back and forth conversations and collaborations through the years
wonder | wander | women are paper people. We love notebooks, watercolour pads, stickers, and all sorts of stationery (we even know how to spell it properly). And like so many stationery lovers, we especially love to stick pieces of paper to other pieces of paper.
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| Journal spread inspired by Joseph Cornell |
As we posted last week, birthday retreats are an annual treat wonder | wander | women prioritize. More so this year - to mark a new decade in a rich long life of promise.
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| cosmic meditation |
This retreat was a three-day weekend intensive spent in forested mountain mists and wild stormy weather. Ideal to have the outside environment reflect the interior work we had committed to - Healing Ancestral Trauma and Family Dynamics.
Every July 12 wonder | wonder | women's Bhakti goes on a retreat for her birthday, to reflect and replenish for the coming year. This year is a big deal because she celebrates her 70th!
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| Matching Marimekko for London summers |
From the time of our country’s founding 250 years ago, the story of America has been one of the constant effort of Americans - from all races, ethnicities, genders, and abilities - to make real the belief that we are all created equal and have a right to have a say in our democracy.
We will be telling their stories over the next several weeks because now, as ever, “We Are America.” ~ Heather Cox Richardson
On this 250th anniversary of the birth of a nation, we wrestle with the complexity of America and how we feel about it. It is a timely reminder of the good stuff while not sugarcoating or shying away from the hard stuff.
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| 4th of July, Edgewater NJ |
We are reclaiming American democracy and taking strength from it to combat those who would destroy it in our era. The Trump administration is really complicating a lot of people's relationship with patriotism and America at the moment.
What happens when wonder | wander | women put together the perfect sketchbook kit for travelling... and then leave it behind?
There we were in Paris, the jewel of the continent, beauty in every direction, and we were empty of sketchbook, watercolours, pens or pencils.
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| sunset at Pont Alexandre III |
A lasting benefit our Benedictine education (ora et labora) brought wonder | wander | women were penmanship classes. Before that we watched our parents writing longhand - admiring their beautiful handwriting and eagerly awaiting our turn to put thought to paper so beautifully.
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| "Bayan Ko" chorus in baybayin by Mahala Urra |
Long before studies showed the importance of hand writing and how among other things it engages the whole human being - we were encouraged to write legibly and well.
Being creative ignited our love for cursive early on. Eventually this art form spread into other calligraphic options. Including writing in our own regional native alphabet, badlit - the Visayan version of the better known baybayin, Philippine script of Luzon islands.
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| wonder | wander | women creative collaboration |
wonder | wander | women are lucky to have been to some of the world's iconic cities: Rome, New York, London, Paris. These are cities we have seen in art and media, read about it in books, and otherwise have heard about our whole life.
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| The Eiffel Tower over the Seine |
Another month has come and gone in this year, 2026 - what and where has it brought us so far?
Challenged as we are to look past all the noise and drama that has been parked right up our face - wonder | wander | women are opting for the long view, beyond the currents of chaos and strife. Towards the BIG picture - to where we can find succor, support and sustenance.
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| nature & wildlife images, National Geographic |
wonder | wander | women don't often speak of going on a pilgrimage. Many of our family have been on the Camino di Santiago, and in 2001 we celebrated the Maha Kumbh Mela with our community in India. A trip to a museum doesn't seem comparable at first, but in the days of modern travel more people embark on a cultural pilgrimage, to see Charles Dickens' house or Karl Marx's grave or the Museé du Louvre.
Last week, we joined the world to celebrate International Museum Day under the theme Museums Uniting a Divided World.
We proudly posted our hometown island's museum with a majestic artwork of a three-ton carabao at its entrance. The water buffalo is the national mammal of the Philippines. The shockingly sad reality today is the carabao is slowly disappearing from our country's agricultural landscape.
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| BAO: the unbowed carabao at The Negros Museum |
A new exhibition at the Philippine National Museum of Natural History located in a niche at the landing on the fifth level is a family of carabaos from Nueva Ecija that was especially prepared by the museum’s taxidermists and scientists.
On 18 May 2026, museums worldwide will mark International Museum Day under the theme “Museums Uniting a Divided World”. The theme highlights the potential of museums to act as bridges across cultural, social, and geopolitical divides, fostering dialogue, understanding, inclusion and peace within and between communities worldwide.
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| popular museums around the world |
Every year on May 18th, International Museum Day provides an opportunity for museum professionals to alert the general public about the importance of museums and the challenges they face.
wonder | wander | women celebrate Mother's Day twice a year: first in the UK for Mothering Sunday in March, and then in the US and Philippines for the more familiar Mothers' Day. And like many people around the world, we celebrate with flowers.
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| Rose in watercolour |
wander | wander | women recently explored the concept of blue mind - the neuroscience of water associated peace that creates a sense of general happiness and satisfaction with life in the moment.
In contrast to red mind - which neuroscientist Catherine Franssen, PhD, describes as "an edgy high characterized by stress, anxiety, fear, and maybe even a little of anger and despair" - blue mind induces a mildly meditative state characterized by calm, peace, unity.
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| our island paradise |
For wonder | wander | women's adventures in Switzerland last year, we were invited to stay with friends who live in one of the most fascinating medieval towns in the world. Bern is a UNESCO World Heritage site, founded in 1191 on a peninsula formed by the meandering Aare River.
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| View of Bern from the Rose Garden |
April is here - bringing with it sunshine and warmth, fun and play outdoors, spring and allergies, upheavals and challenges.
“The figure of the fool walked off the margins of medieval manuscripts into the unholy courts of the Renaissance, then returned to the page as Hamlet’s Yorick. Later, in the age of reason and democracy, the parodist of royal dignity became a mirror of the universal condition: Dostoevsky’s ‘holy fool’ and Picasso’s grubby clowns; Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.” ~ Dominic Green, The Wall Street Journal
lousy world leaders - Firuz Kutal cartoon
Tough times call for more care and compassion.
This season has really been a rollercoaster! wonder | wander | women are dressing in layers and making sure that the cotton shirts and the fleece pants are available, because we never know how the weather will change from one day to the next.
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| Postman's Park by the Postal Museum |
Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday is the last week of Lent. An opportune time to retreat from regular bustling busy business. Taking a few days of quiet and reflection for ourselves.
Starting on Palm Sunday, wonder | wander | women gathered together to visit and pray with our parents who had passed away last year.
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| Palm Sunday sunset |
We arrived in time to catch the sun setting past the distant row of palms that bordered the property. Spending some time with siblings to offer prayers and chat around their urns. Filling them in on some updates we chose to share together.
Home to a thriving new crop of artists, Magnet Gallery is an immersive experience in the local art, entertainment and environment of Dumangas.
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| Magnet Gallery, Library & Cafe' - Dumangas, Iloilo |
Located on Salas Street, Municipality of Dumangas, Province of Iloilo, in the Philippines — it is a home grown collaborative where art, nature, and wellbeing are actively supported and sustained in advocacy and community.
The world that wonder | wander | women live in has been growing dark. There are times when a bone-deep weariness threatens to consume us, taking up all thought and energy. A thousand griefs come from all over the world, overwhelming us with our own close and personal grief.
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| View of St Paul and the Shard in London |
On a recent lakwatcha adventure to Iloilo wonder | wander | women spent our days exploring art studios, galleries and museums. Viewing the displays and exhibits fed our thirst for wonder and filled is with insight and inspiration - enough to tide us over until another visit.
We were missing this sorely the past year - collections of art purposely displayed to enhance its beauty so it spills over to us - its viewers and appreciative audience.
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| March 2026 line up at IloMOCA |
Crammed into only a few days spared, all the visual overload and creative overstimulation overcame us in a fevered frenzy. Images flying by our flickering lids left us gasping and breathless. Filling our senses to overflowing - our proverbial cups running over in generous waves of delight and awe.
After months of darkness and rain, wonder | wander | women were relieved to finally see the sun out for a whole day! We've had weeks of false alarms and hints of spring, little signs that warmer days were coming.
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| Gardenias blooming early |
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| they have carabaos here too |
wonder | wander | women's word for the year so far is "deluge". Between grey or freezing weather, natural disasters, and the man-made disasters of our collective governments, the year has barely started and it already feels like we're being swept away.
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| Kalachuchi (Frangipani) in ballpoint and watercolour |
For the Triple Goddess - Maiden, Mother, Crone - alive in every cycle of becoming.
A celebration of returning light, Imbolc is a Gaelic festival that marks the beginning of spring. Also called Candlemas (Christian), New Year (Tibetan, Chinese, Iroquois), Tu Bi-Shevat (Jewish).
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| maiden, mother, crone painting by Beryl Noyce |
wonder | wander | women are oceans apart once again, but for the first time in years we were able to spend the holiday season together. This year was intensely emotional for both of us. We were so happy to be able to see out 2025 and greet 2026 together.
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| Twinning for Christmas! |
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| the human circadian rhythm ("biological clock") |
This past holiday season has been the first time in over a decade that wonder | wander | women have spent together, back in our island home in the Philippines.
Unfortunately, it was not a happy case of time flies when you're having fun. But more of an overload of challenging circumstances - both personal and global.
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| holiday wreath |
