Foreboding darkness,
Those eerie clouds hovering —
Look. Sunrise beyond!
I took this photo last week on a flight home to Mindanao around 5am after an 8-hour layover in Manila. I barely had any sleep, but seeing the sunrise when you’re up in the sky is always a treat. For a few minutes you forget how exhausted you are, and how much work is waiting for you when you land.
For a few minutes, life is good.
You’ve always watched over me
While I’ve only ever seen you from afar.
Today I look up at you,
and see
how you have given me
air to breathe,
shade in the scorching sun,
quiet comfort in turbulent times.
You’ve always remained
sturdy, reliable.
Shaken yet unbowed.
This week’s challenge is “Glowing moments.”
I like these glowing moments from nature that I’ve witnessed.
I took this photo during an evening walk by the lake on our campus in Jimei.
I could have started with the sunrise and ended up with the moon photo, but I like to end with hope — a new day for glowing moments.
Read about the challenge here: Lens-Artist Photo Challenge
In this week’s challenge, Donna asks, “What tricks do you use to get the shot you want? Do you love reflections in raindrops? Is there something hidden in your photo, or the unsuspecting behind a wall. Have you ever found ice cream clouds, or illusions in a waterfall at sunset? A unicycle? ”
For my entry, I chose these two photos taken a few years ago, of the sky and clouds and trees. Whenever I see blue sky and a few clouds, I always imagine seeing a huge painting. I don’t know if there are many people like me who like to look up at the sky when I’m walking, that is, in wide open spaces like on our campus where I took these photos.
I don’t need to go to a museum to be moved by a painting. I can look up at the sky and see what new painting there is to view.
Happy Sunday!
Therese
Known here as the city flower of Xiamen, bougainvilleas can be found anywhere on the island and even in our district which is on the mainland. The one pictured here is from our campus in Jimei.
Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge
I have not contributed to the LAPC for years, and I was reminded of it when I saw Soybend’s post linking to LAPC and decided to join the challenge again.
Perfect timing as spring symbolizes new life, and I feel that I am starting all over as I’ve retuned to China after being away for three years because of the pandemic.
And seeing so many different kinds of flowers on campus this spring gives me so much joy. Walking by the lake and hearing the chirping of the birds and seeing these flowers — I wish it will always stay this way.
These flowers can be found in different parts of the campus.
Much energy spent
In anger is better used
Spreading kindness, love.
A tree, a branch, roots —
Roots falling from the branches
The banyan, a tree.
Grateful and happy to be back in my second home, Jimei. 🌹💕
It’s been months since I last posted, and though there were so many things I wanted to write about, I just couldn’t find the time. Nor the right words.
I hope to update this blog again soon.
For now I’m sharing photos I took yesterday when I went out for an early morning walk on campus.
Yes, I’m back in China with my son. And after three years of being apart, we are finally reunited with my husband. 💕🙏
I hope to catch up on reading posts from blogs I follow. So, see you soon.
Sky, ocean touching
In the horizon, meeting.
Sky and ocean blue.
—–
Happy weekend!❤
T.
—-
Have a beautiful weekend!
T..
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Inspiration
Labors of love for food.
Lens Artists Photo Challenge: A labor of love
Have a lovely week! ♥️
T.
A blessed Good Friday to all.
T.
—-
Leaving the office today, I looked up at the sky and saw the clouds. I wanted to capture the image of the tree with the clouds as the background, and the result is, to me, much nicer than I imagined. To me, it looks like something I would really like to paint, if only I could!
—–
As a child, I loved climbing trees. There used to be guava trees in front of our house before my uncle built his house there and a java apple fruit tree behind one of my aunts’ house, which is behind our house. My grandfather made sure all his 8 children lived in the same place, so where I grew up there are 7 detached houses where my mother and her siblings had built their homes.)
My sisters, cousins and I used to climb the trees in the afternoons and sit on the branches (we were all young and thin!) and pick fruits. We were all pretty good at climbing back then. (I can probably still climb but I don’t think any of my sisters or cousins will dare! Lol!)
So whenever I see a tree, I judge it as being climbable or not. Part of me really wants to climb when I see street trees (here they are mango trees) , but living in the city, I don’t want to embarrass myself. A couple of years ago, I went to visit my former professor and he had a very climbable tree in his yard, so I asked if I could climb and sit in it. Being eccentric himself, he said, “Why not?” So, I did!
Sitting in a tree gives me a wonderful feeling of being safe and worry-free, especially when I hear the rustle of the leaves when the wind blows.
At my age now, I see a lot of trees that were I ten years younger, I would consider climbable, but can only look at with a sigh. I wish I could teach my son to climb a tree. That would probably need hundreds more of occupational therapy sessions, but who knows.
——
(I do not know what this tree is called, so if you do I’d be very grateful if you could drop me a line in the comments section. Thanks! 🙏🏽)
Jimei, Xiamen, China
I’ve taken photos of these trees’ roots before for the Weekly Photo Challenge. The roots then were not as big as they are now.
Have a lovely Monday! 💕
T.
These butterflies are from the Butterfly Garden in Loay, Bohol.
I wanted to take more pictures, but my 8-year-old son wasn’t interested in butterflies. He found the pythons more interesting. Sigh.
Hope you like these photos.
A blessed Ash Wednesday!🙏🏽
My husband and I were walking from the restaurant to the post office when he spotted this caterpillar. I wouldn’t have seen it because it was high up on a vine on a fence, and I’m short. Luckily phone cameras have a zoom function.
Weekly Photo Challenge:
Unlikely
He laments the quick and merciless
Passing of time and the white strands of hair
That are starting to show on his temples.
He looks at old photographs and then looks at himself
In the mirror and sighs …. “Time is unkind.
“We were so young then…,” he says.
“And stupid,” she adds.
She looks at herself in the mirror and sighs…
“This is inevitable,” she says to herself.
“The only thing that is constant is change.
Nature, too, ages.
The sun may rise and set again day after day,
And the waves rush back and forth,
Second after second…
Yet they, too, go through change.
“But some things can remain constant
In our lifetime.
We can keep them constant.
And that should be enough.”
Daily Prompt: Constant
Bukidnon means “from the mountains” or “mountain dweller.” It’s a province on the island of Mindanao. Dahilayan is a village in the town of Manolo Fortich. In recent years, it has become popular for its Forest Park and its Adventure Park.
Go check out their websites by clicking on the links. I’m not a very adventurous person, but I did go on the zip line. I truly enjoyed the beauty of this village — cool, clean air, blue skies, mountains and trees everywhere. I enjoyed just walking around and taking pictures.
Why can’t we be
As pure as a flower
Growing naturally, artlessly?
Why do we have to pretend
To care when we don’t,
To feel when our hearts are empty,
To believe when we’re full of doubts,
To love when there’s only contempt?
They say if you live in society,
You need to socialize,
Be friendly, smile.
But what if society’s superficiality
Is killing you?
And you’re dying a slow, painful death
With your fake smile, and your fake laugh
And your equally fake concern
For your fake friends.
Perhaps this is part of living.
Perhaps life itself is superficial.
I bought these flowers yesterday with my mother in mind. She would’ve turned 83 today. She loved flowers and liked to have fresh flowers on the altar, so I always bought some on Sundays when I was home.
I miss my mother. I miss hearing her voice, especially her laughter. She was a funny woman who could not tell a story without standing up and making gestures and lots of facial expression. But she only did that in front of her 4th grade pupils and us, her family. She always seemed different when with other people.
At her funeral, my sisters unanimously voted for me to give the eulogy. The youngest always gets the least easy task. I was unprepared (funeral was held three days after she passed on) — sleep-deprived, a restless 5-year-old to look after, and a flight to catch –and I was unable to deliver a eulogy my dramatic yet funny mother would have liked. Sorry, Ming.
These days what it feels like is wanting so much to speak with somebody but the person can never be there anymore. Not even a video call or even a text message. Just silence. And a big part of you just wants to break that silence even just for a minute, even if what she says is the same thing over and over again.
T.
A symphony of natural beauty
Here’s a collection of photos I took from the day my plane landed in Vancouver to the week I spent in Alberta, and to the last day I spent in Saskatchewan.
Canada is a beautiful country, and the Canadians I’ve met are such wonderful people. 💕
Walking around a park or any place where I can appreciate the beauty of nature gives me satisfaction. These past couple of days I’ve seen so much beauty in Canada. So much beauty gives one so much satisfaction. 😊
I hope you enjoy the photos. 💕
T.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Satisfaction
This may sound very simplistic, but it is quite true: when I am stressed out, all I need is some alone time (not necessarily a quiet place, but a place where I don’t have to talk to anybody) and a bit of nature to to look at — flowers, trees, lake — and then I can recover. My problems may not be solved, but at least I’d have the energy and the clarity of mind to face them.
When people are unhappy about things, they want to cure themselves of this unhappiness as quickly as possible, and do things that most often just add to their unhappiness. I think we ought to embrace this unhappiness first before we let it go. And then we can look to nature to remind ourselves that everything is being taken care of.
“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” –Luke 12:27
I believe nature can help heal our unhappiness. We just need to spend time with it and be relieved of our worries by it.
“Nature loves patience: always remember that. It is a law given her of God Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure.” –– Gogol, Dead Souls
May you find relief from all your troubles. 💕
T.
Create. I pondered on this word and realized this should make any creative, thinking human feel humble. We try to “create” beautiful things, useful things, amazing things, but what we create can never surpass nature.
Nature’s beauty and design are beyond amazing.
Have an amazing Saturday!
T. 💕
Daily Prompt: Create
Just like I don’t have the confidence to call myself a writer, I cannot ever call myself a photographer. But I enjoy writing and taking pictures among other things that introverts like myself enjoy doing.
When I take photos, I try to make them look the same way I see them with my own eyes. And to me it can be very difficult sometimes because first, my hands aren’t very steady; second, I do not know much about lighting and that kind of stuff; and third, I just use either my iPhone or my iPad to take pictures.
One time while I was walking with a friend, I stopped to take pictures of flowers, and he shook his head and asked, “Why do you take pictures?”
Good question. That time I only said because I like doing so. But having thought about it, I think I now know the answer.
Perhaps subconsciously it is an attempt on my part to capture moments that are simply that — moments, ephemeral, temporary. There may be flowers and leaves and trees everywhere, but as Robert Burns said, “And this same flower that smiles today, / Tomorrow will be dying.”
They may look the same, but it’s not the same flower, not the same moment, not the same minute.
Every photograph is a record not only of the subject (flower, leaf, sunset, or ocean) but also of a certain ME, at a certain time, at a certain place with a certain person. Everything we do leads us somewhere. We are always changing. Everything around us changes. As Heraclitus famously said, “No man can ever step in the same river twice.”
You can’t record every minute of your life. But you can keep photographs of certain moments of it.
Have a lovely week!
T.💕
Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus
It had just stopped raining this morning when hubby and I went out for a walk. The trees and the roads had a good washing, and the leaves looked beautiful with drops of rain still clinging on them.
T. 💕
Daily Pronpt: Taper
We are roots
Spreading out
In all directions,
Holding on
To Mother Earth,
Sucking her dry,
Until nothing remains
But us and our greed.
Weekly a Photo Challenge: Earth
This is the second time I’m posting a photo of the sky looking like this. And this is from the second time I saw it like this. The Chinese call it 火烧云 (huo shao yun) literally translated “fire burning sky.”
Each time, the sight surprised, amazed me.
Nature surprises.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise
These are all the “greens” I could find on my iPad.
Three were taken in China, one in the Philippines. And they’re different shades of green, no?
Have a lovely week ahead!
T.
Dalipuga, Iligan, Philippines
I love watching the sea. And this photo is of one of my favorite spots at home. As I prepare to go home again for a few days, I look forward to looking down from the plane again and seeing the beautiful waters north of Mindanao.
There is something about seeing the blueness of the sea and scattered white clouds above it, and the feel of the cool breeze on your skin, and the sound of the waves, and the briny scent of the sea. When I sit alone on a beach witnessing all this, I just wish for time to stand still.
What comes into your mind when you hear the word “water”?
The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: H2O
Your teams go on the road, so why don't you?
Understanding the encultured brain
Life in Copenhagen, Denmark, after moving during Covid-19.
Words are to be lifted from the soul! Photograph’s are memories of the heart yet to unfold! Let’s begin!
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