Category: Retired

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Online Class: Photography & Mindfulness

I hate to admit that I succumbed to an advertisement on Facebook for an online class titled “Photography & Mindfulness.” But I did! 🙂 I have now gone through the first 2 of 10 classes which we do on our own time but are rationed out at 2 per week. In short, the first class left me very disappointed and sorry I paid money for it, but lesson 2 was much better and I have hope that it will get better and give me some more inspiration during this time of fewer birds and butterflies! 🙂 And even though the rainy season has started early this year, the wind is still blowing too much, though at least less than the previous 4 months. The weather is still blamed on the stronger than usual El Niño this year. Sooooo . . .

I followed their suggestion of starting a paper notebook of my notes, etc. on the class but by the second class decided I preferred typing than writing and by doing it online, I can include photos and links, thus my class notes are pages on my website under the ABOUT Page titled Photographer. The subpage there is Photography & Mindfulness under which there will eventually be 10 pages for the 10 lessons that Andaña calls “Pauses.” I was a little negative in my notes on Pause 1 as the class was not what I was expecting, but after Pause 2, I’m more positive. You can check out what you want to and I will do a post on each of the lessons, linking to the more detailed notes in the online pages.

  • Pause 1: Photography & Mindfulness – May 5, 2026
  • Pause 2: Looking With New Eyes – May 8, 2026
  • Pause 3: Breathing – May 12, 2026
  • Pause 4: Sensation and Emotion -May 15, 2026
  • Pause 5: Light and Shadow – May 19, 2026
  • Pause 6: Silence – May 22, 2026
  • Pause 7: Rhythm and Movement – May 26, 2026
  • Pause 8: Looking Inward – May 29, 2026
  • Pause 9: Contemplative Storytelling – June 2, 2026
  • Pause 10: Final Project—Your Mindful Photography Journal – June 5, 2026
  • Final Questionnaire
  • We Continue (They are going to offer me more courses.)  🙂

Interesting to me was that the second lesson’s theme, “Looking with New Eyes,” was the theme of one of my earlier books of titled:  A Voyage of Discovery, Having New Eyes for Costa Rica Landscapes.  

It appears that each lesson will feature a photographer that I will link to plus so far she has included a music video with each of the lessons that I can also share on my reports. For example, Pause 2 has this video:

¡Pura Vida!

The featured photo is a Physalis or “Chinese Lantern” growing wild in a neighbor’s yard until he “cleaned up” the yard, cutting down such weeds. 🙂 Wildness sometimes has unique beauties that a cultivated garden will never have!  Maybe that is “mindfulness” of wildness! 🙂 I miss that wild flower near me!

Go to: My Notes on Photography & Mindfulness Class

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A person can do nothing better than to . . .

“A person can do nothing better than to . . . find satisfaction in their own toil.” ~Ecclesiastes 2:24

CLICK ABOVE IMAGE to go to my galleries or go to: https://charliedoggett.smugmug.com/

Because the photo gallery linked above will go away when I die, I have donated my bird, butterfly and many other nature photos to the following three sources where they can be seen now and for posterity as well as contributing to the science of each species as all three are major sources of nature research for many research organizations and universities around the world, including their professors and students:

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“The Hills”

“The greatest gift of life on the mountain is time… to sit and stare at the shapes of the hills.” ~Phillip Connors: 

The always changing vista from my terrace that I never tire of.

¡Pura Vida!

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“A longing fulfilled . . .”

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” ~Proverbs 13:12

Cortez Amarillo Trees blooming, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails,
Arenal Volcano National Park, Alajuela, Costa Rica

My blog/website administrative page has a bucket for “Drafts” and occasionally I put something in there that I think I might work into a blog post later (like yesterday’s). Back in 2022 I placed the above quote from Proverbs that I picked from one of my Daily Bible Readings to comment on later and here I am, about 3 years later, commenting on it (with photos!). 🙂

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My 2025 in Books + Visitors

Thanks to “GoodReads” for this neat photo of the books I completed this year that does not include the ones I started and did not finish, like Beloved by Toni Morrison that someone in a newspaper article said was his favorite book ever, so I tried it and was bored after reading 20%, even though it was a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner and NY Times bestseller! 🙂 Having been a part of two dysfunctional families myself, I don’t enjoy reading about others! 🙂 But who know, I may finish it this year – we’ll see. 🙂

Charlie Doggett’s 2025 books completed. Image by GoodReads.

For the last few years, my favorite mystery/adventure book authors have obviously been Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, especially their Agent Prendergast FBI mystery series of which I’ve read all (better than Sherlock Holmes series of which I’ve read all or even Agatha Christie’s two series) and I pre-ordered the prequel book coming out in 2026. 🙂 One of those books was made into a successful movie as was one of Preston’s solo books.

I got started first with a Douglas Preston book, Lost City of the Monkey God, during my first year or two in Costa Rica when I Googled “Central America adventure books.” It was the best of that search and based on a true story of an archaeological discovery in nearby Honduras which I re-read this year. Preston is also an archeologist and so some of the “Indiana Jones” adventure style comes through in several of his books! 🙂

I also try to read one of the “Classics” every year and though “Beloved” didn’t work out for me, I did read all of Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper and it was sort of fun, though the old English language seemed strange and though not the same kind of adventures as Preston & Child, I enjoyed the book and look forward to another classic this year as I read through the 50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die. 🙂

I got to where I did not like TV and haven’t had a TV subscription for most of my time in Costa Rica. My dinner habit is to read 2 or 3 chapters out of whatever my current book is. Right now I’m reading a Lincoln Child book, Deep Storm, a science fiction mystery/adventure on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m at 40% at this writing. Kindle keeps one posted on how far through a book you are. 🙂 It will appear on my 2026 books report and with this I’m starting a new series, The Jeremy Logan Series Book 1, which I think will be science adventures or science fiction and so far I’m inclined to continue the series. 🙂

Put simply, for me, Preston & Child are both just great story tellers who hold my attention and interest through almost every word. I read them because I enjoy them. Better entertainment than TV! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Last Night’s Visit with Steve & Sherrell Hewko & Children.

During my 3 years as a missionary in The Gambia West Africa, a group of Campus Crusade Student Missionaries came for about 2 years of that time and we became friends and cohorts with multiple joint projects, especially remembered was a retreat I coordinated for them at Sindola Lodge.

Stephen Hewko was one of the students and the group leader of those students that included Sherrell, his now wife. That was 23 years ago! He brought his family of Sherrell and 3 teen children to Costa Rica on vacation last week and today they fly back to Toronto, Canada. I visited with them at their pre-flight hotel last night, or mostly with Steve as Mom and the kids were in and out of the pool, our poolside table and their hotel room. Last night’s photo of Steve is below beside a photo copy from my scrapbook of him in The Gambia back in 2002! Today he is Director of the Canadian Institute for Empirical Church Research at Wycliffe University in Toronto after doing several years of mission work back in The Gambia.

Steve Hewko in the Gambia, 2002.
Steve Hewko in Costa Rica, 2025.

Every once in a while, a nice little surprise drops in on me. 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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My Christmas Tree Adventure

Some of you may remember that back in 2017 I started a collection of handmade “Artisan Birds,” mainly from artists in Costa Rica, but a few from other Central American countries and ended up with 2 from countries outside Central America. The collection has not grown much since the first two years or so, but I finally I now have a better tree on which to display them.

Up close on a few of my artisan birds. See each one individually in the linked gallery.

And you can see all of my “Artisan Birds” collection with labels of where they are each from in my photo gallery: My Artisan Birds Tree

The first year (2017) was the best display tree, a dead tree branch with lots of branches and I never found another like that. Last year I finally bought an artificial green bush or shrub which I kept most of the year in my living room with or without the artisan birds, but never liked it and the artificial limbs were too weak and droopy and earlier this month it went to the garbage man. And I vowed to find a better one this year!

Well, last week I found this all white artificial small tree with little tiny lights and decided that was it! But again, the limbs were too weak and droopy to handle the small weight of my tiny ornaments! (See the BEFORE & AFTER pictures below.) Grrrrr! BUT, “where there’s a will there’s a way!” I figured out how they made it with a real little tree trunk and wires going up and out for limbs, “they” just used too thin or flimsy wires. I thought, “why couldn’t they have used stiffer (heavier) wires?” Then I realized that if I could tell them how they “should” have done it, I could just do it myself! And I did! 🙂

I went to the main hardware store here in Atenas (La Ferretería Vargas & Hijos) and bought some heavier or stiffer wire (12.5 m roll) for a fraction of what the 3 rolls of white electrical tape (cinta blanca) cost and two days later I have totally “rewired” my little Christmas tree with the new heavy wire held to the older thinner wires with lots of white electrical tape wrapped around every centimeter of every limb and the trunk! A LOT OF WORK! But, ta daa! I now have a new tree that is strong enough to hold the artisan birds! 🙂 Here are two pairs of “Before & After” photos to show you what I accomplished . . .

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Reflected Sunrise

The sun rises in the east behind other mountains that are behind the one that my house is on the west side of. 🙂 Simply put, I cannot see much of a sunrise from my house or terrace that faces W/NW where the vista of little mountains I often share are located. But when I am not sleeping late, I can get out on my terrace and get what I call a “reflected sunrise” on those hills in the W/NW. This past week I’ve been sleeping as late as I could to help cure my sick stomach which is now finally well! (I think!) But these two early morning “reflected sunrise” shots were made earlier in March. The feature photo at top is a panorama of three shots on my Canon 750D and this shot below for email version was a quick snap on my cheap Samsung Cellphone! 🙂

Reflected Sunrise in the NW hills of Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica – Cellphone shot.
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Why Some People Don’t Like the Public Health System

I’ve shared here before that I’ve had some very good experiences in the public health system with multiple specialists that I see (free if a legal resident), but when something is too slow from their overload of patients, I can, and occasionally do, choose the private healthcare system with many doctor choices and all expensive (though not as expensive as in the states!).

Last Wednesday evening my next door neighbor climbed up on a folding chair on his front porch to knock down a wasp nest and fell off on his hard tile floor and was calling out in pain. I went over to check on him and he did not want me to call a Red Cross ambulance, because they charge you and he has no funds for that, so I call a taxi and took him to our Atenas Clinic Emergency Room. The service there was very good (better than sometimes in the crowded Emergency Room!) with all his vitals checked and seeing a doctor within an hour and a half, it was no slower than any of my ER trips in Nashville! 🙂 The doctor called for a social security van ambulance to take him to the closest public hospital for an X-ray as he was acting like his arm was broken, maybe in two places. Within another 30-45 minutes he was in an ambulance on his way to Alajuela. So far, pretty good for not a penny of cost for him!

Then at Hospital San Rafael de Alajuela, he was seen quickly and x-rayed within about an hour. He has a broken shoulder and elbow! They scheduled him for the first available orthopedic surgeon which was 10 days away and said “we want you to stay in the hospital until after the surgery. But sorry, we have no available beds and you will have to wait in a chair in the hallway for a few days until a bed in the orthopedic ward becomes available.” 🙁 Saturday he was told he would probably have a bed on Sunday, the day I’m writing this and I haven’t communicated to see if he does.

THAT IS WHY MANY PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY WITH CAJA (nickname for the Social Security Healthcare System): (1) A 10 day wait for surgery in an otherwise good system that is overloaded and under-staffed. (2) Like most public hospitals here, the government doesn’t provide enough money to expand and provide more beds and thus often there are no beds when needed. It was especially critical during Covid. He will survive but neither of the above two situations are good!

So, the next morning (Thursday), I took him some personal items from his house he will need in the hospital. Then I returned to my house a little after noon and started vomiting all over the place, followed by the expected diarrhea! No fun! And I did not want to deal with CAJA again, so I got an appointment with my private GP the next morning to be treated at my cost, which is always an option if you can afford to pay (my neighbor could not). So in some ways it is like the states, if you have money, you get quicker service (private room, etc.). But I am still not well, though no more vomiting or diarrhea. The private doc had me get all the lab work on blood and stool sample and I have 4 different medicine lasting 4 days to a week. (All costly!) Hoping I’m over it soon! 🙂

And how much different would my treatment have been at the public clinic? I don’t know, but was feeling so bad I did not want to find out! 🙂 And yes, I could get private healthcare insurance here, but at an unaffordable high price. And my local GP’s clinic has a “Membership” at $100 a month and I had it before I started using public, but I never needed that much service and it did not include the lab or pharmacy costs. So I dropped that. As you get older, medical services become more important and almost always depend on your income and available funds. If I every need another big cancer surgery & treatment, it will have to be with the public system, regardless how long I have to wait. I don’t have enough money to do it again. But at least Costa Rica has a basically very good public healthcare system, even if sometimes very slow. And 10 days is not near as long a wait as some people have for some surgeries.

Sorry! I got more long-winded than I intended! But maybe that partially explains why many people here don’t like the public health system, but remember that for the poorest person it is often a lifesaver! And though with a big overload of patients and work, they are extremely well-organized and with a computerized healthcare system that’s the envy of many countries!

So, I still like it! But will occasionally exercise my freedom to go private when I can afford it, as I did again this week.

¡Pura Vida!

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Nature & Life . . .

Nature photography is a good hobby, but it was never a money-maker, not in Tennessee when I tried for a few years there (I always spent more on it than I ever made!) – nor the brief time I tried here. But the joy of creating has never been lost. And though I don’t sell greeting cards anymore, some are still at Hotel Colinas del Sol as a contribution to a sometimes struggling local business there. Go help them out! 🙂

But anyway, a photo of a new butterfly the other day had me going back and looking at that solid green background more than once, wanting to make a greeting card with it. And the butterfly with his red antennae seems to be laser focused on something. So here it is! Created just for you dear blog reader! And who knows, I may do it again! 🙂 It’s fun!

An Orion Butterfly seems to be focused on life in Atenas, Costa Rica.

“Adopt the pace of nature.

Her secret is patience.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

¡Pura Vida!

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Living for the Unremarkable Moments

My life has been cram-packed with “remarkable moments” and experiences, both good and bad. One of the many reasons for moving to Costa Rica was to slow down with nature and sort of let my final years of life just “fade away.” A quote in a blog that I read said . . .

“Busyness and fear constrict us in youth; fresh air and nature free us in old age.” ~Anne Lamott

And so I yearn for days with nothing planned or no where I have to go. A leisurely breakfast and coffee with the online newspaper is a perfect morning, followed by a walk in the garden. Even with all the wind right now, meaning few or no birds or butterflies, there are always plants and flowers or buds like I shared yesterday or a gaze at the surrounding hills, a cow across the street, or another amazing palm frond contrasting with the evergreens as it just fades away. And so today I rejoice in the unremarkable! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!