dissolving lines in the world through understanding them
I discovered a very archaic notion today: that the best travel adventures are far far far away.
Do you know that we can hold guilt in us unconsciously (or subconsciously), even though sometimes it is by no fault of ours?
Originally posted on The Daily Post:
Almost seven and a half years ago The Daily Post opened its virtual doors to the WordPress.com blogging community. It’s been an incredible ride, and incredible rides, too, sometimes come to an end. As of the end of this month (and 2,000 Daily Prompts, 380 Photo Challenges, 260 Community…
I broke out into laughter the first time I saw these twisted cauliflowers.
On the assumption that life keeps up this momentum, this shall be the view from my office before the end of 2018 ❤
Arrow says Left.
Memory says Home is Right.
Heart says Pause; Straight Ahead is Fine.
Awkward is the moment when you open up your Photo Library, and it shows endless photos of South America which you have never stepped in before.
Where you are looking from, all the way to where the guard stands, is the thickness of that ancient Xi’an city wall.
I have been following the entries for many of Cee’s Challenges, and finally mustered my courage to participate instead of merely watching from the sidelines!
Originally posted on Oh, border!:
Today is not a busy intense day. Neither was it a smooth day. It was like a tipper truck dropped little gravels all my path, and I was tripping over them one after another. How annoying was that! Needed to find something more interesting to make up for this lack…
Life is fairly simple to deal with at its two-dimension, or three-dimension. Throw in the fourth and the fifth dimension and it gets into a whole new level of complication.
Here’s to infecting this chaotic world with a frozen moment of zenness. Pause. Reflect. Enjoy the clarity. Peace, you are finally here. ❤
I have very lucid dreams of being in my natural habitat of an infinite waterbody all the time, almost like an escape from the land-locked world.
The animal farm I lived in:
Here are some of my fellow compatriots, some lived more equal than others.
We are a pedigree of selfie sapiens. Shhh, baby, don’t tell anybody.
The phone buzzed and the usual breakfast photo came in.
Manhandling the thorny hard husk into breaking open; acknowledging that it really stinks at the core of the matter; finally tasting the sweet (or just) desserts after.
Here is a glimpse into the place in my inner world, which you can easily enter by viewing the A Card A Day I did in January.
There is the real, and there is the appearance. It appears that my place in the world is in front of plates of food – mostly cakes.
I love this gentle sunset but
the picture frame is a mess – all the skewed lines of different manmade elements, so harsh so unwieldy.
You asked to walk a month in my shoes.
Taking the urban forest concept a little too literally. Here we have the Avatar trees~
Channelling my inner rebel. Life is short. Wear mismatched socks.
There is a place in the world where I have absolutely no business to be in, yet it feels so solidly comfortable, some place where I feel I belong.
The rapid route to happy mood is … caviar … in technicolours!
The bull horns is just a case in point that I can now appreciate the beauty of nature as it is, without judgement that this is creepy, that is scary, those are morbid, etc.
Our buses are pretty much mobile billboards, but this obtrusive one takes it up a brand new level.
Boo! Just a creepy picture of me posing with light bubblies~ Bwahahahaha.
Coincidentally, I very recently rewatched Tim Minchin’s UWA address from five years ago. I love his speech for the humour of course, the poetic rhythm, the wit, the wisdom, and the existiential realist he is.
Life changes; roles change; environs change; tides turn, over time.
The freezing cold scare last night brought back the warmth of a song from decades ago. I think being brought up in the equatorial belt is cool , with so much room for romantic concepts like this song / musical.
My life came to an abrupt standstill last night, it was rather creepy. I was feeling really stuffy in office, with a throbbing headache, and a sore back like a million needles went through it.
Wine-tasting exercises averaging 25 types a sitting (or standing) is bound to have any person wear her heart on the sleeve.
Took me a while to figure what kind of lines can astonish. I am pleasantly surprised to recall one such line – a Roman aqueduct in Segovia!
Want to watch me throw a tantrum about lines? Fine. Here are the pics of the unhappiest part of my life.
The most consistently rivuletine lines I have seen are those of Antoni Gaudí. His inspiration from, and mimicry of, mother nature is stupendous.
To get myself out of that pattern of dense thoughts and feels, I have put up this collage of pictures more in the form of “wat-the-heck” lines.
This is Musée d’Orsay. Its steel arch structure with glass arch ceiling casts amazing shadows on itself as the light filters through.
The elaborate colour palette of mother nature meets (wo)man. Matchymatchy!
Necklace bestowed upon me by my Light Team. Isn’t it pretty?
There was one thing I did during the Shanghai stint that my sis lost all respect for me over. It was an activity vaguely like painting, except it was done through numbers.
The delight from community development lies in the partaking in joint efforts to manifest from nothingness to many-thing-ness. ❤ The most precious reward at the end of the day – fulfilled hearts, and a fine sunset. ❤
Directly from fifth heaven. Lesson learnt: don’t whine too much about “trivial” things, don’t joke too much about higher beings.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
I have no idea whether there really is such a thing as authentic anything/anywhere cuisine at all. As authentic as Mom’s cooking? But every mom is different.
In a parallel universe 14,000km away in the other direction, is yet another Alhambra, and another Granada.
Hahaha. Sounds like an apt description of the T’oh family, my grandparents, the DNA down the bloodline, and the earlier three generations here in SG.
So many crevices for Genie to hide. So many nooks and crannies for multiple genii to spring a surprise.
Fret not! There are so many lovely things in this world that we may not have noticed or known about. Such as dancing baby stingrays.
What better way to end an enjoyable Sunday than to share a lovely lively song that is so loveydovey. Here is a song about eloping to the moon!
Originally posted on Oh, border!:
I had a timeout during the Cannes/Nice weekend, and hopped off to visit Musée Matisse up in the hilly suburbs. I had been repeatedly advised (i.e. reminded) by my dearest mentor LTK to pay a visit. I did, and indeed, I loved it. What was more magical was that I…
Here is a picture of us collecting pebbles from the riverbank. Sometimes we swam over to Myanmar, and then quickly back.
Glimmer of the setting sun from behind very old trees. I accidentally lived right behind an ancient Roman gladiator amphitheater for a week!
My teammates probably found me very disruptive. I could see them frowning, or their eyes squinting, everytime mine lit up with new ideas.
Proud as I could be when I woke up early enough one morning to say hi to someone before he left for work.
There is this frothy tea that I would have whenever I travelled into the Shanghai city office for work.
Also vaguely known as that thing you do when you have no life living in a village.
The glorious academic plans were thwarted by an offer to develop a huge-ass farm in SzeChuan.
A separate pilot new town project was inchoate and we were just waiting to get over the red tape to start on the detailed work.
A long haul project of four years brought me to a city that now sits very close to my heart. I worked on Yangzhou, flying in and out every three weeks.
Hero hauling haversacks.
Heavy ones!
Fuzzy warmth
In frigid weather.
Smiles – big and small. Good prompt for a bad day. Kthxbye.
Well, I really explore all sorts of weird things. Here is one of them: ever wondered what a carrot flower looks like?
We had a lot of fun fooling around. Without any warning, babyboo started bawling.
I woke up at 3am to make it in time to watch this sunrise at Angkor Wat, Siem Reap.
Messy music was what we played. We are the T’oh Quartet, conducted my Tiger Mom, and run by Floor Manager T’oh.
Squeezing a micro thought into a micro window of time before I get back to swimming in a macro pool of words in so many different languages.
There is this one song I really love, and it’s called Like a Swallow and was the theme song for Little Nonya, a local TV series.
Apples growing on trees is a foreign concept to me. Logically, I know they grow on trees (!!!), but I had never imagined what its tree looks like nor how they grow on it.
To me, they can jolly well be placebos, but as long as they make me feel good or better or at ease, I am happy to continue using.
Originally posted on One day at a time:
To call someone selfish is quite vague. There are several ways in which the word selfish can be defined. Depending on the context of the word, it can be considered derogatory or positive. Degrees of each kind of selfishness also vary widely from person to person, some…
My favorite place is an inconspicuous beach which had no name and unmarked on the map, and shockingly so close to home.
I cannot really call it a cherry blossom when it has yet to blossom to that point. More of a cheery blossom, I even added sparkles!
Sis remarked today how these two peeps have such dramatic reunion everyday. 😀
I got a little annoyed one day, when a few different decks gave me the same answer. So I thought to myself, “maybe it is imperative for every deck to have a Patience card”.
Today’s prompt Incubate brings to mind two things – the fat chickens we reared who gave us fresh eggs everyday; and what Eckhart Tolle wrote in Stillness Speaks.
Having a 3G modem was enough to maintain sanity, and I was happy to go off-grid on everything else.
How I (unwittingly) provoked my teacher into having me co-teach her class. 😀
I’ve always had a fascination with shadows. The latest observance being what I would consider white noise.
When some event pops up (let’s say an unkind bully surfaces) that makes you feel angry or resentful, do you ever wonder what Universe intends that to be?
“I just can’t stop thinking about waffles.” Bawls my soul, as expressed by this poor little girl. I feel you!
Life and its meandering journey is surprising and sometimes with enlightening comes the wistfulness of “why didn’t I realise it earlier”.
Final sequel to the trilogy (or so I hope). The most important reason for discovering if you carry the thalassemia trait is this: If two people who each carry the same form of thalassemia trait have a child, there is a 25% chance that this child will be born with a severe form of thalassemia….
Another curious day/night. I woke up with blurry, puffy eyes, and for no reason at all, I cried all morning, so I assumed I must have cried through the night without knowing (what, why). It was not any better that the daily prompt took me to such a touching turn, which was like yanking a…
Daily prompt is being very educational once again. I googled Wonder and saw that there’s a movie, and then ended up buying the book. I will take a while to read, and have a feeling it is going to be a teary-eyed experience, just judging from the author’s interview here. Sounds like a lot on kindness…
Story of a busybo(d)y.
Before he could even crawl, babyboo was already “helping out” with housework.
Alright, tonnes of work today. Fact. Short post it shall be.
Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness was the first Zen book I owned. It was written by Shunryu Suzuki, the guy who brought Zen teachings into the US.
You know how sometimes we feel suffocated by certain people or suffocated after certain events? You know how we call some people and some environments toxic?
I am so random when it comes to painting that I just take any surface and mess around with them. Sometimes I draw on my hand, sometimes on my leg. Strange habits, tsk.
Took some timeout to play around with perspectives today, and it matches the saying “nature abhors a vacuum” perfectly.
It’s full moon again! No wonder messy emotions are rife these couple of days. A name like The Worm Moon serves up an extra garnish of queasiness.
“As Above, So Below; As Within, So Without” is a phrase that calls to my mind the 1 Magician. We already have all the tools to guide and direct us in our lives.
With blinkered eyes, it is easy for many things to be out of this world of ours.
Dimmy-me nodded off during the warmup kriyas and it felt like *lights out* for my consciousness which went off to some still quiet space for a break.
Have you ever considered premonition being something happening in real-time, and it being a “a strong feeling that something is about to happen” is because that was how long information took to reach us?
My meditation started out as a form of “imagination”, then to “visualisation”, and now “witnessing” His wisdom.
Some things are written in the stars. Yet it takes so many different conditions and factors for the life to play out as astrally-scripted.
Astrally speaking, we are all stardust and wherever we are, what matters are not our physical locations but the frequency we are vibrating at.
Last night closed with a very touching youtube video clip I was watching, and I went to sleep with the thought, “It’s good to be loved. It’s profound to be understood.” Yup, it was Portia’s pressie to Ellen.
My self-centredness took over, and what stood out in my gallery of photos was my face in a crowd of people I do not know!
After a full week of Chinese New Year feasting, I cannot believe that the first thought that comes to mind for today’s prompt is more food.
Here is one of my favourite drawings. It is unsigned and undated, so I have no idea how many decades it has been. Each time I look at it, Sarah Mclachlan’s Angel starts playing in my head.
I never liked the word compromise, it feels like there’s some negative vibration hanging onto it.
The best present is your presence! Thank you for being around ❤ in the shivering cold, in the sweltering sun, in state of confusion, in state of exhaustion, in state of bliss.
Funny how I was just on the phone yesterday with someone and retelling the story of Oliver being such a “Disney Princess”.
The immediate association with Courage in tarot-speak is VIII Strength. However, I see Courage as only part of what Strength is about, while at the same time, Courage also speaks for more than what Strength is about.
This is my family! Three generations, and we gather at this scale twice a year. It is no surprise that we are unable to recognise one another (for some).
Yay, I managed to get a cake for Dad on the second day of Chinese New Year when 95% of Singapore is closed! Even though it turned out to be an extremely sweet-pink-coloured one.
I found this boy 0 The Fool setting out on his journey to see the world! I like how he appears to walk with a little swagger, almost like a blind confidence in the new/future world he is partaking in.
Oliver always looks very befitting in a Totoro costume. Maybe it is the big white patch that matches the baby tummy perfectly, and it is a “cannot-miss” target for tickling him, especially after his meal.
Yikes! I forgot to get Dad a birthday cake. My last minute scramble to get one by pulling strings was nowhere close to success.
8 years later, I am still doing the same pose at the same place, with the same bunch of people. Some things don’t change.
As I type, I understand more about myself, and the world, and life, much more than I started out scraping the surface with each post.
Counting characters 木 | 林 | 森.
The Goblin wants to lead you astray and whispers the negative spell of fear, anger, resentment, self-righteousness, arrogance, selfishness, greed, glutton, procrastination, and addiction.
This one here is a cherry blossom that has yet to be completed. It is just short of a few strokes of the brushes, but I have no idea what is holding me back.
Memories of this place was of very sweet nothingness – it was helluva good respite during the exhausting one month backpacking.
(This is not a painting. yet.)
Dance like no one’s watching. Dance like the human feet can’t.
One of the most poignant lines was 爱深埋珊瑚海 – how the love was deeply buried in the coral sea.
Being unforgiving also has alot to do with judgement. Based on the past, we have a pre-judgement of how person will react / respond, and all the negative, unreal situations start playing out in our head.
My dream is to paint a full-sized wall mural of sunset filled with wild flamingoes in the foreground, and the glitter of setting sun merging with its rays at the horizon.
I started this one because I wanted to experiment with different colours projected on white, i.e. the snow.
My favourite creatures are the giraffes. For some reason I cannot remember, I have always called them tall blondes.
We come to this world guided by a purpose that appear not as an earthly “to-do task list” of being an architect to build the most amazing building in the world or a planner to take care of all humanitarian needs or a chef that innovates a new definition to eating.
All your strenuous seeking and effort can be released while the Love-Light in your being floods into an incandescence.
Twin Flame covers the spark-split at the beginning of Creation [we are one]; Soul Mate covers the significant player of the Soul Family this life-time [we are family]; and Karmic Relationship covers the im(balances) we accumulate / resolve over many lifetimes [we are living beings].
The deeper connotation seems to be to not artificially hold ourselves back, and that we should see this from a higher perspective of care for others, and not be so “selfish” and “deprive” them of what we could actually be giving.
While ‘soul mate’ sounds romantic and all, the concept of the soul mate is not exactly what teenage / women magazines portray them to be.
Today’s card is in sync with all the hype about the super-blue-blood-moon-full-lunar-eclipse-what-a-mouthful-of-words. I feel like I am in a very different full-moon-phase today, very happy and almost hyper.
Are you feeling stifled by the unbearable meaninglessness of life?
If inkling be a sound, it would be the sound of happy ink pitter pattering on happy things. Just like wind sparkling.
Pages are always very fresh-faced and youthful looking, but this one looks like a 2-dimensional pale-faced woman who found a coin in her back garden.
You’re qualified and ready to take the steps toward your desired outcome. You have what it takes to fulfil your dreams and your life’s purpose.
Here is my favourite series of photos, which I have used many of them independently in my posts, and this one puts them altogether as variations on a theme. Theme Auguste Rodin and my favourite Burghers of Calais.
Spend time with flowers and flower essences to increase your personal healing power.
There were just too many colours and pens for one hand to handle.
Ecstasy? I don’t really think so. Heightened state of emotion? More likely. The dominant emotion being one of despair and helplessness.
Treading that thin line between the very dark and the very light.
It is never too early to take the first step, neither is it ever too late. But to capture the best timing, know yourself, plan your time.
Your spirit’s food is personal; only you know what your spirit hungers for.
My strategy is to pray for the guidance and wisdom every moment to live to my highest potential, and that I correctly understand the wisdom and execute the guidance in a timely manner, with ease and grace. #lifehack
