photos and descriptions of what makes our world a pleasure
emphasis on Florida and the Tampa Bay area but also far beyond

SPIRITUAL

The Eliot Pattison Inspector Shan series

January 1, 2011
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Beijing Yong He Gong Lamasery prayer wheel   In an earlier post, Mystery Series Set in Foreign Lands, there were some very interesting comments and suggestions. Additionally, I’ve been exposed, entirely by chance, to an author that I’ve become addicted to: Eliot Pattison (eliotpattison.com/). That addiction began when a good friend gave me a book [...]

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I should have known better

August 3, 2010
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Hilton’s first “song”–age 3 For young (and old) composers, there are no books that really help you understand the process of composing music. I mean that word, “no,” quite literally. There’s not a single book that I know of that really deals with the process. The books that purport to be about composition are really [...]

Tampa’s Phap Vien Minh Dang Quang and the Jade Buddha

March 10, 2010
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Every week/weekend in Tampa Bay has a lot of activities, but this weekend has more than most that fit my tastes. One you don’t want to miss is the enormous Jade Buddha for Universal Peace at the Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Town and Country (that area of Tampa on the west end of Hillsborough Avenue). [...]

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Vietnamese New Years at St. Petersburg’s Phat Phap Buddhist Temple

February 16, 2010
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  Two of the most popular posts at Inkwatu over the few years of its existence are Wat Mongkolratanaram — Palm River Thai Temple and Songkran at Tampa’s Wat Mongkolratanaram and memories of Thailand. Wat Mongkolratanaram is a Thai Buddhist temple, but there are many other Buddhist traditions represented in the Tampa Bay area, many [...]

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Sanatana Dharma (the eternal law)

November 4, 2009
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Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp, Florida Taken on September 9, 2009 Most images link to larger images. click on larger image for closeup

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Guan Yin

May 9, 2009

GUAN YIN To set the mood for this post, click the play button below for a 30 second sample of a luscious, contemporary setting of a traditional Guan Yin mantra. (There is nothing to download–this is streaming audio.) If you would like the short sample to repeat, click on the little icon that shows a [...]

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Songkran at Tampa’s Wat Mongkolratanaram and memories of Thailand

April 18, 2009
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slideshow 1: BANGKOK’S GRAND PALACE, WAT PHRA KAEW, THE VIMANMEK TEAK HOUSE, AND THE JIM THOMPSON HOUSE   Last weekend Wat Mongkolratanaram in Palm River (Tampa) held its Songkran festival. Because of that, there have been a number of recent comments on the Inkwatu post, Wat Mongkolratanaram — Palm River Thai Temple, including one with [...]

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In Our Nature

March 7, 2009
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click here for larger image MINIATURE BOUQUET Once, while visiting San Francisco, a friend who was also there visiting, picked me up to go out to dinner. He was very excited and handed me a self-help book. He’d bought a copy for himself and a copy for me as a gift. This was not a [...]

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Low Tide

December 31, 2008
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seashell exposed by the low tide After all the holidays there’s an emotional let-down. The money is a little tighter due to special expenses. There’s physical and mental exhaustion. We are depleted in almost every way. We are experiencing “low tide.” The human mind seem hard-wired to notice patterns, to have creative interpretations of the [...]

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Vesak

June 3, 2008

Buddhism in America In Hawaii, although government offices are not closed, Buddha’s Birthday is a state holiday celebrated on April 8th. I wish this were true for the remaining states in the union; it would ultimately bring a greater recognition of the plural nature of our country and, perhaps, even encourage some to look at [...]

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Wat Mongkolratanaram — Palm River Thai Temple

April 6, 2008
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temple front If you take the 50th Street exit off the crosstown expressway, go south across the Palm River, turn left at the first light, and then, soon after the railroad tracks, turn left into the big parking lot, you will be transported to a different mindset, a completely different approach to life and being: [...]

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Thai-rific

March 31, 2008
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Thai-rific has grown from a tiny shop offering only tropical plants and a few Thai gifts to a full-service florist and gift shop covering several buildings and greenhouses. They now offer non-tropical as well as tropical floral selections in arrangements created by their highly experienced designers. They still fill individual requests such as my lei [...]

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