My Struggle -> Pose

“The quality of your life is dependent upon the quality of the life of your cells. If the bloodstream is filled with waste products, the resulting environment does not promote a strong, vibrant, healthy cell life-or biochemistry capable of creating a balanced emotional life for an individual.” ~ Tony Robbins

Struggle pose I call it; to sit straight on the floor with the back  arched, your arms reaching out in differing stretching angles that require your spine to fully engage with the movements. This was the challenge early morning yoga class.

I get what's it's all about - support and confidence that  your spine will hold you up limber straight, when asked, and flow gracefully supine with the movements. Hah, none of that for me, I'm afraid. Surprise! Surprise!

My whole torso was in a state of stiff, bent puzzlement - like gurl' what the eck' do you want me to do and why, what for, do I really have to?!?  I felt a wave of  complaint as my backbone, new to the experience, simply  couldn't perfect the 'look'. It had a mind of its own opting to bend comfortably, resisting the ensuing straightening, lengthening experience - unsure, questioning, trying, failing, then trying again, and somehow managing to get through the whole experience with a tad of pride that the newness of something, a type of change was hurdled.

For the first time in my life, I'm treating my  body as I would a child - with  the gentleness,  kindness and  firm guided discipline of a responsible parent. Every sweat is  an enlightening joy of  nourishing and creating aliveness. Every movement is an experience,  an adventure that unlocks not only  hidden strength but colorful positive realizations as the process unfolds. 

How wonderful too, to be surrounded by people who  believe that the body gets better, fitter and even stronger as one age,s as long as you have consistent faith  coupled with motivated action to treat yourself with respect and reverence. I affirm that health and vibrancy is mine - because where focus goes, energy flows

January's Poetry: Morning Walks

Roselle Quin

“My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums...” ~ Mary Oliver, Thirst

Roselle Quin

Instead of the news, which bleeds the heart and dehydrates the soul to parchment pieces, there is walking and poetry- in the mornings - early - then back with a luminous offering for the day: Mary Oliver assuredly knows about this for she happens to be my soul companion. I search for the "terror breath" amidst the soil and moss and find it, my end of the world. Her eyes, ears, nose and skin are as mine searching, welcoming, open and introspective to the details of  nature. 

Roselle Quin

Unlike Mary, who literally employed herself to the valiant bountiful and available woods of her life, I need to take a hundred steps to discover mine. 

Living in a harsh, chaotic modern city is not the ideal of places to find walking trails littered with trees, birds or flowers - but God be blessed, I am always planted at places most conducive to the soul propitious for meanderings. 

Today, there is much to write about, which in itself is balm for my mind. There are words un-uttered, phrases un-tried, patois to discover and one's own parlance to cultivate as of a dried field awaiting the inauguration of rain.  I write my own poetry too.

The Enchanting Legend of the Koi Fish

Roselle Quin photos taken at Koi pond in Greenbelt, Makati - Philippines

Being a true mermaidy'  Piscean, I hugely adore pools of any sort and remember fondly how sweet and  lovely my grandmother's koi pond was! She had an interesting 60's wood slated sliding door in her Asian inspired home that splendidly opened to a gleaming water garden - a tranquil spot in the far end corner of her living room. I can see it still, in my mind's eye, how the home had an airily lit, shall I say - chakra point - illuminated by the buoyant murmuring presence of  water,  color and nature.

Several sizable birdcages also graced the garden, its cheery tweetie' occupants being dozens of lovable lovebirds the sight and sound of which was adorably amazing! Fronting the bird cages was the mini zenish' black pearly' pool  lorded by what seemed to little girl me,  hundreds of magnificent Koi fishies' - an auspicious sight, both enthralling and mysterious. 

An authentic bonsai masterpiece theatrically mounted in an auspicious corner of the Greenbelt pond. 

It was one of the happiest places to be, standing there, fascinated by the leisurely graceful swimmy' moves of spotted yellow, white, orange golden Koi's  creating gentle concurrent ripply waves as they gingerly sashay towards you in anticipation of bread treats. 

A feisty swarm of Maya birds seem to fancy these bushes. It was quite an entertaining sight.

And those were the days, as they say. 

Nowadays, I get my unrelenting 'Koi fix' from public gardens, a most accessible favorite spot being the verdant Greenbelt fish ponds. I have languid afternoons seated at the adjacent Museum Cafe' - sometimes with a friend, at times merely me, - where for a moment's cup of coffee, life is nary a care but for the fishes to see. 

Koi's have quite an enchanting legend.  Story goes that when the greatest sage, Confucious, had a son, a certain important king presented him with a black carp called a Magoy. According to legend, that particular Magoy was 'the great ancestor' to all present day Koi's.

Interesting. 

I'm in the throes of Koi pond envy and would sure like to have my own (tiny) pond in my little garden. Video tutorials are a' plenty in Youtube, all I have to do is coerce, I mean convince my husband that maintaining the fishies' would be manageable. :D

"My Ayala Underground Walkway Fantasy!"

Meeeee' happily posing while hubby took the pic! 

And this is my hubby's back, haha! I luv' the long stretch of the walkway! 

Eeee, yebah (!!), I finally did it, haha! Had my photo taken in the Ayala underground walkway last Sunday. Been inkling to do so like - ever since, but, *shucks*  couldn't. 

This walkway is normally crrrr-a-w-ling on weekdays - business business, y' know. Saturdays too - just people people people! Security guards won't allow photo ops no matter how quickie' (for security reasons they said). 

I was kinda' surprised when once I tried to take a pic of the tunnel and was politely stopped. Another time, I was trying to take a ( really quick- won't bother anyone) snap of one of the cool ads framed on the side, and was once again, advised - not to. I dunno' what's with that, but I was in no' obscene mood to articulate my bafflement while being a dent on the flow of  serious folks walking zippy to where they need to be. Hah, o' but --> NOW, I have my much desired pic, hehehe!

Dunno' why I have a thing for this stretch, like walking old university walls where you feel the soul of you is part of the structure. Maybe, because I've walked this tunnel a zillion times for years and years and years and saw it actually constructed to be - from mud to hollow, to bricks and poles and humongous mixers and all insanity. I remember how inconvenient those days were when the diggings for the projects just started. I remember the warnings, the workers, the sludge sounds and traffic, and the trying to imagine how it's going to look when it finally unveils.  The thought of walking underground was quite a curious novelty way back. 

3 things I luv'' most about this are:
1. The fact that I've often exited on the wrong side of where I need to be.
2. You never know who you'll bump into.
3. Ascending on the "Triangle" side you're received by the street with the sight above - a stretch of green ascending that turns right to a decently expansive park made intriguing by its (airport) history and artfully hailed ancient trees - a bit of an oasis there. I think of it as swimming up from a dusky deep, resurfacing to freshness and light. In a harsh city, this is positive catharsis.

MY fantasy: :D

Think of the whole walk draped in the middle by the swooping drama of long red rolling carpet - end-to-end! In a corner a string quartet playing Vivaldi, or some lilting in the mood melody!

Think cocktail tables - thin round velvet covered stands where folks and friends dressed hippy' nice can settle drinks and chill, talk, laugh. Think little pretty fingerling food!! 

AND -->  but yes, of course, the highlight of it all are my photographs ( and some splotches of my inordinate spurts of art) my very very OWN, (haha!) hanging on the walls serving as deep, riveting conversation pop ups that propel lookers to pontificate on the soulful and political, hahaha!  

Ya, that would be cool! :D 

Snapping out now, hehe! Meanwhile, life calls me to zoom in on what needs to be fixed and done, hurried and musts, right now. so I beg leave of this little space and transport my physical me to my living. I had fun capturing these moments.  It'll be great going back here in this blog of mine, years from now and see the changes of th future compared to what's framed of today. . 

Book Luvin' on a Weekend Morning!

Tired trying couple ov' weeks gone past with everything churning in a melange of never ending "to do". Life itself was a fairytale gone twisted with the ends of my mind mostly curled in dumb disapproval. I resembled somewhat the fox or - the wolf ( big and bad) - who huffed and puffed and blew the hut ( or house, or cottage) away. Only, dear me, I didn't manage to blow anything away - except rivulets of my patience and cubes of my mushed sanity. 

Meeeeh!!

So enter my staycation relax solutions!

Bright spot of those days were stolen moments immersed in two glorious books; one gifted, the other a precious endearing BookSale ( that means thrift!)  find  I love, love, love it when my eyes and hands trip on a keeper of a book tucked away above, underneath or in between piles of pre-loved literary goodies!

My Secret Keeper book ( by Kate Morton) is that sort ov' find! Fabulous  portrait cover! And after  inspecting every corner, and after scanning what it was all about, I knew for sure I had a winner of a read in my hands -  a premium deluxe possession, a sparkling jade of a second hand book. Seriously, this must cost ten times more in our pricey bookshops.

Agatha Christie - Inspector Poirot  mysteries are a fancy to me  so you can just imagine how my eyes bulged rounded when I got to the part where a young lady witnessed an act of  the sublime -- tragic of tragics! Yaiks, I think that  spurt reads bad, haha!

No,  I'm not a sucker for tragedy, nor do I live wit a hidden fetish for misfortune, but when dire circumstances of a plot are weaved in passionate telling, my interest is delightedly piqued.

This is what it's all about straight from the pretty flap:

During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen year old Lauren Nicholson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy. Her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother. 

And if sixteen year old Laurel has her tree house,  I, on the other hand have my hideaway for quiet reading moments, undisturbed and basked in solitude, just the way I like it!

Tdaaa'...lady prism moments... :D

Morning chit - chat!

Glory be, you're luminous! Just look at you glow! :D

Friday morning, waltzing the usual route I spied pansy flower friends waving at me, haha! The pretties were blushing in pinkness inviting yours truly to "come, come, come nearer dearest you and spend a tick - tack - two with us!"

They had much to tell, believe you me' and oh' the secrets they divulged:

: the girl who bruised her knee,
: the bird who clipped a wing - what tragedy,
: the cat who chased a mother - cat,
: the bewildered singing cricket,
: an amorous bat.

And who are you, what's up to do, their fluttery petals demured.

Before I could reply, I kinda' clammed up shy and humbly bid their photos taken.

Aw, yes, yes, yes, a chorus of chattery bloomy excited! By height, they tip - toed high and posed their pistil smiles gregarious. Smitten, pink camera flashed once, twice, thrice - fancy portraiture nature selfies.

What giggly' celebration after!
"Wild wizardy, that was awesome!" said the littlelest astonished pinky'...

Later I'd say, recalling the day,  "ah, yes, the visit was - b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l!"
Charms, chimes and enchantment, flowers talk, um' yup they do!
I hope you witness such magic too!

Catching Light Chasing Shadows ( Lux Lucis Vita )

1-28 2014 Maybe this resonates with you. Maybe it doesn't. A moment when slices of decorous days turn sour and your light within extinguishes itself without apology.

Suddenly, your inner colorful morphs into a mottled palette overnight, a drab washed out lizard salmon of a life. That tempest within, she wakes, cocking what a diminutive dun you are.

Facing shadows - a melancholy one must battle.The past days have been so for me. What was there to do but embrace it. My adoring gratitude goes to the one who is patient and who believes and makes me laugh, until once again I am suffused with the sensation of bright - a conduit to the honest happiness around me. Tis' over. Now, I claim my emergence.

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted...

one need not be a house.

The brain has corridors

surpassing material space."

- Emily Dickinson

Something is happening to me. For weeks on end I am swept over by a sour suffocating smog of the soul. As if my spirit, once blithe and carefree, all of a sudden felt faint weary, begging for rest - that long deep dreamless rest of the ones who sleep. Scares me. 

I am not unfamiliar with my shadow. We are....acquainted.
Once a year I am besieged with an un - s.u.n.c.t.i.m.o.nious vacuum that knifes through my being. A veritable selfishness, sloth and venom of days wherein I pace my dysmorphic earth with hollowness. As if nothing exists and matters. Ghostly. A self satisfied canting of there is no mend. 

End.

I speak to it - at it - my barren shadow. 

Not with fights. Not with accusations. Not with soothing words nor with acceptance. 

Letting it be, I walk it through capturing beams and prisms as light amiably slants through branches, leaves and twigs, settling in streets, lawns and bends. Lucent.

I catch the light 

and I catch it 

and catch it 

and catch it. 

Until captured, the light becomes me,
and becomes me,
and becomes me,
and finally,

becomes me,
chasing my shadow -
away. 

Lux Lucis Vita

CATCHING LIGHT CHASING SHADOWS
( a photo journal - click on the link to view all pictures.)

On Higher Ground

Each of us makes our own weather, 

determines the color of the skies, 

and the emotional universe which we inhabit. 

~ Fulton J. Sheen

Possessing a cottage by the sea, living lulled by wavy foamed lazy waves and taking leisurely walks in warm sugar bleached sand is a romantic notion that buoys my Piscean  fancy. -- The cottage: stony rustic with wistery climbing bounganvilla on its tiled clay roof, or vintage white timbered with a white porch facing the waves, or tropical quaint bamboo(ed) `with latched windows accented with dangling yam purple orchids and mango yellow flowerbells -- 

Or it may not be the dream of a sea but of an idyllic provincial cottage (a happenstance convenient10 minute drive to the city, haha!) complete with trellises of sweet yellow bells and fun hello's of friendly neighbors. 
---- little whimsy dreams because in reality I live neither by the sea.....nor  in some seductive romantic back road inn..fronted by a landscape of bliss. ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ

There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot,
 but there are others who with the help of their art, 
their intelligence, transform the yellow spot into sun. 
~ Pablo Picasso  

  Nevertheless, I wear this weather of blue skies in the inner insides of me and have colored my homes ( yes, each one I've lived in to where I am today) with the strokes of my emotional universe --> being that what I described above . And it delights me when friends smile and coo' "what a pretty space you've created" ( I have to articulate this because sometimes I forget and grumble and fret so).

 This is how I want to live forever and ever -- > taking a yellow spot and transforming it into the sun --> taking something mundane and working my miracle to make it come alive. Each day to live this way would be such a pleasure.   
 ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. 
  
A tender reminder this is for me --> to trust that I am guided in my path. In moments of doubt and questioning; when a bite of fear sinks deep in my soul and I let slip how very well I am infused with strength that comes from above, it would be well to acknowledge the oft evoked phrase that goes "...we have not been given a spirit of fear but of love". 

Yesterday I was very much uplifted by what I chanced at a women's devotional website.
 
"My heart has no desire to stay
where doubts arise and fears dismay
Though some may dwell where these abound,
my prayer, my aim, is higher ground.


Lord lift me up and let me stand,
By faith on Heaven's table land
A higher plain than I have found;
Lord plant my feet on higher ground." 

 Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥
  
Today's musing leads me to the following insights:
1. We each make our own weather.
2. We determine the color of our skies.
3. We determine the emotional universe which we inhabit.
4. We can transform even a spot into something pretty
5. We are a spirit of LOVE
6.  We can live on higher ground.
 Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥

- all photos and paintings by me :D 

Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. of gardens i remember•ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥

Hear this....

"In My Neighborhood" 

~ Photo By: Roselle Quin

"Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see today?" 

~ John O' Donahue, Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Now and again when I walk the path leading out of our leafy lined subdivision, I am  inclined to stare at this house wishing it were mine. I could do so many things with a gate like that: maybe hang a gigantic flowery wreath, maybe paint it cream or white or a kind of patina green, maybe put in an ornate bronze knocker. It looks familiar actually, and it just occurred to me why.

Yes, I remember when as a child I would visit my "Papa Lolo's" house ( my late grandfather's elder brother) and the gate was a beautiful massive woodwork that looked very much like the photo I took.  Tucked beyond the imposing gate was a handsome garden home - in all manner and sense of the word garden! I'm not talking manicured lawns or dainty scented florals or delicate herbs. No. My grandfather's bother, just like him, was a truly ardent and very gifted gardener -- both possessed that perennial green thumb magic and could fashion what could pass for forests! Abundant fruit bearing majesty of trees, nothing less!

During visits, the gate would dramatically be opened and visitors were welcomed to a surprising oasis of a tropical forest garden with the house in all its red shingled bungalow Spanish splendor wrapped covetously around its wild green grounds. Mesmerizing! The lushness was opulent; the house itself so uniquely married to the luxuriant scene with its old fashioned red clay flooring, tall wooden walls, open wood beams and supported by a stone walled foundation resplendent in rustic romance. Everything was an enthralling splash of all possible hues of green, brown, rust, earth and nature --> complete with cats. A lot of cats!

It was an expansive home with no modern conventional door. Instead,  the house ushered you first into a porch, and then inside pine wax scented confines through a slate wooden sliding entrance that stayed open to the sight of Eden, more or less throughout the day. It was quite literally like living smack dab in the woods.  Very enchanting. The drone of a hum-drum world outside was drowned by chirps and rustles and cicadas. The ordinary road with its wonted living ceased to ostensibly exist, and one might in drinking in the impressive change of scenery, be taken to think of fairy elementals commonly (and quite seriously) regarded as a living part of nature in those days. 

And those days are gone. 

And it makes me wonder what became of the forest home of my grandfather's brother. All relatives have migrated to different parts of the cold western hemisphere and last I heard the house had been sold. Nobody lives in the old town anymore. Ah, but anyway, that picture above, it gives back precious memories of charming childhood days and transports me to an era when I could so casually wander and lose myself under the canopy of garden trees. Leaves quite a cheerful gentle feeling really.

And this is what I see...

Taking from what I just wrote, I know how my week will go by -- soothing, gentle, refined and angelically revealing.  I feel assured and guided, full and powerful. I have traveled a distance and arrived.  There will be matters to think of, but answers will manifest and peace will prevail. There will be plenty of sunshine to grow plants and dreams. And in the late late afternoons deliciousness will waft from my kitchen. And in the evenings there will be good food and stories and merriment around my table. And before late into the evening a spot of peace with me and my book. This is my garden of a life. This is my Lady Prism living. 

kissing the earth

Stone Steps To The Dormitory

"Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Had I not slipped through that spiral blackhole ( I'd like to call it) this early month of September then I wouldn't posses the gift of this spring of refreshing inside me. Light again!

Last night he said ( over a bowl of favorite clam soup) how I looked - softer. I know what he meant - that I had glided back to the calmer, serene, tender shores of me.

♥ It was a beautiful affectionate evening kindled alight with the sentimental glow of candles - quite like the special ones I prepare, only last night charm charitably primed its own - perhaps it was the grandmother moon, (looking in from out my window), graceful and mysterious, who blessed and eased and gifted my soul with her soft glow...perhaps.

♥Enjoy your own company. Let your mind wonder among the stars.

- Which reminds me how the other night when sleep wouldn't bid my flutters and finally, throwing aside my old cotton covers I gave  in to wakefulness and stepped out into the night. Barefoot on solid ground, kissing the earth in my little garden with feathery grass cool to the feet - I felt like a child delighted! It was a chance endowment, a fortuitous adoration to have looked up to the clear vastness and witnessed how brilliant and pulsating alive the theatrical night sky was! At play it was dazzling!

And I wondered, how many could possibly be looking heaven up this same moment that I am? Could there be - someone? Because I tell you, if I sift through the fun and excitement of this life I'm living, none doth' ( i just have to use doth) compare to the mesmerizing experience of looking to the stars; a happy solitary, worshiping of twinkles at 2:48 am - assisting in the birth of a newborn morning. ♥