The Cricket - Nature's violinist

Dr Abe V Rotor

Field cricket (Acheta bimaculata) 

Aesop called you - like your grasshopper kin - sluggard,
      for heeding not your want for the rainy day;
in summer you fiddle all day and whole night through,
      lifting the spirits of those at work or play.

I say, what could best earn your place and your existence,
      but to unburden the load of the world,
etching a living, each thought nothing else but living,
      than sweet violin and some kind word? ~

Personal Reflection of Unknown Heroes of Today

Personal Reflection of Unknown Heroes of Today 

Little do we know of the unknown great man:

the Unknown Soldier -

unknown doctor, unknown teacher

farmer, worker, entrepreneur,

old man, father, housewife, child;

the unknown in other fields of life, regardless.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

Lesson:  Make your own personal reflection on a regular bond, in any style, 500 words more or less. Reflection brings out the inner person in you, like the inner eye of Heller Keller, the Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupery', idealism of Longfellow and Alexander Pope, meditation in Michelangelo's Pieta, the mysticism of Venus de Milo, enigma of wildlife in Rousseau's painting, inner ear of Beethoven, waning light in Claude Monet's Waterlily Pond. 
Dr Jose Rizal

I invite our viewers to this exercise. You may find this useful in retreats and seminars, specially in leadership, and in the fields of theology,  philosophy, and humanities.

One man fought a nation, and save a nation, abhorring violence.
His greatest weapon: peaceful protest and civil disobedience
in asceticism that swept the land;
people revering him as father and almost god.
His name is Gandhi.

His likes are the greatest specimens of mankind; they too, changed
the world forever, making it a better place to live in.

• His name is Mao Tse Tung.
• His name is Ho Chi Minh.
• His name is Jose Rizal.
• His name is Ramon Magsaysay
• Her name is Princess Diana.
• His name is Jose Burgos.
• He is Maximilian Kolby

Nelson Mandela 

• She is Mother Teresa.
• He is Nelson Mandela
• He is Pope John Paul II, et al

They are people for all seasons, for all ages, for all waves of change.


They are whose deeds are also those of great men and women we revere today.
They are us – each one of us
in our own little way to make the world go round and around –
or make it slower, that we may taste better the true Good Life,
the sweet waters of the Pierian Spring, the cool breeze on the hill.

All of us - we have the capacity to be great.
Bringing up our children to become good citizens,
being Samaritan on a lonely road,
embracing a returning Prodigal Son, 
plugging a hole in the dike like the boy who saved Holland from the sea,
or living life the best way we can that makes other lives better.

These and countless deeds make us great,
and if in this or that little way we may fall short of it,
then each and everyone of us putting each small deed together,
makes the greatest deed ever,
for the greatest thing humans can do is collective goodness –
the key to true unity and harmony,

and peace on earth. ~

Literature is the people’s collective masterpiece, their imprimatur.

Literature is the people’s collective masterpiece,

their imprimatur.

                                                   Dr Abe V Rotor

1. Three words for a book title title, Philippine Literature Today,

The essence of three elements: space, subject and time;
Yet subjective and elusive to the critical eye and mind
But courageous at the frontline, gentle over our clime.

2. What is literature to the old is also that to the young;
Bridge of generations, continuum of race and culture;
Heroes of old, heroes of new, and those awaiting, too,
Living book, not archive or litany, to love and treasure.

3. Dawn the prelude to sunrise, brings in a new sentinel,
New to the learned, to the unlearned, to the new born,
Sunset not the end of day and coming peace of night;
But rage, for to settle down is sin when the flag is torn.

4. Wonder the sun rising late and dying young in smog;
Wonder a high rise cast its shadow to hide a shanty;
Wonder ostentatious shows, courtesy of the needy;
Wonder literature thriving on romantic dichotomy.

5. Icons, masters, the pedestal too crowded for a few;
Names branded by fraternity, laurel or olive wreath;
Vanity and fancy, in language beautiful in the clouds,
Cordon sanitaire that wisdom is barred to bequeath.

6. While the world moves on by leaps from a small step,
In quantum of knowledge beyond the brain can hold;
Cyberspace the blackboard that was, now unlimited,
Makes the old torch a lightning bolt its power untold.

7. Literature its profile from Baby TV to Disney to HBO
Its domain epics and tales to history, science and ad;
Access on the palm and wrist, biometrics and robotics;
Quo vadis literatura? The canons are now old and sad.

8. Talk about Black Death, talk about COVID, both dreaded;
Angels and astronauts; about Noah’s flood and Yolanda;
Tenants in the field and condominiums they don’t own;
Man-made islands and deserts, the mall and talipapa.

9. No part truly speaks of the whole, comprehensive it may,
For literature defies science; unlike happiness multiplies
When divided in the magic of synergy and imagination
Above reason like rainbow that often comes in disguise.

10. Pathfinders at the heels of the world’s men of letters,
Universal truth in Rizal, genius put to test in martyrdom;
Reyes the Lola Basyang, relived fairies and the dwarfs
By the hearth and tamed the giants in faraway kingdom.

11. The doyen, Leona in Philippine poetry past, preserved
The endangered classics of the west tuned in vernacular;
Balagtas brought on stage Shakespearean drama alive;
Four pillars stand over our literature like shining star.

12. To our shores came Aesop, Homer, the Grimm brothers,
Stories from far north and south, and across the globe,
In times war and peace, in colonial days and in liberty;
An invisible hand guided our destiny from the cold.

13. What now from millennia past, in postmodern age -
The atom a ticking bomb, the life’s secret in DNA code?
The world has shrunk into a gadget, now owned by all
At fingertip’s command, at anytime, by young and old.

14. The second Big Bang that in cyberspace never sleeps,
Rousing and prodding, intruding, unyielding to our right,
Where computer and literature on busy feet moving,
Like a river of no return, rushing aimlessly in the night.

15. Humbly this book presents a less trodden way, perhaps nil;
Footsteps it lays ahead on a long journey on the horizon
By pioneers unknown, untested, theirs not of the glory
But courage and joy beating a path to a promising zone. ~
---------------------

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio. 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Saving the Endangered Sword Bean

Saving the Endangered Sword Bean

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

Lesson: Let's help preserve threatened and endangered species. The backyard is a good place to multiply these species that have become rare because of abuse or neglect.

Sword Bean has long disappeared from the backyard. It used to be a popular succulent vegetable with the young pod sliced thinly, cooked as salad, with meat or fish, or in bulanglang, and other recipes. These seeds shown in the photo have been germinated with the hope of saving this endangered plant.

Parbangon - Mangrugi Manen ti Sarzuela ken Comedia (Dawn ushers daily grind of life's drama and comedy)

Parbangon Nanem (It's Dawn Again)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Image of Dawn Internet

                           1. Pumarbangonen: Sarzuela ken Comedia, 

Mangrugi manen.
(Dawn ushers daily grind
of life's drama and comedy)

2. Ti ukoy-ukoy,
Agur-uray diay abut
Iti agbiddut.
(The antlion waits for prey
that blunders and falls into its pit.)

3. Nakasutsutil -
Bacchus, Ambrosius Venus,
Tulongandak!
(Help me from tempters - Bacchus,
Ambrosius, Venus. From Greek mythology
gods and goddess of ostentatious living.)

4. Igudagudmo,
Agsangit, agkatawa;
Langit ken daga.
(It's the violin being referred to.
It cries and laughs with heaven and earth.)

5. Kapanunutan 
Ken takyag iti mangged,
Puso ti tured.
(Intellect and brawn to earn;
courage is in the heart.)

6. Saan nga ammo,
Nat-natay diay adayo,
Ilagip tayo.
(Reverence to the dead -
even those unknown in distant land.)

7. Kapanunutan, 
Narigat nga abaken,
Malaksid kukuam.
(You really can't win an argument,
except your own.)

8. Umisemkan, 
Tapno maturogen ti
Dakkel a bulan. 
(Your sweet smile
makes the moon sleep. ) 

9. Nakadumog, 
Labaslabasan ti angin,
Agngil-ngilangil.
(Refers to good harvest:
Heavy panicles bow low,
ducking the passing wind.)

10. Naturoganna't 
Panagbaliw ti lubong
Ni Rip Van Winkle.
(From Washington Irving's story,
Rip van Winkle, about a man
who slept for twenty long years
amid changes going on in the world.)

Folk Wisdom - Keeper of Tradition (10 lessons)

Folk Wisdom - Keeper of Tradition (10 lessons)

Dr Abe V Rotor

1. Thunder and lightning spawn mushroom.

In the province, it is a tradition to go hunting for mushrooms in bamboo groves, on anthills, under rice hay and banana stalks during the monsoon season, specifically after a period of heavy thunder and lightning. And what do we know? Old folks are right as they show you the prize - baskets full of Volvariella (rice hay or banana mushroom), Pleurotus (abalone mushroom), Auricularia (tainga ng daga), and a host of other wild species. Where did the mushroom come from? When lightning strikes, nitrogen, which comprise 78 percent of the air is combined with oxygen (21 percent of the air) forming nitrate (NO3). 

Scientists call this process, nitrogen fixation or nitrification. Nitrate, which is soluble in water, is washed down by rain. Lightning occurs every second in any place of the earth, keeping the earth sufficient with this life-giving compound. Not only green plants are benefited from this natural fertilizer, but also phytoplankton (microscopic one-celled plants) - and the lowly mushroom whose vegetative stage is but a cottony mass of mycelia enmeshed in decomposing media such as plant residues. With nitrate now available, rain softening the culture medium, and other conditions favorable, the saprophyte transforms into its reproductive phase. This is distinctly the mushroom we commonly see – one with an umbrella atop a single stalk. In all its luxuriance and plenty, one may discover clusters and hills of mushrooms in just a single spot. 

2. Kapok laden with pods means there’s going to be a poor harvest.
Ceiba pentandra, or cotton tree, has large secondary roots to compensate for its lack of primary root that can penetrate the deeper source of water. Nature endowed this plant with fleshy trunk and branches to store large amount of water for the dry season. Insufficient rains or early onset of summer triggers flowering, as it is the case in many species under stress. Thus it is one of the indicators of poor harvest farmers rely on. It has been observed that a bumper crop of kapok fiber occurs during El Niño, a climatic phenomenon characterized by extreme drought.

3. Ethnic music makes a wholesome life; it is therapy.

Have you ever noticed village folks singing or humming as they attend to their chores? They have songs when rowing the boat, songs when planting, songs of praise at sunrise, songs while walking up and down the trail, etc. Seldom is there an activity without music. Even the sounds of nature to them are music.

According to researcher Leonora Nacorda Collantes, of the UST graduate school, music influences the limbic system, called the “seat of emotions” and causes emotional response and mood change. Musical rhythms synchronize body rhythms, mediate within the sphere of the autonomous nervous and endocrine systems, and change the heart and respiratory rate.  Music reduces anxiety and pain, induces relaxation, thus promoting the overall sense of well being of the individual.

Music is closely associated with everyday life among village folks more than it is to us living in the city. The natives find content and relaxation beside a waterfall, on the riverbank, under the trees, in fact there is to them music in silence under the stars, on the meadow, at sunset, at dawn. Breeze, crickets, running water, make a repetitious melody that induces sleep. Humming indicates that one likes his or her work., and can go on for hours without getting tired at it. Boat songs make rowing synchronized. Planting songs make the deities of the field happy, so they believe; and songs at harvest is thanksgiving. The natives are indeed a happy lot.

4. When earthworms crawl out of their holes, a flood is coming.
 

This subterranean annelid has built-in sensors, a biblical Noah’s sense of a coming flood, so to speak. Its small brain is connected to clusters of nerve cells, called ganglia, running down the whole body length. These in turn are connected to numerous hair-like protrusions on the cuticle, which serve as receptor. When rain saturates the soil, ground water rises and before it reaches their burrows, they crawl out to higher grounds where they seek refuge until the flood or the rainy season is over. The more earthworms abandoning their burrows, the more we should take precaution.

5. To control rhinoceros beetles from destroying coconuts throw some sand into the base of the leaves. 

Male rhino beetle

This insect, Oryctes rhinoceros, is a scourge of coconut, the larva and adult burrow into the bud and destroy the whole top or crown of the tree. There is scientific explanation to this practice of throwing sand into the axis of the leaves. Sand, the raw material in making glass, penetrates into the conjunctiva - the soft skin adjoining the hard body plates, in effect injuring the insect. As the insect moves, the more it gets hurt. As a result the insect dies from wound infection, or by dehydration. Thus we observe that coconut trees growing along the seashore are seldom attacked by this beetle.

6. Don’t play with toads. Toads cause warts.

Old folks may be referring to the Bufo marinus, a poisonous toad that secretes white pasty poison from a pair of glands behind its eyes. Even snakes have learned to avoid this creature described as ugly in children’s fairy tales.

But what do we know! The toad’s defensive fluids have antibiotic properties. Chinese folk healers treat wounds such as sores and dog bites with toad secretions, sometimes obtained by surrounding the toads with mirrors to scare them in order to secrete more fluids.

Similarly certain frogs secrete antibiotic substances. A certain Dr. Michael Zasloff, physician and biochemist, discovered an antibiotic from the skin of frogs he called magainins, derived from the Hebrew word for shield, a previously unknown antibiotic. It all started when researchers performed surgery on frogs and after returning them to murky bacteria-filled water, found out that the frogs almost never got any infection.

What are then the warts the old folks claim? They must be scars of ugly wounds healed by the toad’s secretion.

7. Animals become uneasy before an earthquake occurs. It is because they are sensitive to the vibrations preceding an earthquake. They perceive the small numerous crackling of the earth before the final break (tectonic), which is the earthquake. 

Fantail or pandangera bird is usually restless at the onset of bad weather.

As a means of self-preservation they try to escape from stables and pens, seek shelter, run to higher grounds, or simply escape to areas far from the impending earthquake. Snakes come out of their abode, reptiles move away from the water, horses neigh and kick around, elephants seem to defy the command of their masters (like in the case of the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka). We humans can only detect such minute movements on our inventions such as the Richter Scale.

8. Don’t gather all the eggs. Leave some otherwise the laying hen will not return to its nest. 
True. The layer is likely to abandon its nest when it finds it empty. Leave a decoy of say, three eggs. But there are layers that know simple arithmetic, and therefore, cannot be deceived, and so they abandon their nest and find a new one.

9. Raining while the sun is out breeds insects.
Now and then we experience simultaneous rain and sunshine, and may find ourselves walking under an arch of rainbow, a romantic scene reminiscent of the movie and song, Singing in the Rain. Old folks would rather grim with a kind of sadness on their faces, for they believe that such condition breeds caterpillars and other vermin that destroy their crops.

What could be the explanation to this belief? Thunderstorm is likely the kind of rain old folks are referring to. Warmth plus moisture is vital to egg incubation, and activation of aestivating insects, fungi, bacteria and the like. In a few days, they come out in search of food and hosts. Armyworms and cutworms (Spodoptera and Prodina), named after their huge numbers and voracious eating habit, are among these uninvited guests

10. Garlic drives the aswang away.

If aswang (ghost) being referred to are pests and diseases, then there is scientific explanation to offer, because garlic contains a dozen substances that have pesticidal, antimicrobial and antiviral properties such as allicin, from which its generic name of the plant is derived – Allium sativum. Garlic is placed on doorways, in the kitchen and some corners of the house where vermin usually hide, which is also practiced in other countries. It exudes a repellant odor found effective against insects and rodents – and to many people, also to evil spirits, such as the manananggal (half-bodied vampire). ~

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

A Shade of Noah’s Flood.

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday (www.pbs.gov.ph)

Flash flood as I recall it in painting, acrylic 2009

 The water kept on rising and dad made another notch on the post of our stair.

It is the season of siyamsiyam we call in Ilocano nepnep, the phenomenal – or is it proverbial? – “nine-plus-nine days of continuous rainfall” which occurs usually in August, the rainiest month in the country and peak of the monsoon in the Asian region. But it had been raining much longer than that, and dad said it would last for forty days, citing the story in the bible about Noah’s Flood.

I was in the elementary but I was then strong enough to wade and retrieve our empty basi jars or burnay being swept away by the flood. Since there was no dry ground left I pulled the jars from the rushing current. It was not easy to restrain a jar partly filled with water so that you have to empty it as much as you can before you could pull it to safety. Dad and I barely understood each other at the top of our voices in the downpour and rumbling flood, but I knew he was telling me to let the jars go because of the extreme danger, pointing at the main current just across the house.

But I simply ignored him not realizing the danger until he pulled me, letting off the jars to roll in the current sometimes banging at one another. We never gave up though with whatever we could under the extreme situation. My brother Eugene was even more daring, overtaking the jars before they were swept to the street. Manang Veny kept an watchful eye on the jars in the cellar and under the sagumbi (kichen-granary).

When we were nearly exhausted dad examined the water level he marked earlier. It was down two marks which meant the water was receding. Only then did we realize we had been working in danger, cold and hungry, for the whole morning. In the afternoon the jars came to a halt in the muddy sediment.  The flood was over. I thought I saw a white dove flying above.

Where did the floodwater come from? Towards the east is the edge of the Cordillera range running parallel with the coast of South China Sea. Dad used to tell me that when he was like me then, it was verdant green, bluish in the morning mist and before dusk.

I realized how different it was on that day the floodwater came down.  It is worse today.  When the day is clear you can see the scars of erosion in roan and orange and ochre, breaking the monotony and giving it a somewhat romantic touch. But these are not good signs.  In fact they are signs of destruction of the forest cover, the watershed of the narrow strip of flat land spreading out northward and spilling westward to the South China Sea. Along it is a chain of villages around towns wedged by the mountain and the sea. One can imagine the movement of water when it rains, and how ground water is trapped and stored to irrigate tobacco, vegetables and other summer crops.

But without trees, runoff water simply rushes down into flood, scouring on its way riverbanks, farms and houses.  There is not enough time and foothold for rain to seep into the ground and feed the spring and aquifers.  And there is not enough ground water to be drawn out from wells. Because water is scarce and too deep trees succumb in summer and brushfire often sweeps and consumes the dying vegetation.   

Many years has passed since the Noah’s Flood of my childhood.  I trained my tired aging eyes over the Cordillera of my childhood.  It too, is now old, tired and worn.~