Author: lisaong5256

Learning from a Flower the Discipline for Joy

5 March 2021

Desert Roses in full bloom on 5 March 2021.

The pot of desert rose plant I brought home on 1st February is in full bloom.

Desert Rose plant on 1 Feb 2021.

A month ago, to manage my expectations, the seller told me that desert rose plants are hardy but their flowering depend on other factors.

I assured her I would be grateful if it survived my care. The flowering would be a bonus. I paid her $18, carried the pot and made the short walk home.

Except for the knowledge from google , I have little experience in desert rose care.

So even when it started budding around mid-February, I didn’t dare expect too much for fear of disappointment.

And bud by bud, the desert rose came.

Desert Roses on 1 March 2021.

The whole experience has given me the chance to face my fear of disappointments and living things dying on me.

While searching for a quote to honour this plant’s teaching, I came across catholic writer, Henri Nouwen’s writing on the discipline of being surprised by joy.

After reading his thoughts I realised in bracing myself for disappointments and suffering, I have forgotten about joy! And being joyful is as much an effort as being able to handle pain.

I shall close this post with Nouwen’s quote in full to do justice to the man’s profundity and the desert rose’s inspirations within a month of being with me.

“Learn the discipline of being surprised not by suffering but by joy. As we grow old . . . there is suffering ahead of us, immense suffering, a suffering that will continue to tempt us to think that we have chosen the wrong road. . . . But don’t be surprised by pain. Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.” – Henry Nouwen

Divina

2 March 2021

Divina

Yesterday my friend who was painting the enclosures at the end of the animal shelter alerted me to an elderly cat that needed some attention.

Estimated to be around 12-14 years old now, the frail but alert creature has been on medication to manage her health issues. She was found sick on the street a few years ago. Details of her background and even her name if she had one was only known to the late founder of the shelter.

Gently, I passed the wet tissue over the length of the cat’s body several times to ease her into the change of temperature. Then I moved a fresh piece of wet tissue up the back of her head and sort of passed it over her temple and face lightly to relax her. I was a stranger after all, even if I meant well.

When she with the unknown name allowed me to touch her facial region without backing off, I was then able to see the dried tear stains and hardened snot that needed removing.

And throughout the cleaning and being shifted about, the cat took every opportunity to turn around and face my friend who was watching us from outside the enclosure.

My friend’s feelings for this cat’s plight must have been so intense to generate such a phenomena.

Today when I played the encounter over in my head, some of the lines from “The Divine Image,” by William Blake came up:

K2 thanks Marcus for setting up a bed for him.

“Mercy has a human heart, /Pity a human face/ And Love, the human form divine…”

Perhaps the cat saw God in my friend.

Bubbles walks about to learn to be at ease outside her enclosure while K3 (Tenzin) and K2 look on like some gangsta cats.

And “Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell /There God is dwelling too.”

We will never know what this old cat was called before. But based on her behaviour and her ability to call up “The Divine Image,” naming her “Divina” might be appropriate. 🌈🙏🐾

March Mercies

1 March 2021

At the shelter this morning I found a mug to hold my iphone to amplify the song of White Tara for the cats and dogs.

Tenzin, the big orange boy wasted no time in showing his appreciation.

When I came home, more desert roses have bloomed.

May the mercies we receive multiply as we pass them on to other sentient beings.

Doorways to Wholeness

24 Feb 2021 (Day 13 of CNY)

“May your paths be smooth,” says the chinese blessing. These red temple door panels are more than 100 years old. My brother and I used to take turns to lock up the doors when the temple visiting hours ended.

I love taking pictures with doors and gates. They are symbols of invitation and transition.

Many years ago in a cab turning into Clementi Ave 6 on my way to work, I spotted a homeless dog lingering at the back gate of Park West Condominium.

I saw much longing in the way the animal tilted his/her head at the slip gate, as if hoping for someone to open it to let him/her in. I might be projecting my own need to belong on the dog. But till this day I continue to send prayers of comfort to the dog whenever my cab exits at Ave 6.

For as long as I remember, I rarely enter or exit a doorway mindlessly. In my childhood, like many kids, I could sense energy at doorways. I was a fairly sociable kid, but there were instances I felt great unease & reluctance to enter the homes of perfectly fine people.

“May you meet Happiness when you exit this door,” the chinese blessing says.

The only doorways I could enter with ease then were the ones leading into temples. I took and still take great delight in lifting one leg after another to cross over the raised temple threshold （门槛）that separates the secular world from the spiritual world.

Perhaps in sacred spaces of worship at some temples, churches and mosques, I feel complete as I am.

A photograph that captures a moment between 20 Chinese New Years for my young cousin and I. She has taken on the duty of photographing CNY moments ever since she acquired her own camera.

To be able to stand at the temple doors of my childhood year after year for 50 plus years, and feel its centering energy calling back all the fragments of my life is a blessing I’ve never taken for granted.

So may I take this chance to wish all friends and sentient beings, their very own special doors to wholeness & healing. 🙏

This picture of my cousin and I is very special to me because the photographer is my brother’s son. When my nephew was born, my sister-in-law invited me to name their child. That was 23 years ago. And this is the very door where my brother (the photographer’s dad) and I played at in our childhood. 😊

吉星高照 (ji xing gao zhao)

May the rays of the auspicious star shine brightly upon you.

18 Feb 2021 (Day 7 of Ox Year)

My affinity with auspicious Chinese sayings started in the temple days of my childhood half a century ago.

I did my English homework on the very table that my maternal grandpa wrote out words of blessings for people and for the gods.

It is always a delight to see this ancient tradition of displaying sacred words in black ink on vermillion papers alive in the modern homes of friends who are educated in the English medium.

So in the spirit of heritage, and in honour of our South East Asian birthplaces, may the aspiration of this beautiful calligraphy come true for you and all sentient beings.

🌈🙏🐾

Enduring Presence

22 02 2021

Each year on the 9th Day of the Chinese New Year, old folks turn up at the temple to observe the birthday of the Heavenly Deity.

They come from the neighbouring housing estates. Like members of a spent army which has braved too many wars, these silver haired devotees trudge on unsteadily and sometimes painfully, to celebrate and to give thanks.

Their uncompromising grit inspires younger devotees to rush to their aid. Someone offers to steady a tottering grandpa, and another helps a granny too shrunken to reach the urn to place her incense sticks.

This pair of Father and Son has been celebrating the Heavenly Deity’s birthday yearly. This year, the son has become a first time dad, making his own father a grandpa!

We are familiar with the adage that children are our future. However, it has to be the enduring presence of older folks who have lived through life’s every imaginable challenge and still remain thankful, that gives the younger generation guts to flourish in the future.

Ancestral Protection

2 Feb 2021

I welcomed 1 Feb 2021 by bringing home a pot of Desert Rose. This is one of my late father’s favourite plants. He was hugely successful in growing them. Till this day, the balcony of my mom’s little flat is a hanging garden of “Flowers of Abundance,” (Fu Gui Hua 富贵花）as the Desert Rose is known in chinese.

I was born in the Year of the Water Rabbit. This year my lunar birthday fell on 22nd Jan 2021.

My paternal Kinmen grandmother was 50 years old when I was born. I was her first grandchild. As a mother who had lost two daughters even before they turned 5 years old, my arrival must have felt as if one of her little girls was being returned to her.

Thus I was raised with much care, and given every chance to wear whatever beautiful clothes available to children of my neighbourhood.

On the same day as I gave thanks for my birth, I was happy to see a Facebook feed from Kinmen Blog explaining the origin of my grandmother’s surname, 翁 (pronounced as “weng.”)

One of my dominant childhood memories was of her pointing out the chinese character of her surname on her citizenship document, and getting me to pronounce it accurately. That could have been the first chinese word I laid eyes on.

Full Moon rising on the old city of Houpu, Kinmen Island, Taiwan.

I made my first trip to my grandmother’s birthplace on her behalf in 2019 and walked the streets she might have played on in her childhood.

At the doorway of an ancestral shrine belonging to the descendants who share the same family name as my grandmother.

As I stood under the golden brush strokes bearing my grandmother’s family name above the entrance of one of the many ancestral shrines that dotted the island, I felt energised.

Perhaps there’s a reason for my deep affinity with black ink strokes against vermillion & scarlet, and gold characters against black. What may appear tacky to some feels like home to me.

I think when ancestor veneration is forbidden or discouraged in the name of progress, religion or politics, we lose our connection to the wisdom and protection of our forebears.

And for me this loss can never be compensated by promises of power or paradise.

Ollie and the map of Kinmen Island.

Ancient Patterns

28 Jan 2021

On the morning of the final full moon of the Year of the Rat, Emmanuel the Cat slumbers on.

He dreams of Sumerian cuneiforms, Egyptian hieroglyphs and pictographs of the past as he tallies up his lives’ scores.

The distinct letter ‘M’ marking on his velvety forehead that extends all the way to the top of his head and separates into wispy lines down the back of his neck like some elaborate headdress lends the sleeping cat a majestic air.

Perhaps Emmanuel had been a prince.

Emmanuel’s kohl lined eyes, bib of pristine white, ringed limbs and white socks also evoke a priestly presence.

Perhaps this cat was a priest before, and all the ring markings on his furry limbs were bangles he wore for ritual purposes in a bygone era.

Or perhaps this now portly feline had been a prisoner, and the ring markings were once ropes that bound him to suffering.

As I look at the blissful form breathing in the morning breeze, I get the feeling that whether Emmanuel had been a prince, a priest or a prisoner in the past, one thing is for sure.

And that is, someone from his past must have loved him & did all that was required that have resulted in his current life of relative ease.