In your Dreams

Is this vision or delusion? 
I got the answer when the tree above was cut down shortly after this photo was taken. It was somehow in the way for the cranes and heavy construction machines despite being located "safely" outside the construction site.
So much for your dreams, Singapore!

Hello great great great . . . grand mother!


I found this leave in Bali. I don't know its name or where it comes from, but I have a feeling we are related and share the same great great great … (how many?) … grand mother.

Teach Me Tiger

We love wild things and everything wild, but do we really dare to embrace it? And do we want it? Or should it rather be stuffed behind glass or securely (dis)placed in zoos? It seems like our own wildness is so suppressed these days, that it is forced to express itself in other ways, e.g. today's fashion dictates "wild cats" in fabric print, shoes, clothes etc.
Here is a selection from my wardrobe set free for a while in the Singaporean jungle:


However, I must admit, I was really pleased, when I recently became aware that there is some kind of wildness left in the nearby, where I currently live. The Malayan tiger and other magnificent animals have been captured by one of Rimba's photo traps in Kenyir Wildlife Corridor, Terengganu, West Malaysia. - "Dear Tiger. Did you say "cheese"?" I hope not, but rather: "Meeeeeeeeeaaat".
Can we please have some more tigers and wild animals in the forests (and some more forests to accommodate them)? Then we don't have to constantly compensate with various superimposed, wildly tame disguises!
"In wildness is the preservation of the world" (from Henry David Thoreau's: "Walking".



Photos: top: from Bukit Timah Nature Reserve's Visitor Centre, bottom: Rimba.

Dr. Wild Wood Woman, I presume?

When you come from the cold temperate Northern Europe and relocate to such a different environment like tropical Southeast Asia, you can either continue communicating in your usual manner, now with a tropical twist, or you can choose to keep quiet for a period, while you acquire new skills and languages. I chose the latter - or rather it chose me.
Now after a year, I am still a beginner in tropical flora and fauna as well as in Chinese and tai chi. The Chinese character for "forest" might as well mean "sewing machine", in tai chi I 
have learned up to "the snake" in the 24-form, and I am now able to recognize and name 5 tropical plants, all trees.
But nevertheless I can't keep quiet any longer, so please accept my apologies for any future tropical nonsense.





Rain Forest Rain Forest Rain ...



The Gregorians call it a New Year.
I call it just another great day in the office.
By the way: my office has relocated to the tropics.
Much more to come.

Free counters!