No Moon

Crackers are going off everywhere to usher in the New Year!

Here in Manila they are peaceful, although it starts smelling like a war zone already at 10 pm.

In Bangkok seven bombs have interrupted the celebrations today.

In Baghdad and other cities in Iraq, people keep dying without need.

Sadly, violence continues to plague our world in many places. Humanity doesn’t seem to learn and move forward.

Thirty-four years ago my history teacher taught us in school that history showed that people don’t learn from history. Mahatma Gandhi said that the world has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.

A sad note… there is only one way forward, a much better way to greet the New Year. That is to reach inside us and let our best qualities shine and come out.

Let’s forget anger, greed, and envy, and make place for genuine happiness. The world will never become a better place unless we all do our bit, personally.

When I will lit off the fireworks in 2 hours time and wave sabers of sparkles with my daughter, it will be to celebrate all the good things that 2006 brought us, from within and from outside of us.

Today’s wine is a toast for the best to come out, now and in the new year!

Photograph: Drinking wine and being merry, let the best come out.

Natural clearing

Today I took a picture of a changed landscape. Typhoon Milenyo struck a few months back at the end of September, and reminded Manila residents about the force of nature.

Here are two photographs of the same place, one of my favorite Starbucks in town, the one in Rockwell. The first was taken before the typhoon, and the second one after (today, almost three months later).

The parking guard caught me by surprise today when he asked me if I had a permit to take pictures. Apparently they are more concerned now about the security of Starbucks establishments.

Weeping gently

I have neglected my dear Dao and Wine blog for over a week. I've been occupied posting daily for my temporary blog Reborn at 50, which marks the countdown of days until I make my half century.

My writing starts to flow better, and I'm very pleased with that. I enjoy writing every day a bit more. I am getting out of my slump. I am getting more and more ideas for new activities.

Last Sunday when I brought my daughter to her singing lesson in Yamaha music school, I was attracted to the electric guitars on display for the first time. And this evening when I was listening to the newly remastered Beatles album Love, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps came on, I just wanted to make that gentle weeping happen myself.

With several weeks off from work, I will make the most of being creative. Especially writing and music. Life seems like a mistake to me now without these two.

Photograph: The new Beatles album Love.

Keep writing

There is no doubt in my mind. The highlight of this year is that I discovered my passion for writing. I know I have much to learn to become a better writer and I like the challenge. Most important advice to myself: keep writing. Practice is fun, and it pushes me to open myself more to the unknown.

When I meet new people nowadays, I'm interested in their creativity more than anything else. Soon after introductions, I will find a way to ask them about their art, their music, their expression. Everyone likes this question, I noticed. Yet only a few people answer it readily.

At today's art exhibit of the Asia Society at the Filipinas Heritage Library, I found that I was drawn to art works that display something red. Probably my age. I used to like dark blue.


Photograph: Red Art, by The Drawing Room Contemporary Art

Poaching discovered

I have always thought that poaching eggs is a wrong way of preparing them. The idea of letting an egg slowly turn into a jelly-like watery substance turned me off, and for a long time I associated this quality with the way of life in England.

I like boiled eggs for breakfast when their yolk is still soft. I love fried eggs, sunny-side up, on toast or with fried rice. I cherish scrambled eggs, especially when they’re done light and creamy. I appreciate omelets, most of all with cheese.

I enjoy eating eggs as part of other dishes, like in Chinese brown sauce (khai palo), egg strips on top of fried rice (nasi goreng), whole eggs in spicy curry (telur belado) or prepared Balinese style. I also savor eggs served as a separate dish such as son-in-law eggs (khai look koey) or thousand-year-old eggs (khai yiew ma). For the latter, the rumor persists that fermentation is started by soaking them in horse urine, although Wikipedia contradicts this.

Compared with this multiversity of preparations, poaching to me seemed a method that is lost between cuisines, devoid of character, producing an egg that is neither here or there and misses out on the character of the other preparations.

A few weeks ago, I was having breakfast with an English friend in a 38th floor hotel lounge overlooking Jakarta. When he ordered poached eggs, I decided to give them another try. And I was surprised at the combination of soft yolk within its thin egg-white coating, on crispy toast, and flavored with a dash of salt and a generous sprinkling of black pepper.

The next day I ordered two poached eggs, only to find them smelling strangely. On return home, I decided to try my hand at making poached eggs, and consulted web pages for help. That is when I discovered that some experts advise adding vinegar to the hot water to help the egg stay together. That explained the funny taste.

To my delight, my first attempt produced a delicious poached egg dish, which I ate with relish.

Photograph: My first home-made poached egg

Oxygen tank

I laugh at myself, as I see me devouring so many books.

Last night and this morning, I was reading Gail Sheehy’s 498 page New Passages – Mapping Your Life Across Time. I am still reading, haven’t finished it, am not just dipping into it as I do with many American books, but really reading the parts that I can connect with.

Yesterday when I was entered a shopping mall parking garage, a sign greeted me with “30 Days to Christmas”. Today, I will put up a sign on the door of my den at home, saying “89 Days to Turning Fifty.” Actually, I am already turning fifty. I have been tuned to that frequency for quite a while now. I recognize the importance of this major milestone, and of the many things it signals. Change, for sure. Some things are no longer like they were. Mortality is knocking at the back door. Other things are getting better though. Great adventures lie ahead. I will keep writing about these.

From reading many pages of Sheehy’s book, I conclude that I am very normal. What I feel, and the way I am developing, is what many men feel at this passage of life. That’s actually reassuring. Especially since men don’t talk much with each other about the changes they go through at this stage of life.

I learned a few things. First, by living in the moment, I can loose sight of the longer transitions in my life. Good to climb in that helicopter every once in a while to get the bigger view. Second, what I didn’t realize is that the “slowdown” in men my age can result in a negative spiral. A cocktail of lower confidence, slower metabolism, slacker muscles, and less libido can lead to depression, to “losing it” altogether. Mental and physiological factors can combine to produce a nasty result.

Aerobic exercise is not a favorite pastime of mine. And I was content to find out from Peter D’Adamo’s book Eat Right 4 Your Type that people with my blood type A tend to get exhausted by aerobic exercise without gaining the benefit from it that other blood types do, especially type O. I felt vindicated about my preference for armchair explorations of the world. I naturally take more to gentle forms of exercise like golf, tai chi, swimming, and smiling.

My wake up call came from reading that I need more exercise to restore muscle mass. Of course that is exactly what my French doctor has been telling me for years. “Now that you have gained control of your body weight – I bravely lost 15 kg in six months a few years ago – make it your next victory to create an exercise habit,” he said. I know very well how physiology, mental health and general well-being are connected.
I realized this morning that I need my personal oxygen tank to traverse the passage into what Sheehy calls the Flaming Fifties. Exercise is one of the keys to unlock the door.

I restarted this morning.

Photographs: Sheehy’s book cover and my new door sign

Love writing

8 November

I love writing. I spent time wondering why I write. Is it because I honor my commitment to write? Because I think I have to? Because I want to produce something that others will read? Practice for writing a book? Or because I want to learn more about life, and about writing?

I found that I write because I love life. I want to experience this love of life fully. I yearn to meet eternity in each moment, to feel utterly connected without effort. I want to share this love with others without walls and conditions. I reach out to let my soul make love with the universe. When I write, I feel doors opening, and I experience feeling that love in my heart and through every pore of my body.

Photograph: Standing on art, Mulia Senayan Hotel, Jakarta

Flowing river

Today I started reading Paulo Coelho’s Like the Flowing River. His first story touched me. It is about three different times in his life, alike to three distinct movements in a symphony. He calls them “a lot of people”, “a few people”, and “almost no one”. I assume he replays these movements over and over again, like we do when we enjoy a particular piece of music. Last night my daughter played Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love, and I asked her to play it again two more times.

About Coelho, I start to relate to his movements, because I am realizing that writing is a solitary activity. I can’t always do it alone, though, and I regularly write in my favorite Starbucks. I also connected to Coelho’s reflections in his second story, where he described how he doubted if he should weed his garden or not. I liked that he reached a conclusion and could move forward. I have so many reflections in my life these past few years, and I look around a lot for guidance on how to take the next steps on my journey. The solution lies within me, I found out, but other people and their written words and songs help to connect me with the wisdom that lies inside me.

What I realized in the past days is that I have much going for me, but that my life flow gets blocked easily. The river of my life stagnates easily these days, doesn’t flow well. I wonder why this happens, and how I can unblock myself. Will I use dynamite to blast through rapids of unhealthy habits or blow up dams of self-doubt? Should I dredge my river bed of sediment and sludge from the past? Coelho finishes the story with a commitment to “attack the weeds I did not invite to grow in my garden.” And he concludes that “when something undesirable grows in my soul, I ask God to give me the same courage to mercilessly pluck it out.”

I am writing again.


Photograph: Coelho's book cover

Rebirth

I am back!
Rebirth
Totally new
No yesterday
This is the moment
A new start
Is it possible?
I am, so… yes!

I took a two-month break
I wrote my journal
While life events and pressures
Took their toll
Now I reclaim my place
Rebirth is a choice

My writing practice continues…


Photograph: Sprouting a new leaf, my verandah

Quality living

Time has passed since my last posting, and today I added many I wrote during the past few weeks. I returned to my home in the Philippines from vacation, and then traveled to Europe again to visit Sweden for work. I came back to my home in the Philippines again, and my body is still confused in the morning (how to get up) and in the night (how to get to sleep). I managed to get up rather early this Sunday morning – having a delicious double espresso helped to help me get started. My attractive retro-styled coffeemaker churned out a delicious if somewhat sour brew from two Nespresso capsules, one black Ristretto and one yellow Finezzo.

I enjoyed the company of several friends in the Nordic capital of Stockholm last week. A visit of contrasts, from a tiny hotel room in a designer hotel, to the wide-spaced city of waters and old buildings and passages filled with domestic and international tourists of all origins. Most of all, the visit reminded me of the importance of quality living. A colleague became a friend as he unwittingly showed me how to live life with high standards, intensity of purpose, and unceasing humor. Others I rarely meet because of distance demonstrated that friendships last and can deepen every time. Flowing wine added to the color and flavor of our meetings, amidst exuberant Stockholmers celebrating life in the street in the short span of their summer.

On the way back aboard the Thai jumbo, I unexpectedly found myself talking for hours with a seat mate about life, music, relationships, burning out, living in the present moment, and training dogs. I was empty of expectations for this return trip, and found that space was created for another traveler and me to share quality time and develop friendship.


Purple

Purple covers warm
souls exchanging unexpectedly –
Opportunities that knock brightly


Photographs: Stockholm waterfront, Modern boutique hotel

Less can be more

18 August. I cannot possess everything. The things I have are for my use and sharing. Mike George’s 2nd Aha! advises that I need nothing to be truly happy. If I have less, I can be more. Having less, and practicing detachment help to gain freedom from fear and from living in scarcity.

Paradoxes get life going: do less of this, gain more of that. If I can let go of more, more opportunities can show up, ideas to come, people to enter. In contrast, it seems that attachments lead to death, ending, stiffness, suffering. How to I relate to the things I have, to the people in my life?

Mike George advises to see myself as a trustee. My travel headphones, my car, my ideas, I don’t own them. They have been given to me in trust. To hold everything in trust, and let go when the moment comes to do so, brings true freedom. I can feel deep inside me that this is true. I will shift attachments to trusteeship. I don’t own anything, I can harness the energy and power of having “enough” as a trustee.

I write this as the day starts high up flying over Latvia, with a smile.

Photograph: Trust, Osho Zen Tarot

Hari Raya

17 August. I found a nice capuccino at Hari Raya’s. Located on top of Ninoy Aquino airport’s aged terminal, Hari Raya is a simple place that has catered to multitudes of people passing through. In contrast to their movement, some of the waiters have been there for a decade and more, and their service is always friendly and attentive. Departing on my recent trip to Sweden, I was surprised they could make a nice cappuccino, and I ordered a second one while writing in my journal. I lost sense of time until my colleague texted me from the airline lounge below if I planned on making the flight or not. I did, and that was the start of a nice journey together that taught me more about living life with quality.

Photograph: Home-made capuccino in a good friend's cup.

My way

I feel lucky to experience growth, awakening, parting, love, renewal. I need more energy from the inside. I do not depend on anything or anyone for how I feel. It is entirely from me, my initiative, my response. I can be happy no matter what. My red color is smooth. My path is ahead. I don’t know what’s on it. I will see, find out. Each moment has a middle way. I will find it. It is an enjoyable measured response or a choice. It’s part of finding my way. Uniquely my way.

Water

I keep growing
With love –
Refreshing water

Photograph: Singapore street decoration

Listening

Listening comes from being quiet. It is about opening, receptivity, forgetting about self. A true connection of dots, because nothing stands in the way. The art of listening is passive, with full being. Mike George advises to be more quiet, to speak slower, to speak softer. Fusion happens in quietness, internally. The world abounds with great words and noise. I set out to find my own source.

During my last trip, I realized that one of the most difficult things for me to achieve is to be my own best friend. I have to find my own innermost core by myself, the original, no copies. I don’t like everything I see on the way there. So I keep observing, and drop what I can. To go deeper. There is no guide, except myself and the Universe. It is a dark night, this journey. An intense fire of inquiry leads to the morning, the sunrise.

Osho remarked that everyone in history who has had the intensity of inquiry, will find the sunrise. I learn about choices, that it is best to drop everything for emptiness, no-thingness. Going with my heart, my inner voice. I am not split, I am whole, but it takes my own unique journey to realize this, deep into the core of my being.


Photograph: Beyond Illusion, Osho Zen Tarot

Quiet

Quiet comes from inside. To be has no activity; it is at state of non-action. But it is full, it has its own fullness. Being quiet is a conscious state. It is a choice, and a good one. It is the first of seven positive changes recommended by Mike George in his The 7 Aha!s of Highly Enlightened Souls.

I find that quietness is the source of creativity. But I wonder if creativity also needs chaos? How is creative chaos connected to quiet being? Or to a special sense of being connected – the dots – with the dots around us? I am into quietness now. I find that it is enough. My back straighter, not slumped, helps to conserve and circulate energy. Quietness is full. It really has power. The power of silence allows me to paint on my own canvas. It feels like glass, but not etched, just very smooth, and endless in size. A canvas to express my creativity. Very colorful and beyond the conventions of others, but it could reflect some of those.

Language of love and the heart… silence.


Photograph: Mike George's book

Buyers

8 August. Last night I met my high-school friend and we shared some of the developments in our lives. We had some similar experiences in the past years, and found that we have both learned to adopt a positive attitude towards living happily, no matter what happens. We talked over red wine (me) and bitter lemon (friend) about relationships, the never-ending topic. It turned out that we both like to be “buyers” in the relationship with our significant other, and that we have grown to that experience from being “renters” earlier.


Photograph: Willard Harvey's book on Buyers, Renters, and Freeloaders

Blue

Today I was blue. It was the kind of low mood day where lifting my spirit seemed like the heaviest task. I severely scratched my rented car in a narrow parking garage. It took me a while to get over that emotionally! A cost of Euro 200 for liability was incurred in a second, and my pride was hurt for not being able to do better. Even before that, it was heavy. I had a frog to eat (task to finish) but did not get to it. So it keeps croaking in front of me.

Later in the afternoon the Universe kicked me to help me regain perspective. While shopping in the supermarket, I found myself surrounded by boisterous teenagers talking loudly about life in general and chicks in particular. I realized that life keeps moving, and it is up to me to throw myself into the flow. Then I ran into a shop selling the nice Linksys Skype phone which I have been eyeing, and I decided on the spot to buy it. A treat to myself on a blue day.

At night I took a walk to the railway station right in front of the apartment where I am staying. On entering the unusually clean building, I was surprised to see the hall taken over by dancers practicing the Tango. What a fantastic use of a railway station at 10:30 on a Friday night! And most of the dancers had left at home their unflattering casual attire which is so common in this country, and opted for fancy clothes and dancing shoes. After watching them for a while, I discovered that the station’s minimart was still open and found the eggs I needed for breakfast tomorrow.

Last Sunday I watched the show of the Blue Man Group in Boston. Several of their messages hit me, including the notion that a lot of time in life is spent on discharging things “away” from ourselves, which the Blue Men vividly depicted with a system of sewer pipes, which then became musical instruments. The Blue Men challenged the audience to be interactive, and to consume wisely. Connections are meant to be two-way. We need to get unplugged, in more ways than one.

They also showed how people sit in internet cafés talking to other people who are not there, and ignore the people sitting right next to them. I also liked their hilarious advice how to perform rock on stage. And the show ended dramatically with rolls of pseudo toilet paper being “waved” by the audience to the front of the stage, in a direct form of interaction and flow reversal. Audience participation in the show was great from beginning to end. To me it underlined the notion that we as dots can get better connected. It is up to us to see it and do it. It is the underlying concept of this blog too.

So after all, I recovered and started all over from scratch as I found that the Universe keeps vibrating around me.

PS: Blogger won't upload my pics, so they will come later!

Stepping out

I haven’t written for a few days, busy traveling to the other side of the world. I am now attending an ice-skating event in Boston where my daughter is competing. The event takes place in five rinks under one roof, in the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, a pleasant centuries-old town in a clean green landscape. The event brings together competitors, parents, friends, spectators, coaches, judges, organizers and sales people. The skaters are pushing their limits on the ice, making new friends, trading pins, and having fun.

It is a great experience for the competitors, to find out where they can do well, sometimes better than hoped, other times less than expected, or just different. Coming out onto the ice, where the entire rink is waiting just for you, is an exhilarating experience, and I see it over and over here, albeit through my own eyes of a spectator.

My own experience is of stepping out on a stage to perform with my sax. Every time it is a great moment, with both potential, expectation and vulnerability throbbing through my system. Until I let the music take over and lead its own life.

Competitive events and performances help me see myself in a different way. A close friend has discovered new dimensions in art expression by submitting art work for weekly collage and poetry challenges. I believe there is more for me to discover as well, and for everyone else too. The youngest competitor here is 3 and the oldest 81. Watching both, I saw a similar spark in their eyes. The opportunity to demonstrate their skills. The promise of reaching out to a new experience. The courage to step out and glide to stardom of the moment.

Embracing risk

My writing period is now. I need writing periods, wherever I am and whatever I do. Not writing would be my biggest mistake. Writing is a big mistake too, in a way, because it makes me do what I fear most. Is that a mistake? I call it so, because the safe road of correct action will not bring out my potential. I read that Ralph Waldo Emerson’s aunt Mary advised him to “always do what you are afraid to do”. I take that advice too. Change is natural, and change is needed to grow. But it is easy for me to be afraid of making changes. Gail Sher wrote that the risks of not making changes are even greater. I risk missing my life. I will not take that risk. So I write and keep writing. I change and I keep changing. I embrace these.

Whose team?

It is marvelous to become part of a sports team representing a country.

It is even more special if the team is not from your country. My daughter and I happily joined the Philippine SM MegaMall team at the ISI Recreational Worlds Recreational Team Championship for ice skating in Boston. She as skater, and I as driver.

Being in the company of Filipinos is very enjoyable. I find them warm, kind, polite, energetic, creative, humorous and more. I have enjoyed living there for 14 years now. It seems like only yesterday that I arrived… :-)