Tuesday, September 29, 2026

.Do you have a third eye?

Do you have a third eye? 
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog

Lesson: Do you have a third eye? If so, can you tell the future?
Read and analyze the poem.

Morning Flight, Wall Mural AVR 2000 St Paul University QC

Fantasy or reality - how can we tell
One from the other without a third eye?
Ah, but epics live on through the ages,
As classics live through their spell,
And Gulliver as told by the sages.

The third eye tells of a coming storm,
No less than the vagaries of the mind;
But what the future holds remains locked
In God's will until the time has come,
Beyond fantasy or reality or luck. ~

.I Like the Drynaria Fern for 13 Reasons

 I Like Drynaria for 13 Reasons

Original Title: Symbiosis of Drynaria Fern and Acacia Tree - 
More than Commensalism

Dr Abe V Rotor

Martinez or mynah birds ( Acridotheres cristatellus) thought
to be at the verge of extinction find abode on a century-old
acacia tree (Samanea saman), covered with an epiphytic
fern (Drynaria quercifolia)

Drynaria fern covers the limbs of an acacia tree in Tagudin, 
Ilocos Sur
 I like Drynaria for 13 Reasons

I like Drynaria for her feathery foliage in the distance like the proud peacock and the turkey trotting to win favors of their flock;

I like Drynaria for her sturdiness in the wind, cooling the summer air and keeping the coolness of the Amihan in December;

I like Drynaria for her resiliency, bending with the limbs and branches, turning upside down and up again the next season;

I like Drynaria for sleeping through the dry months while her host takes the show, verdant green, robust and free;

I like Drynaria for resurrecting from a state of torpor, as if she defies death and perpetuates life while others simply die;

I like Drynaria for her economy in sustenance, living on captured dirt and rain, yet discreet of such austere living;

I like Drynaria for touching the clouds with her host taming it to fall as rain and shared by all creatures around;

I like Drynaria for her ability to multiply fast through invisible spores, in one sweep of the wind are sown in far places;

I like Drynaria for its benevolence to many creatures, tenant and transient, keeping their brood in her bosom;

I like Drynaria giving the Martinez birds a home, where they sing in joy and praise and thanksgiving for a beautiful world;

I like Drynaria for keeping company to passersby, to tired souls in the shadow with her host tree, in dark and unlikely hours;

I like Drynaria for giving off oxygen, and taking in carbon dioxide that poisons the earth and living things, among them no less than I;

I like Drynaria, for caring its host and vice versa through symbiosis - a perfect bond that humans have yet to learn someday. ~

Drynaria fern growing on mahogany tree (Swietenia macrophylla),
UST Botanical Garden, Manila. ~

.Oh, time! You are a friend.

Oh, time! You are a friend.
Dr Abe V Rotor 

Brief rest before taking a test.

Dream, yesterday was a dream!
A unicorn I rode to rainbow's end
to where a pot of gold might lie.
Oh, time! I thought you're a friend.

And to the other end I walked the trail,
To find my rainbow gone at the bend;
And I, on a crossroad I stood alone.
Oh, time, I thought you are a friend.

What road shall I take - the less trodden?
I gazed at the horizon to its end,
Rough was the way and never ending.
Oh, time! I thought you are a friend.

And here I am, half gone, long is the way;
Lo! I see again my rainbow at the end;
Tread on I must, there's no unicorn now;
Oh, time! you are indeed a friend. ~

. Verses, Verses: Good wine grows mellow with age; a good man grows into a sage.

 Verses, Verses

Good wine grows mellow with age;
a good man grows into a sage.

Dr Abe V Rotor

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

Morning rainbow, Bamban, Tarlac 

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

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

4. That others may learn and soon trust you,
show them you're trustworthy, kind and true.

5. Kindness and gladness, these however small
are never, never put to waste at all.

6. Beauty seen once breaks a heart, Wait for the image to depart.
7. Being right and reasonable;
Black or white, and measurable.

8. She's coy who speaks soft and light;
Smoke first before fire ignites.

9. Every promise you can't keep
Drags you into a deeper pit.

Purple sampaguita {Jasminium sambac}

10. To endure pain of hatred,
A leader’s wisdom is dared.

11. Make believe prosperity;
Sound of vessel when empty.

12. Take from the ant or stork,
Patience is silence at work.
13. He finds reason for living
Who sees a new beginning.

14. Beauty builds upon beauty,
Ad infinitum to eternity.

15. Good wine grows mellow with age; a good man grows into a sage. ~

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Saturday, September 26, 2026

.EcoArt Series RED DAWN

EcoArt Series
Red Dawn
Paintings and Verses by Dr Abe V Rotor

A red dawn (or red sky in the morning) traditionally means that a storm or bad weather is approaching.
White doves bring peace from the sky
to the battleground down below,
amidst sounds of gun and children's cry.
Sh...Welcome the new dawn's glow.

"Night never had the last word. The dawn is always invincible," 
- Hugh B. Brown.

 
Forest fire, the day after, glows in ember,  
 requiem of nature for man to remember, 
being her guardian to arise from slumber,
 to keep the earth holy within his power.

 
Mars, the red planet may not be alone for long;
our Earth, towards its early sunset may belong.

  
Dainty flowers in monstrous look denies
beauty, their fragrance dearth;
gone are the friendly bees and butterflies,
that bring down heaven to earth. 

  "One may not reach the dawn save by the path of night." 
- Khalil Gibran.

Fish herald the day by the school
before fishers arrive at the shoal.

Rhodophytes glow in the deep sea
where the sun can reach;
Porphyra makes a pasture for fish,
nurtures them to our table. ~

"Every dawn is divine. Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life," - John Ruskin ~

.Release your thoughts and feelings through writing

Release your thoughts and feelings
through writing
Writing hones the senses into deeper thinking and analysis, catalyzes understanding and comprehension, and keeps memory longer.

“A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.”
—Susan Sontag (Prominent 20th century American writer and critic) 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Marlo and Leo, author's children, writing on sand - a blackboard
of sort, and more. Puerto Sunken Pier, San Ildefonso, Ilocos Sur
Without map and you are in the field, the best thing you can do is get a stick and draw on the ground. That’s how village folks plan out irrigation schedules, show the location of a remote sitio (purok), design a makeshift hut – or simply to while away time in thoughts and ideas.

Christ did write on the ground, and on one occasion made two curves facing each other to look like fish - one end its tail, the other its head. 
Jesus fish, or Ichthys

It is the simplest yet most symbolic drawing I’ve ever seen. Before he uttered these famous words, “He who has no sin, casts the first stone,” He wrote something on the ground which we can only assume to be a mark of supreme meditation.

Writing hones the senses into deeper thinking and analysis, catalyzes understanding and comprehension, and keeps memory longer. Scientists say that we learn but a measly one-fourth of the lesson by just listening to it alone, but with the use of pen and paper, learning can be enhanced twice, if not thrice.

“Put it in writing,” goes a saying. Yes, even only on the ground as our old folks have always done.

By the way, who has not experienced “writing love letters on the sand?” Listen to balladeer, Pat Boone, sing the song of the same title, and you know what I mean.

Or write your problems where the sea rises and ebbs, and watch how the waves erase them away. This is therapeutic, try it. ~

“If a story is in you, it has to come out.”—William Faulkner (American 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, author of The Sound and The Fury, and As I Lay Dying)
Part 2 
To my favorite writers
By Dr Abe V Rotor
1. To Jose Rizal:

Your enemies tried to silence you,
and curtailed your freedom;
the lamp flickers its last rays at dawn
to seal your martyrdom.

2. To Aesop:
Ah! Animals talk louder than men
though in screech, crow and bleat;
yet by moral and sanity, speak
not the language on the street.

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”
—Ray Bradbury (19th century American author and screenwriter)

3. To Ernest Hemingway (photo)
You seemed as brave as the old man
in your great masterpiece;
the soldier, the hunter, the dreamer -
yet wanting a life of peace.

4. To Charles Darwin:
You did not give up to your critics,
who only prayed and preached;
Around the world you witnessed,
Change by random and fit.

5. To Lola Basyang (Severino Reyes)
You touched a million-and-one lives,
around campfires in their prime;
like Grimm and Anderson and Homer,
storytellers of all time.

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”—William Wordsworth (18th century English Romantic poet)

6. To Boris Pasternak
Zhivago, to the end walked away alone,
from  love neither in winter nor fallow;
what romance away from the war zone,  
wrapped in doubt to sorrow's end.

7. To Mark Twain   
I am a boy forever, Tom or Huck,
down the Mississippi loafing;
and let the world go on sans care
what grownups are missing.  

8. To Robert Louis Stevenson 
"Kidnapped" made a boy into a man
too soon to face a cruel world;
learning quickly the art of war 
deceit and conceit,  gun and sword.

9. To Oscar Wilde (photo)
You're a creator of characters and events,
in novels, stories, and plays 
children and adults alike on the armchair
live in those times and places. 

10. To Arthur Conan Doyle
"Sherlock Holmes" lives to this day,
idol of any detective;
"The Lost World" remains of the past,
is back in our midst to live.     

“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”—James Michener (Author of Tales of the South Pacific, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948.) ~

Thursday, September 24, 2026

Happy House Guests

 Happy House Guests
Living with Nature Center
San Vicente Ilocos Sur 
Dr Abe V Rotor

"The sweetest words in the English language are: 
 'Welcome. Make yourself at home.'" — Author Unknown

Tourism coordinators and team leaders pay a joyous visit to the Center.  

  Basi wine tasting session, a sip or two, 
   takes us back to the origin of this brew,
distinctly in the region of the Ilocano,
       and no other place, unless you know. - avr

At the boundary of mural art and garden

A happy company at the end of the day,
how we all wish for more time to stay.

"Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest." 
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 
Conversation with the endangered deer*

We understand your message 
as you hang lonely on the wall;
to meet your kins in the wild
and save them from the Fall.

* Visayan spotted deer and the Calamian deer in the Philippines
.
  
 Home library and archive; basi wine cellar

Memorabilia alive, a drop of tear;
reminiscence conquers our fear. 

"Without archives, many stories would be lost, and the voices 
of the past would be silenced forever." – Sara Sheridan

 
Art gallery, Apo Resurrecion icon

Art - talent and faith,
skill and piety,
joy and reverence,
sublime humility.

Welcome to our ancestral home

Happiness is one commodity;
divide, it will multiply;
share, it grows far and wide
timeless and free. 

"To invite a person to your house is to take charge of his happiness 
as long as he be beneath your roof." — Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

 
 
Archives and exhibits

Sling shot, fishing rod, bird trap;
that was a long time ago, we say,
many habagat and amihan since;
 boyhood never dies, we pray.
 
"Archives are the records of everyday life. They are the stories of us." – Unknown

   
House guests take a break

Children and grownups wish to be 
under the breezy shade of a tree, 
paint on-the-spot nature's scenery,
in silence, peace and harmony. 

"Relax, recharge and reflect. Sometimes it’s okay to do nothing." — Unknown