You're an island/Watery World Wednesday

Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents.  Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness.  ~ Kahlil Gibran

Linking to Watery World Wednesday

Persistence/Watery World Wednesday

One of the rock islands in Panay Gulf off the coast of Sipalay.

 Formed by ancient coral reefs, parts of this rock formation have been slowly eroded over time into quirky shapes.  I imagined the mouth of a Jurassic fish.:p

"The drop excavates the stone, not with force but by falling often." ~ Publius Ovidius Naso

Linking to Watery World Wednesday

No last word.../SWF

Doubt requires more courage
than conviction does,
because conviction is a resting place
and doubt is infinite;
it is a passionate exercise.
We've got to learn to live
with a full measure of uncertainty.
There is no last word.
That is the silence under
the chatter of our time.

~ John Patrick Shanley

Linking to Sky-Watch Friday

Gold/SWF

Love is what we are born with.  Fear is what we learn.  The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts.  Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth.  To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life.  Meaning does not lie in things.  Meaning lies in us.  ~ Marianne Williamson

Cauayan, Negros Occidental

Linking to Sky-watch Friday

Fiery/SWF

At the end of the day, we all need to remember to keep going.  But just making it another day doesn't get us where we truly want to be.  We must stay focused on what we aspire for, continue to dream but act on our passions.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" "

~ Jack Kerouac

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Sun-kissed Banca/SWF

A lone banca basking in the golden sunset.

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.  But still there is much that is fair.  And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

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Steep/Water World Wednesday

The greatest danger for most is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too low and we reach it. ~ Michelangelo

A small uninhabited island in Cauayan, Negros Occidental, that locals call Pulo-Gamay (or small island).  It has precipices but has a few meters of white sanded beach on the other side.  A pity we weren't able to check out the beach---a lunch of grilled fish was waiting in the next island.:p

 Linking to Watery World-Wednesday

Semana Santa/OWT

For Christians around the world, today is Holy Tuesday.  The Philippines, a predominantly Catholic nation, celebrates Semana Santa (Holy Week) this week.  Semana Santa is a significant religious festival here, most businesses either shut down operations or have later opening and earlier closing times.  Local TV networks and radio stations have limited broadcasting hours or show religious programs only. No rock music over the airwaves during Holy Week.:p

I grew up watching these processions every year on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.   The processions were major events that we looked forward to when we were kids.  Floats with life-size statues representing the Passion of Christ are paraded all over town with accompanying music.  Devotees walking all the way from the church, across town and back.

Prominent families usually own a float which was handed down from generations, some of the antique statues were sculpted in Spain.  A relative on my mother's side of the family owns one of these floats---a parcel of rice field is farmed to finance the expenses of the statue---flowers, decorations, robe/fabric, gas to power up the lights, food to feed those who prepares the statue every year and for the family and friends who walk beside the float.

I had a personal favorite when I was a kid---a statue of the Mater Dolorosa.  She was beautiful, her eyes were so sad, her robe was always stunning, and she left a scent of perfume.  I didn't see her during this procession though--or I missed her because of the crowd.  I hope the owner has not retired her yet.

I am not a Catholic and my Semana Santa pilgrimage is more of nostalgia, of returning to my roots, of reliving my childhood---to hold hands with cousins and aunts while watching the procession passing by our street, to see familiar smiles and faces.

 The Santo Entiero, (the image of a dead Christ) encased in a glass casket is usually the last float in the procession.  The glass casket is guarded towards the end of the procession as people tend to grab the flowers---devotees believe that flowers from the Santo Entiero float bring good luck to fishermen.

This year, I am not going home for the Semana Santa but will visit nearby towns to watch the processions.  I am still thinking if I'd like to see some self-flagellation or crucifixion on Good Friday.  Let's see where my feet would take me.:p

These photos were taken last year on Good Friday in my mother's hometown of Valladolid in Negros Occidental.

Linking to Our World - Tuesday

Patrol Boat/Blue Monday

A patrol boat docked at Danjugan Island.  Danjugan Island is a marine reserve and wildlife sanctuary, a small jewel in the Sulu Sea.

Linking to Blue Monday

Banca/Blue Monday

A favored local form of transport has always been the banca, a type of outrigger boat native to the Philippines.  Bancas are used for fishing,  transporting produce and people.  This is just one of the options we use in getting around the islands.

Linking to Blue Monday

Quiet Cove/Watery Wednesday

A quiet cove in Punta Bulata.  

No man should go through life  without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.  ~ Jack Kerouac

 

Get virtually wet at Watery Wednesday

Rice fields/OWT

Rice farming is a major agriculture industry in the Philippines.  No meal is complete without rice---breakfast, lunch or dinner, rice is always a part of every meal.  But there is more to rice fields than its use for growing rice.  A wide range of plants and animal species exist in rice fields.  It's one of the biggest ecosystems that can be found in the tropics.  

This is one of the rice fields we passed by while riding through the backroads of Negros Occidental.

Linking to Our World Tuesday

Two [Photo Hunt]

Two islands at the background, two kids on the foreground and too many good memories of this place by the beach.  

It takes two to put this boat in the water.

And two makes a good team.


Taken in early March during a family vacation.

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Still hour [SWF]

Twilight:  A time of pause when nature changes her guard.  All living things would fade and die from too much light or too much dark, if twilight were not.  ~ Howard Thurman

...dusk is the time when men whisper of matters about  which they remain silent in the full light of the sun.  ~ Simon Raven

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Gone Fishing

@ mirandablue

 A quiet morning at the shores of Anhawan Island.  Across the bay is the mountainous coast of Sipalay City.

I will be out of town for a few days.  Will return the visit when I get back.  Thanks for droppin' by.

Fountain @ The Ruins [Watery Wednesday]

@ mirandablue

Who wouldn't love a fountain especially on a hot and humid afternoon such as this?   The soothing sound of water, the fresh sensation, the transparent movement draws every visitor to this spot in the garden---a treat for the senses at The Ruins.  This 4-tiered fountain was constructed after the mansion was completed at the turn of the century.

@ mirandablue

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.  

~ Sir John Lubbock

@ mirandablue

Get virtually wet @ Watery Wednesday

By the bay [Watery Wednesday]

@ mirandablue

A serene morning by the bay in Punta Bulata.  A couple of bancas, a type of outrigger boat,  berthed while fishermen were checking their nets in preparation for the day's  fishing expedition.

@ mirandablue

"Surely a man needs a closed space wherein he may strike root, and like the seed, become.  But also he needs the great Milky Way and the vast sea spaces, though neither stars nor ocean serve his daily needs." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Get virtually wet at Watery Wednesday

A sugary tale [My World]

@ mirandablue

Sugarcane is a delicate plant, and there was always a need for plenty of fertilizer, irrigation, and a workforce that would work long hard hours of backbreaking labor without complaint---or without choice, as in the case of slaves. Although there was never a slave trade in the Philippines, the sugar industry here has its own unique history of exploitation, excitement, and human drama.

Sugarcane is a massive, bamboo-like grass of genus "Saccharum", tribe "Andropogonaeae", and family "Poaceae". Scientists call it photosynthetically efficient, in that it creates sucrose from sunlight, air, and water better than just about any other plant on earth. The only ones that come close are sugar maple and sugar beet; not coincidentally, those are precisely the two plants that compete directly with cane in the world sugar market.

My mother's uncle acquired a few hectares of land in the southern part of Negros Occidental in the 1950's.  It is a remote area that was infested by communist rebels, and nobody in the family dared to farm the land.   It was only about a decade ago when one of my cousins was crazy enough to invest in sugarcane farming.

Driving to Locotan with my cousins one Saturday in April, I was surprised to see that farm-to-market roads have been developed.  There was electricity, health centers, and according to relatives who live in the area, the communist rebels are either in jail or have returned to mainstream society after the 2007 Amnesty proclamation.

@ mirandablue

Sugarcane farming is never easy, according to my cousin.  In addition to dependency on unpredictable world markets, the sugar farmer is subject to the vagaries of Mother Nature. When it rains too much, trucks can't get out in the fields to get the cane.  To a naive observer like me, a field of blossoming snow-white sugarcane flowers is a sight to behold---the same scene brings a chill to the sugar farmer's spine.  Because those entrancing blossoms mean that the sugar content of the cane is being rapidly depleted, and along with it market value at the mill.  

@ mirandablue

My cousins and I had the crazy idea to walk in the fields at 2 pm when the sun was unforgiving.  I needed the exercise but not heat stroke!  But the view...yes, the view of these rolling hills has a cooling effect even at a 33-degree C temperature.

@ mirandablue

Taken in Locotan, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental

My contribution to My World-Tuesday