Waterfalls Under My Feet

Trees for Peace

Waterfalls Under My Feet

"... when discovered they are made into a trade!

I wish waterfalls are seen only from above." 

Photos and Verse by Dr Abe V Rotor

This waterfall, huge and imposing below,

where does it begin, where does it end?

minuscule from the air, the size of my shoe,

beyond sight afar, shrouded at the bend.

But I hear it hissing clear, tumbling down,

its rock walls shudder, the trees quiver,

flowing down the gully in leap and bound,

meanders and merrily pours into a river.

I've long wondered how a waterfall is made

Isn't by Nature alone, the presence of God?

yet when discovered is made into a trade!

I wish waterfalls are seen only from above.

These are two of a series of waterfalls on the slope of the mountain along the cable car route. Scanty rainfall at this time of the year (approaching autumn) explains the low water supply of the falls and their tributaries. Vegetation of the watershed is likewise poor, since many trees are deciduous (shedding of leaves) and dormant in preparation for the coming cool and windy months.

A cable car connects the main island of Hong Kong to Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, where the Big Buddha, a large bronze statue sits at the top near Po Lin Monastery. It symbolizes the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and faith. It is from the cable car that these photos were taken through its glass floor. Upper photos were taken at the summit showing the silhouette of Buddha, and the adjoining peaks, while the lower photos showing the harbor and newly opened settlement are views half-way the car’s descent. ~

Are you living a simple life? Evaluate yourself.

Are you living a simple life? Evaluate yourself.

"Simplicity is the peak of civilization." – Jessie Sampter

Dr Abe V Rotor

The author in Virac, Catanduanes

Check if you are practicing each of the following: There can be no step-by-step guide to simplifying your life. However, these are important reminders. Do these apply to you?

1. Make a list of your top 4-5 important things.
2. Evaluate your commitments.
3. Evaluate your time.
4. Simplify work tasks.
5. Learn to say no.
6. Make a Most Important Tasks (MITs) list each day.
7. Spend time alone.
8. Go for quality, not quantity.
10. Create an easy-to-maintain home.

11. Carry less stuff.
12. Simplify your budget.
13. Leave space around things in your day.
14. Live closer to work/school.
15. Always ask: Will this simplify my life?
16. Limit your communications.
17. Get rid of what you don’t need.
18. Get rid of the big items.
19. Clean /Edit your rooms.
20. Limit your buying habits.

21. Spend time with people you love.
22. Eat slowly.
23. Streamline your life.
24. Learn to live frugally.
25. Learn what “enough” is.
26. Eat healthy.
27. Exercise.
28. Declutter before organizing.
29. Find inner simplicity.
30. Find a creative outlet for self-expression.

RATING:
26 – 30 You are a model of Simple Life, an apostle.
21 – 25 You are appreciated by people around you. You are happy and they are happy, too.
16 – 20 You live moderately – know how to adjust, if there’s too much or too little.
15 and below You are not living a simple life. 

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School on Air) 738 DZRB-AM 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday 

Acknowledgment: Thanks to Zen Habits. Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life. Every Wednesday is Simplicity Day on Zen Habits.

Images on a Wall Mural

Images on a Wall Mural

"Mirror, mirror on the wall,
tell them the fairest
who love Nature to the full." - avr

Wall Mural by Dr Abe V Rotor

Author's residence at Greater Lagro QC

A pose as fresh as a stream flowing
down the mountain laughing, singing,
weaned from the shed, its mother,
lovely and free as a teenager.

Imagination is more powerful than reason;
Oh, to a child they are one and same;
Reaching for the sun and the sea in any season;
Childhood adventure the greatest game.

Trees mark the seasons and years that be,
its trials, pain, joys and harmony;
If only man, in its shade look up and see
God's miracle and divine story.

The most relaxed moments of life come with Nature abiding,
give her your worries and cares, your pains notwithstanding.


The blue whale, biggest creature on earth ever;
while man is supreme in every corner;
they live in fear and suspicion together,
one the hunted, the other the hunter.

While away time for good reason,
hold the world on a standstill;
true freedom to control your own
and emptiness in life to fill.

The biggest heart, the measure of three,
if only the wall is alive to make it five;
Alone, one can't be truly happy,
although able to survive.

Only a child can see the sun in the deep
from his mother's womb to deep sleep;
while grownups miss the sun rise and set
with so many things to do and keep. ~

The Lamp: Symbol of Enlightenment, Righteousness and Wisdom

The Lamp: Symbol of Enlightenment, Righteousness and Wisdom 

Dr Abe V Rotor

 I feel honored to be here in St. Paul University Surigao, because it is a sister university of SPU QC where I presently teach. Second, the subject which I am going to take up with you is a favorite subject of mine. It is a revival of an old art – the art of teaching.

Greek philosopher Diogenes holding a lamp at daytime. 

It is a revival of the teaching methods of Aristotle, Plato - and the Renaissance when the world realized how important it is to look back in the past. It is looking back at the lamp that enabled our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, to write his last masterpiece, the lamp Florence Nightingale held over her patients at the warfront, the lamp that made Scheherazade’s “one thousand and one nights” stories, the lamp a Greek philosopher held high at daylight “searching for an honest man.” Or the lamp fireflies make and glow with the spirit of joy and adventure to a child.

But why do we look back and ponder on a tiny light when the world basks in the sunshine of progress and development, of huge networks of learning, of high technologies in practically all fields of endeavor? I’ll tell you why – and why we teachers must.

But first let me tell a story of a computer enthusiast, who like the modern student today relies greatly on this electronic gadget, doing his school work so conveniently like downloading data for his assignment. So one day he worked on his assigned topic – love.

Florence Nightingale

He printed the word and set the computer to define for him L-O-V-E. Pronto the computer came up with a hundred definitions and in different languages. Remembering his teacher’s instruction to ask, “How does it feel to be in love?” again he set the computer to respond. And you know what?

After several attempts, the computer printed on its screen in big letters, “I can not feel.”

Where is that main ingredient of human relations – feeling – today?

• Where is the true feeling between teacher and student?
• Where is the feeling of joy at the end of a teaching day, in spite of how hard the day had been?

Lamp of Aladdin 

• Where is that tingling feeling of the student for having recited well in class?
• Where is that feeling in singing the National Anthem, the St. Paul Hymn?
• Where is that feeling Rizal felt when a moth circled the lamp in his prison cell while he wrote, Mi Ultimo Adios?
• Where is that burning desire that drove Michelangelo to finish single-handedly the mega mural of the Sistine Chapel?
• That drove Vincent Van Gogh to madness – madness the world learned a grave lesson years after?
• That kept Florence Nightingale, the founder of the nursing profession, make her rounds in the hospital in the wee hours of the morning?
• The lamp that strengthened Plato’s resolve to change the way people should think in the light of truth and justice.

Feeling.

There is a song Feelin, and the lyrics ask a lot of questions about human nature changing with the times. I do not think human nature has changed. It is as stable as Nature herself and the natural laws that govern the universe.

Creation on the Sistine chapel by Michelangelo

What we are saying is that our ways are changing. The conformity of our actions is more with the rules we set rather than the philosophies on which they are founded. It is our quest for want above our needs that has blinded us and benumbed our feelings, that has taken us to the so-called fast lane so that we no longer see objects as they are, but abstracts, that has made us half-humans in the sense that we spend half of our lives dealing with machines – who have no feelings.

What then is modern man? I am afraid we have to review some of our references on the Janus-like character of man, like -

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• The Prince and the Pauper
• The Princess and the Frog
• The movies Mask, Superman, Batman, Spiderman
• Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter
• Cartoon and animae

The doubling of characters in man has led him away from permanence. Today, the biggest crisis in man is his impermanence. Impermanence in his domicile, nay, his nationality, political party. Affiliation in business and social organizations, and most disturbingly with his marriage and family.

When was the last time you said to yourself – or experienced, the following.

• It’s a weekday for my family and nothing else.
• How I wish I can help my child of his math assignment.
• I’ll teach only this year and will find a more rewarding job after.
• I think it’s time to settle down.
• I want to go to a concert and enjoy the fine art of music.
• Can’t I put all my ideas in a book?
• Panay meeting – can’t we just talk?
• This dizziness, it must be the pressure of my work.
• Maybe I can concentrate on my thesis this time.
• I have not finished reading “Da Vinci Code”.
• This summer I’ll be with my parents.

Here are ways by which we can brighten up our lamp amidst the factors that test our dedication of our profession as teachers.

1. Be yourself. Be natural.
2. Keep on learning
3. Be a model of your family and community
4. Relax
5. Use you faculties fully and wisely

Be Natural

Naturalness is a key to teaching. I saw a film, Natural with then young award-winning Robert Redford as the principal actor. It is a story of a baseball player who became famous. The central theme of his success is his naturalness. Naturalness in pitching, batting - in the sport itself, above all, in his relationship with his team and fans.

Our students can easily sense our sincerity. They shun from us if we are not. They cannot fully express themselves, unless we show our genuine love and care for them. Develop that aura that attracts them, that keeps relationship easy to adapt or adjust.
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“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”
- John Cotton Dana
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Be a Model

What I am saying is that a teacher must have more time for himself and for his family. Teaching is an extension of family life. And this is the primordial stimulus that makes your family a model family and you as a model teacher – because you cause the light of the lamp to radiate to others. And it is not only the school that you bring in the light. It is the community because you are also lighting the lamp of others, including the tiny glow in your young students. When they get home, when they interact with their community in whatever capacity they can, even only among their playmates, relatives and neighbors, they are in effect transmitting that light which is also the light of understanding and unity.

Relax

Great achievements are usually products of relaxed minds. Relaxation allows the incubation of thoughts and ideas. Churchill found time to paint during the Second World War. In his relaxed mind he made great decisions saved Great Britain and countless lives. Or take Einstein for instance. His formula which explains the relationship of energy and matter in E=mc2 was drawn out from casually observing moving objects - train, heavenly bodies, marbles. Galileo watched a huge chandelier in a church sway with the breeze and later came up with the principles of pendulum movement.

Darwin studied biology around the world as if he were on a leisure cruise, and summed up his findings that founded the most controversial Theory of Evolution by means of natural selection. 

Charles Darwin

An apple fell on Newton’s head when everything was still. Examine closely the parables of Christ. How relaxed the Great Teacher was in telling these stories to the faithful. The lamp shines the brightest when there is no wind. When held high with steady hands and given time to examine things around, views become clearer, and the mmore certain we are along our way.
  
Use Your Faculties Fully and Wisely

Our brain is made up of the left hemisphere, the thinking and reasoning part, and the right hemisphere, the seat of creativity and imagination. Together they reveal an enormous capacity of intelligence, which are pictured in eight realms. These are

1. Logic
2. Languages
3. Music
4. Spatial
5. Interpersonal
6. Intrapersonal
7. Kinesthetics
8. Naturalism

From these realms the teacher draws out his best qualities. He explores, decides, adapts, entertains, leads, and stands courageously to lead the young.

Here he sows the seed of knowledge. And in the young the seed grows, and grows, which the educator Henry Adams expresses in this line.

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

Keynote to a Seminar-Workshop on Multiple Intelligence in Effective Teaching at St. Paul University, Surigao, April 5-8, 2005.
x x x

Global Warming as Seen in a Crystal Ball

 Global Warming as Seen in a Crystal Ball

Dr Abe V Rotor 
Living with Nature School on Blog

                            Global Warming in a Crystal Ball, acrylic painting by the author (circa 2000)

I see the world losing its symmetry, a disfigured globe with parts missing, displaced, losing its original shape;

I see the world in layers and divisions heretofore unknown, threatening dynamic stability called homeostasis;

I see the world fiery in many parts as volcanoes erupt in greater frequency and intensity, and simultaneously;

I see the world in deceiving colors of blue, green, gray, yellow, spectrum of disaster on land, water and air;

I see the world barren as deserts expand, farmlands turn into wastelands, shorelines swallowed by the sea;
 
I see the world scarred by fault lines, and new cracks of the earth’s crust, triggering more and stronger earthquakes;

I see the world in ruins where cities once grew into megacities, now virtually a jungle of concrete and steel;

I see the world pitch dark at night where there were more lights on the ground than stars in the sky;
 
I see the world decimated of its once rich biodiversity, countless species endangered, others forever gone;

I see the world pitch dark at night where once there were more lights on the ground than stars in the sky;

I see the world decimated of its once rich biodiversity, countless species endangered, others forever gone;

I see the world “the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome,” with history repeating itself;

I see the world with the frivolities of modern living giving way to the revival of a simpler life style;

I see the world rebuilding from its past like the mythical bird Phoenix, people of all ages and walks of life cooperating. ~
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Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Begging for a Seat in School (COVID-19 New Normal and New Future Message)

COVID-19 New Normal and New Future Message

Begging for a Seat in School

 "... the world goes on as it seems;

      a beggar boy, its conscience:

  lost youth, lost hope, lost future

       in the midst of affluence." - avr

Dr Abe V Rotor

A reproduction of an untitled painting by an unknown artist

A disturbing scene to Maslow -

    could he have been wrong?

What is self-actualization

    to the striving throng?

What's good is the Bastille trilogy -

    pillars of modern society:

equality, fraternity,

    liberty - sans dignity?

Motherhood words may come easy;

    they cannot be mistaken,

but the lips that speak of promise

    are easily forgotten.

And the world goes on as it seems;

    a beggar boy, its conscience:

lost youth, lost hope, lost future

    in the midst of affluence.

The door is jarred to full view

    and knocking wouldn't lend an ear;

indifference makes man blind

    or takes him to the rear.

He who feels for the needy

    with nothing to give is a fool,

in a world deaf to a poor boy

    begging for a seat in school. ~

NOTE: A student of mine from Iran at the UST Graduate School left this old reproduction as a souvenir. The painting was made by an unknown artist, apparently belonging to the post classicism period at the dawn of realism.

Food Crisis Series 41: Revival of traditional knowledge and skill (Odaira's Yojigen)

Food Crisis Series 41:

Odaira's Yojigen

Revival of traditional knowledge and skill

Odaira's great contribution is the revival of traditional knowledge and skill put to practice in the light of tightening economy and endangered environment, and taking down to the grassroots the application of his postulates.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Part 1 - Take advantage of living creatures as producing machines.

 Two products - Basi and Sukang Iloko - are produced in one enterprise. Author inspects products being labelled and packed for a tourists' shop in Metro Vigan.  

Wine making is universal through yeast fermentation, hence wine comes in different sources and brands - cane sugarcane, grapes, rice, corn, and many kinds of fruits - chico, guava, cashew, duhat, mango, pineapple, orange, etc. It is the same principle in beer making.

The second stage after wine is produced is acetification. Wine becomes sour (vin-egar) and turns into vinegar. Both wine and vinegar can be integrated into one enterprise. A third product is nata de coco. Another constitute the residues and spent must in wine fermentation which is converted to animal feeds.

Wine, wine, wine - but all made with the same universal process worldwide since time immemorial.

There is really no waste if we follow Odaira's Yojigen. Actually his postulates are as old as agriculture - way back in the Fertile Crescent some 10,000 years ago. Odaira's great contribution is the revival of a traditional knowledge and skill put to practice in the light of tightening economy and endangered environment, and taking down to the grassroots the application of his postulates.

The long search for more efficient production systems may end where biology, ecology and agriculture converge and complement one another. Biology provides the principles for understanding life; agriculture applies such principles in the production of crops and animals; while ecology establishes the environment-friendly conditions.

This complementarity concept has led me to the work of a Japanese scientist, Keihichi Odaira, who is the proponent of a four-dimensional process called Yojigen. In a capsule, this theory is made up of four pillars, namely

1. Take advantage of living creatures as producing machines.
2. Look for more than one product from a single process.
3. Take advantage of any material as a source for the next process.
4. Remember that the value of a given process can be greater than the sum of its parts.

Over the years, I have witnessed Odaira's Yojigen apply his theories on agriculture, reviving the old school of Farming, the Natural Way. Let us look at its application under Philippine conditions.

Postulate 1 - Take advantage of the functions of the living creatures as producing machines.

Plants grow and produce food by photosynthesis, a function of both genetic and environmental factors. This means that a potentially high yielding crop can be enhanced by favorable agro-climatic conditions. This is the principle of plant breeding and agronomy, so with animal husbandry.

In agronomy, time and space elements are crucial. Proper crop sequences and rotations take advantage of this principle. Wherever feasible, rice is often followed by cash crops like corn, legume and vegetables. When a farmer decides to practice crop rotation, he is able to identify the proper technology involved, as well as market suitable crops.

As producers, livestock animals should be maintained only during the most economical period in their life cycle. For example, pigs are kept from six to seven months, attaining a weight of around 80 kilos. After this period, the feed conversion ratio becomes economically inefficient. This is true with cattle raised and fattened for not more than three years. For poultry, marketing is programmed with both feed efficiency ratio and the desired weight and size of the broiler.

The principle of inter-cropping follows this postulate. Banana is intercropped with coconut in Quezon and Leyte. Coconut-banana-vegetables are combined on upland farms in Cavite and Camarines Norte, while coconut-lanzones-coffee is common in Laguna.

These schemes illustrate the maximization of plant function through proper combination and sequencing. Other examples illustrate the application of this assumption are the following:

5. Combined rice and fish culture in Central Luzon.
6. Integrated corn production and beef cattle fattening in Mindanao.
7. Upland agriculture or KABSAKA in Iloilo, combining
two or more upland crops on a given piece of land.
8. Corn and peanut intercropping in Isabela.
9. Ipil-ipil-black pepper-coffee intercropping in Batangas and Laguna.

Postulate 2 -  Look for more than one product from a single process

In rice milling, rice bran is a by-product used as a main feed component. The idea is, to be able to efficiently use both the principal and its by-products. In Mindanao, pineapple pulp and peelings from the cannery are fermented into vinegar, or fed directly to livestock. In the banana industry, rejects are converted into catsup, or cattle feed. Sugar is fermented into wine, or made into vinegar. The production of nata de coco can be combined with vinegar making, creating a three-stage process wine, vinegar and nata manufacture.

There are enterprises engaged in integrated rice production and piggery. The idea is to make use of the grain by-product for meat production. On a larger scale, there is need for a complex of rice milling, feed milling, storage, and transportation facilities in one location.

Postulate 2 - Take advantage of any leftovers as a resource for the next process.

The idea behind this concept is the recycling of waste. A biogas digester processes piggery and poultry waste into two products: Cooking gas and sludge used as organic fertilizer. Corn stalks and peanut hay, harvesting leftovers can be fed to livestock as forage. Rice hay may be used as mulch.

Mushroom culture depends largely on the availability of suitable substrates such as rice straw, banana leaves, and sawdust. According to Prof. Odaira, aside from being used as fuel, peat is also a good material for growing mushroom. Peat, after all, is an accumulation of cellulose materials (mainly lignin) spared of decomposition under anaerobic (living, active and occurring in the absence of oxygen) and waterlogged condition. Such material is plentiful in swamps such as the Sab-A Basin in Leyte.

Chicken manure is applied in fishponds to increase algal growth which in turn is forage to milkfish or tilapia.

Postulate 3 - Capitalize on the natural qualities of living things in their respective environments.

As a common practice, farmers and homesteaders plant cover crops such as kudzu (Pueraria javanica), Centrosema pubescens and giant spineless Mimosa to suppress obnoxious weeds on ranches and orchards. Cover crops, aside from being effective in controlling weeds, is also forage for cattle and other large animals. Their residues, when incorporated with the soil, add to its fertility. It also reduces the rate of evaporation of soil moisture, thus controlling soil erosion and loss of soil nutrients.

Through effective weed control, the farmer has a better chance of meeting his farming schedules, while reducing the risk of brush fire. Conserving soil moisture, especially when rainfall is sufficient enhances seed germination and survival. Beneficial soil organisms thrive best in soil with high organic matter. These include the earthworm and nitrogen-fixing bacteria that help maintain a good crop stand.

Here’s another example to illustrate this principle. The idea of burning is to get rid of farm wastes quickly. But by burning, the potential nutrient value of the straw, both as feed and as a source of organic matter, is lost. Rice straw is very useful to farmers as mulch, for mushroom production, and as well as composting material.

Postulate 4 - The value of a given process can be greater than the sum of its parts.

Many advantages are derived from these practices. First, mulching increases crop yield. It also doubles the production of garlic and onions. Mushroom can be a lucrative business, while composting contributes to soil fertility. Crops grown on soil with high organic matter do not only produce higher yields but also have higher food value.

I would like to add a fifth postulate to Odaira's Yojigen.

Capitalize on the natural qualities of living things in their respective environments.

We know of certain natural properties of organisms in their indigenous locations. The sweetest mangoes grow in Zambales, the sweetest lanzones in Paete (Laguna), the largest and juiciest pineapples are found in Bukidnon. No bangus (milkfish) anywhere can beat the Bonoan (Dagupan, Pangasinan) breed. Sarangani (Mindanao) ranchers boast of their beef as among the best-tasting.

Benguet vegetables, like lettuce, cabbages and cauliflower, are distinctly superior over those grown on the lowland areas. Garlic grows best in the Ilocos region, bulb onions in Bongabong (Nueva Ecija), kapeng barako in Batangas, and peanuts in Jones (Isabela).

By analyzing Yojigen, one is led to know, in simple and discreet ways, the many gifts of nature. ~

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Odaira's great contribution is the revival of traditional knowledge and skill put to practice in the light of tightening economy and endangered environment, and taking down to the grassroots the application of his postulates.