Berette's Creative Life Journey: Nature Nurtures; with a Ku

Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Nature Nurtures; with a Ku

Not simply drinking,
This important peaty work
Watering the muse

Haiku by Mystic Urchin

APRIL  2010

Way back in February (I can't believe it's June already!!) I was taken on an incredible drive up to the Blue Mountains and I'm only now posting my notes about it. Still, I can't gush enough about the renewing effect of that fresh clean air high above the heat and smog of Kingston, with breathtaking views of nearly untouched land. It was quite heavenly, and I absolutely aim to do this again when I return to Jamaica.

It's simply a place of modest communities (Irish Town, Hardware Gap, Greenwich...) scattered with beautiful bed and breakfast cabins, private homes, and quaint cafes, all hugged in a cozy blanket of fog and lush flora.

There were breathtaking views of tree fern covered valleys, bright green moss wrapped trees, and quite a bit of non-tropical botanical varieties to my surprise, with pine covered mountainsides, and flower gardens much like you would find in Oxford, England! And that said, there is quite a significant community of British expatriates living up there.

A week after my trip I stumbled upon a Kuya Magazine issue with an article  about Greenwich, and a cover photo of the same house I captured here, beautifully shot on  a sunny day by  Franz Marzouca. It was still on the shelves  when I left in May, so grab it if you can find it - the full photo spread is quite magnificent.

click for larger view

Here is a mini list of what I found (and aim to check out when I return):

FLORA: 

Tree ferns, pines, orchids, sunflowers, ginger lilies, bright green moss  (I think it was spanish moss - but don't quote me on on that...), and quite a bit more - the names of which escape me now.

BIRDS:

wood pecker, hummingbirds

CAFES/EATERIES:

Gap Cafe - where I ate coconut creamy rice and peas, with 3 pepper  spiced yellow curry steamed fish, and a thick slice of homemade carrot  cake.  and yes, the blue mountain coffee was stella!

Others I hear worth checking out are Cafe Blu, IMZ Cafe, and Mount Edge (thanks Steve!) 

INDUSTRY: 

Catherine's Peak water, Jamaica Coffee Board (Blue Mountain Coffee), Craighton Coffee Estate (tours available), Strawberry Hill Hotel and Spa, and private rental homes and cabins are available - like the one pictured above.

ARMY BASE:

foto by Jamdiver
Jamaica Defense Force  (JDF)

TRAILS and TOURS:  

 

-The Mountain Peak Trail 

(starting at Abbey Green)

I HAVE to do a hike one day... 

    -Holywell Nature Reserve

     -Old Tavern Coffee Estate 

Nabes with cabin homes and B+Bs for getaway rentals: 

Irish Town 

Hardware Gap 

Holywell

Greenwich

Whitefield Hall 

If you have a free weekend and sometime to research a tailor made trip for yourself, do it!  It's the rejuvenating gift that keeps on giving. And please let me know what you find - so I can make a list for my next trip!

For way more additional info - check out:

-YardEdge and read up on their tale of hiking to the top.

7 comments:

Anonymous7 June 2011 at 21:27
Beautiful photos that conjure up that extraordinary atmosphere up in the Blue Mountains. It's like nowhere else. I am surprised to see sunflowers - I associate them with dry places like the south of France! There is a wealth of birds up there and as you probably know many of them are endemics - and unique not only to Jamaica but to the Blue Mountains themselves. The gorgeous raptor you photographed looks like an American Kestrel. And as for flora - there are supposedly hundreds of different types of FERNS alone, up there! Truly a wonderland. Thanks for the post!
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SeBiArt7 June 2011 at 21:46
Yes Emma - it was a dream up there, and I only took an afternoon drive with a friend. I can only imagine the wealth of discoveries one would have from a weekend or week long trip! I know nothing of birds, you're so good at this stuff!!! I want to go up there with you next!!! The climate is so particular that it's no surprise how much lives up there. Thanks for your knowledge woman!
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Roy7 June 2011 at 22:44
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Roy7 June 2011 at 22:46
Thanks for taking us on this journey through your mind and up to the beautiful Blue mountains of Jamaica, i am sure that there are a lot more paths less traveled just waiting to bless the eyes and other senses of eager travelers to come.
Blessings
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Christiane Nicely aka GermaicanLady8 June 2011 at 08:18
Love it! Oh, how I wish I could follow your footsteps! xxx
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YardEdge8 June 2011 at 11:36
Lovely post and great pics as usual! Sounds like you enjoyed yourself! And thx. for the mention :]
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SeBiArt8 June 2011 at 17:07
@ Roy - my pleasure, and indeed the less traveled paths await us all

@ Christiane - what are you talking about girl - you take some GORgeous footsteps all the time. I love your photography, but yah - we need to swap travels sometime - me in Bremen, and you in Kingston! :)

@ Karin - yes girl - every time honey
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We are all we are all the time.

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Whatever you ardently desire,
Sincerely believe in,
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Enthusiastically act upon,
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Democracy means simply the bludgeoning
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For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.

Ivan Panin

Remember to play after every storm.

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The most original thing you've ever come across is actually yourself.

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Why fight it?
Be seduced by your purpose.

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The light at the end of the tunnel
is not an illusion. The tunnel is.

~unknown~

Fear is just another word for ignorance
...
Freedom is something that dies unless it's used

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The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

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Unexpected beauty in life shatters our monument to suffering.

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Once you label me, you negate me.

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The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative participants in the universe, to re dream our world. The fact of possessing imagination means that everything can be re dreamed. Each reality can have it.

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Cautionary actions to prevent future pain or loss may also function as obstacles to any happiness you could have presently.

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Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.

~unknown~

We shall not cease from exploration, but at the end of all of our exploring will be to return to the place from which we originated and to know it for the first time.

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Isn't it funny how the word 'politics' is made up of the words 'poli' meaning 'many' in Latin, and 'tics' as in 'bloodsucking creatures’?

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Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.

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[I am] not so interested in the length of the road so much as the width.

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Losers fold; winners take hits.

Forget the odds; draw, raise, bluff, call, stand.

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Great ideas are no different from useless thoughts until they are put to use.

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In life you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

~anonymous~

It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before, to test your limits, to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

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Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. …the willfully unimaginative see more monsters, they are often more afraid.

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Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people.

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The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

~Elbert Hubbard~

a simple guide:
no NOW...no JOY...no LIFE.

~Robert Holden~

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

~Bertrand Russell~

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.

~John Lennon~

Being proactive instead of reactive always lessens the pressures of adversity.

~Kevin C. Robinson~

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.

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The minute you try to prove yourself is the moment you've lost the point. 'Doing it' moves you forward, 'proving it' takes you back.

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I want death to find me planting my cabbages.

~Michel de Montaigne~

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In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.

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Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.

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Can you get over
Something you truly enjoy
And if indeed, why?

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

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There are indeed a thousand ways of acquiring an opinion that have nothing to do with rational thinking.

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There is need to sway
Naked Rhythm summons blues
Wind and Whispers dance.

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Chill out somewhere for a minute. Things get clearer when you get quiet.

~Scoop~

Love is rarer than genius itself. And friendship is rarer than love.

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We are so accustomed
to disguising ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.

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A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away.

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There is no truth; everything is permitted.

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Nothing is true or false but thinking makes it so. You believe you have appeased the thunder and lightening and the ground that grows your grain; you believe it, you have.
~Shakespeare~

Knowing how to see is much more important than what kind of camera or lights you have.

~ David Harry Stuart~

Every work comes into being in the same way as the cosmos – by means of catastrophes…

~Wassily Kandinsky~

Every man takes
The limits of his
Own field of vision
For the limits of the world.

~Arthure Schopenhauer~ 1788-1860, Studies in Pessimism

Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion... the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.

~Dorothea Lange~

Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Nature Will Hold You
Live within Integrity
Sweet Dew Forever

~Ku by Scoop~

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
~Hunter S. Thompson~

I refuse to lose my mind to the sadness locked in the illusion of my finitude.

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fear of mediocrity creates it by narrowing your vision of yourself. get as far away from fear as you can by daring your ass to face it everyday.

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Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming -WOO HOO what a ride! ~JAH – E~

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Desire is a magnificent nomadic energy.

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There’s no great genius without some touch of madness.

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Live for the truth or lie
What are the consequences?
RECIPROCITY

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The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

~Hunter S. Thompson~

Water marks the way,
We wander thru wet slipways,
Happy to be damp.

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MIND THE GAP

The delights of self-discovery are always available.

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"Watch Your Thoughts, They Become Your Words,Watch Your Words, They Become Your Actions, Watch Your Actions, They Become Your Habits, Watch Your Habits, They Become Your Character, Watch Your Character For It Becomes Your Destiny"

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind.

-Dorothea Lange-

“Fear is temporary. Regret lasts a lifetime.”

“Caution is the death of Creativity”

Let your deeds themselves praise you, for here I leave them
in all their glory, lacking words to extol them.

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Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Nature Nurtures; with a Ku

7 comments:

kWotes and Haikus

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