! "

- Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

Two Tykes

Max and Joshua acting before the camera with their new caps... Childhood is bland without occasional mischief and the accompanying impish smile.

Two Lolas

Born in the late 1800s, she rode horses in her prime and packed a wallop as far as life's problems and challenges were concerned.
Feisty and full of worldly wisdom, Impong Tenteng, as she was fondly called, never completed formal education yet her mental prowess was so keen and analytical...She espoused a mundane philosophy that always went for the jugular, or the crux of any situation. She smoked a lot, hated vegetables, ate a lot of red meat, and lived to a ripe old age of ninety-five. Her sister on the left, Impong Orang, lived to more than a hundred years... © 2007 rauleramos, md

Chinese Lass

Rapid modernization has its aesthetic side... Lithe figure garbed in chic apparel floats by this Great Wall marketplace... What is beauty? Perfect symmetry? Order in complexity? A fixed set of parameters defined by an aquiline nose, deep-set eyes and the scarcity of melanin? Alas, most definitions are either too cold or culture-bound. Beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder...

Of Fish And Men

Nadine and Xavier pose beside a day's catch from Ramos Pond in Macatbong, Cabanatuan City, Philippines.

Child's Play

"You could not get a human being to build anything unless the child had put together a set of bricks."
- Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man

Makiling Climb, October, 1980

It was hardly planned. With meager supplies we set off to scale misty and legend-shrouded Mt Makiling. Memories of the sweetest water I've ever tasted gushing forth from a mountainside spring remain etched in my mind. It was a moonlit night when the three of us, Buddy, Gabby, and myself were treated to a symphony of sounds from howler monkeys, owls, and hornbills set against the constant hum of cicadas and other insects and the incessant courtship croaks of mountain frogs. Clouds moved swiftly by, carried by silent high winds. We had a small cassette player and 'The Best of Bread' but we turned it off in favor of nature's music. A bonfire was lit and a few pictures were taken for posterity. A few beers, mindless chatter, and a pervasive awe set the stage for sleep...Reality set back in at dawn as we broke camp and continued with the ascent... The summit was covered with fog. Plants looked stunted, gnarled and shrubby. Moss and small ferns contrasted with the giant ferns we espied halfway through the climb. On the way down we tore the seat of our pants as we skidded on our behinds accompanied by raucous laughter. For souvenirs we had 'limatik' hitchhikers (forest leeches, genus Haemadipsa) gorging themselves on our blood, and a taste of that exotic mountain citrus, that super-sour 'cabuyao', guaranteed to make a brave soul convulse in revulsion. The best souvenir however, is the indelible mark Mt Makiling made in our hearts. I think that is the legend... © 2007 rauleramos, md

Three Musketeers

Childhood Innocence

The big ones that didn't get away

Boy, those bigheads are heavy ! Raised in our ponds as an experiment, we nearly forgot about the bighead carps (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) until a storm swept past Nueva Ecija and some "big fish with large heads" were caught in the nearby river. We later realized that the carp fry had matured and some escaped the flooded ponds into the nearby Cabu River. Over the years several species of native fishes have alternatingly dominated the pond population. The indigenous pond population consisted of a balanced and stable number of 'gouramis', 'liwalu', 'lukaok', 'hito', and 'dalag'. At one point the ponds were teeming with carnivorous species like mudfish or 'dalag' (Ophicephalus striatus) and native hito (Clarias macrocephalus). They were replaced for a short period by the highly prolific 'alembong' whose eggs were so numerous we used to make fish roe patties out of them. Then the 'tilapia' (Tilapia mossambica) took over and continue to be the dominant species...

A Moment Snatched

A hunched figure of a man beneath a dark cloth was making some adjustments with his bulky apparatus. Final instructions not to move were given and then there was a blinding flash ! Time had been stopped dead in its tracks ! For a few seconds I thought I had become blind. It is quite a frightening experience to have one's picture taken in those days. Days when everything looked big and we were small. Vivid memories of days spent in priceless child's play - the secret hiding places, the tall trees, the big dogs that chased us out of our wits, the armies of crabs, the first fish we caught, the hapless frogs and beetles and dragonflies that we held in our hands... Why is childhood so magical ? ©2007 rauleramos, md

Reverence For Life

That man is truly ethical who shatters no ice-crystal as it sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from a tree, cuts no flower... The farmer who has mown down a thousand flowers in his meadow to feed his cows, must be careful on his way home not to strike off in heedless pastime the head of a single flower by the roadside, for he thereby commits a wrong against life without being under the pressure of necessity.
-Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

"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