DepEd Kidapawan Educators and Teachers Visit the Living with Nature Center San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

DepEd Kidapawan Educators and Teachers

Visit the Living with Nature Center

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

 "Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope.

 Hope breeds peace." – Confucius

Dr Abe V Rotor

Welcome our distinguished guests!  Thank you for visiting us. - avr  

 

Guests pose with author's wife Cecille former NFA director (second from right) before a floor-wall-ceiling mural painted by the author.  Right, Basi, the traditional wine of the Ilocos region is still produced in an 18th century cellar, a tourists' attraction of LWNC.

  

Poetry reading cum musical background with the house guests.

Come, let me give your eyes rest.

Painting and violin rendition (Gavotte by François Joseph Gossec with variation)

 by the author. 

Come, let me give your eyes rest, in acrylic (33.5" x 24") by AV Rotor 2025

Painting on display at the Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Are your eyes tired of too much exposure on the computer, day and night, hour after hour, rushing up school assignments, work-at-home deadlines, tracking down news here and abroad, or simply playing games which is actually a straining pastime?    

Are your eyes tired from heavy schedule in office, at the workplace, driving through heavy traffic beating rush hour and the Bundy clock, for hours, going out and back home, at daybreak and after work, and doing errands in between?   

Are your eyes tired of too much drama on stage and screen, audio-visons virtually without end, fiesta or no fiesta, searching for apparition in the sky, braving the camera and floodlights, looking into the lens for the unseen, and now, with AI magical power?

Are your eyes tired of blinding and blinking lights on the highway complex of vehicles, floodlights and billboards, in restaurants and bars, even in the park you think relaxing to spend a weekend with your family, or simply alone for reflection?

Are your eyes tired of reading novels, printed or in e-book versions by your favorite authors like Hemingway, for contemporary realism; Pasternak, for refined radicalism; Mark Twain, for boys' adventure; Jules Verne, for prototype futurism? 

Are your eyes tired of the imagery of Future Shock and Eco-Spasm by Alvin Toffler, of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the age of slavery in the US, of Ann Frank's Diary of a lonely and frightful world during WW II, of Orwellian Big Brother syndrome in "1984"?  

Are your eyes tired, seeing not only real vision but after-visions accumulated through hours and hours of concentration in school, office, home, and residues of visual experiences surreptitiously stored in your Jungian psyche?   

Look deep into this image painted by one whose eyes have long sought for peace and rest, for connection with Nature in the sky and into the deep, in the microcosm of a leaf, filaments of algae, rootlets, buds, myriads of unseen mysteries of creation. 

And in seeing all these, you may find your way back to the beauty, innocence and joy, to the simplicity and harmony of life and living. ~             

 

 

Details of painting, Come, let me give your eyes rest, by AV Rotor 2025. 

 

Author and artist (with cap) poses with Sir Miguel P Fillalam Jr CESO 5 Schools Division Superintendent, and DepEd officials and teachers from Kidapawan City during their visit at the Living with Nature Center.  The visitors were guest-participants to the NSPC-NFOT* in Vigan city, adjacent to the Center. 

The 2025 National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) and National Festival of Talents (NFOT) are being held in Vigan City, Ilocos Sur, from May 19 to 23. This event is hosted by DepEd Region I, the Provincial Government of Ilocos Sur, and the Schools Division of Ilocos Sur. It showcases the brilliance of Filipino learners in journalism, the arts, and other areas. Internet

Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions.– Unknown ~

Nature's Sweet Lies: Lepidopterans in Camouflage and Mimicry

 Nature's Sweet Lies:

Lepidopterans in Camouflage and Mimicry*

 

"Nature, oh your own sweet lies, should I laugh or cry?

Deceit and conceit in the game of offence and defence."

Dr Abe V Rotor

1. Two-Headed Skipper - True to its Name

Skippers are crepuscular (dusk loving), they
have characteristics of the moth and the butterfly.
Scientists find them unique specimens to study.
Mt Makiling Botanical Garden, UPLB, Laguna

Myth or truth - who is telling the story?

     There's a Janus among insects, too.

But where is the head, which is tail?

     I am predator, how would I know?

I would rather retreat from the puzzle

     and settle for an easier prey;

And let the world go by in fantasy

     in make-believe story.

Ask the scientists, ask the old folks,

     theirs the contrast of the other;

One holds on tools, the other on belief,

     to either one, why bother?

Cast doubt, indecision on the powerful,

     and the prey wins the game;

Creatures big and small, strong and frail,

     Survival is just the same. ~

                

3. Believe it or not. It's a two headed butterfly!

 

A relative of the Pieris raphae butterfly.  

Mt. Makiling Botanical Garden, UPLB, Laguna

Nature, oh your own sweet lies, should I laugh or cry?

Deceit and conceit in the game of offence and defence,

But what honor, what deed, if survival's the ultimate aim?

What is beauty then, where does goodness lie?

Who is the victor, who gets the spoil, if each creature,

is not what it looks but how it is seen? 

 

But it is not mortals who judge, only the One Unseen;

each existence designed by niche of space and time,

by a living chain and ladder, each a link or rung,

a web with all creatures and none is great or small. ~

 3. Ogre Skipper

Photo of actual specimen taken by the author at the Living with Nature Center. 2025. A unique discovery heretofore unidentified, thus it may be considered new in the list of Philippine Lepidopterans (Order of butterflies, moths and skippers).  It is either a new species or variant as a result of continued isolation bordered by heavy application of pesticide in the region, an evolutionary process in our postmodern times.  

Ugly, scary, one for a Dracula movie,

two large eyes to scare its enemy:

 bat, bird, reptile, human - the unwary,

 subject of science or bedtime story.

5. Pearl Butterfly

Photo  by the author of actual specimen against a painting background 

at the Living with Nature Center botanical garden 2025

The "pearl butterfly" can refer to several different types of butterflies, but the most common are the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary and the Pearl-bordered Fritillary, both belonging to the Fritillary family. These butterflies are known for their distinctive "pearls" (small spots) on the underside of their wings, particularly the hindwings. AI Overview

If I could pluck your pearls, if these were true,

     in the garden rather than in the deep blue;

but then I would rob your beauty and liberty;

     what is sanctity - and my sense of duty?

6. Swallowtail Butterfly

Papilio sp.

Photo of actual specimen by the author against a painting background 

to heighten its appearance resembling a swallow bird or swift.  By the way, 

the swallowtail butterfly is a favorite design of kite makers.

 

Papilio Latin for butterfly, generic name of the swallowtail butterfly.  This specimen, like the others mentioned, have not been officially identified and classified in accordance with international SOP and Protocol. ~

I found you in the garden,

studied your design,

made you into a kite,

a most important find.

* Camouflage and mimicry are two different ways animals and plants can deceive predators or prey for survival. Camouflage involves blending in with the environment to make an organism harder to see, while mimicry involves resembling another organism or object, often to appear harmless or dangerous.

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

                           STI Rotaract club Vigan City Integrated Art Workshop 

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." Thomas Merton**

Dr Abe V Rotor

                                                               Art Instructor

Living with Nature Center, San Vicente Ilocos Sur

A pool of  colors

 

 Painting with the hand beside the brush freely releases

 these ardent young painters the expressions of their thoughts, 

emotions, and imaginations happily and courageously.

The Hand

The hand speaks of the mind and the heart,

 actions good and evil, and deed, 

mirrors the spirit, cast the rainbow of life; 

 imprint of one's life indeed. 

 

Workshop on Integrated Art attended by officers and members of Rotaract Club of STI College, Metro Vigan Ilocos Sur, at the author's residence.  August 11, 2019 

The Way

Wonder to where the road leads,

 the stream of life flows, 

the stars in time and space,

as a man or woman grows.  

Red Sky

Rage, rage, rage! 

when the Being is gone

and life an empty stage.

 

Protolife

Living but for a moment like passing breeze,

haploids of heredity searching their other halves - - 

the wholeness of procreation - omnipotent,

singular, mysterious,  beyond man's grasp. 

  

Crossing the Bar*

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

*Last stanza of Crossing the Bar is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is considered that Tennyson wrote it in elegy; the narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between river of life, with its outgoing "flood," and the ocean that lies beyond [death], the "boundless deep", to which we return. (en.wikipedia.org) 

AUTHOR's NOTE: The original title given by the painter is "Prison in the Sky"

Home, Sweet Home - The Bahay Kubo

 

Above the doves of peace and unity,

the glow of burning light of the city;

endlessly rages the sea down below,

belies this bastion of long ago,

 

 

 

 

 

Workshop participants take pride in showing their works 
and in interpreting them individually.


 Workshop participant shows demo work of author which he won in 
a raffle among his fellow participants at the end of the session.

 Participant stands before a mural painted by the author.  His work is
 reminiscent of  the Impressionism movement in France at the end of 
the 18th century. Dynamic movements of arts can be traced invariably
 and often unconsciously in the works of young artists and enthusiasts.  

* August 11, 2019 - Rotaract clubs bring together people ages 18-30 to exchange ideas with leaders in the community, develop leadership and professional skills, and have fun.‎ Rotaract originally began as a Rotary International youth program in 1968 at Charlotte North Rotary Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, and has grown into a major Rotary-sponsored organization of over 10,904 clubs spread around the world and 250,792 members in 184 countries. Motto: Self Development - Fellowship Through Service

** Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a writer and Trappist monk at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. His writings include such classics as The Seven Storey Mountain, New Seeds of Contemplation, and Zen and the Birds of Appetite. Merton is the author of more than seventy books that include poetry, personal journals, collections of letters, social criticism, and writings on peace, justice, and ecumenism. ~

Fossil Hunting - Study and Hobby

             Fossil Hunting - Study and Hobby  

Explore our Earth's history and learn more about life 

forms in past.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Legends are rich in stories of the supernatural when gods do the impossible to the awe and fear of mortals, such as turning man into rock. Or wood into rock. For who would deny the markings of every tissue of the demised tree - its xylem vessels, phloem which carry manufactured food from the leaves, the pith or dead center of the wood? In fact one can count the age of the tree when it died by counting the annular rings. And how long had the tree died. The circumstances of its death, and the events like drought, flood, fire that it had undergone.

Top: Teachers view the Fossil Collection of the Museum of Natural History, UPLB, Laguna; author (left) studies fossil of a Nautilus. Right: fossils of Ammonites, and ancient fish fossils.  

Next time you visit a quarry, or landscape supplier, or simply walking along a river bed, or rocky cliff, be keen at the possible presence of petrified wood. If there are more clues to the fossil you can even tell what tree it was. Is it already extinct? Is it the ancestor of modern species? What if the tree has not changed, evidenced by its similarity with its living progeny?

Indeed fossils are nature's geologic timepieces; they take us thousands, if not millions of years back. Didn't Charles Darwin gauge the stages of evolution of plants and animals through paleontology - the science of the study of fossils?

"Through the study of fossils I had already been initiated into the mysteries of prehistoric creations." - Pierre Loti

At first I didn't see it, until the tides left it in shallow water. It is a fossil of a very big staghorn coral, its base cut like the anther of a deer after the mating season. So clean did it appear I can count the number of years the coral lived. But that is deceiving because corals grow very slow. It takes fifty long years to grow to the size of a man's head. Each ring therefore, is compounded with other rings, making it difficult to tell the exact age of the fossil. A clear break may be an indication of an extreme condition of the environment that left such mark.

Around the fossil are many fossils of small organisms, other corals and shells. Fossils are known by their total age by combining the age of the fossil itself and the age of the surrounding rock.

How do fossils retain their form and structure even to the detail? Well, calcium carbonate seeps into the cells, and tissues, and in this particular case, into the fine structures like pores of the coral skeleton where the compound solidifies hard - harder than the mold itself. It's a skeleton in a skeleton, so to speak. Through hundreds or thousand of years the mold disintegrates leaving behind the hardened calcium compound. The process is also the same in wood turning into rock - petrified rock.

Here is a fossil of a bivalve - a big Tridachna, as large as the shell of its progeny shown in the lower photo. This shell is a receptacle of holy water at the entrance of Mt. Carmel Church QC. Shells survive adverse conditions of the environment, and as such also retain their original shape and form. Sand and silt become sedimentary rock entombing the shell until it is discovered through erosion and other means.

  

Fossils are made in a different way such as a hairy caterpillar stuck in oozing latex of rubber tree. The latex solidifies and hardens into rock, the same way an insect is engulfed in oozing resinous substance of pine tree. The resin hardens into a clear transparent material with the doomed insect or any other creature clearly visible. Resin turns into amber. Remember Jurassic Park movie? A mosquito after feeding on blood of a dinosaur was trapped in amber. The DNA of the extinct monster was reconstructed from the mosquito's food blood. Of course this is fiction. But Flash Gordon and Jules Verne proved beyond being just fiction writers.

Fossil of a bivalve shell

 Petrified wood is actually rock which bears the exact likeness of the original wood. The species can be traced to present specimens.  

 

"Why are the bones of great fishes, and oysters and corals and various other shells and sea-snails, found on the high tops of mountains that border the sea, in the same way in which they are found in the depths of the sea?"- Leonardo da Vinci

Everyday we encounter fossils and pseudo fossils we simply call skeletons, or artifacts if they did not directly come from living things. Fossils are always in the making. There is no ceasing since the appearance of life on earth, and ever expanding with increasing biodiversity of the living world. 

They are the remains of living things that survive time and circumstances, and of luck or fate as people put it. The older and better preserved fossils are, the more significant is the discovery - and the more we realize the secrets they reveal.

Making of a fossil.  Hairy caterpillar trapped in latex becomes a fossil thousands, 

or millions of years from now. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam  

Scientists reconstruct fossils close to their original form and virtual reality, complete with the organism's movements, sounds, habitat, special effects included. Thanks to advanced technology and fine arts.

Toys are then patterned after these reconstructed fossils. I know of children who grew up with collections of dinosaurs, birds, mammals, fish- all reconstructions from fossils. Many of these children grew into scientists and naturalists. I know of other children who were more interested with toy cartoon characters. They took a different career path, less meaningful and fulfilling than that of the latter children.

Geologic time is not constant though it may be contiguum. There are intervening factors we may not and never know. And if this were the case, we say, we have yet to discover the "missing link." Such was the predicament of Darwin in his theory of evolution, the bewilderment of Wallace before him, and the deceiving simplicity of Lamarck theory to decipher correctly the path of evolution. Fossils reveal the web of life as a labyrinth. We can only appreciate the early works of other paleontologists that Cuvier and Huxley who could only make inferences about life in the past and the present. In spite of all these, the world looks at all these men as pioneers and greatest fossil hunters.

Do you like to be a fossil hunter, too? ~

Part 2 - Fossil - Chronicler of Nature
Dr Abe V Rotor

Fossil in acrylic on canvas by AVRotor 2011

You’re the Creator’s emissary,
blueprint of phylogeny;
what enshrined you in a rock,
is more than fate or luck;
but a testimony of creation,
by design or evolution.

You’re a chronicler of nature,
the rise and fall of every creature;
more than a fossil but monument
of God’s supreme moment;
revealing through natural history,
the world's greatest mystery. ~

Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth's surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms. - Robert Jastrow

Rediscovering Lost Culture and Art - Pride of a People and Nation

Rediscovering Lost Culture and Art

- Pride of a People and Nation

"My dad taught me from my youngest childhood memories through these connections with aboriginal and tribal people that you must always protect people's sacred status, regardless of the past." - Steve Irwin

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature

School on Blog

 

Revival of Pottery: art and livelihood, environment friendly. Sudipen, La Union

Homogenization, like a giant pool, mirrors a phenomenon which is a consequence of progress - globalization.

Globalization is irreversible. But is it really progression. If it is trend of progress where will it lead us to? To what extent, and for how long? The believers of this thesis are disciples of science and technology, and therefore are not afraid to open new horizons. They seldom look behind.

Bamboo and rattan handicraft 

 
The traditionalists look at things differently. They have deeper roots in history and culture, they find time to ponder and analyze, and ask others and themselves, “Quo vadis?” But don’t get me wrong as anti progressive, anti technology.

Globalization is like a cauldron in which diversities of culture are thrown into. They dissolve in our very eyes. Either they disappear or lose their identity.

Clearly there is homogenization of races, creeds, ideologies - technology. For example there is only one kind of car in the world – they all work of the principle of Internal Combustion. Formal education has generally of one pattern worldwide, from preparatory to post graduate; so with the various courses offered.

Ethnic wooden art in the Cordillera

Ethnicity encompasses many aspects of life and culture; other the humanities are the natural sciences, ethnobotany among them (the study of the relationship of people and plants in a natural setting.).

From here evolved the knowledge of man in pharmacology, and while such knowledge has vastly grown into a major industry dominated by multinational companies, a great deal of herbal healing still abound in rural communities.

Native cloth pattern 

Folk wisdom akin to traditional knowledge is carried onto the present by elder members of the community has lost much significance in general perception, but a great number of them are enshrined by our culture and writings. They are natural leaders whose words are listened to with respect. Why village elders have also the role of an herbolario, matchmakers in marriages, teachers in their own right based on rich experiences and long practice!

Confucian teachings permeate in the family. Christian values are reinforced by age-long heritage, and vice versa. So with the teachings of Buddha and Mohammad, and other great religious leaders. Mythology, too, has deep rooted influence in our lives. It lives in our superstitious belief, folklore and customs. But many of these are being threatened, if not endangered, in our march toward progress and affluence, along with the current of postmodernism which is sweeping the world today.

On the other hand, there is growing consciousness for moderation in living. More and more people are looking for alternatives of the so-called Good Life.

One alternative is the revival of tradition, a rediscovery of lost

 culture and art can be enshrined in our present life.

1. Revival of ethno-medicinal healing has suddenly found relevance where the dangers of modern medicine are perceived. Lagundi, Oregano, Sambong are now DOH-approved How about the bulk of herbal medicine?

2. It’s the cold wind from the north that came too soon that caused poor rice harvest. Old folks would tell us. And scientists confirm that pollination-fertilization is indeed adversely affected by cold weather.

Home child delivery assisted by a village "kumadrona" 

3. Pet therapy is gaining popularity even in modern hospitals. Victims of stroke who lost coordination of their hands surprisingly recover with a pet around.

4. Honeybee sting sends arthritic people back on the road.

Headgear is ethnic art and status symbol 

among the Igorots.

5. Return to cotton, ramie, abaca, flax, and other natural fibers for clothing and other wears is indicative of people's awareness on the comfort and health benefits of these natural fibers, not to mention their being environment friendly.

5. Ethnic art is gaining popularity in galleries and studios. Native arts are found on murals and in halls. The revival of ethnic art is very visible among the aborigines of Australia, the American Indians, the Incas and Aztecs.So with other indigenous cultures.

"We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation." - Cesar Chavez ~