By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   THE morning smells of newly-cut grass. Maybe it is the scent of rebellion, or the agony of being cut. Or maybe it is the scent of hope, the kind we cling to, when we are about to lose it. I breathe in the scent slowly,…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   MIRA was the kid, who, along with another nephew, Nico, experimented with the matches and burned the wooden floor in one of the bedrooms. The smoke escaped through the small space of the door, so I knocked. It was all quiet so I took the…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   A MUSEUM embodies the soul of a people. In order to fully comprehend the identity of a people, a museum depends on two important components. Firstly, the people who curate, gather, preserve, interpret and tell the stories. Secondly, the depth, the breath and the quality…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   THE absence of loved ones, for any reason, does not negate their presence in our daily lives. We hear them, we can feel their touch, they encroach in our dreams. Their presence sticks, glued to our consciousness. Memory is a good thing, It could also…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   IS there life after death? Some believe that after death, the essential part of an individual’s stream of consciousness or identity continues to live, a belief that derives itself from various religions, esotericism and metaphysics. What lives after the physical body expires depends on which belief…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   HAVE you ever felt uneasy without a reason, and suddenly thought of a specific person? That kind of feeling occurred to me three times within the first quarter of 2023, and every time, that person is in a kind of fix or in a hospital,…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   LOVE could be many things, comforting at times, dislocating too. It can upset equilibrium as well as balance the point where our very center rests. It is beautiful in its own chaos. You and Me Yes, you listen to reason as you said, reason keeps…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   To a love unspoken, but “spoken” in so many ways. You are loved, you will always be.   Where is your song now, my love?   We used to walk on the sand barefoot, and bare we felt, we understood the messages of the waves…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   FOR reasons I cannot explain, I miss Professor Doctor Jose David Lapuz. Professor Doctor is the appellation he wanted to be called, and he always wore his 4” x 6” United Nations (UN) ID over his black unironed suit. He had these sheets of paper…

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo   YESTERDAY, a friend of mine was talking about how she felt differently towards a former colleague. She remembered him as one who had a deprecating way of looking at things, but lately she said, she realized that it was probably because it was his way…