Mandalas and the Magic of Co-Creation

 

This is a beautiful image of co-creation. 

It is a beautiful symbol of healing and loving - for oneself and the other 

and the magic that flows through

 Two Mandalas. Two Beings. East and West

that form a Mandorla in the middle that unites as One.

(May 2010)

I have so many year end reflections to share most especially from this international peace camp I am at right now. But I don't want to end this beautiful year without sharing this co-creative experience with my beautiful artist colleague, friend, and love Russell. I just spent a beautiful Christmas with him and feel so inspired to share this.

You see,  I am still on a journey as a wounded healer and artist. After ending a life changing experience with a traumatic relationship last year, I thought to myself, maybe I should really be a monk this year and not see anyone. I have never intended to open myself up with somebody again. 

But some glitch in the fabric of time placed a unique gem as a gift across my path. This Jedi was thrown off course from his journey to this island where I have been trying to live peacefully on my own and lo he happens to be an admirably beautiful person bringing the world to oneness, someone working with mandalas just like I do, and someone learning the process of loving oneself and loving another like I do too.

We met mandalically through the 1Mandala Project when I responded to his open invitation to the world to co-create. It was uncanny to meet him personally while he was on vacation here with his previous lover as he has never planned to come all this way from Europe while on his cycling journey. Personally meeting him during a mandala workshop and a dance with a big interfaith community here was a nice way of crossing paths.Who knew what would happen then?

Since I was going through healing and he was still with a lover then when I met him 8 months ago, I didn't want to involve myself. But we all know we can only open up to love no matter the resistance for this is part of our nature. We are born out of love and we journey through this earth rediscovering this most beautiful word.

Yes too, perhaps as an artist, I have a natural curiosity to experience everything.  Given the serendipitous synchronicity that we share, we consciously started out as friends. We listened deeply to each other's wounds, to our healing process, to our dreams and fears. Oh my God, our dreams and fears! Opening up to him was really really scary. For the past few months, we cultivated a deep friendship that is conscious of our coping patterns - how we dealt with ourselves, with our relationships with others, and how we dealt with each other.I realized men have a lot of emotional struggles too. They are vulnerable just like women.

Sagada! (June 2010)

And then there were the cultural differences to go through - language, culture, even ways of being. (this is a long story! so maybe I can talk about this sometime in the future :-))

And yes, going back to my own healing process. Having real and honest communication with him was so important. I value that so much. I learned about being able to speak up too about my fears and needs. He says he is healing from this process too. And we give each other space when needed. We listen deeply. These are important. We are learning to respect each other's journey and to be happy to walk alone or together.

Most importantly, as a seeker on a spiritual path, I am conscious of cultivating my spirit as I grow and learn from this special affinity. I mean, I can totally choose to live in peace alone if I decide to do that. But again, we all evolve through our interaction with the people we are most intimate  with.

I am learning about how my own attunement to myself helps me in co-creating with another, especially if it involves more of my heart and my soul. . 

I believe though, healing or already healed, enlightening or enlightened - we all don't get to attune all the time. I believe that this process of aligning within requires mindful and conscious being and becoming. Many times I catch myself unconsciously interacting with my wounds and fears and I end up not communicating well and act out of attachment or fear of losing the other. And when I catch myself, I remind myself to honor this; that it is ok, and I flow until I reach a point of equanimity. It is ok to be vulnerable and afraid to love for this opens us up to the life changing experience of transformation. This opens us up to evolution. But important here is to be wise and aware when I know when it is not safe, when I know I am repeating a pattern, when I know I will not grow from it.

I then consciously pick up from the state of disconnect and connect back to the moment of being with myself. Being fully present with myself - my body, my emotions, my spirit. Having someone support that and hold your hand as you go through it is healing. In the end, we cannot heal alone. This process eventually opens me up to the joyous experience of co-creating, to the beautiful experience of now.

There's so much to say. I am learning too what I want in someone to walk with. There's really no certainty what happens next. It could be a continuous walk, it could be a parting of ways. This is a uniquely beautiful journey of the unknown. I am learning. This is life! This is the journey!

For now, just for now, I am just grateful for our beautiful co-creative artistic energies together. It has sure been a crazy beautiful year with my Oneness Jedi.

Love is a gift.

We are all love, lover, beloved.

*** Russ and I have worked on mandalas together with others these past few months.We have an upcoming project working on a Oneness Social Action for the 1Mandala project. We will be facilitating a mandala making activity and movie with teachers and students of the Guinaang Elementary School in the Mountain Province. This is supported by a globally orchestrated library development and enrichment for the school. Check it out through this link - www.1mandala.org/1Actions

In Between, My Love

In between the fluttering
the sound
of pigeon wings and wind
I awake you from slumber
blinking
sunshine and shadow
playing white lighted
window and sheets

As the wind feathers your feet
it speaks gently,
"You are held"

In between your dreaming mind
and the softness of your bed
You say goodbye for now
to your sailboat at sea.

You tuck yourself under the stars
where I am ready to give you
a bridge to your beloved
(where I am present)
in all of your worlds.

As the sun lifts the curtain
Your eyes open to understand
"This is love"


I am not a poet really but sometimes words speak in my head waiting to be written and shared. This poem is inspired by waking up one morning realizing the beautiful experience of having pigeons fluttering on my window everyday and how its nice waking up to the idea of having the Beloved hold  me. That's a beautiful mandala flower drawing with the sun by one of my students last summer :-)

chalk mandala!

Months ago my little friends from the neighborhood gave me on two instances, spiral surprises outside my gate with my name on it and it truly warmed my heart as I was also going through sadness at that time.

Inspired by their work, i co-created a beautiful mandala with them last september using chalk pastels (which are excellent medium by the way) but the rain poured down just as I was about to take a photo! it was truly a beautiful colorful flower mandala.


since then every time i go out of the gate, the kids would ask me when we're ever going to work on another one. and months passed by as i have been very busy.


but today, i promised i'd make one with them in the afternoon. so they waited and waited all day peeping through my gate asking for my attention as I was doing my morning pages, then my lunch in the garden. 
Until finally I told them I'm about to go out....


they surprised me with rose petals that they showered all over me!  

and with colored and white chalk, we worked our way to create a fantastic mandala with stars and hearts :-)

and we had a caterpillar that snuck in my pants and a rooster visit us as we were working :-)
check out more photos on my picasa photo album

:-) 

do we make art or does art make us?

visual journaling 2005

 

Mastering a skill is a journey and a beautiful process of learning. And wow it is full of surprises too.

Last Saturday, I was invited to facilitate an art workshop with Children International with very little time to prepare a module as I was also cramming for a peace campaign with a series of public events with only two eyes, two hands, one brain, and a 3 year old laptop about to fall apart. And well, the organizer and I also only had a chance to get in touch the day before the workshop.


The night before, I was still totally unprepared, half knowing and trusting I would eventually know as we go along. I only knew that these were young adults 12 to 18 years old who are the best artists from their class and that I was supposed to help them enhance their artistic skills in preparation for an art competition.

But...
How do you teach art to those who already know how to do art?



But then again, who knows exactly how one does art anyway?


Do we make art or does art make us?

My recent experience revealed this primal streak about art making..

So at first I thought, I should prepare a slide show of paintings by local and international master artists to give them an idea of the many ways we can express and perceive reality through visual art.


Then I hesitated.

It would be so wrong to give them a fixed idea of what "art" is. . I should know because I was brought up learning art this way - that if you can copy reality, you are a master artist. I should know because I worked at a museum for 3 years and co-designed studio art workshops (drawing, painting, etc.) with artist facilitators. I should know after heading an art organization of the university art gallery, that if you can be audacious and avante garde, or that if you can pretend something is not obvious but really obvious, then it is what is considered art.

Of course, these are all art.I am always trying to be conscious of not hating western art and museums. The long history of how art has evolved from its place in the daily lives of people into a museum has its own beauty and creativity to honor.But I guess this is not the way I see art now; or rather now how art is just supposed to be. I would rather think that we also need to remember and validate the need of experiencing art and creativity from the inner depths of our consciousness and our immediate understanding of being in the world around us.


Maybe it was the school system, maybe popular culture, maybe it was the museums, maybe the unaware parents who sent children to art workshops to tide them over during vacation, maybe it is a growing culture of enchantment with too much lights, skin, and glamour up on the billboards on the streets. I don't know.



These young people were good. They knew how to represent nature well through symbols, characters, designs, etc. It seemed they did not need me.

For a moment while introducing myself, I suddenly remembered when I was 16. As the class artist, I was asked by my classmates to join an on the spot drawing competition. Right in the middle of the event, I stopped and decided not to pursue the competition for two main reasons. First I felt embarrassed because I saw that all the others were drawing the usual styles of student competitions - from abstract to realistic, to representation, etc.and it made me feel I should make the same kind of pieces. I actually felt that my style which I was still learning to discover might not fit with what the themed competition wanted. Second, I just didn't feel right about doing art to compete and to create impromptu art on a time limit. Hmmmm...in hindsight now, I realized I just made an impromptu art piece by not doing art. Haha.



What does a teacher teach if not his/her own life experience? 

I have learned a lot about how I was taught and saw it as an important intention to facilitate art the way I wanted to experience and learn art and my creative potential.


Because I am on an integral path in my life work, I make sure I emphasize the head, heart, and hands in module writing.  I engaged them through a discussion in understanding how we embody our visions and imagination by feeling them and actually make them, mold them, write them, draw them, sing them, and dance them.


Then we needed to get back to basics by exploring how we define things for this shapes how we create. What is art? What is creativity? We rooted back to creativity rooting back to the word creation which roots back to the word creator. And because there is a higher creator that created all including ourselves, we consider ourselves as co-creators.

a co-created mandala in mediation with children of bantayan island (April 2010)

Because it was environmentally themed, I wanted to reconnect them to the idea of art as creation and art found in all of nature - most especially within us. I asked them why indigenous peoples do not have a word for art or the environment.

I got a shocking answer: "Because they did not learn from the school."

As urbanites in a really poor community (a very far place off the main city) they have not probably glimpsed or experienced endless mountain ranges in the horizon nor a velvet night sky heavily beaded with stars. One girl eventually pointed out that it was because the indigenous peoples never felt separate from the environment that they had no word for it. I was just so happy she knew. I only learned this profound realization as a 23 year old! I told them even in art making, the original cultures created art for everyday life. I emphasized that true artists have deep connection with everything and never see things as separate from oneself, the artmaking process, and the artwork itself. 

quick, rough sketching of the ivory saints collection of Ayala Museum

What is an art workshop without art exercises?


I made sure we addressed the abovementioned fundamentals of being an artist before we ran through the basic elements of art to check if they were familiar with these. Since it was an art workshop to enhance skills in visual art, I ran through several drawing techniques such as the viewfinder grid style, developing perspectives, etc.


And then when I let that all go, all the magic came about.


It brought me shivers and great insight and gratitude that I was being guided as I connected the lessons together with life.After each 5-15 minute exercise, I did a feelings check and an exploration on what important life lessons these exercises revealed. We had very interesting insights from each activity.

• Non-dominant hand drawing play: 
• Unlearning is important in expanding ones mind and fertilizing imagination 
• That there are no rules in art making. The more we play, the more we create beautifully
• It is important to feel and express feelings in art making.. The artwork must invoke feelings too.
• As we play we realize there are many ways of seeing reality and this helps in creative problem solving.

• Using the Tonal Value scale (they told me they have not used this in school before)
• That there are many levels to things and not everything is black and white.

• Drawing one's hand from the right side of the brain using the non-dominant hand without looking but tracing the outline of the hand with the eye
• Art making requires self discipline 
• The artwork is also the process of art making itself 
• One of the students said that the artwork was ugly which led me to ask them how do they define beauty? There were several answers from which we realized that there are different contexts and perspectives in measuring beauty. One answer that struck me was how something that holds meaning to oneself is beautiful 
• Practicing this exercise everyday will help them master drawing naturally without thinking. 

• Exploring negative space drawing (This realization brought me shivers)
• That the true artist can make the invisible visible 
• Everything is connected - like energy fields among the spaces between things.
• The true artist is connected with his/her spirit.

• Symbol making through a mandala
• An artist uses symbols to represent meaning and reality 
• A symbol is powerful for it not only expresses meaning but invokes feelings and memory
• A mandala shows the connection of the self with others and the world around us just as an artists reconnects us to these levels of existence.

In closing the activity, I shared with them important insights based on spiritual art practices. I shared that visual journaling to document memories and intentions visually aids affirmations as it already manifests a big percentage of a a wish or intention. Being an artist is powerful.


We closed with a breathing prayer with reflections on gratitude and the intention of being genuine artists. A true artist grounds and connects with the spirit. The more we can master and be aware of our breath, the clearer we see and the more vivid we can communicate with our art.


Indeed it was a truly beautiful morning allowing myself to surrender to all these guidance. I mean, it wasn't a burning bush or automatic hand drawing but all these insights and exercises just synchronized itself organically as the exercises took place - the words I spoke, the insights revealed by the students just magically wove together.

As I continue to learn and allow, more and more I deepen my belief in the beautiful guidance that takes place only if we allow ourselves to empty and to surrender to the sacred process of how things manifest. If our intention is pure, then we channel clearly. This is an ongoing journey. I am learning with these young people. I am grateful to bear witness to this, how the universe is displaying its grand power in front of my eyes, or rather through us all. I am grateful.

trusting the invisible weave

This blog is dedicated to 

the ongoing journey of 

becoming a genuine channel on 

the artistic path.

a labyrinth for inner peace for interfaith grassroots leaders in mindanao

These past few days involved a lot of contemplating about the next phase of my life-work. After having my job for a peace ngo placed on hold because of a grant delay, I had lots of free time (despite being broke) to well, think and think and think. I was in a way able to plot out my intention for the backpacking art project.

Oh make that plural--- INTENTIONS!
as all these art ideas are so embedded within so many levels of my life!

Deep breath!

I just finished an interfaith youth camp with young Muslim, Christian, and Indigenous leaders from all over the Philippines. The 3 day facilitator's training workshop was conducted by Binhi ng Kapayapaan Inc. (Seeds of Peace). I had such a wonderful time as an observer, documenter, and a participant as I also learn about their modules in preparation for their international youth camp in December where I was invited to facilitate some art activities in some rituals and reflections.


An oracle or a divination of angel messages along with Christian, Buddhist, Sufi, and Indigenous songs and dances that were part of the activities just really connected me deeply to the the intentions of my upcoming project. The in between breaks sing alongs with the young people, the artmaking processes during the workshops and the deep conversations about peace with the young leaders just truly inspired me to pursue this further.


The truth is, I am writing this as I figure out where I'm going to get my money for rent and my bills this month since there is no certainty if the project that got on hold will push through. I have a short term job that doesn't pay much but it is so meaningful. I get to help design a campaign and run activities for the public for the Mindanao Week of Peace. The Mindanao Week of Peace is an annual event that recognizes and reminds people about the conflict in Mindanao where Christians, Muslims, and Lumads (indigenous) have been trying to live in peace together for many decades despite land and political conflicts and the need for self determination. I am also preparing to head an interactive online magazine that will feature peace stories about Mindanao.I have a bit of hope since a funder is interested but this might take a lot of time to process. But all these are still in the air.

I'm writing this because I want to put out this intention to the world. I want to work for peace and the environment but I really really really want to do my art. I am again feeling this love - hate relationship with my work especially because I'm afraid again that it cannot involve my creative process.

Let me be clear on this first. I love interfaith dialogue. I have been doing this for 3 years now and still am passionate about it. I love doing communication for development.and helping causes communicate their most important messages through campaigns and promotional materials for the past 5 years. I love working on environmental education and advocating renewable energy, organic farming, biodiversity conservation, etc. Heck I have been doing coastal clean ups since I was 16 and sailing with Greenpeace when I was 23 just turned my life around!

I love art too. I am passionately in love with it. I love the way it bridges people with that invisible weave even if we are of different histories, culture, races, languages, religion, and worldviews. I love that it heals from within, how it empowers, unites, affirms, and reconnects us to the sacred, to the source of all things. I have been doing art since like forever. 
 
So who wins? No one wins for this is not a competition. I want to do art for my own personal transformation and for causes I believe in. I have been experimenting this for 7 years now - doing volunteer work as an art teacher, facilitator, collaborator and it has given me a window to the depth and wisdom of becoming a culture bearer, a sacred artist, and a healer.


So let me talk about this upcoming journey that took 2 years to plan. It took awhile for me to express this in words as I have been growing tired of words and thinking for the past 9 months doing lots major project management work for peace.Sometimes I'm afraid that I might be developing dyslexia and ADD because of the lack of creative, right brain process. I can be a total technocrat when it comes to development work if required but it can only last for long if it is imbalanced without my art.


The intention is that for the next few months, I would be learning the indigenous wisdom and art from my own country/ethnicity side by side with a new mandala painting and drawing series inspired by different traditions. 

Having been brought up with so much western art training, I used to look down on traditional art on how it is monotonous with repetition, its bland use of colors, and its seemingly restrained way of expression. My only relevant interest before was more academic in nature. I appreciated my Visual Anthropology and documentary film making class so much that I applied for a minor degree in Cultural Heritage which I didn't eventually complete with a thesis because of the heavy workload prior to graduation. The only cultural experience I truly appreciated as a university student was the night long epic chanting of elders from indigenous tribes that I was required to attend for a class.

But now all this has changed. After leaving work doing art education at a prestigious museum, my journey brought me to work on environmental education. This has then led me to learn about how the indigenous cultures have no word for environment or art for these are embedded to their way of life. And now with interfaith dialogue work, my cosmology is now becoming part of a big weave intertwined in one fabric wrapped around the history and destiny of humankind.

I have been learning how the word kapwa, or shared self/oneness, according to musical anthropologist Felipe de Leon, is integral to our psychology wherein we have this psychic unity with everything - animals, plants, the earth, the rest of humanity and how this is at the core of our inner self  (ubod ng kalooban). He says, that the deeper meaning of kapwa is shared divinity.

The emphasis of the creative process, the participatory engagement of others beyond the self are qualities of many sacred and indigenous art forms. With kapwa comes the continuity of consciousness that permeates beyond the physical that manifests in many of our art and cultural forms. You can experience it in the pitching melismatic slides called hagod in our everyday language and songs; with the drone of drums and instruments in many of the rituals that elevate the brainwaves to the theta level. The dreamweavers like the T'boli of Mindanao entrust their unique design to their dreams. To many of the indigenous art forms of the world, art is a medium to connect to the divine.


As I was learning this, I felt that if I wanted to deepen my artistic process I need to dig deeper to connect to this higher realm of creativity and art.


The Artistic Journey

For the next few months, I am intending to deepen my understanding of the Baybayin, the ancient script, to study pottery and weaving up in the Cordilleras, to learn soil painting with the Talaandigs of the south, learn the okir design of the Muslim Maranaos, the banig weave of the Visayas, or whichever the gods and spirits allow the elders to teach my heart and hands.

a collaborative mandala installation with interfaith youth from mindanao, south east asia and the pacific

Afterwards, I embark on a backpacking journey around Asia  hoping to stay with and work with grassroots interfaith communities of the United Religions Initiative and some friends I have worked with under the UNEP Eco Peace Leadership program who are working for environmental protection and conservation.

Because I have always been inspired by sacred circles - the mandala, labyrinth, Islamic geometric patterns, dreamcatchers, etc, the intention is to learn and share from local artists and wisdom holders about their sacred art forms including their mythologies, cosmology, and faith values in developing a module for interfaith dialogue, ecological healing, and perhaps maybe help develop a social enterprise initiative.

Along the way, I'd also like to continue my training and apply my knowledge and practice with transformative arts and work on arts relief with children who are affected by poverty, conflict, and environmental disasters as an Artist on Call with Buildabridge International. I feel this can be a project I can do with the 1Mandala, a global art project that inspires people around the world to co-create mandala builds and installations out of submitted portraits of oneness. As core team member, I am currently helping develop its social arm through arts relief and other means of support.


Perhaps to have more impact, I can share some of my skills in project management, social media, campaign work, and ICT for peace if needed by the communities so we can bridge their work to the rest of the world.

Another dream is to live in conscious communities who are doing sustainable farming and permaculture so I can learn how to nourish myself and the earth with a conscious lifestyle and share this learning to others I meet along the way.

Oh, so many dreams right? I feel the time of the earth is shifting and my role in it is still emerging as I take one moment at a time to manifest my unfolding through my dreams. I know and have faith this will be a beautiful journey of rediscovering myself, my capacities, as I discover new places, experience the earth through the people, beliefs, art, and the vast expanse of natural wonders I will encounter. I am grateful that I have the chance to live this life and this journey. I hope I can be worthy of these gifts that I am given and be able to share them to others. I am trusting this invisible weave that connects my spirit to the source, to all of us, to the earth, to the consciousness and spirits of all that exists visible or non visible. I intend this now as I learn to surrender with great faith to the Creator, the universe, to the spirits that can help this intention  manifest.

Bathalanawa!

hold me

for the angel that held me and showed me the lines on the palm of my hands in a dream as he whispered a secret language

There is a poem that holds me

under vast sky
lacing through knowing branches
and a web of leaves
that strings my body
on the space around me
and beneath the flower bed.

Hold me.
Strum the ghazal of your wings.

Hold me!
in a dance in all directions.

Stretch me under the river
and grow me the heart of a seed.

Bloom this young woman’s yearning
in the evenings of my past.

Hold me
with that secret voice unveiling
what threads the invisible weave
that binds me to you.

Hold me now.
and the earth’s circle
becomes an embrace.

rooting: learning the ancient script baybayin

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to have a discussion and exercise on the Filipino ancient script Baybayin from my friends Reimon Cosare and Mini Gavino. Both artists are promoting indigenous Filipino wisdom through music workshops and activities using the baybayin script.

 
Baybayin is the ancient script of Filipinos prior to Spanish colonization. Baybay literally means "to spell" but it also means to search, follow, or to walk through the shoreline. Its origins are debatable but theories vary from the Brahmic scripts of India to Chinese and some South East Asian calligraphy. It is used phonetically to characterize words.


I have come across the Baybayin before but did not get the chance to fully immerse in its meaning and value. Now i want to embed it in my life as a Filipina, as an artist, and even as a seeker on a spiritual path - because for me, these are never separate from each other. I want to start my sacred arts journey where my umbilical cord is connected.

Growing up with western education, culture, and upbringing has disconnected me from my rich cultural history and identity. Even with a degree in Social Sciences and a pending thesis for a minor degree in Cultural Heritage from a local university, I still  feel so alienated with the depth of indigenous wisdom our culture bearers continue to pass on.

 
I was born in the island of Cebu, an island in the heart of the country in the Visayas region where the word Babaylan (shamans and healers who were mostly female) came from. My ancestors were among the first to fight against the Spaniards through the leadership of Lapu Lapu who killed the explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the battle of Mactan. My personal ancestry can be traced back to Chinese, Spanish, and Malay ancestors who probably have a mix of Indian and other south east asian races. What a melting pot! All Filipinos have this unique multi-cultural identity but reflecting on this deeply I realized all of us in the world have mixed races. Our races have evolved and intermixed beautifully through time.

A journey starts somewhere. Of course I have been walking this earth for God knows how long but this particular special inner and outer journey through my artistic path now (as a 28 year old Filipina given a Christian name Sarah, born in this lifetime and age of the earth 2010) starts with my understanding of babaylan wisdom and using the baybayin script.

The name of God - Bathala when written in Baybayin reveals the unity of man and woman - Ba (Babae/ woman) - Ha  (Hangin/ wind or air) - La (Lalake/ man).

Learning about this deepened my appreciation of my ancestors' creation story of how man (malakas/ strong) and woman (maganda/ beautiful) came from the same bamboo that was cracked open by a mythical bird that brought the heavens and the seas together to form the earth.

That day of learning unlocked something really deep within me because on my way home after yoga class, I sang a spirit song out loud while walking through the park with the trees and the moon and I felt a strong presence of something or someone else singing with me or through me and it sure sounded like a shamanic rythm. Until now I do not remember the melody. I am just grateful to have reconnected again to the the deeper layers of who I am now for it helps in understanding the journey back, forward, higher, outside, and within.

My sacred arts journey has now officially started. Bathalanawa!

Source
Baybayin script chart

an artist's prayer

AN ARTISTS PRAYER

O Great Creator,
We are gathered together in your name
That we may be of greater service to you
And to our fellows.
We offer ourselves to you as instruments.
We open ourselves to your creativity in our lives.
We surrender to you our old ideas.
We welcome your new and more expansive ideas.
We trust that you will lead us.
We trust that it is safe to follow you.
We know you created us and that creativity
Is your nature and our own.
We ask you to unfold our lives
According to your plan, not our low self-worth.
Help us to believe that it is not too late
And that we are not too small or too flawed
To be healed
By you and through each other and made whole.
Help us to love one another,
To nurture each others unfolding,
To encourage each others growth,
And understand each others fears.
Help us to know that we are not alone,
That we are loved and lovable.
Help us to create as an act of worship to you.

*Cameron, Julia, The Artists Way, New York: Putnams Sons, 1992
* Painting: Gaia by Dana Andersen 

Two books for the road ahead

Today, I had an intense question about my upcoming art project backpacking journey that started as a dream in 2008. A handful of foreign bills and coins (even pre Euros era) in an old box saved up since I was a child saved from my own travels and from my father's easter egg hunt surprises just showed up in my life again today. It eventually served as a strange premonition for something that manifested 15 minutes right after. A crazy glitch in the fabric of time!

My sister, a vagabond travel writer who has gone around Europe and South East Asia left me two books before she left for an escape to Beijing last month that I feel I need to start reading soon:

1. A Journey of One's Own (Second Edition): Uncommon Advice for the Independent Woman Traveler


This book is actually a gift from me to her for Christmas last year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

I wish I had her sense of adventure. What's keeping me? Lots of plans and ideas - so many kites up in the air.

A dream that has been brewing for 2 years is now about to spill over.  Perhaps to jump off a waterfall, flow downstream through the river or perhaps just evaporate completely to be transformed into another kind of journey.


But first, what is a journey? I continue to reflect on this question.

spirit song sampler

Inspired by the liberating experience of performing in public last night during my creativity sharing for GINHAWA's fundraiser, I am moved to share my creative spirit further as I post this spirit song out to the world :-)


>>>click here to listen to my spirit songs

For the longest time I have always wanted to sing for the spirit through songs from the psalms, praises, gospels, devotional music, ghazals, mantras, bhajans, and kirtans. I have realized that one of my forms of prayer is singing. Every morning, as much as I can I start my morning ritual with either meditation, yoga, tai chi, journaling, or dancing. But there are days when I just feel compelled to just let my voice be a channel of gratitude and light.

One day, I discovered spirit singing after a week of depression. I was taking a shower and felt the healing power of water running through my body. I was moved by my spirit to just sing and flow. Facing the sun, I connected myself to the voices of my ancestors who sang to the great spirits of the mountains and the sky and to the voices of all other elders and spirit singers from different cultures (from celtic, to hindu, to sufi, to african, and others) and time who have deeply empowered me to claim this role too.

Even with my classical voice training and chorale membership through the years, I still feel I am in a new territory with this medium. I wanted to learn the melismatic voices of my elders but this requires going deeper to my roots and their permission through rituals. Insha'Allah maybe someday I can learn.

For this song, I felt that a mix of my classical training and a natural melismatic melody just moved me from within as energy from the source organically just flowed .... and it came with a beautiful vision.

Here's an old reflection on spirit singing inspired by the writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

I have been reflecting peacefully, and from time to time - restlessly about my spirit’s longing to sing. There are no words really that are fitting to describe how i feel about this reflection. I would have to, well, sing it. I have been lying on my bed in the dark earlier listening to the rain, strumming the guitar and just humming whatever sound comes out of my weary yet eager body. I was about to merge into a state of depression again so I had to catch myself and process myself with this post.

When I was young, my grandmother would bring me to church everyday. Sitting on the pews during a mass and singing with the choir almost always moves me in tears even as a grown up.

As I reflect now, I realized that my spiritual experiences are always rich with the beauty of sound weaving through prayers from different faiths, indigenous chants, mantras, bhajans, ghazal poetry, chorale music,the sound of a flute, the rhythm of drums, the heart of saints through an erhu or a violin, piano solos during dark existential moments, and beautiful songs by my favorite artists who sing with their spirits.

I have never been so conscious about this before. Sound is such an integral part of my spirit’s journey of awakening to my true self. I have been so wrapped up in my visual art and expression that I have almost forgotten how important this is to me.

With this reminder I realize that the first level to realizing my spirit song is the awareness of my breath and voice. In this rain with the beautiful Native American flute and drum music playing on my radio, I am guided to listen more inside.

And outside.

With this practice, I try to consciously listen and appreciate the motherly love from indigenous lullabies wafting through a CD, laugh with the giggles of children playing outside, pause to pray with the old man’s song about the spirit every morning through the bathroom wall, remember the heartbeat of a lover, acknowledge the calm my deep breath brings to my tired body, and meditate on the power of silence.

I learned this the hard way.

When I was 16, I ran away from a prestigious glee club audition just right before my turn to sing! I had the lowest self esteem even if I was a soprano. This pattern of fear has also allowed me to let someone blackmail me about my love for singing and crush my confidence. Whenever people are around, I try not to make my voice loud and sometimes I just settle for a hum of a tune even if I really wanted to sing. It’s funny that I can only sing with freedom after meditating alone in my room, when I’m taking a shower, or when I wash the dishes late at night when everyone is asleep.

I am still learning.

Through our spirits we source the breath of life. We breathe through our body and we create vibrations. Through our vibrations we manifest everything. Sufi musician Hazrat Inayat Khan talks about the natural law of vibrations and how they are affected by its source and medium.

“The reach of vibrations is according to the fineness of the plane of their starting-point. To speak more plainly, the word uttered by the lips can only reach the ears of the hearer; but the thought proceeding from the mind reaches far, shooting from mind to mind. The vibrations of mind are much stronger than those of words. The earnest feelings of one heart can pierce the heart of another; they speak in the silence, spreading out into the sphere, so that the very atmosphere of a person’s presence proclaims his thoughts and emotions. The vibrations of the soul are the most powerful and far-reaching, they run like an electric current from soul to soul.”

- The Mysticism of Sound 

The voice according to Hazrat Inayat Khan is the highest form of sound as it is natural, coming from the soul directly from breath.The spirit of my songs will always reflect how I see myself and my understanding of my soul. This I need to work on as I rediscover the true source that moves through me.

I am always moved by the sacred sound and energy of prayers, even the different names we call God in different traditions. The great insight here is that no language, culture, time, and even space can capture a sound. It can only be experienced and allowed to flow through. Only when the spirit and the body are clear and connected can the life force of the universe manifest through breath, vibration, voice, and sound.

As I deepen on this journey, I am learning that spirit singing cannot be forced. It only releases the highest notes beyond the lung and the throat towards a head tone once there is no fear or need to control. It only manifests with the purest intentions. It only moves you when the message and the instrument are connected to the sacred. Like the melismatic and angelic voices of indigenous elders, sufi singers, sopranos and tenors, it only flows note by note and never independent of each other. Even a staccato has a vibration in between, if you listen closely.

If I listen closely,

spirit singing

is when

the spirit,

the singer,

and the song

are always one.

***For Lola, for all the beautiful spirit songs I learned by heart because of you.

creativity sharing at GINHAWA

 

I don't exhibit or perform for the public except for important causes like this one. I would like to invite you to support my work and other artists to fundraise for GINHAWA (Growth in Wholeness and Wellness Associates)  and its creative healing and transpersonal therapies with people going through life transitions. Part of the proceeds go to my community art projects. 

Tickets at P250 with  yummy vegetarian dinner, performances, and exhibits. Meet like minded artists and healers too!

Come earlier in the day for our garage sale where I sell pre-loved clothes, bags, shoes, and my hard to let go but I have to books :-)

Hope to see you on Saturday 26 September, 2010 at GINHAWA 100 K-6 St. East Kamias, Quezon City, Philippines. Garage Sale starts at 10 am while performances and exhibits start at 5:30 pm.

random act of art making

Over morning coffees with the Oneness Jedi Russell last week in the mountains, we play with this beautiful spirit, a 4 - year old named Bana.

As a child, and even as a grown up, I loved drawing on everything - on walls, on my skin! While eating oranges and making up stories with Bana where I play a mango (yes I play a fruit in her story) and she a farmer, I thought, what would Bana like to do with me? What would I do if I were a child? Hmmm...

,






Playfully and patiently, Bana gets her beautiful tattoos...

I remember I had a snapshot vision of Bana's face last April while on an island before I even met her.Such a sweet spirit she is.

So voila! There's nothing so beautiful and affirming like rainbows and butterflies!


Artmaking is so beautiful!


(photo credits: russell maier)

Self Reflection on a Stretched Canvas

I have been staring at the fresh, white, primed, and stretched canvas sitting on my easel at the foot of my bed for the past few days. The last time I (tried to) paint was last year. It has been a challenge to paint after someone you cared for slashes through your painting with a knife. It is even harder to paint your face if you are still emerging from a body disorder that made you think you were ugly for the past 15 years. Many of you do not know this about me. But it is alright to talk about this now. I am healing.

I can paint other things, but my spirit is set on painting myself now. Perhaps there's this affirming conscious vanity that artists undertake in making a self-portrait. Perhaps there this healing transformation that takes place as one affirms one's existence by making a mark on the canvas.

I have doodled on self portraits in my journal and I've played around with photoshop with my picture before but I've never done a painting of myself.


(playing around with a picture of a beautiful nebula with Photoshop (2004))

(a doodled self portrait on my journal in 2005)

(playing around with the web cam one inspired morning playing with the sun behind me :-) with neil young and the buddha in the background (2007))

Now is the time for it. The universe is calling.

Doing a self-portrait is not easy. You go through lots of sh*t like self hate, self doubt, and just pure, in the core melancholy.

But there's this beautiful part of self-reflection in painting your portrait. I start affirming the beauty in myself, the dreams I am made up of, and the future self that I wish to project and manifest through my painting. Just like many motivational seminars and books say, a vision board with images of the future that you want will help manifest your dreams and aspirations.

In my journey through art, visioning is a very powerful way of healing and alchemy. There is this bridge I create with my art between my inner and outer self; my fears and my loves; my weaknesses and my strengths; my spirit and my body; my true self and my acquired self; my past, present, and my future; my realities and my dreams; ...
and the list goes on....

dreams, doodles, drawings: a visual journaling sampler

I have been journaling since I was 11 and started doing visual journaling 8-10 years ago. This is a private collection of drawings, doodles, dreams, therapy work up to 2009. Visual journaling is a very transformative experience :-)

(2010 images to follow).

Art is Life! A collection of my co-created art projects from 2004 - 2010

A collection of sacred arts, transformative arts, community based arts workshops with artist friends, community members, and children

Sprit Singing

I have been reflecting peacefully, and from time to time - restlessly about my spirit's longing to sing. There are no words really that are fitting to describe how i feel about this reflection. I would have to, well, sing it. I have been lying on my bed in the dark earlier listening to the rain, strumming the guitar and just humming whatever sound comes out of my weary yet eager body. I was about to merge into a state of depression again so I had to catch myself and process myself with this post.


When I was young, my grandmother would bring me to church everyday. Sitting on the pews during a mass and singing with the choir almost always moves me in tears even as a grown up.
As I reflect now, I realized that my spiritual experiences are always rich with the beauty of sound weaving through prayers from different faiths, indigenous chants, mantras, bhajans, ghazal poetry, chorale music,the sound of a flute, the rhythm of drums, the heart of saints through an erhu or a violin, piano solos during dark existential moments, and beautiful songs by my favorite artists who sing with their spirits.

I have never been so conscious about this before. Sound is such an integral part of my spirit's journey of awakening to my true self. I have been so wrapped up in my visual art and expression that I have almost forgotten how important this is to me.

With this reminder I realize that the first level to realizing my spirit song is the awareness of my breath and voice. In this rain with the beautiful Native American flute and drum music playing on my radio, I am guided to listen more inside.
And outside.

With this practice, I try to consciously listen and appreciate the motherly love from indigenous lullabies wafting through a CD, laugh with the giggles of children playing outside, pause to pray with the old man's song about the spirit every morning through the bathroom wall, remember the heartbeat of a lover, acknowledge the calm my deep breath brings to my tired body, and meditate on the power of silence.

I learned this the hard way.

When I was 16, I ran away from a prestigious glee club audition just right before my turn to sing! I had the lowest self esteem even if I was a soprano. This pattern of fear has also allowed me to let someone blackmail me about my love for singing and crush my confidence. Whenever people are around, I try not to make my voice loud and sometimes I just settle for a hum of a tune even if I really wanted to sing. It's funny that I can only sing with freedom after meditating alone in my room, when I'm taking a shower, or when I wash the dishes late at night when everyone is asleep.
I am still learning.

Through our spirits we source the breath of life. We breathe through our body and we create vibrations. Through our vibrations we manifest everything. Sufi musician Hazrat Inayat Khan talks about the natural law of vibrations and how they are affected by its source and medium.

"The reach of vibrations is according to the fineness of the plane of their starting-point. To speak more plainly, the word uttered by the lips can only reach the ears of the hearer; but the thought proceeding from the mind reaches far, shooting from mind to mind. The vibrations of mind are much stronger than those of words. The earnest feelings of one heart can pierce the heart of another; they speak in the silence, spreading out into the sphere, so that the very atmosphere of a person’s presence proclaims his thoughts and emotions. The vibrations of the soul are the most powerful and far-reaching, they run like an electric current from soul to soul."
- The Mysticism of Sound 

The voice according to Hazrat Inayat Khan is the highest form of sound as it is natural, coming from the soul directly from breath.The spirit of my songs will always reflect how I see myself and my understanding of my soul. This I need to work on as I rediscover the true source that moves through me.

I am always moved by the sacred sound and energy of prayers, even the different names we call God in different traditions. The great insight here is that no language, culture, time, and even space can capture a sound. It can only be experienced and allowed to flow through. Only when the spirit and the body are clear and connected can the life force of the universe manifest through breath, vibration, voice, and sound.

As I deepen on this journey, I am learning that spirit singing cannot be forced. It only releases the highest notes beyond the lung and the throat towards a head tone once there is no fear or need to control. It only manifests with the purest intentions. It only moves you when the message and the instrument are connected to the sacred. Like the melismatic and angelic voices of indigenous elders, sufi singers, sopranos and tenors, it only flows note by note and never independent of each other. Even a staccato has a vibration in between, if you listen closely.

If I listen closely,
spirit singing
is when
the spirit,
the singer,
and the song
are always one.


***For Lola, for all the beautiful spirit songs I learned by heart because of you.

Inner Space in Cyber Space

I am writing this after catching a feather that floated inside my room. 
I see this as an auspicious go signal.

Yesterday, after conducting an expressive arts and mandala workshop, I gave my first formal talk about visual journaling to a group of nuns in formation. For the first time, I shared my journal drawings and writings to people I did not know.

The truth is, I miss writing in my notebook. 

After recording for about 17 years, I stopped writing regularly two years ago. A painful life experience in fear and co-dependence led me to close my lips, my imagination, and my heart to my inner world. I could not move my hands to write properly. Disoriented like a dervish with no center, I was afraid to manifest and to speak out.

I am now breaking my silence and slowly writing again.

I am encouraging myself to express my life in words despite growing tired of reading and writing through the years, secretly wanting to converse telepathically or in the simplest of words and actions. Although most of my inner thoughts and wonders will still be in my journal, it would be beautiful to share light and be light as I converse with the universe this way.

It rained yesterday after months of intense heat. I smelled the salt of the sea intensely and in double decibels, I heard the drops of water from the broken garden faucet gravitating towards the bucket just as the sky was about to let go.

It poured for more than an hour and it blessed the parched lands and weary souls of Manila. 

It blessed me.

I am now undulating in this ocean of possibility as I dedicate this online journal to my journey of recovering my artistic path. Let's walk together.

Blog Invocation

"Wonder into wonder existence opens." (Lao Tzu)  

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change" (Buddha)

"Art is a step in the Known toward the unknown." (Kahlil Gibran)

(painting by Kahlil Gibran)