Living from the EartHeart

LIVING FROM THE EARTHEART

Thank you for visiting. This site holds space for insights about living from the Earth's Heart.We are mirrors of each other. Whatever brought you here and whatever brought my words to you is part of a sharing of presence; an affirmation that we both exist in embodying our own journeys side by side.. an affirmation that we are One.

The EartHeart Journey is a sharing of my experiences from earth, heart, and art. My reflections have evolved on so many levels since I started journal writing when I was 11. What used to be a blog for my art projects and some public musings is now becoming a portal for sharing about consciousness, creativity, sustainability… of light, life, and love. Everything here is part of a sacred journey to oneness within and everywhere. However you resonate, may it reveal to you you inspiration, intuition, or insight for your own life journey.


Note: My new blogs can be found on my Portfolio Site.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Exhale and Equanimity


Exploring breath has been so thematic in my life lately that it was such sacred timing to be asked to record a song about breath as life written by Leah Tolentino and arranged by Yeyette San Luis for GINHAWA's  upcoming CD about healing the self and the earth. I am so grateful to both of them for entrusting one of their beautiful co-created songs.

At the heart of every inhale and exhale, the heart of mediation is the awareness of breath.

This has been my saving grace, my light saber, my sword of light for the last few months. From panic attacks to a break down at the airport after missing my flight, to so many sleepless nights, I couldn't have survived this far without the practice of conscious breathing.

exploring studio recording! 


Exhale.

I'm supposed to be on the 5th day of my 10-day Vipassana meditation course today. I have postponed this opportunity for 3 years, putting my work for peace in Mindanao first. Recently, because of major transitions, the need to detach and be in full battle gear with my inner work, I informed all my work commitments and let go of job offers to make time for this particular inner journey.

Its not something new. I have been on an inner journey for the longest time. I've been burning through spiritual intimacy ever since I can remember.

I can still clearly see myself reading through an entire entry on God on the World Book Encyclopedia when I was 9 from my Lola's library on top of her glass dining table. I could still feel my heartbeat after waking up in the middle of the night alone in my apartment as a university student, with the strangest ache after being touched by some mysterious force. I can still remember the crunch and softness of the grass and soil as I danced on the lawn in front of the office after downloading all the energies absorbed during the rally for peace last Friday.

I have been exploring meditation since I was 18 and tried Raj, Zen, and mantra styles. But as I grew older, it didn't really matter what approach you take, it all boils down to a breath, a sit, and an open mind and heart.

Last night, I had a dream about selling my book The Tenth Insight by James Redfield. When I woke up, I remembered that I bought this book way back in 2000 after reading the Celestine Prophecy with the intention of reading it. I was 17 then and I remember experimenting with energy with my two hands and actually saw smoke. It brought me back to a visit to China as a teenager and seeing a Chinese healer stomp through the ground with a scream with his hands with smoke coming out of it. Now 11 years after, I am prompted to read the sequel for the first time which is about the evolution of humanity. Talk about sacred timing as a write an article for the Pacifica Journal about Van James' recent retreat workshop on the evolution of human consciousness through art.

I can remember my first meditation. Thinking about it now, maybe it was the book that inspired me to explore it. I was just by myself and I researched how to meditate online and printed the steps to guide me. I woke up at the wee hour of the morning, made some tea, and made my first sit in the garden.

Fast forward to 11 years after, on the day of registration and arrival at Sico farm for Vipassana, I sat in the garden, made deep breaths, and typed in my gratitude and regrets that I could not go.

I could not go yet I was equanimous - the word and virtue that mindfulness teaches, that every meditator should learn and embody.. With barely a month to prepare, I knew clearly I had lots to do for the Mindanao Week of Peace and my own art actions for the World Day of Action and Prayer for Children.

But one of the the constants in all Hero/Heroine' Journey, is when you question the What If's. If I was on a strict spiritual path, any worldly matter is a form of attachment. Was I attached to my identity as an artist for peace? I asked myself. "Who am I without this war, without the need for peace in the world?"

Discovering the answer continues to be an ongoing process.

I was just at an All Out Peace Rally for Mindanao yesterday and was very much inspired to design creative ways for a major rally/walk towards the end of the month along with some community art actions. I was in the middle of the street, in the middle of Muslims and Christians engaging in an interfaith action to make the call for peaceful actions to recent clashes in Mindanao, and most of all to to prevent another war. I was right there, in the middle of action, the heat of the sun, and the uncertainty whether the peace talks will finally find accord or not. In all the noise, and the swimming in a sea of energies, one really needs to be rooted and centered.



I climbed up the walkpath to see a bird's eye view of the whole event, and felt a sense of peace. With an exhale, I sent my gratitude to that deep connection with everything that helped us weave one collective breath of hope...


***

The truth is, part of my need to take the 10-day retreat is to be able to reveal to the people I love all that has happened to me since childhood and where it has led me and how it has led me to my present soul work, send the heartbreaking email, and then escape out to a farm to meditate. Maybe all this is telling me is to really face myself and them, and not run away.  


This reflection continues.







Thursday, October 20, 2011

Anima-gic (and words that can't define the appropriate title of this post)

an ojo de dios in the making by one of my young students during a children's rights and life skills mandala making workshop with children from a conflict affected area last june
I am coming around letting go of a lot of nostalgia and the intensity of inner work as my Vipassana meditation course comes up. Through all these, I am so grateful for a lot of guidance that have been given . This morning, I had a dream of being with a group of dancing women. When I saw a little girl in the group, I felt motivated to join and dance in the middle. The leader then went into trance and drew the full moon and the stars on my forehead.

I wish to honor the special parts of my journey that affirm our deep connection to the sacred and the magic that happens when we are aligned by sharing this post.

Three Saturdays ago, I spent an afternoon with my little friend Genesis from across the street. I engaged her in making an ojo de dios (the eye of God), a yarn mandala craft work from Mexico. It was her last day to live across my house as her family had to move to another place. It was a very symbolic experience rooted from something that moved me to co-create it with her - a special ritual between a 7 year old and a 29 year old at the Diwata Garden.

Came home to a walking ankh on Spring Equinox. On the right  is Genesis drawing  these beautiful symbols on her own on the day I witnessed a miracle and a donor confirmed donating to 3/4 of my funding needs for my Masters in Switzerland.
Genesis, drew me a walking Ankh symbol last Spring Equinox. I have just come home from an origami lotus flower workshop with an interfaith community to express solidarity with Japan and led a ritual of releasing them to the ocean. Did she know about Egyptian mythology and the the timeline of the sun? I don't know. But she and two other girls in my street would dance under the moon and draw spirals outside the gate always in sync with a special time - and a special need.

I have been reflecting about the special power of women and sisterhood lately. It started out last month dreaming about waking up with my sister beside my bed many times. I miss my sister and it wasn't until I came across the movie Practical Magic again after 13 years, that I realized it was also a message about sister-ing my other self and the magical power and roles women have embodied through many lifetimes.

I don't even remember how I came across the movie again. But the story of two "witch" sisters brought me back to many levels of my self. On the surface level, it transported me back to my dream of growing an herb garden and making stuff from natural elements, my own Amas Veritas from a deep dream connection the same year the film came out, and my curiosity about Wicca when I was a teenager.

Myth and stories carry so much power and memory that they awaken so many things in the psyche and soul. So this is not an ordinary movie despite it being a hollywood blockbuster. The impeccable timing of it coming to my laptop screen was an oracle, perhaps of the same magic when Genesis would leave important symbols outside my house.

So many scenes in the movie tapped me into the depth of the sacred feminine which I realized I have been journeying with ever since I made a conscious decision to transition from painful relationships.

The two sisters made me see my two selves and the alchemic process that involves my awareness of the existence of these dualities - the  wild, reckless one and the wise, knowing one. Same blood, yet unique opposites. Seeing these two clearly has been very helpful in my shadow work.


There was a scene in the movie wherein the a coven of 12 women gathered to break the spell and a man's spirit from possessing one of the characters. It made me deeply appreciate the gift given to me by 3 special women who walked with me recently and whom I feel were the allies in life when important tests take place based on Joseph Campbell's hero /heroine's journey.

It made me appreciate the  deep connection I have with these 3 sisters with whom I shared so uncannily- a beautiful healing journey. The similarities, synchronicties, and life lessons were just too familiar that it was such a gift to see my life through their own experiences.   


Since last summer, during a spiritual emptying to fundraise for my Masters, I  have been sharing life stories with my friend Nex who is deeply empowered with her life-work passion in conscious theater  and conscious shifting to align with manifesting dreams. It was this time too that I chanced across the stellar lines with soul sister Erin, a Filipina who grew up in Australia and is an artist practicing ethnobotany and traditional healing arts. Around the same time, I found myself outside a coffee shop at 4 am dream-working the entire evening and dawn away with Juanita, who used to teach at an international school and is planning to promote green living and oneness in school systems.



Autumn Equinox Rainbow at the Pier

Last Autumn Equinox, I brought  Juanita to the pier to ferry off her car filled with all her stuff to live in a conscious earth village in Palawan. Sending her off was an important trail marker for me with a beautiful auspicious rainbow sign from the sky that glimmered across the port.

The strong sacred feminine guidance I tapped into that afternoon inspired me to do a spirit song and a flower ritual with the Echo Yoga community for the equinox meditation. On the same weekend, I led a mandala ritual space making for EarthDance with my friends Janet, Joemar, and Bong. The design was inspired by the seed, egg, flower,and tree of life.

Back at the Alps last July, I made a nest mandala for an evening performance the same day I made a phone call to a wonderful healer who studied under the Native American shamanic traditions and schedule a trip to meet her in Basel. During the equinox weekend last month, I was inspired to re-create this nest with seeded "sunflower eggs" made out of compost and clay molded by children inspired by Fukuoka's natural farming seed ball method (popularly called "seed bombs" by DIY urban gardeners).





On the morning of the event, the ritual leader, Arlene, a native of the Mountain Province saw a vision of an eagle laying and protecting her eggs. Interesting to note that the day before that young Philippine eagles were released into the wild. I believe the depth of the Babaylan indigenous mind and heart revealed an oracle for the mandala to be made that day.

The installation we made from narra and mahogany seedlings turned out to be rooted into the earth's heartbeat too as Nobel Prize awardee and eco-peace advocate Wangari Maathai died that same day. Beautiful things helped shape the event from start to finish up to the release of spirit lanterns to the sky just in time before the rain started to pour. 

Since I started participating in a growing movement to revive the spirit of the Babaylan tradition (1) through the Babaylan Lecture-Ritual Series, my creative process has been in active co-creation with the sacred feminine. There is something I can't name here but in its natural feminine nature, I feel a lot of nurturing guidance.


Recently, I joined a forum featuring key negotiators in the Northern Ireland and South Sudan peace processes which are inspirations to the peace agenda of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front here in the Philippines. It was meaningful to know that they were successful in finding a pact and accord after many years of talks and conflict. I waited until the last opportunity to ask my question whether they took advantage of creative and cultural lines in social engagement for peacebuilding - a question that I felt awkward about after hearing all the legislative and constitution related ones that were thrown at the speakers the entire afternoon. But at the end of the day, the awkwardness didn't matter, because on my way home I remembered my dream the night before, I was asking the same question all over again: "What is the feminine way of peacebuilding that needs to be revived?"

This continues to be my question not just to universe, but to myself. It's not about being a woman this time, but about approaching transformation from the inner, the intangible, and the unseen spirit that all men and women are capable of.

It took me awhile to decide whether I should share these stories or not for sacred stories are usually kept as secrets. Yet part of me feel that we should all normalize miracles and divinations. It is just who we really, truly are when we are always connected with the sacred and truth. Maybe its usually the women who are tapped into these things, I don't know. (Sometimes I wish for once, a man would dream of me. Sometimes, I want to have a good dream without all the secrets like tapping into a lover's affair or a new relationship).

Yes, I still long to co-create with the masculine energy and to bring oneness and union with God through an embodied personal and global journey with other beings and the earth. But for now, maybe its just to run with the wolves alone in the forest.

My friend Yorlene shared that women around the world are tapping into deeper dreams together lately as the earth shifting takes place. Maybe its a retreat into the wild, the hibernation, or winter time as Persephone descends into the underworld - a preparation for rebirthing helping shape the oneness movement through the healing of memory and divides as they remind the people of the prophecies of the shifting times to come.

Perhaps this is a necessary step to union and oneness.

I need to sister this 7 year old in me that never experienced childhood, the 15 year old that had a blood compact with a twin soul in a dream, this young woman bordering youth and adulthood at the cusp of her 3rd decade, learning to get to know and love herself fully.

On the morning of the Japan tsunami, I remembered a dream of myself asking the elders if I am ready to teach a young woman to swim out in the sea... I was doubting if I was capable of teaching and guiding...and in the dream, people were warning me of the danger of sharks which was something unexpected to that place (you know the rest of the story on what happened on March 12.). Looking back, now I know that little girl was also myself.

I believe we can all tap into guidance if we only listen deeply and open up our questions and be open for the universe's messages. Am I now ready to teach this little girl to swim?

An answer came through this video the other day of an Aleut elder who shared about the sacred feminine.
As he was speaking the words of the elder he consulted about trusting the universe, a spider jumped on a spiral drawing I made on my vision board.

And with those beautiful words and oracles, I believe the answer, according to the universe, was to trust and have faith.




(1) Babaylan as defined by the Center for Babaylan Studies:

Philippine indigenous communities recognize a woman (or man) as a Babaylan, someone who has the ability to mediate with the spirit world, has her own spirit guides, and is given gifts of healing, foretelling, and insight. She may also have knowledge of healing therapies such as hilot, arbularyo. She is a ritualist, a chanter, diviner. She has the gift of traveling to the spirit world or non-ordinary states of reality in order to mediate with the spirits. Babaylans are called by other names in the other languages of Philippine indigenous communities: Mombaki, Dawac, Balyan or Balian, Katalonan, Ma-Aram, Mangngallag, Mumbaki, Mambunong. 

*** This post is also dedicated to my beautiful friends Lia, Sigh, and Grace who have always been there for me in my journey.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Practice

In the early morning hour,
just before dawn, lover and beloved wake
and take a drink of water.
She asks, “Do you love me or yourself more?
Really, tell the absolute truth.”
He says, “There's nothing left of me.
I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight.”
This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!
The ruby and the sunrise are one.
Be courageous and discipline yourself.
Completely become hearing and ear,
and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.
Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.

The Sunrise Ruby by Rumi

Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997),
100-101.


The last 6 lines of this poem was read today by Van James, a facilitating artist (and author of Spirit and Art and the Secret Language of Form) on the first day of an art retreat I am participating in until Wednesday at a biodynamic farm north of Manila.

I'm inspired to share this because out of the other powerful ones he shared while we were drawing today, this one stood out as an affirmation from the universe about my current step to commit to my inner work for inner peace. 

Lately has been a lot of releasing, old patterns and relationships from which valuable life lessons are now starting to permeate my soul DNA. There's a lot to say about what has been happening lately, lots of learning about being fully present to every breath, tear (the salty one and the torn), love, and respect to loved ones to let them be and who what they want so they can also fulfill their soul's intention... to learn that love, lover, and beloved are one (the ruby and the sunrise)...

And the submission to daily practice is a reminder... again and again.
So from now on, I am dedicating my energies to my yoga, meditation, and mandala work.  

I look back at my lack of seriousness in my practice of yoga for 7 years and exploration of meditation for 9. Today, the whole day was dedicated to the Mandala from the cosmological, mythological, historical, and spiritual science perspectives. This time, I am a mandala student not a mandala facilitator. Its such a poignant experience because I realized, I have not been to myself and doing art for my self for quite some time already. I have forgotten that what started me in doing mandalas 3 years ago was for a self-healing process.

Wow...3,7,and 9 years... important numbers... maybe reaching to this point are important trail markers that are leading me to this renewal of ritual and of commitment to my self.


Being here at a farm on an art retreat is giving me the space for inner work and inner  peace. It also helps me emotionally prepare for wo other meditation courses (IAM and Vipassana) that are upcoming towards the end of this month. I have been letting go of temp job offers to go through these and leaping with faith that resources will come... as with all paths, one can only see and experience the unfolding and becoming one PEACE at a time...