Mandarin ducks perch
On a rocky river bank
Enjoying the sun.
a painting of a raft of Mandarin ducks would be a beautiful spot in a house
their colours are fascinating
Mandarin Duck
Tag: weekend
Eyes to Mind
What she needs, my love
A jar of coloured petals
That smile to her mind--
heliconia is always a nice welcome
or an orchid that’s bright
never a bottle of wine
just a cool towel and a cup of lemongrass tea next to a carnation
Love Daily
Love daily, my love
Chosen, cleaned, soaked, cooked and packed
To serve forever--
chicken biryani for lunch is like falling in love after broken hearted
💙☺️❣️
sprinkled friend onion on the layer rice & chicken
💕
boiling rice
marinating chicken in herbs + yogurt
another key to a nice biryani
fying onion
the herbs to boil the rice
basmati rice after 30′ soaked in water
Humming Heart (ranting)
She's a hummingbird
Flying her colours and voice.
Garden of Eden--
If people ask what one thing I’d do at home when I’m doing other relaxing things?
The answer: humming❣️
Humming is the power of someone who loves singing but not memorise the lyrics. It’s what makes the amateur singer feel so proud of herself of singing beautifully without words, voice and tones are right, words are hidden. 😁
Today my household chores are not as many as before yet still I want to be home longer; I have a book to read then share my reading to my family and friends. I also have a sheet of white fabric to experiment shibori stitching.
Saturday is never boring with humming.
my mom used to ask “what are you cooking for this Saturday?” then “that’s delicious! wanna try! cook it for us when you’re home” then I would call her sharing laughter & jokes
no I’m not sad but I miss her love, compassion, stories, jokes, intimacy between mother and daughter
I’m so blessed with her being my mother; and still so blessed to have siblings and in-laws that understand intimacy is the glue of our family
thank you❣️
time to let my physical, heart & soul hum softly as part of my gratitude for the love around me 💕
Face It
Sometimes something scary is something that we need to truly face. It’s a door that we must enter. It’s a book that we shall read. It’s a podcast that we’ve gotta listen to. It’s the very uncomfortable fact about what’s within that we need to unknot to fully see our own selves clearly and wholeheartedly.
I have friends, good friends, close friends and I know exactly what they like to talk about and what they don’t like to talk about. Some don’t like talking about money. Some don’t like talking about romance. Some don’t like talking about ancestor. Some don’t like talking at all, just making uh or oh in the conversation. And I like testing whiteout their knowing being tested.
I want to tap their mind that some things are disliked not because it’s not good, it’s simply because it’s not familiar.
Anyway after several times I will try anymore. What for? If they think it’s useless to talk about it with me, I might not be the right one to tap that part. If they think it’s useless to talk about it, it might not be the topic they need to learn or unlearn in this period of time.
Let the door open by itself. I feel enough to know the need; at the same time I come to a realisation that some people don’t need help to wake up, or some people don’t need to wake up that way.
😁
dear life, guide me to every door of mine, each of them is facing you — if all doors are open & what’s behind is shown to me, how beautiful the diamond of love you’ve given to me as I can see it from all facets of its cut
💕
He & I Might Be Wrong, But
As a Muslim I am grateful that someone prominent attested about Islam this way.
I’m not a religious one but I read the Qur’an and Sirah (history of Prophet Muhammad) with very little external guidance as I’ve lost some trust to the religion authority interpreting the teaching & causing distrust to the real teaching of the religion.
I might be wrong but I’m trying to seek what’s relevantly meaningful to my life from the content of the Qur’an and Sirah. And I pray that I’ve got the intelligence, integrity, ethics, humanity that’s wrapped as love.
Salam.
he might be wrong just like me but at least he is experiencing things from his own very hands to tell what it is
happy weekend, everyone
fyi, it said the videos are unavailable; not sure what WordPress is trying to do but both are about Joe Rogan attesting about Islam which (according to him) is totally against what have been described by the West
💕
Love Isn’t Faraway
I feel so languid,
Between losing and letting go.
Memories are swarming,
Reminding that life is short
And farewell is just an inch away.
What's grey has turned to lively colours that stay.
What's dark has rekindled what's dead and now alive.
Love is never faraway,
It is for a while hiding
To show up when hope is fading away.
There's nothing I hear
But heartbeats singing love song
From afar, moving closer and closer.
Love is never faraway,
It's just hiding to find a way
To disclose what's true in
Expression and will always stay.
my last wefie with her, physically faraway but her love always stays
Riding The Wind
Riding the wind, Love
Across the route Love chooses
On behalf of love--
wind is pushing her pedaling a journey to the heart of life
A Muse Who Herds Dragons
Beloved,
I don't have clear words
To decribe myself
Yet words insist to come out,
Sliding down from a lane connecting heaven and earth--
Dragon
A mythical being
Depicted in a lot of traditions all over the globe
That soars, roams, fights with a muse who lives in a realm
Called a self.
A self who is one of nine
Whichever one inspiring any her
To rule her own world
With love and compassion,
Nothing more
Nothing less.
She bears the emblem of dragons,
Plays fun with them,
Talks and plans,
Dreams and fantasizes,
Works the hardship,
Keeps secret & evaporate it,
Learns and teaches,
Fights and flies,
Stays and calms,
Grows old and stays young--
All with dragons.
Perhaps no one knows
But she knows
That the dragons might not be
someone else,
Just a being she thinks something else,
Yet in fact none in her life
Is separated--
Dear, Dragons
Be
Beloved or
Lover for her
Whichever is tasked to
You.
born with a dragon waking up at the same time
fun time with dragon most of the time
sending good messages to the universe with the dragon
sharing most secrets to dragon
welcoming sunset with dragon
struggling in battles with dragon
learning precious lessons with dragon
receiving deciphered enigmas from dragon
never growing old before dragon
physically growing old with dragon
taming dragon is her soul
a muse who rekindles dragon in her soul over and over again
Fire
This fire, Beloved
Lights up. It dies not; just dims
When night is warmer.
once ignited, this love won’t die — an eternal flame
I won’t stop talking until it’s time to stop talking. Sometimes I will hurt some human beings that have hurt those I love.
This time I’m so angry with some politicians, stupid idiot ones in Indonesia who ran away after making big wound in our people’s heart.
No, I won’t stop. I will keep this flame within & this time constantly without!
Sorry, I might wave the flag too strongly but that’s not to hurt, it’s to show them that we’re not afraid!
Sorry, I might tread these steps too strongly but that’s not to hurt, it’s to show them that we’re all in a coordination that might not be detected.
Dear, Indonesia. I might not be able to give you much but I won’t stop talking to give warnings to those I love so they’re protected from those that want to destroy the sovereign of the people, the justice of the governance, the love among the burning souls in our community.
It might not be easy for me, for you, for them; yet we will make it!
Let’s keep this fire to live forever,
In this piece of heaven on earth called Indonesia.
Yes! The future is beautiful & grand! And it’s close. So close, my Motherland.
☘️♥️🇮🇩
Yes, He’s My Teacher
Emha Ainun Nadjib (Cak Nun or Mbah Nun) is the only spiritual teacher that has been in my life since I was around 15 years old. I started reading his poems, articles, essays, etc in printed mass media by then. He was a social justice activist, an artist, an intellectual, a thinker, a columnist, whatever people called him. He was dubbed “Kiai Mbeling” (naughty religious teacher) at that time.
A lot of his analysis he made have happened every now and then. I’m one of the witnesses of all the political unrest that he did predict through data analysis & social sensitivity of his. Many people are late listening to them, late seeing them, missing a lot of facts that were his analysis. However, until today there are many disrespecting him.
Has he become angry because of the way he’s been treated? No! He knows. He understands. He always tells us to go with the God’s flow. Accept gracefully your life.
Once I asked for advice; I was in one of difficult times in life. He just said “Always flow with Gusti Allah, only that.”
Until now I’m still one of his students of life. I respect him for his humble life. He never has more than IDR100,000 in his pocket and he will try his best to give it away to anyone around him needing it.
In this very difficult time in our country we his circle so much miss him. He’d been tamers in many unrest even when the news was never out to the media.
Today he’s still weak and can’t be present physically to tame some important heads.
I personally pray that he soon stands up! Tell them, Cak Nun that this country is exhausted of the corruption & arrogance of greedy politicians.
Dear, God. Please grant our prayers.
Dear, Motherland. Please arrange a real peace for your children.
Amen.
☘️❣️🇮🇩💕
Cak Nun, it’s time! Please stand up & tell them to stop.
Views
A view, Beloved
It's what the light shows the eyes
And heart. Wish us luck...
If there’s about significant learning to me about relationship (not limited to romantic) recently, it’s about view & review. The way both sides can view something then review it together is another ingredient after agreement to meet.
The way I view life is always about how elements work in Mother Nature. The power that each element collaborates with me is more important than how I manipulate it. I flow with the natural move, I don’t want to move against the move; not only because it will be tiring, but it is also that the more I’m against the natural move, the more I’ll be away from the Center of my own self– a big no!
Political view is very important to agree in a relationship. I won’t be friends for long period of time with them whose political view is full with doubted integrity & impartiality to the needy. I just can’t.
My country is again boiling and this is when I can see how those I know (personally or by names) navigate themselves in this situation. Some are angry; I am, too. Some are very angry; I am, too. Some show their care. Some don’t want to show their partiality with different reasons– in this group I can sense things as simple as they are afraid or confused up to they are part of the chaos root causes (corrupt & ignorance).
A lot of opinions & discussions emerge with so many intentions. I’m reluctant to judge people’s intention or aim; so as long as what they are doing suits mine, I will not judge them negatively until they do what is against what they’ve conveyed.
What I do this time is to show my care & support to those on the street by at least reporting the online news to my social media account. As my Instagram is set private, my target is my family & friends; they should not be imposed to fake or irresponsible or expired or partial news. I hope what I do also build a good algorithm to myself & surrounding. I don’t want to harm those around me at the same time I don’t want to be a coward who is afraid just to show partiality to the underprivileged.
It’s not easy for us, the whole country. It’s not easy for each of us personally.
We hope our prayer of getting the real peace & integrity is answered soon.
Amen.
Dear, Motherland….
Would you please help us your children?
Dear, God.
Would you please end what’s not good in this piece of heaven on earth called Indonesia?
☘️💕🇮🇩
A Hope of Elden Soldiers
A hope that vanishes
With the forgotten true stories
Of the unsung heroes,
Those not buried with engraved tombstone
Dear, Elden Heroes
Who are taking a break from battles.
Wish us a basket of flower
Full of prayer summoning
The only thing left with Mother Earth:
Love that glows in the heart.
Wish us her love
That fades all selfishness away
Swiftly
Like the colours dissolve from a white fabric.
No trace of arrogance.
No trace of greed.
Only love.
Only care.
By everyone,
For everyone
Including
The Elden Soldiers--
A poem for a piece of Mother Earth’s true love called Indonesia on her 80th birthday–
Thank you. You’re staying in this very heart that weeps for getting hurt over and over again yet keeping the trust in a journey called life.
💕
your promise to liberate your offspring’s life from all that occupy them was well done
would you say that what your offspring is doing to celebrate the victory is truly what you wished to be
dear, Elden Soldiers who have been either well-known or unsung….
You
I've read thousands of poems
In which all lines are started with
You.
I've recited hundreds of them
With which all rhymes are ended with
A you.
I've waited for a sonnet full of love
Through which my questions are answered by you. Yes,
You.
Have You?
I've asked myself all my life:
Have you ever thought what this life is for?
You're born. You die.
You struggle. You cry.
You suffer. You rant.
You're full. You sleep.
You're fulfilled. You forget.
You're numb. You're silent.
If it's really
You that this life is about,
Am I really needed?
Am I really wanted?
Yet the echoes of the quest go on.
Your answers feel like algae converting light to feed my days with
Hope that you embrace me, with
Fear that it will end when I still owe you promises.
I can't answer it clearly until today.
It becomes like a love story
In which falling in love is either inserted with broken-hearted acceptance or ended with broken hearted let-go.
That I live for
You, because of
You, in
You, through
You is a journey between a lover longing for the beloved who might care but care; who might love but hate, who might exist but not exist.
Have you ever thought what this life is for? I said yes and yes and yes to
You, and for
You.
Guidance
Amouge, Guidance – it’s about you guiding me to you
bought it when in Sydney
slided the box out of the outer cover
one of my best gift to myself – a scent that guides
A Door
A door, Beloved
Your way I take to enter
The way of loving--
some people said to me directly and some indirectly “my way or no way”
my life is like one-way highway with no U-turn with which the choice is chosen by itself, go ahead and that’s it! when I choose my way, the way becomes bumpy and muddy and not safe,
so I’ve never really thought about my way
letting it be instructed through my heart and follow Life’s way
so when some ask “my way or no way”, I’ll smile and think
maybe those people’s life has been so easy and smooth that all their way is running without any interruption or alteration or even 100% negotiation
maybe
but I again just smile and try to understand while waiting whose way is winning
Camouflage
Hiding in colours
Quiet, before partying again
With the same colours--
I realised that someone can show the world what’s the opposite to be able to do whatever they like behind the stage.
A man said to a woman that his parents didn’t approve the marriage with her so that he could marry another her.
A man marry a woman hiding his true sexual orientation. Once married people think he is a sexually straight, ignoring that he is giving hell to the woman who blindly loves him.
Skeleton in the cupboards — No!
camouflage to be exact
Honesty saves everyone’s time.
🙃
The Way
The way, Beloved
A way that is not one way
Made for everyone--
In the last discussion I said something unplanned. I just felt that it was the right way to say, to liberate the self that had refused to be molded or shaped with no consent.
“I feel that my journey has no pattern, I just flow, I’m always a human being in the making, I’m probably ever unfinished, always in progress”.
Today while doing the household chores, I’d been thinking if I really had no pattern. Brownian Movement, my favourite physical phenomenon that has always made me contemplate how random someone can be, is even seemingly random, yet it is statistically patterned; it’s just unpredictable. The zigzag movement will distribute particles evenly in the medium. Fabulous!
So of course I know I’m not that random.
Maybe I just need to sleep more to be more random. 🙃
the graph shows pattern
maybe I look like this to people not knowing me well & im ok with that ☺️
Home
A home, Beloved
Where heart hums to see beauty
In just greenery--
this is where my long weekend resides (Jogja, where Mount Merapi & Prambanan Temple are pinned)
where I bike & walk in my free time, Singapore greenery
Changi Terminal 2, the airport that I mostly take off to fly out before always coming back to my second home, Singapore
Headache
Headache, Beloved
Tiara with her gemstones
Glowing dignity--
I’d had headache for these past 3 days and no better even with the super meds called Paramex 🙂 I took one-day medical leave to meet the doc then on Friday I worked from home to gain more comfort while working.
I kept complaining until just now realizing that this was that I felt before; it was when I had a growth inside my brain untreated. The headache was significantly reduced (up to 99% by my gross calculation: from everyday to once in several months like this time).
How I thank God that this headache has tried reminding me that this time I feel so much better than before, the years of constant headache every single day.
Ah! Thank you!
Thank you for the realization that life shall have sickness to know that health is a true blessing. Then both sickness & health are blessings indeed.
Thank you!
if my headaches in those years to be exchanged with a head piece, I want a tiara with diamond & emerald – elegantly pressing the head for beauty & dignity
New Year
New year, Beloved
An open door with a smile
Keeping soul leaping--
welcome the new year of Javanese lunar year cum Islamic new year
Fallen
Gravity, my love
Pulls me to Mother Earth's lap
To be just like her.
Start The Day
Start the day, my love
With bright eyes and dancing tongue.
A day to excite--
a bowl of “pempek from Palembang & “sambal ijo” from Padang with a piece of boiled duck leg starting my day
time to clean the house & packing for tomorrow’s exciting trip 😍
A Gift
A gift, Beloved
Breeze bringing a good fragrance
Keeping me with you.
I bought a box of gift for myself – perfume 💗
patchouli is one of my favourite fragrances, it is mostly harvested in Indonesia — there’s a documentary about how patchouli farmers are ‘exploited” for perfume industry
I’m cruelly aware that my liking to scent is making me part of the exploitation. What should I do?
….thinking in awareness & with compassion
The Psychology of Stupidity
She's stupid, my Love
Following honest heart, then
She needs huge to cure.
Lucky to find this book in Periplus of Soetta Airport T3 – time to get cured from wound of falling by my own stupidity
Thanks for obviously showing my stupidity this weekend. I’ll write the word stupid (tolol in Bahasa Indonesia) 1000 times to ensure I remember I am.
💕
Heart Journey
Your plodding footsteps
Call me to keep this journey
To where sunrise is.
Wherever I go as long as I’m following my honesty, I’m meeting with you.
I’ve tried denying that life is just a matter of birth to death & struggling between those two, but no life is not that indeed — pain is inevitable but suffering is optional so I prefer put always lightheartedness and useful meaning to steps of life.
One day which is today I plant my believe more deeply as I also believe that this tree of life is not only one growing for a while; this tree of life needs strong & stubborn roots to support itself to the end of universe life.
Thank you for this beautiful life, Beloved. Whatever I’ve gone through is beauty that leads me to the reality of life:
You
Scent of This Hair
The scent that is spread
Is that that I've missed so long.
It's in my own hair.
I was in Sydney and finally found this that I’d wanted so long. Once I thought I would love the Jasmine but this attracted me more strongly.
Siapa Guru? (in Bahasa Indonesia)
Kata guruku hati harus ringan,
Harus.
Kata guruku langkah harus pasti,
Harus.
Kata guruku badan harus rajin,
Harus.
Kata guruku hidup harus berserah,
Harus.
Susahnya!
Laku kuganti guru.
Ngomongnya begini:
Buat apa jadi manusia kalau tidak punya hati bahagia? Kalau kerjanya bermalas-malas diombang-ambing angan-angan? Kalau kerjanya memaksa semua dengan maunya?
Duh!
Berguru di mana-mana sama!
Aku duduk di depan patung Dorna,
Pendeta legenda,
Sebagai Ekalaya aku berpura-pura.
Bambang Ekalaya (Anggraeni’s husband), most loyal male wayang to his teacher
Dewi Anggraeni (Ekalaya’s wife), most loyal female wayang to her husband
Gurindam 12 (only Bahasa Indonesia)
Gurindam is a form of ancient poem of (old) Malay.
Gurindam 12 (twelve gurindam(s)) is a set of gurindam composed by Raja Ali Haji in 1847. Raja Ali Haji was a poet born in Pulau Penyengat, Kepulauan Riau, Indonesia in 1808. He is one of national heroes of Indonesia.
I read it back then in junior high school when comprehension was not really well obtained. I wish to fully understand this gurindam before time is up.
Enjoy….
Saturday Night
Saturday night, Love
Keeps her radiant and calm
In a place called heart.
I became hungry and decided to slice carrot, beet root and chayote for salad.
For this Saturday night’s calm vibe, I sliced shallot, chili, lemon grass and kefir lime leaves then sauté them in coconut oil added with shrimp block.
Alhamdulillah yum yum❣️
rike jokanan 
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