Category: Culture

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The Blessing of “Heart Treasures”

This beautiful Sunday morning I allow nature to wake me with the sunrise and sounds of a variety of birds in the trees around my casita. I eventually walk out on the terrace to witness the golden glow of distant hills around Atenas as the sun rises and I feel the refreshing cool morning air enter my lungs. I scan the trees and flowers for any creature stirring and then I prepare my breakfast to eat on the terrace, absorbing more of God’s natural beauty.

Morning on my terrace.

“The true blessings of life are the treasures hidden in the reservoirs of the human heart.”

~T. D. Jakes

Let me tell you about more heart treasures including a big new one coming this week . . .

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Mid-day Walk “Leaf Collection”

Tuesday I had a morning doctor’s appointment in San Jose, getting back a little before noon and took a walk on my nearby “Country Lane” extension of 8th Ave. As I entered the road I asked myself, “What can I photograph today?” Almost immediately my eyes fell on a leaf! And so I tried to see how many different leaves I could make photos of with my cellphone. Here are 13 that were accessible and I purposely did not include fern fronds since I did a post on them last week, nor palm fronds because most are too high to reach with my cellphone! 🙂

Here’s one for the email and then you go to the full post for the gallery of 13 leaves!

A leaf growing alongside a country road.
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The Beautiful in Life

I always receive much inspiration from every walk up the hill behind my house . . .

Parroquia San Rafael Arcángel Church, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica seen from hill behind my house.

The Beautiful in Life

The beautiful in life…
Some talk of it in poetry,
Some grow it from the soil,
Some build it in a steeple,
Some show it through their toil.
Some breathe it into music,
Some mold it into art,
Some shape it into bread loaves…
Some hold it in their hearts.

~Bernard Meltzer

¡Pura Vida!

See my photo gallery of the main Catholic Church in Atenas.

And/or the WEBSITE of Parroquia San Rafael Arcángel

Note that I’m not a Roman Catholic but this church is the only one in Atenas that inspires me to seek God – whether photographing from a distance like above or up close from Central Park or going inside their beautiful sanctuary to just sit quietly and pray. I’m inspired by the architecture, the ambience, the tranquility, the beauty, their music and even the church bells ringing! I thank God for this Catholic Church!

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Cows Upon A Hill

To describe part of my walk last Saturday morning early, I found this nice poem:

Cows Upon A Hill

There is nothing I like better
In the sunrise of the day
To see cows on the hill
It’s the perfect time to pray

~Marilyn Lott

The Costa Rica University Systems has a special agricultural university campus on the edge of Atenas and these cows I frequently see and like to photograph are a part of that student farm on the next hill over from mine. 🙂 Students study here from all over Central American as the best of Latin American agricultural schools! And they learn a whole lot more than just our local coffee farming! 🙂 And next door to where I live!

Cows Upon A Hill, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

See all four Photos . . .

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Experiencing Nature

My newest photo book is my cheapest ($8.83), smallest ( 6×9 in, 15×23 cm) and shortest (30 pages) as an introduction to why I retired in Costa Rica with 47 photos demonstrating my nature photography here. It’s not exactly a portfolio because of the cheaper paper, but . . . it actually is a cheaper version of a portfolio 🙂 and it also describes the 5 ways I experience nature and share it. As with all my books there is a FREE PREVIEW electronically of all pages in the bookstore at:

https://www.blurb.com/b/10782574-experiencing-nature-retired-in-costa-rica

Or click the front cover image below:

My Newest Book

This will become my “give-away” book to guides, lodges and others here in Costa Rica, since some of my other books are too expensive to keep giving them away as I have been. But I’m still not in the photo-selling or book-selling business. I’m retired! 🙂 I make my photos to share with others online and the books become ways to do that physically on occasions. Prints and wall art are available in my gallery with no profit for me, just a good service of (and profit for) my gallery host. 🙂

And while you’re in my bookstore, check out some of my other photo books! They have free previews too!

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Unidentified Moth or Skipper

I have the largest book I can find on butterflies and moths in Costa Rica and yet I continue to find and photograph live specimens not in my books nor can I find on the many websites – a little frustrating for someone who likes to label everything! 🙂 But anyway, here’s my newest unidentified butterfly/moth found in my garden in Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica:

On the outside wall of my house by the garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

Because I expect to be able to identify all my butterfly/moth photos, I’m frustrated:

“Expectation is the mother of all frustration. “

~Antonio Banderas

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

All my CR Butterfly/Moth Galleries

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Fern on the Rocks?

Along my “Country Lane” extension of Avenida 8 road they at one point cut through rock to make the road and just a week or so ago it looked like this:

On yesterday’s walk I noticed that much of that rock was now covered in a new fern to me that the best I can tell from an internet search is the Delta Maidenhair Fern – Adiantum Raddianum (Wikipedia link). Please correct me if you know better. It was the closest match on the web and I don’t have a fern book! 🙂 Here’s what much of the rock looks like now, followed by a small gallery of more images. Very beautiful plant to me!

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My CANCER Adventure Book

Mostly my real time journal and blog posts plus photos and other information that is meant to be inspirational for someone else going through cancer, especially my specific Parotid Tumor Cancer with 68 pages and 87 photos, including a few of my nature posts during that time. 🙂

I also emphasize the value of nature in healing for me. And the title “True Grit” is explained in the book and on back cover, kind of funny! 🙂

You can see a free electronic preview at https://www.blurb.com/b/10778284-true-grit Or click the cover image below:

Me in front of Radiation Machine on book cover.

You can also browse through all my nature photo books while in the bookstore or click on Bookstore on the menu bar above.

¡Pura Vida!

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Flowers! – what more could I ask?

When I walk through my garden of by others in the neighborhood, I think of Victor Hugo’s statement in Les Misérables . . .

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”

― Victor Hugo

Torch Ginger or El bastón de emperador, My Garden contrasting dead and vibrant one.

See my little Gallery of Saturday’s walk among the flowers, 8 in my garden and 3 from the neighborhood . . .

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Butterfly & Holiday/Health Report

Like me recovering from cancer and the just-as-bad cancer treatment, this pitiful-looking damaged butterfly is still flying and eating! 🙂 He is a Ilus swallowtail or Dual-spotted swallowtail, Mimoides ilus (Wikipedia link) and note that it is very similar to another butterfly that I originally labeled this as, the Emerald-patched Cattleheart. The main difference is the Cattleheart has emerald or light-green spots on the upper wings instead of white as this Swallowtail has. (And by the way, Cattlehearts are in the Swallowtail family!) See my Dual-spotted Swallowtail Gallery or all of my CR Butterflies. Note that in the additional photos below this feature image there is one of a non-damaged Dual-spotted that got in my house on the window screen before I opened it and let him fly out.

Damaged Dual-spotted Swallowtail, Atenas, Costa Rica

And some more shots including of one not damaged (+ health update) . . .

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