Glory of Flowers - Laudes

Flower - Laudes, originally uploaded by BornJavanese.

Morning still reserves new things to receive. The show comes from blossoming flowers under the morning sunlight. Droplets of dew are on the stage as well. Focus on the yellow flower! It shows its ultimate beauty, I think. So, it seems to show the glory of nature. That should be a significant note: morning time should be a glory!

What about humankind? It the glory of nature, e.g. flowers, is shown by flowers when they are blooming, when should the glory of man be shown in the morning?

Morning time breaks a new day more. We start our activities. So, what is the first thing we do when waking up from the bed that shows our glory? Prayer, a morning prayer!

I give the picture "Laudes" as wondering if a flower were praying. At that moment, it should be the best performance of a flower! Laudes (Lat.) = Morning Service, Morning Prayer. [skd]

Get closer!

Serangga bertanduk - Weird insect, originally uploaded by BornJavanese
Download: 900*700.

Get closer! and you will find more than when you stay away.

Human eyes are not only these two at your lovely face, but also those in your heart. That's why human being can understand more deeply about things than any other creatures. The more you get information, the more you get comprehensive understanding through which you will construct priorities and attitudes and so your responsibilities upon your life, particularly and generally. Even particular experiences on the spot can drive awareness of responsibilities in wider aspects.

For instant, I did not realize that in bushes there is a community of micro-living. When I got closer with my camera, I could see bugs in there. The picture above shows a little bug that I never saw before, a weird one of little fellows. I became so curious, and it was surprisingly incredible that the visitation sparked many thoughts of significant roles of the micro-living dwelling in such area for the whole universe.

Usually bushes are neglected area; even more everybody thought they are so insignificant that they could have it cut-off without any consideration. People do not think too much of where the little fellows will go for their living after the cleaning-up. They do not care about what will happen if some of the bugs are getting perish or do not exist any longer. "There will be some other places for them," they think so, while other people do think the same.

There are still gardens. Yes, I hope so! I am even dreaming of having a square of garden. I have only pots of plants in my veranda. Lucky me, I still can see some kinds of bugs living in there...

Really, I do not know the exact roles played by the bugs. However I am really aware that they have in a certain dimension of human living, furthermore in whole nature. At least, spiritually and religiously, I convince that they have their role in God's sustaining creative work!

That's why they are absolutely significant! So, are we responsible for their existence? [skd]

My “Black Chili” is burnt!

I like gardening. Not only for refreshing, gardening has become a therapy for me. It’s a therapy to release stress. I have entertained by the growing plants from their shoots to their lovely flowers. At some point it also gives me inspirations of living a value. I have many spiritual insights from the activities of gardening and have shared some of them with you in this blog. Yes, it has accompanied me in the adventure with infra-human beings, and above all in the journey of living faith. The activities involve not only my physical interventions but also my personality: mind, heart, emotions, passions and empathy. There are spots of experience that will resonate within my soul in a way of analogical thought. In such of way, the experiences will become extrapolated so that they will stimulate many ideas for life.

It is a gift when I get some insight to deal with my life. As I believe that infra-human beings accompany me, there could be kind of coincidental events between them and me. They stand alike mirrors before my eyes. Sometimes they seem to be speakers on behalf of The Ultimate Person. They tell me warnings, supports or words of consolation. As results, they could lead me to have new or better attitudes in my life. Maybe, they couldn’t give me solutions. Otherwise, they could reflect what the matter with me is. The process of objectification is helpful enough for me to re-evaluate my passing life. That is what I want to share with you below; it’s an experience with my black-chili – one of special plants that I have.

So far it grew well
About two months ago my youngest brother gave me a plant of “black chili”. It is a kind of vegetables, but it is just for decoration not for eaten. The entire body of this plant is black. Weird, isn’t it? I did not see such of plant ever before. So I love it, and I should have to be careful of it.

I always watered the plant every morning and evening. I placed it in my veranda, sometimes in the yard where it could get enough sunlight. It grew well after I replaced the pot and the medium. Periodically I gave it (and the others) organic fertilizers. Everything was going normal, until something happened to my black-chili.

It was over-dosed!
A week ago my beloved black-chili started to bear fruits. They looked so tiny but cute. Wonderful! I felt happy, and couldn’t help waiting for the mature fruits to come. What would they be like? I hoped for a fast growing black-chili! So, there was an idea to give it more fertilizer. Instead of organic one, I bought a pack of NPK (a composition of chemical fertilizers) in a nursery house. Then I gave it some before watering it at morning. I didn’t know what dosage for the plant was. I just gave it. It was ridiculous and stupid actually, I think.

How shocked I was two days ago when my wife told me that the black-chili was getting dry! I checked it out, and it was! Oh, My… What a stupid thing I did with the poor black-chili! The reason was clear: it was over-dosed! As seeing it burnt, and the leaves were withered and getting down one by one, and the branches were faint, I felt sad badly. I was so sorry… As a treat, I poured it with a pail of water in order to neutralize the concentrated substances which made the plant burnt.

Why did it distract me out?
I was in a bad situation when I found that fact. I felt bored and tired of my work. I had dreams with many expectations. Some of my efforts to get more income seemed going for nothing. I had tried to focus on something prospective, but it seemed to consume so much of my energy that I felt exhausted. The worst thing was I had neglected some of my responsibilities. All was going in an unorganized way. I felt guilty of it. I was also sorry of being unable to help my youngest brother out of his problem. Again, I got a bad news from him about my mother who was ill.

By those thoughts and emotions I was “burnt out”!

There are still green shoots
Now my entertaining black-chili was dying! Analogically, it was imaging my recent life. It was not hard to me if the black-chili drew my attention as there was a kind of similarities between the plant and me! The dying black-chili was articulating my life while I was looking for some enlightenment.

When I realized the lesson from my poor black-chili, I was so impressed and so stupefied by what had happened. My wife gave me an advice last night, “When you feel tired, please take a rest and refreshing! Do your routine schedules, and don’t forget to come back home earlier than ever! Remember, you still have a wife!” (Hehehe…I was always late for home!) I think she is right, and by her advice I get enlightened. Thanks, Honey!

Do you know what? There is always hope in the end of passion. It is hope which makes everyone survived and optimistic. This morning I found my black-chili having green shoots at one of its tips. It was an invitation for me to smile. Yes, it wasn’t an end of world, and the future is coming… ***

My little shoots, looking for the light!

Solution is already potentially within our being!

Well… I think everybody knows that sunlight is very vital for every living thing even every being on this planet earth. Who can imagine there is no sunlight? Darkness! Moonlight might be the second hero. Ok! But the moon has its light from the sun, and it only reflects the sunlight. The sun is still the super hero!

What I will share here now is not the scientific knowledge about the sun or the moon. But I’m talking about the light which is very essential for our living. When we are in darkness, we need light! We long for the light! No light, no living! The rest is a question: Is light the solution while the sun is still shining upon the earth?

I’ve got a lesson from my little shoots.

I like gardening. It sounds funny as I am living in a paying house with no landscape or space to grow plants like in a common garden. So I’m going with my little pots. The plants I attend are just popular ones. Some are so easy to grow, one of them is philodendron.

Several days ago I slipped of sticks of philodendron into my pots, two sticks in every pot. Each one of them had just two internodes with one leaf left. No real root they had except nodules at their internodes. Done! I gave them water, and place them on the floor in my veranda. Days went by, until I found something happening. There were small shoots breaking out of their leaves’ armpit! Of course they were still small leaves.

Now, they look like the picture shown above. You see, they are going to crawl, as if they’d want to reach something to hold on. And the growing is about to a certain direction. Yes! They are going to the direction of the sunlight! (I toke the picture in the morning at about 09.00 AM). Do you see anything special on my little philodendron? What about this one: the closer to the sunlight has grown longer than others! There are more leaves at that part. Why?

You can give me a scientific explanation on this phenomen. In simple words I would say that my philodendron needs the light for its growing. It has photo-sensory cells to detect the lights. As the cells get the light intensively they are stimulated to multiply themselves faster than others. As an individu the philodendron mobilizes supporting elements of its growing in great quantities to them shaping new branches and leaves. The results of the photosynthesis done by the cells will be spread to all parts of the plant. The cells grow extensively as they multiply themselves faster, while the others grow more intensively, they become thicker and stronger.

That’s a common and natural fact.

By the nature, plants need light “to grow well”. By the nature, the plants have all elements and potentiality “to grow”. I say so with quotation-marks on the two phrases “to grow” and “to grow well”. It means, when the plants get no enough light, they are still capable to grow, even with no light at all they still grow though it’s going hardly to mention easy to die. They will grow pale, and will be burnt as soon as you place them under the sunlight immediately. What I would like to say is that the light is just a catalystic factor more than a basic element of the plants.

When my philodendron is growing extensively to the direction of the sunlight, it seems like a process of looking for a solution! The sunlight is supposed to be the solution. In fact, it’s just a process of cells consentration. And it’s just a bio-chemical process as plants have no neural structure – like those of animals – to enable a kind of decission making. But, as I have to get the lesson from this process, I would like to say: to concentrate the supporting elements in great quantities to the lightened shoots is the exact and actual decission – and so the solution – my philodendron can make to grow better than before! My philodendron makes the potentiality actual as soon as the sunlight shines intensively upon it!

Human being is higher than vegetative beings. We have emotions, intelligence, and – don’t forget – spiritual-religious view. Even we have all dimensions of all beings including physical and vegetative ones. So, the experience with my philodendron looking for the sunlight above might give us insights to take. Some would be as follow:

• Inherently plants have sensitive photo-sensoric cells to detect the light source direction. (We have intelligence and capabilities to know better about our basic needs to be real human! Recognize your own talents!)
• Light is just a stimulus as well as catalyst factor for the proses of growing, not the basic element. Even in the darkness plants are still capable to grow! Sunlight is the best one among the others that will stimulate and catalize the process. (What is the most dream of your life? What is the goal of your life? Remember, it’s not the solution but the best direction you can go!)
• When they get the sunlight, the plants concentrate the supporting elements in greater quantities to the intensively-lightened-cells shaping shoots and leaves extensively. That’s a kind of exact decission, movement-for-solution, and actualization of potentiality which has existed in every vegetative being by the nature. (When you get the direction, and so believe in it, then go for it with all of your talents and energy! You have them already! Make them actual, and fulfil them in your move now! That’s the solution!)

I would like to recite a brief song from the “Sister Act II” soundtrack movie to end this post:

“If you wanna be somebody,
if you wanna go somewhere,
you better wake up and pay attention!”

Thank you, and God bless you all! *** (",)

What a stink!

A Paradoxical Consideration of Bad Experiences

I was working in my garden when I got in need for some fertilizer to make my plants grow well. I like using organic fertilizers, e.g.: compost and dungs. I had none of it now. I went to my friend’s house where I knew there was much of dung of his goats. When I got there, I found the stable cleaned. He had threw the dung away to a certain place in his garden. I looked for it, and found it swarmed over by some flies. What a stink! I had to inhale such a smell hardly unless I got nothing. Of course I didn’t take the wet and fresh putrifying dung. It’s too hot for my plants, and capable enough to make them withered in hours. I had to set it aside to get the completely decayed dung. It looked like humus. Then I had a plastic bag of it. Done! I got away from that damned stinky place to inhale fresh air soon. Easy relieves…! And I went home to have my plants manured.

I know, and so do people, that waste things always generate smells. They make air polution by it. No one like them! I’m sure you know which one has the stinkiest smell! I’ll tell you as far as I can memorize the smells:

Human feces seems to be the number one! Agree? (LOL!)
Number two goes to animal dungs! (chickens, goats, cows, etc.)
Number three goes to decomposing rubbish..

Ironically, as far as I know, the most stinkiest waste things is the best manure for plants! Probably it’s because of the rich minerals in it. Manure from human feces is the most expensive to buy, prove it! (Lol!) And one more thing you’d agree is that organic fertilizer is better than chemical one. We have to thank to bacterias that do such a great function to decompose the waste things and change them to be useful nutrient for plants. The organic fertilizers make soil pretty good for anyplant, while chemicals make it tough.

Insights:

I found something disturbing in my mind. It’s a paradox! Life’s cycle seems need this paradox to keep running:

• What if there is no bacterias on this earth? What if there is no worms and maggots? Who would be the hero?
• What if there is no decomposition process?
• What if there is no transformations?
• What kind of living is imagined to be?

Life is passing by with many kind of residual experiences. Some of them are painful to memorize. If we do not “decompose” them, they can be poisons instead of fertilizers for our going life. The can be corrupting fiercely. Like the dungs have to be in a proper place to decompose, so would be that of dark sides of our experiences. If stinky smell’s generated temporarily, let it happen. Everything needs time to go. But let it be something meaningful. That would be a sign of transformation. Be with paradoxical thinking upon them to experience the spot of decomposition! It would be the spot of salvation where all blessings are! Dungs are blessings for plants, so be it the dark sides of our life for us! Such a thinking would bear reversions by which we will consider our life in a new way.

Such a thinking has borne millions of odes, poetries, lyrics, songs, verses and wisdoms. They are powerful words we human can get towards a true life. They build any of our convictions, and above all our faith to God the Merciful One!

“Verily, verily, I say unto you: Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” – Joh 12,24 ***

"Glorious Shoot" - Poetry

How could I say about you
Little stuff in the morning dew
Laying on the ground
Dying near the pond

Ooh dear...
Permiate your water, you said,
to let my body wet

Poor little seed...
be joyful for the lit
shining upon you
flashing from the blue

It's time to grow
You're not lonely
The wind softly blow
Cheering you up lovely

Don't you realize:
Your death is a grace
for a new living
for what we're waiting?

Be a glorious shoot...
Cheer up your little leaves!
Look at us around you!
Lively garden welcome you!

*** Happy Easter 2007 ***

"Verily, verily, I say unto you: Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." - John 12,24