graphs of my Universe
Dark sky reveals stars
That gleam sending signs of life
That glows silently.
——
rawon aka dark soup that has become the most delivious soup on earth
i left it in the fridge to fly back to Indonesia on Jul 30 and today arriving home my first after unpacking was heating it up for my lunch and dinner 💕
amazingly yummy!
A pair of strong wings
Bring me to a land of thoughts
Where hope shines the light.
——
landed home after burying hope to grow with flowers and spreading love with billowing incense smoke
This heart is leaking.
Droplets of love are dripping,
Fertilising life.
——
About wedang uwuh
wedang uwuh, a favourite beverage in breezy night of Jogja
inside wedang uwuh
A rope might help
To travel to the other side,
Yet it might be not.
Being in the other side
Is not always wise
As a wise is
That that means
Decision for the right.
Right time
Right place
Right person
That might be
Not right:
Not always right amount
Not always right distance
Not always right calculation.
This rope is right
Only when it is about
Knowing that pulling or releasing
Are both hurting
Right where and when it is decided to.
this?
this one is wiser for now 💕
might not be the right one, yet being relaxed and easy is sometimes the right one for now — i just don’t want to think too much; wisdom is not always hard 💕
I won’t, Beloved
Take you from what completes you.
Your here now is that, not this.
This garden with lemongrass
Is my here and now I love.
——
Ibu sent me this picture that she took by herself after forever saying “I can’t take good pictures like you, don’t ask me any” — 3 slices of some cake I bought online (sold through Twitter) and delivered directly to her ♥️
she said “thank you for the ‘spikoek’, it is amazingly yummy”
my mother’s love is so huge that i don’t realise like seeing a sheet of paper from 1 millimeter away 💕
i am enough with a few humble friends that truly understand me so i won’t anymore beg friendship from that not even wanting to know who i am 😁
Ants wake up each day.
I do,too. The sun sees us
To bless a restart.
——
one busy ant in one bright morning
Surprisingly
Life throws one surprise
After another
Of all types
To me who is cushioned
Only by submission
And genuineness.
How generous
Life is!
How intriguing it is
At the same time!
Dear, Life.
I don’t want any other way to love
You.
——
Life is full of astonishments to me. The most recent one was when I met the architect of my Jogja base home in Jazz Gunung Bromo without planning. I happened to know that she has been the bamboo stage designer of the annual jazz festival for the past 15 years! Yes, she is an architect cum bamboo artist.
We decided to ride a jeep together to see the sunrise the next morning before she returned to Jogja and I enjoyed my jazzy night.
A short fun meet up with a friend it became.
Thank you!
🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
feeling so blessed to have met so many humble human beings in my life and it has made my life even more wonderful
Morning
My only time
That can be broken
But not damaged
Day and night
My only time
That can be merry
Without celebration
Life
My only time
That can kindle hope
Sweeping hatred away
——
the red in the tip of east side 💕
old jeeps to climb up to 3 spots to see the daily sunrise, this one is the lowest spot
Mount Bromo and her neighbourhood in one bright morning
the other side of the sea of sand
vertically
Baking that heals 💕
my productivity outside office 💕
not bad at all! 💕
with matcha as my cocoa is expired 😝
new yeast was not yet into my day, the doug didn’t rise as expected even after 3.5-hour rest 🙃
two types of flour for one recipe
feeling better with baking — trying new yeast that I’m not friendly with
Life is bitter sweet
For sense that is alive,
Willing and happy to taste
Whatever that is served.
Enjoy.
Life is full of tastes
From all directions
Enjoy.
Life is worth tasting
Until its completion.
——
enjoy! carbo please….
healthful food is food from my own kitchen
bitter gourd with sweet chicken filling
green and fresh
Do what you want
Just don’t touch my thing,
Said I.
I moved your thing
But I didn’t take it,
Said wind.
Sometimes naked words
Are taken as a wrapped joke,
Said I.
No one said anything
As it is just a blowing wind
Missing me one day.
——
two days of sick leave and when i was back to work, my cats and boxed stone were re-arranged by heaven knows who
maybe my cats climbed up or jumped 😝
original arrangement 💕
A home is a breath
Haled in and out, slow and deep
Kindling sparks within.
——
Home is a house that I build very slowly with deep thought. The amount of energy put there is a number one priority about my future — I even pause almost all my personal travel plans this year in order to totally focus on this project full completion.
Bless me, dear Life.
Thank you!
💕
This is magnificent! So much money and thought must have been put to finally materialise this home. Very unique and serene! The “99 doors” must be symbolising the 99 attributes of God in Islam, the 99 names reflecting feminine and masculine qualities of God in the teaching. 🙏🏼
Do i wish to have this type of home? Javanese modern, yes but my home would be much smaller and humbler. 🙏🏼
The only resemblance of this one to my mini Javanese home is the wood that were bought from antique collectors, the greenery and the homey atmosphere. The rest is just two poles apart.
I am thankful to have a second home that shows the me in its character (my tiny home in Greater Jakarta is an industrial mass production that is definitely not me)
And I am charmed by the Javanese home belonging to Ms Farah.
This head, Beloved
Is full of colours
That suck all memories
To an abandoned landfill
Where poems dance in joy
Recycling precious moments
Into glowing beads
Jingling around a neck,
Chuckling on millions of love wishes
That scatter on a table.
——
yeah! this is one busiest corner of my head everyday! messy yet full of love 💕😀
The price of good life:
A cluster that can grow wild
On the grey tree bark?
——
which is more precious? bark of the tree or the fungi growing happy? are they mutually enriching each other?
No scent is missed,
No inhaled air is empty.
The scent is a box of coloured mist
To bring in imagery.
These nostrils celebrate days
Through haling the loaded air
And propelling power through stories,
Millions of stories shared.
——
can’t leave without scent, good or bad
and its evolving fragrance, softened before dried
sadly this leaf was not so nicely scented 🙏🏼 thrown away
batik has a good scent as it is washed with lerak (soap berry)
frangipani, a flower that is popular as graveyard flower in Java island ♥️ sweet fragrance of the death
i miss the scent of the thin air by the rice field under the blue sky 💝
I started teaching this morning. Overall I’ll be teaching English, soft skills, art and hopefully someday Japanese. I partner with my best friend to establish a free weekend class for the kids and youth in her small library in south area of Yogyakarta. It is a community support that we humbly provide for a better leadership and communication skills of our young generation.
We have very very very limited budget but we commit to help the community not only to welcome but also to design bright future.
Pray for us.
May all beings be happy.
children class this morning — very very basic communication skills of reading, writing, listening, speaking — what a sweet fun session! 💝
these two girls were the youngest students today 💝
There’s a calming vibe
Surrounding a place called home.
A short getaway—
——
Mt Merapi and Mr Merbabu from up the sky
my first landing in Yogyakarta International Airport, the new airport
calming home for the next 3 nights
greeting from beauty coming out of the mud
Within a radius
Love is felt.
There’s a radius
Made of meters.
She knows a radius
Made of years
That still pulsates
In the heart of this lover
Longing for rendezvous
That will have arrived
Right after the waves shorten.
Your fragrant name is
Blooming every second
In all lovers’ hearts.
Dear, all bezels of wisdom.
I blow kisses for you.
Salam.
——
Today I saw magic
Warmly greeted my throbbing head.
“How deep is your love?” Said she.
“To whom?” Asked I.
“Does it matter?” Said she.
And so I was magically charmed
By these heart beats
Chanting a repeated naive rhyme
About how nice I’ve been breathing.
——
only those who know the death is just an inch away can do this wholeheartedly 💝
I’ll live not only 1000 lives,
I’ve lived forever.
I love not only my whole life,
I love everlastingly.
How can I not love the life
Giving me chance to meet you
Again
And
Again
And
Again?
I won’t though beg for another again
If again will end the love
To the now and here.
See you again
In now and here,
Better one
I know not where.
——
the way you treat me will not change my feeling to you; yet will not shorten my distance from you either — love is only for love, never for hatred 💝
No one can hurt me.
I am a feather,
I am water,
Either.
No one will hurt me.
I am a feather,
I am water,
Either.
We are feather on water.
No one can hurt them,
No one will,
Either.
——
no one can, no one will — if one does, one does to one’s self
I’m water
Humble enough to mold myself
To this pitcher.
This life’s a pitcher
Kind enough to tilt herself
To the river.
I’m water
Flowing by myself
In myself to the sea.
This’s the strongest soft
With what this rocky heart
Gets shaped through time.
——-
water: naturally willing to be shaped, spiced up, scented, coloured, treated by temperatures — matured through stories 😃
She has heard bird news,
Sending messages
Through Morse Code.
Dots, dashes, spaces—
She has heard numbers, words, punctuations,
Telling stories
About no hope.
Acceptance, letting go, moving on—
She has heard songs, poems, winds,
Springing in heart
Warmly and gently.
Future is brighter only with clarity.
She has heard a woodpecker
Reminding her of signals and signs
In every dance of nature
To be enjoyed and understood.
She has heard of you
Giving blocks and traps
To redirect her to her own path
To happiness.
She has heard of heaven
Approving whatever she’d do
As long as she’s happy and safe
Without disturbing life.
She has heard
Dews imbuing morning to refresh,
Twilight whispering night to rest.
Life is truly a woodpecker’s Morse Code.
She has heard
And she closes her eyes,
But not ears
As long as she’s happy and safe.
Thank you, Michael Lai for again allowing me to use your poetic pictures to illustrate a poem of mine that has been poking me since forever. 🙏🏼
Bay Woodpecker Pecking a Hole in the Tree (4 Photos)
I’ll love
No matter what
I’ll be over anyways.
I’ll work
No matter what
I’ll be over anyways.
There is me
Or not,
It might be the same.
Yet as long as there is me,
I’ll do what I can
To add more
Meanings
And
Utility
To my life.
I’ll love
No matter what
In life.
Life is good,
I won’t skip
A thank
And
Or
Cheers.
—
listen to love; it is everywhere 💕
All cuts and bruises
Paint a life of a blossom
Before it decays.
—
i was so young and innocent, a loved friend of many, a hated enemy of some — i was so much blessed 💝
life has brought me travel through labyrinth of life with traps and turns that cut and torture yet i am still a loved friend of many, a hated enemy of some — i am still so much blessed with cuts and bruises 💝 i’ve lost much but i find myself
no one shall erase this happy girl within — a blessed soul that travels through space and time 🙏🏼 thank you
Not only fruits,
It might be flowers, seeds and seedlings.
It might be leaves, woods or saps.
It might be barks, husks or roots.
It might be more.
Whatever beneficial—
What is this tree harvested for?
None—
No. Either
One:
Good deed or good time.
Harvest from life, Beloved.
Remember to sow before the next reap.
Her heart and soul is her best seeds,
And she is the farmer and the crop.
biggest lessons taken from this — not so much relatable yet good lessons indeed
a bit of hilariously heroic – good to build good mood 😃
enigmatic and dark
Is life abundant?
She asked.
They said,
When you have everything.
She walked away,
There was never everything
In imperfection.
She says.
Life is generous.
They say,
Because you have everything.
She walks away,
There is never perfection
In everything.
Life is abundant,
She agrees.
They ask,
Do you have everything? You are not perfect.
She walks away,
There is always perfection
In anything imperfect.
—-
anger has long gone but sadness is still lingering like a hungry fox hunting a chicken 🙃 yet life is so generous to me offering sweet imperfection and simplest perfection that might be just a dream for those perfect perfection — so thank you as always! 💝
giving myself time and space to live again 💝
Where is sun when sets?
Where is moon in the day light?
They share love through time.
—
Interaction is about reciprocity; even when we are alone, we are interacting with some tool of life or with the deep self within.
When it is not reciprocated, interaction is not genuinely true.
Salaam.
a grandma with her grandson
a mother with her son
family gathering
feeding two grandsons
let’s climb!
hi, dove! said the little boy
what’s in the water? said he
bubbles!!!
what is that over there? ahh hope! ☺️
am i your headache? no, you are my universe 😂
don’t move, just smile! someone is taking our picture ☺️
she is asking her cam to see what she sees 🙏🏼
our daughter is playing, i am sitting near her
hey! clear up! i am gonna land!
electrocution my a**! 😁
—
Choice’s falling star
Brightened in a quiet dark night,
Orbited to earth.
respecting this family for their choice of happiness, knowing that i will never be able to do so
inspiring me to at least enjoy simpler life and to accept all blessings more happily
A bubble’s bursting,
United with the free air.
Would you please join me?
—
Although Kyoto has a lot of impressive shrines, my favourite is not there. Mine is Izumo Taisha in Shimane prefecture about 343 km from Kyoto.
When visiting other shrines in Japan, I was so aware of being in Japan. In Izumo Taisha I got home: sunny, green, serene and unexplainably blissful. There were many visitors but my senses didn’t absorb their presence as if the hot air and bright light muffled their noise and wrapped me in a safe bubble bursting when my last step left the shrine front gate.
Romantic!
a long walk from the gate to the shrine — i remember it was a scorching hot day in August 2018 and i was humming while walking 😇
ablution, my daily ritual that i find also so soothing in Japan shrine especially in Izumo Taisha
torii 💝 a gate to the shrine yard
this is Izumo Taisha! 💝
shimenawa (sacred straw rope)
i only go to this coffee shop with my colleagues, but i wholeheartedly believed drinking Starbucks coffee was a nice thing; only in Izumo! right outside the shrine complex
rike jokanan 
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