Mt Makiling - Endangered Geo-Ecosystem

Mt Makiling - Endangered Geo-Ecosystem

"Everybody loves this legendary mountain,  her majestic pose be near or far, reclining in peace and beauty." avr

Dr Abe V Rotor
 Living with Nature School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]

The mountain's profile of a reclining deity, Maria Makiling, to whom the mountain was named, has lost much of her youthful features.

Satelite image of Mt Makiling and southeastern shore of Laguna Bay. Mt Makiling has lost much of its original vegetative cover to encroaching human settlements, swiden (kaingin) farming, commerce and tourism. In fact the mountain's profile of a reclining deity, Maria Makiling for which the mountain is named, has lost much of her youthful 

features. 

  
Statue of Maria Makiling protector of Mt Makiling, UPLB Laguna.
On the trail to the Mudspring with the author's family

Mudspring Crater, author with his children.

A Trek to Mt Makiling's Mystical Crater - Mudspring
It's a long trail if you start at the foot of Mt Makiling,
take the road with a four-wheel drive,
then stop where the road ends and from here starts
a long trek you really have to strive.

Among the huge towering trees you're but a dwarf
among creatures crawling or flying,
searching far beyond of what they are looking for;
theirs for living, yours for meaning.

Incessantly the crater pops scalding mud
and gases that boggle the mind,
a mystic shroud where mist and cloud meet,
a spectacle of a different kind.

Everybody loves this legendary mountain,
though fiery inside to be free;
Lofty is her majestic pose be near or far
reclining in peace and beauty.

Wonder the young mind thinks of this world,
a hybrid of fantasy and reality,
where spirits live and mortals dare to tread,
in a lifetime journey to infinity. ~

NOTE: Mount Makiling, or Mount Maquiling, is a dormant volcano in Laguna province on the island of Luzon, Philippines. The mountain rises to an elevation of 1,090 m (3,580 ft) above mean sea level and is the highest feature of the Laguna Volcanic Field. The volcano has no recorded historic eruption but volcanism is still evident through geothermal features like mud spring and hot springs. South of the mountain is the Makiling-Banahaw Geothermal Plant. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) classify the volcano as potentially active.

Mount Makiling is a state-owned forest reserve administered by the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. Prior its transfer to the university, the mountain was the first national park of the Philippines. Mount Makiling National Park was established on February 23, 1933 by Proc. No. 552. However, it was decommissioned as a national park on June 20, 1963 by Republic Act no. 3523 when it was transferred to the University for use in forestry education and information.

Now known as Mount Makiling Forest Reserve, it was declared an ASEAN Heritage Park in 2013.
(Wikipedia) 

 "Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

—John Muir, Our National Parks

 

                            "This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

—John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more."
—Lord Byron "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. ... There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

—Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

 
"If we surrendered

to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees."

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God.