Have you not experienced a quiet placid afternoon when you wish that it would not end?
Complex & Simple, Nature, Posts
Counting Up The Days That Are Ours
Books, Complex & Simple, Nature, Posts
The Sunbird and the Heliconia Rostrata
This is another Sunbird, a luscious colourful, almost shimmering male, unhurried between nectar-hunting, in regal serenity as it pauses……. “EMILY: “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?” STAGE MANAGER: “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.” Thornton Wilder, Our Town (Lumix GX85 M.Zuiko 40-150 mm) Jan 2018
Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts
“Love is Inventive, Even onto Infinity” (St Vincent de Paul)
So we finally visited our friends-in-need or FINs these two days to distribute some long-delayed hygiene packs. There were cookies that were added and croissants that were freshly packed and added to the soaps and masks. These items were donated two months ago, at the start of the Covid circuit-breaker or Singapore style ‘lock-down’, and…
Complex & Simple, Nature, Posts
“The Decisive Battles of God’s Kingdom are Fought in Solitude”
On Pentecost Sunday, the delicate petals of the heliconia psittacorum peep through its languorous leaves, accompanied by the slender strands of a spider’s web nestled against the morning light. The earth has a natural ebb and flow which we can rhyme with to find peace and solace from the pedantic frenzy that would otherwise consume…
Books, Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts
The Co-existence of Good and Evil.
St Pope John Paul II, who passed away on Divine Mercy Sunday on 2 April 2005, wrote his last book, Memory and Identity: Personal Reflections, (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, published 2005), in the style of a series of interviews and questions, expanding on the themes that were much earlier examined in 1993 with two Polish philosophers,…
Books, Complex & Simple, Persons, Posts, The Arts
“The rescue of drowning men is, then a duty worth dying for, but not worth living for” CS Lewis
That magnificent quote, from CS Lewis’ Sermon, “Learning in War-Time”, is a wonderful paradigm for our times, in this year, the year of the pandemic war.
Complex & Simple, Nature, Places, Posts
Getting to Zero or Getting to Hundred?
The Conundrum of the Pandemic’s Race to the Finishing Line. The pruned flora was rejuvenating with a vengeance, even as humankind is preoccupied with many of the worries of this world. It would be hard to write this piece one week earlier or later without having to wrap our heads around new discoveries that drives…
Books, Complex & Simple, Nature, Persons, Posts
And then, there were None ..
Like the humble jambu bol tree that nurtures its flower buds lovingly from conception to fruition, for the birds to feed in a frenzy, gone in just an instance.In early March, the black-naped oriole studies the exuberant stamen. In six weeks, the tree is laden with fruit and ripe for the pickings. A day later,…
Complex & Simple, Nature, Posts
On Easter Sunday
On Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020, like no other, a day to be still, a day to reflect on the good that will always conquer the evil, to revert to a time of peace and silence, while the world awaits a sign of deliverance, of the end that cannot be soon enough, and yet, the…
Books, Complex & Simple, Nature, Places, Posts
The Deers of Nara
News emerged earlier this month that the deers of Nara Park are facing an unprecedented food shortage due to the diminution of tourists in Japan arising from the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. The animals have resorted to searching for food and foraging on the small traffic islands and mall-links in Nara city, away from their natural…