Ecology: Reflection of the Good Life

 Ecology: Reflection of the Good Life

Dr Abe V Rotor

There are people who live happy and full lives while others do not. This leads us to look into the role of human faculties. When we talk of human faculties we refer to holistic intelligence. It is beyond IQ. It dwarfs the common concept of rationality. In fact, it defies definitions that scientists thought of plotting into various fields.
All of us are endowed with a wide range of intelligence which is divided into eight realms, namely:

• Interpersonal (social intelligence)
• Intrapersonal (meditational, spirituality)
• Kinesthetic (athletics, dance, body language)
• Languages or linguistic
• Logic (dialectics, mathematics)
• Music (Auditory art)
• Spatial intelligence (drawing and painting, sculpture, architecture, photography)
• Naturalism (green thumb, relationship with the Natural World)

These realms reside in both left and right hemispheres of our brain, with the left doing more of the reasoning and the right of creativity. How we live a happy and fulfilled life largely rests on how balance we use our brain, making use of these eight God-given faculties. It is also with this premise that we find peace with ourselves and with our environment and ultimately with God. Thus it is not only how much we are endowed with this gift, but more importantly, it is how we make use of it fully and in the right way.

Why don’t you make your own assessment? Rate yourself in each realm. Analyze your top three. Are you not proud of them? Look at the other realms. You may not have tapped them well. Do you realize that there is a big room of improvement, and that there are latecomers in this world?
Lastly, let me emphasize another component of peace, that of sharing. I can not find a shorter way to explain it more clearly than to present this excerpt from “How to Live With Life,” published by Reader’s Digest. To wit:

“Every human being on this earth faces a constant problem: how to make the most of life. There is no simple solution; the art of living is the most difficult of all the arts. But fortunately for all of us, experience can be shared. Insights can be learned. Wisdom can be taught. Experiences, insights and wisdom of men and women – from teachers to clergymen, housewives to scientists, ordinary citizens to statesmen - who have lived deeply, thought profoundly and cared enormously about sharing with others what they learned have found some fragment of truth that cushions the harsh impact of reality or brightens the marvelous tapestry of living. From them we find some answers to the most fundamental of all questions: how to live with life.”

Final Reflections
Let us

• Reflect on re-creating Nature with the image of the lost Eden
• Reflect on bringing the dead tree back to life.
• Reflect that everything in this world is interconnected. Reflect on the lost lamb, the prodigal son.
• Reflect on the new concept of heroes, hope of a tired Planet Earth
• Reflect that our lives can not be ruled by the faceless side of
• science and technology
• Reflect on long life but one lived with noble cause
• Reflect on that sailboat riding on the wave and wind towards a destination.
• Reflect on the multiple intelligence which God endowed singularly to man and how we make use of it in gratitude to the Giver.
• And if we think we are too little in this wide, wide world to make any difference, let this verse permeate in our thoughts and heart.

Cumulus

Rise up from the sea and come as rain,

wake the ponds, make the rivers flow,
fill the lakes, make the fields green;
the trees a curtain to hide the sun
a moment of your ephemeral beauty
of changing faces and a myriad figures;
delight many a child to draw,
to dream and grow;
and if one day the water of the sea is not enough,
drink, drink deep
from my little cup.




Rocky cliff against cumulus cloud, in acrylic by the author 2020

Ecology in Miniature Dioramas

               Ecology in Miniature Dioramas

Dr Abe V Rotor

A diorama is a three-dimensional, miniature or life-size model of a scene, combining painted backgrounds with physical objects and figures to create a realistic or artistic representation. These are often used for educational purposes, allowing students to illustrate concepts from subjects like history, literature, or science in a hands-on way, but they are also created by hobbyists and displayed in museums. AI Overview

Coral Reef

The idea of miniaturized dioramas depicting ecological scenes was pioneered by students taking up ecology subject at St. Paul University QC. Their works - two dozen mini-dioramas depicting major ecosystems - were displayed for 15 years at the school museum, then the centerpiece of natural history.

A diorama is a “view window” reproduced from an actual or imagined event or scene made by artists who have a background of painting, architecture and sculpture combined, and of course, history. In this particular case, the diorama artists must have a working knowledge of ecology and biology.

One who may have visited any of the following museums has a better understanding as to what a diorama is in terms of structure, content and medium: National Museum in Manila, Ayala Museum at Greenbelt in Makati, and National Food Authority Grain Industry Museum in Cabanatuan. But the dioramas in these museums are large and spacious. It gives him the feeling that he is right on spot where the event is taking place or where the scene is located. This is enhanced with the right ambiance of lighting, musical background, narration or dialogue and the like.

The mini-dioramas at SPUQ are much simpler and smaller. They are works of amateurs but nonetheless exude the quality an artist cum ecologist can best show with the help of faculty members and the museum staff. Here are seven mini-dioramas depicting the Tropical Rainforest, the Ocean, Pacific Lagoon, Coral Reef, Alpine Biome, Savannah and the Desert,

1. Tropical Rainforest

The earth once wore a broad green belt on her midriff – the rainforest – that covered much of her above and below the equator. Today this cover has been reduced - and is still shrinking at a fast rate. The nakedness of the earth can be felt everywhere. One place where we can witness this is right here in the Philippines where only 10 percent of our original forest remains. Even the great Amazon Basin is threatened. As man moves into new areas, puts up dwellings, plants crops, becomes affluent, increases in number, the more the tropical rainforest shrinks. Our thinking that the forest as a source of natural resources is finite is wrong. Like any ecosystem, a forest once destroyed cannot be replaced. It can not regenerate because by then the soil has eroded, and the climate around has changed. It is everyone’s duty to protect the tropical rainforest, the bastion of thousands of species of organisms. In fact it is the richest of all the biomes on earth.

Tropical Rainforest

2. The Ocean

Scientists today believe that eighty percent of the world’s species of organisms are found in the sea. One can imagine the vastness of the oceans – nearly 4 kilometers deep on the average and 12 km at its deepest - the Marianas Trench and the Philippine Deep - and covering 78 percent of the surface of the earth. Artists and scientists re-create scenarios of Jules Verne’s, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” such as this diorama, imagining man’s futuristic exploration in the deep led by Captain Nemo, the idealistic but ruthless scientist. Such scenarios are no longer fantasy today – they are scenes captured by the camera and other modern tools of research. And the subject is not one of exploration alone, but conservation, for the sea, limitless as it may seem, is facing the same threats of pollution and other abuses man on land, in water, and air. The sea is man’s last frontier. Let us give it a chance.

3. Pacific Lagoon

The vastness of the Pacific Ocean is disturbed now and then by the presence of islands – big and small, singly or in groups - that appear like emerald and pearl strewn on the dark blue water, presenting a most beautiful scenery that attracts people to experience true communion with nature. Originally these islands were the tips of volcanoes, at first fierce and unsettled, but later became tame to the elements that fashioned them through time into lagoons, and other land forms of varied geographic features. As seen in this diorama, this island typical of Boracay is rich in vegetation, coconut trees grow far into the water and on the white sand that cover the shores. The coral reef teems with many kinds of marine life, from rare shellfish to aquarium fishes. In fact the whole island is a sanctuary of wildlife. It is a natural gene bank, a natural museum of biological diversity.

Tropical Lagoon

4. Coral Reef

Second to the Tropical Rainforest in richness in species diversity is the coral reef, often dubbed as a forest under the sea. Corals are simple animals of the Phylum Coelenterata, now Ctenophora, that live in symbiosis with algae. Algae being photosynthetic produce food and oxygen that corals need, and in return receive free board and lodging, and carbon dioxide. Within this zone grow many kinds of seaweeds, some reaching lengths of several feet long as in the case of kelp (Laminaria), and Sargassum, the most common tropical seaweed. As a sanctuary it cradles the early life stages of marine life until they have grown to be able to survive the dangers and rigors of the open sea. Coral reefs are formed layer upon layer through long years of deposition of calcareous skeletons of Coelenterates which is then cemented with sand, silt, clay and gravel to form into rock. Limestone is a huge deposit resulting from this process Scientists believe that without coral reefs islands would disappear and continents shrink. Above all we would not have the fishes and other marine organisms we know today.

5. Alpine Biome

Isolated from the lower slopes and adjoining valley, this ecological area has earned a distinction of having plants and animals different from those in the surrounding area. Because of the unique climate characterized by an intense but short summer and extreme cold the rest of the year, the organisms in this biome have acquired through evolution certain characteristics that made them fit to live in such an environment. Alpine vegetation is dramatic owing to its ephemeral nature. Here annual plants bloom with a precise calendar, attracting hordes of butterflies and other organisms. The trees are gnarled as they stand against the howling wind, mosses and liverworts carpet the ground, streams are always alive, and migrating animals have their fill before the cold sets in. We do not have this biome in the Philippines, but atop Mt. Apo in Davao and Mt. Pulog in Benguet, the country’s highest mountains, lies a unique ecosystem – a combination of grassland and alpine. This could be yet another biome heretofore unrecorded in the textbook.

Alpine 

6. Savannah

Home of game animals in Africa, the Savannah has the highest number of herbivores of all biomes. It had always been the “grand prix” of hunters until three decades ago when strict laws were passed prohibiting poaching and destruction of natural habitats. The diorama depicts the shrub-grass landscape, a stream runs into a waterhole where, during summer, attracts animals from the lowly turtle to the ferocious lion which stakes on preys like zebra and gazelle. Beyond lies Mt. Kimanjaro, Hemingway’s favorite locale of his novel of the same title (Snows of Kilimanjaro). It is said that the beginning of the Nile River, the longest river in the world, starts with the melting of snow atop Kilimanjaro, right at the heart of the savannah.

7. The Desert

Scenes of the Sahara flash in our mind the moment the word “desert” is brought about to both young and old, in fantasy or reality. Here lies a wasteland, so vast that it dwarfs the imagination. 

Deserts are found at the very core of continents like Australia and North America, or extend to high altitude (Atacama Desert) or way up north (Siberian Desert) where temperature plunges below zero Celsius. In the desert rain seldom comes and when it does, the desert suddenly blooms into multi-faceted patterns and colors of short-growing plants. Sooner the desert is peacefully dry and eerie once again, except the persistent cacti and their boarders (birds, insects and reptiles), shrubs and bushes that break the monotony of sand and sand dunes. But somewhere the “desert is hiding a well,” so sang the lost pilot and the Little Prince in Antoine de St. Exupery’s novelette, “The Little Prince.” I am referring to the oasis, waterhole in the desert. It is here where travelers mark their route, animals congregate, nations put claims on political borders. Ecologically this is the nerve center of life, spiritually the bastion of hope, a new beginning, and source of eternal joy particularly to those who have seen and suffered in the desert. The desert is not a desert after all. ~

My Experimental Artworks

My Experimental Artworks

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living With Nature Center

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur 

"Paintings are but research and experiment. I never do a painting as a work of art. All of them are researches. I search constantly and there is a logical sequence in all this research." - Pablo Picasso

School children come to me for art's sake.

"Lolo, what projects can we make?"

It's the idea that stirs their imagination

into many ways of art expression. - avr

 Art with Shells

Shells collection into work of art against a marine scene mural.  

Arrange and mount on a base,  

now a table decor, a receptacle 

of things you love and praise;

truly it's an art-to-craft version,  

for aesthetics and function.  - avr

Marine specimens into artwork   

Paint a sea floor background as base.

Spread out shells and corals freely.

Let your guests touch them and study,

with guidance, and care just in case. - avr        

          

Relief Paintings

 

Birds in the trees

It's painting and sculpture combined,

     with three-dimensional effect;

let thick paint harden on wood palette;

     it's a unique school project. - avr

Pangea, the proto-continent

Like jigsaw puzzle land masses do fit,

through continental drift, scientists say;

Pangea, once the proto-continent split

into seven continents we know today. - avr

                              Imprint Painting on Ceramic  

"E tu Brute?" 

Assassination of Julius Caesar on the "Ides of March". 

Art digs into history, stirs imagination;

the dying Caesar begging his friend;

a final stab, scene in symbolic action,

brings the story to a sad end. - avr

                                       

Fungus Painting 

Fungal mycelia* etching appears like integral part of a wall mural.

Wonder, what is unwanted and destructive,

in art may be beautiful and attractive. - avr 

* Main body of a fungus, consisting of a network of thread-like filaments called hyphae.

Transformation in Life: "Chicks emerge from under a brooding hen."

Transformation in Life

 "Chicks emerge from under a brooding hen." 

Dr Abe V Rotor

     Sweet sound breaks the calm morning air,

  peaceful and happy in a country fair.

 the newly hatched chicks meet the world,

a mystery of life many times told.

Chicks emerge from under a brooding hen at home. 

Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur. 

Unedited photos by the author. 

"The hen symbolizes motherhood - love and care for her brood with perseverance until her chicks become independent." - avr  

Logotherapy with Nature

 Logotherapy* with Nature

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” ― Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Artwork and wall mural by Dr Abe V Rotor

Tower of Doom Trophy against a wall mural Waterfalls Forever 

by AV Rotor 2025.  Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

When you feel imprisoned aiming at affluence; your neighbors, friends, and people you may not even know, having set a standard of the Joneses, you too, wish to attain, yet know you cannot;

When you fall short of your expectation in life, your dreams are but effervescences, overtaken by shortcomings and circumstances beyond your control, age and poor health notwithstanding;

When you believe in the Good Life measured by wealth and power, popularity and social standing, yet feel empty inside, seeking for more, for something akin to that of Caesar's dream;   

When you triumph over others, friends or enemies, masters or subordinates, in war and peace, and you call this victory, awarding yourself a trophy - and a crown of fig leaf;

When you have stayed too long, you can't remember, in a concentration camp far, far away from Flanders' Field, Shangri-la, or any place of freedom, peace and joy - much less of compassion; 

When you have forsaken those you love and care, your family and community, in lieu of the promises of a bigger world of adventure, at the end finding yourself abandoned, and too, forsaken; 

When you have fallen into the tender traps of capitalism, modernism, sectarianism and the like, and finding yourself at the receiving end an outcast, feeling alone in this wide, wide world; 

* Logotherapy is an existential therapy developed by Viktor Frankl that focuses on finding meaning in life as the primary human motivation.

Tower of Doom Trophy against a wall mural A Li'l Corner of Eden 

by AV Rotor 2025.  Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Go out and find Nature, in her simple yet beautiful ways, expressed at sunrise, sunset, in the many faces of clouds, rainbow's arch like cathedral, the countless scenes of awe and wonder;

Go out and follow Nature from the mountains and hills, the watershed feeding the streams, rivers and lakes, making the fields and pastures, green, the grains golden at harvest time, kites flying in the blue sky; 

Go and follow Nature down the vast ocean, visit the home of your ancestors in caves, forests, valleys, site of Genesis - the origin of all things, with Homo sapiens as God's masterpiece. Rejoice in thanksgiving! ~

Cathedral Acacia Tree

Cathedral Acacia Tree

Acacia (Samanea saman)  

Dr Abe V Rotor

A well managed park with a Heritage Acacia Tree as centerpiece.

Pride of San Ildefonso municipality, Ilocos Sur.  It sets an example of a living conference hall, a massive natural multipurpose outdoor center.  AVR 2023 

Outdoor conference hall, classroom, playground

 “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

        Acacia Tree - a Miniature Ecosystem 

Closeup of the crown of an acacia tree revealing rich biodiversity and homeostasis (dynamic balance), painting in acrylic by AV Rotor 2025

"Lying under an acacia tree with the sound of the dawn around me, I realized more clearly the facts that man should never overlook: that the construction of an airplane, for instance, is simple when compared [with] a bird; that airplanes depend on an advanced civilization, and that were civilization is most advanced, few birds exist. I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes." - Charles Lindbergh

Symbiosis of Drynaria Fern and Acacia Tree

 Tagudin, Ilocos Sur. Photo by the author.

Acacia and Carbon Sequestration

Carbon sequestration is the capture and long-term removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. According to a research conducted at the School of Forestry of the Bogor Agricultural Institute, Indonesia, a mature acacia tree with a crown diameter measuring 15 meters (49 ft) absorbed 28.5 metric tons (28.0 long tons; 31.4 short tons) of CO2 annually.

“When one plants a tree they plant themselves. Every root is an anchor, over which one rests with grateful interests, and becomes sufficiently calm to feel the joy of living.” 
— John Muir

Martines birds, long thought to be extinct locally, find shelter and home 

with the Drynaria, and the host acacia tree. Photo by the author.

Author points at an on-the-spot painting he made in 1976 of a standing heritage acacia tree.  Adjacent to it is a furniture shop. San Vicente is famous for wood furniture industry. The painting graces the lobby of the San Vicente Municipal Hall in Ilocos Sur.

        

Author, with coeds from the University of Northern Philippines, display mounted relics of heritage acacia he painted in 1976. (See photo of painting above). The mounted artwork serves as science specimen and wall decor. Below, closeup of the acacia pod and seeds.  Coed, Angie Tobias of University of Abra holds an acacia seedling ready for transplanting in the field.                                 

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”— William Shakespeare
  

 

Closeup view of the deciduous nature of acacia, that is, it loses its leaves once or twice a year to give way to the growth of new and fresh crown.  In effect, the litter of leaves adds fertility of the soil and serves as mulch to conserve soil moisture and prevent soil erosion.

.  

“To really feel a forest canopy, we must use different senses. And often the most useful one is the sense of imagination.”— Joan Maloof

The La Union Centennial Tree in Bacnotan was proclaimed as one of the 13 Philippine Centennial Trees under the DENR Administrative Order (DAO) No. 98-25 on 03 June 1998. This DAO also proclaims these centennial trees as Protected Trees and mandates a multi-sectoral effort in protecting these trees. Internet

 “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

Tumbleweed in the Sky

Tumbleweed in the Sky

Artwork by Dr Abe V Rotor

 Tumbleweed and wooden shards, AV Rotor 2025 

Orphaned from the hills and field, 

the woods once your home gone;  

except your seeds with spiny shield

to grow and carry on in the sun.  

Closeup of a local tumbleweed

I found you on a wasteland tumbling,

     alone with the wind whistling;

come with me to my garden and art,

     and here we shall never part. 

*A tumbleweed is the dead, dried, above-ground part of a plant that detaches from its roots and rolls in the wind, dispersing seeds. This rolling plant is a diaspore, a mechanism for seed dispersal that helps the plant colonize new areas. Halaman na gumugulong sa hangin," literally means "plant that rolls in the wind"

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A good subject of research, undergraduate and graduate, on the botany of this grass, Family Poaceae, growing on marginal lands and shorelines, its ecological potential in wasteland reclamation. 

The Living Christmas Tree: Plant a tree this Christmas Season

  The Living Christmas Tree

Plant a tree this Christmas Season

 Dr Abe V Rotor 

The living Christmas Tree gives food, water, shelter, energy, the basic provisions of life.  Above all, it is a great expression of love this Christmas Season.

 Don't cut trees for Christmas, don't!

Plant trees instead and build beautiful memories with the family as the trees grow Christmas after Christmas.  In the process they become living Christmas Trees the year round, and year in and out. For Christmas is not just for one occasion where a tree top is decorated and thrown away after. Millions of trees are sacrificed every Christmas this way. 

Pine treetops for sale

This contributes to loss of vegetation, which in turn results in soil erosion and siltation, flooding and largely to global warming.

Loss of trees decreases oxygen in the air, since trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.  They are the earth's primary lungs.  And they contribute to favorable micro climates in their domain. They catch the rain and store it as groundwater and spring.  They feed the streams and rivers and keep the ponds and lakes full, and the estuaries in good condition.

Just a single tree, we may say, does not mean anything - and it's Christmas. Anyway and it comes once in a year.   With millions, nay billions, celebrating Christmas, collective loss is unimaginable.  

What can we do to have an instant living Christmas tree? You don't have to go far if there is a tree in your backyard on along the sidewalk.  

You can have a potted tree seedling by the window with simple decor.  No lights.  Just some ribbon and colored cutouts.

 
Tree planting to save Mother Earth.

If the tree is large, decorate sparingly with a dozen lights, preferably LED.  Don't forget the traditional parol on its top, lighthouse effect of sort.

• If there's a tree house, the ambiance of Christmas should be focused there.  The tree itself may be sparingly decorated.

• Shrubs and small trees are not exacting to decors.  Just don't over decorate.

• Plant a tree this Christmas can be made as a community campaign.  Decide the place of tree planting: a park, along the highway, on a watershed.  Celebrate Christmas with this occasion. Don't forget to take care of the trees thereafter. 

• Plant trees that are adapted in the area.  Conifers (pines) are temperate; get tropical species (e.g., narra) for the tropics.

Artificial Christmas trees are most convenient to have, but consider the cost and effect to health and environment. Recycled waste materials draws out artistic talent. This is fine, it reduces waste - or at least gives a "second life", beautiful at that of materials otherwise thrown away. Just be careful with the harmful effects of deteriorating second hand and recycled materials.  Don't keep them indoor. 

The most meaningful Christmas is one that addresses our time and effort to solving problems concerning our well-being and the environment. The living Christmas Tree is one that gives food, water, shelter, energy, the basic provisions of life, above all it is a great expression of love to Nature and our fellowmen this Christmas Season. . 

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CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY WITH POINSETTIA

                   Poinsettia pulcherrima cultivars

 

 

 

Acknowledgement: Internet Photos ~

10 Verses to Live By Every Day

 10 Verses to Live By Every Day

Dr Abe V Rotor

Banaoang Pass, Santa, Ilocos Sur, wall mural by the author

1. Walk, don't run, to see better and to know
the countryside, Mother Nature and Thou.~

2. We do not have the time, indeed an alibi
to indolence and loafing, letting time pass by.


Sun on a hazy day

3. As we undervalue ourselves, so do others
undervalue us. Lo, to us all little brothers.

4. Self-doubt at the start is often necessary
to seek perfection of the trade we carry.

5. What is more mean than envy or indolence
but the two themselves riding on insolence.

6. The worst kind of persecution occurs in the mind,
that of the body we can often undermine.

7. How seldom, if at all, do we weigh our neighbors
the way we weigh ourselves with the same favors?

8. Friendship that we share to others multiplies
our compassion and love where happiness lies.


Morning rainbow, Bamban, Tarlac

9. Evil is evil indeed - so with its mirror,
while goodness builds on goodness in store.

10. That others may learn and soon trust you,

show them you're trustworthy, kind and true. ~