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Open publication - Free publishing - More 2011

last night I was a young woman

Yesterday's full moon got me thinking a lot about being a young woman on a grand life journey.


I spent the day with four generations of women - my friend Bean and her baby Tala, her mom, and her grandmother at their home. Her grandmother was on her last while on morphine with machines wired into her system. During lunch I heard about the pain of child birthing through Bean's experience and the love story of her grandmother during the war and how love letters were sent across from her dashing grandfather who was a soldier. Just like my grandparents, her grammies were soldier and teacher. My lolo was a Captain and my lola a public school teacher. Listening to their common story of  courtship in the classroom halls and raising a family during the war got me reflecting.
 
In the old days love was so simple.


Last night, I was a young woman under the full moon longing for my beloved.

For the longest time I associated with Rumi, Hafiz, and the saints I grew up reading about who pined for God as Beloved. When I hear devotional music, it always makes me cry maybe because apart from being a cry baby, there is that deep longing artists have to be one with something greater. Maybe its the drama of the separation from God that has been the story of humanity. My teacher has pointed this out to me about my character. He said that if I soon realize I am no longer separate from God and that God is within me, I will no longer be longing for God or for love.

But I am young and 28.

I am in love with an explorer. I am still on a journey of Being Love and to finally meet God within me. I get scared of losing myself everyday. Maybe because I am still young. Maybe naive. Maybe lost on the spiritual path, drunk. Maybe because I'm an artist full of passion. Maybe I'm not grounded enough. Maybe maybe maybe.

Maybe it was the full moon and the idea of love letters and memoirs.

Last week I met a Danish girl who read her great great grandmother's journal as a young woman in her travels and she shared about an experience when she met men and avoided them..The next day, I read a friend's blog about writing her grandmother's love story and autobiography. The other day, I blogged about the ancestral sacred feminine in the Babaylan. The entire week was like a scene from Pocahontas where she asks Grandmother Willow for guidance. Yep that's me - Pocahontas. I had a dream once about having a Native American spirit guide among other signs that connect me with affinity with them.

Last night, I was a young woman reminiscing how she met a beautiful white young man exactly one year ago. It was a beautiful ceremony with interfaith songs and dances, mandalas, and children. We grew in deep friendship first then grew into conscious love, stumbling in between with clumsy feet of conscious patterns, and sometimes, madness (like last night).


Last night, I was a young woman who sang lullabies, love songs, and spirit songs to a 3 month old baby and a dying grandmother. It was a beautiful profound experience. It helped me reflect on the important roles of widwives who usher in life to earth and those who usher the dying to the after life. The singing helped increase her oxygen levels and probably helped ease her pain as I sang more spiritual songs with my friend Nota. My last song for her was called Homeward Bound, a song I wanted to sing for my Lola during her funeral. I knew she was ready to go. I whispered my goodbyes and thanked her for the beautiful life she lived, and for her story of love that brought about beautiful generations.

She passed away later on...
last night.

Last night, I was a young woman wondering what I will tell my granddaughter someday.  Will she like my love story right now? Will she love my adventures or rather, misadventures? Will I be able to continue telling my story?

an alchemic step towards the gods

Boy what a blog title. 

I thought of that because my thematic experience as an artist lately has been of alchemy.

Since January, I have been contemplating on a design for the logo of the poster for the Babaylan lecture ritual series that will take place within the year.

It was an honor to be asked to draw this for the Babaylan is a very important figure in my racial heritage. Mini Gavino, the organizer of the lecture ritual series said she asked me to do this because I was of Visayan heritage and because I was an artist too. (Mini, thank you for believing in me)

From the Buhay BABAYLAN Lecture-Ritual Series Facebook announcment, I qoute, "the Babaylan is a Visayan term which refers to an archetypal Filipino community leader (other Filipino archetypes include the datu and panday) who functions as the community’s religious leader and ritual expert, healer, culture-bearer as well as one having extensive theoretical and practical knowledge of nature and people. Historically, while the babaylan is often a woman, the role and functions of the babaylan are open to both males and females.*

In short, the babaylan is a powerful bridge between the human and the divine, heaven and earth. 

How can I, trained mostly in western fine art forms and media conceptualize and design something based on ancient tradition and wisdom? How can I do that with lots of my left brain capacities still spinning machineries in my head to continue to work for my bread and butter, juggling 3 non-profit projects to survive as an artist and not get enough time to be one? Working on the computer for many hours has disrupted my capacity to move my thought to pencil, from pencil to brush, from brush to canvas/paper.

But finally I was able to design it. It was a co-creative effort that took almost three months with the guidance and artistic direction of Mini Gavino, Leah Tolentino, and Leo Castro, 3 indigenous wisdom bearers who were patient enough with my organic process of developing this design.

But what a roller coaster ride that was.

I literally went through depression. I had to be constantly conscious with my creative power as a woman, and as a Filipina, and my nurturing and grounding nature.

Becoming an artist requires one to empty to evolve and in this process opens so many dams of insecurities, heartache, anger, and the survival instinct to build up the walls to keep the waters from rushing in again. I went through feeling unworthy of doing art because I still have ego and pride. I went through challenges with my white partner as my historical racial dna acted out of resistance and defense from the his own colonizing racial dna given our extreme polarities and cross-cultural differences. I went through blaming the need for survival through employment so I can do art. I started doubting if I was clear enough as a channel to manifest visions and messages coming from a higher source, for these I believe are the important intentions of becoming an artist. At least that's what I believe artists should be.

Or what I should be.

Drawing this design opened a very huge universal gateway which I am truly grateful for. And I am in deep respect for the organic artistic process it unfolded for me.

I need to respect that a creative life is in constant creation and all things are perfect as they are if seen from the heart of the source.I pressure myself to perfection so much that I forget that each moment is perfect on its own in its own with its own evolutionary potential ready to unfold in its experiential becoming.

I need to remember that I am being guided no matter what. Everything I do is not entirely my own doing and there are higher forces at work. 

Last week, I was feeling very low on losing energy about work to survive so I can do art. At my lowest point, I saw a video by cultural anthropologist Elizabeth Lindsey who is on a journey around the world to map the human story. 

 

After watching this I took a long walk and remembered my dream the night before of a Filipina woman of her age and grace who entered  my room and refilled a bottle i had of perfume with purple water. She then drew some images on her right hand with her left with a rainbow colored pen with the next lines coming out of the present line without her pen moving. Can you picture that?

She quoted Joseph Campbell and this helped me bring my chakras in alignment, stand up and continue to walk and dream. Campbell said, " When you walk one step closer to the Gods, the Gods will walk 10 steps closer towards you." That quote was powerful when I heard it first before she mentioned it ...but it had more depth when I heard it again. Last March, on Campbell's birthday, his book Creative Mythologies fell from my shelf right on top of my Marie Louise Von Franz' Creation myths book  (which fell on its own a day or two before). So I started reading these books again responding to the invisible forces at work. In her book, Von Franz affirmed that creative processes are often accompanied by anxiety, depression, loneliness, and the fear of the unknown. She also said that creation-myths motifs appear in the subconscious particularly in dreams in people on the verge of a leap forward in conscisousness.

There has always been a strong calling for me to tap into the creative process - the stories of creation from around the world, choosing to live a creative life, facilitating creative processes for others, and to create and manifest a vision for my future. Making this babaylan mandala planted a very potent seed for this calling. This symbolizes the first story of my people, the story told by elders, and the breadth and wisdom of their message that continues on.  

It is in a honor to share this mandala of the babaylan's breast plate.I have always been wondering what kind of mandalas I have from my own tradition and only lately discovered that Babaylans usually use circular breast plates that symbolize the sun worn on the chest. Around it, you will also see her archetypes as ritualist, healer, and culture bearer symbolized by the incense, balete tree, and the mutya shell. On the outer circle are representing weaves of the 3 regions of the Philippines (Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao). 

The first Babaylan Lecture Ritual Series takes place on April 30 at Bahay Nakpil Bautista featuring Professor Fe Mangahas as speaker and Leah Tolentino as Ritual Leader. For more details, visit this facebook event page link - http://www.facebook.com/nomad.walker#!/event.php?eid=194343763934108.

Now that the poster is done, I am now preparing a song for the event. I wonder what alchemic process this will bring. Now that the seed has been planted, I believe it is now just a matter of cultivating the growth and blossoming of my creative life. Bathalanawa!

Let's Inspire Japan

Had a wonderful invitation from Ideals Creatives to share beautiful work about transformative arts, working with rituals, and healing, and to feature a recent co-created work for Japan.

16 April 2011
at Nomnomnom at Tomas Morato Quezon City
Ticket rates to fllow*

Hope to see you!

Lotus Flower Prayers for Japan

On spring equinox, the Tala youth and elders, Russ, and I transformed their prayers for Japan into lotus flower origamis to symbolize their solidarity by inspiring them with the lotus as symbol of transcendence amidst the challenges. We offered these to the same river that flooded and displaced the community in 2009 during Typhoon Ondoy. See previous post here


Here's a beautiful video of the artmaking process:

Last Sunday, we made more lotus flowers using prayers from around the world sent in through the 1Mandala project. and the World Peace Prayer Society to be part of a ritual space to open the interfaith prayers in solidarity with the Japanese people at the Japanese Embassy.

View more photos here: 

The next day we brought them to the Japan Embassy and laid them out for people to place on the ritual space with interfaith symbols. It was also a chance for me to share a beautiful song by Sensei Masahisa Goi entitled Prayer for Peace together with my friend Nota Magno.

  

Interfaith prayers led by the Peacemakers' Circle Foundation

Jaffari offers the lotus flower to the embassy representative

photos by De La Salle College of St,. Benilde

View more photos here

Here's the lyrics of the poem by Masahisa Goi that I sang with my friend Nota:

May Peace Prevail on Earth

To be with God

Loving Everything and Loving Everyone

And we feel joy in the moment

May peace prevail on Earth.

Sekaiheiwa Inoru w Kamino

Mikokoro no Hibiki ni Areba

Inoru Inoru Tanoshisa

One Water, One Earth

I write this during the Spring Equinox as I reflect on how nature is speaking through my interactions with it lately. Sometimes I feel there is something pulsating through my veins and my feet that is coming from the earth and sky and they want to speak and say something.


As the peace art ritual took place last February 8 to inaugurate the peace talks and children were speaking intentions for light and healing for peace, I touched the earth to connect to the energy of the ritual and felt it breathe and move. At first I thought I was just dreaming but I felt it. I felt the heartbeat of the earth... so I made sure I connected to the land that has been fought for for decades between armed rebel groups and the military, the land that absorbed all bloodshed from centuries old colonization and the displacements and human rights violations in contemporary times.

Last March 12, I did the same with 70 interfaith youth as we closed our mandala making workshop and connected them to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan just the day before. Again, I felt the earth breathe - even if our hands were connected to cement.I asked them to touch the same earth that moved the tectonic plates and caused the waves to crash through Japan. It was a beautiful solemn ritual.

Last Saturday, I was illustrating the balete tree for a lecture ritual series poster at the University of the Philippines campus. The Balete is a sacred tree to the indigenous traditions here where diwatas (or fairies/goddesses) reside. Before I took my pencil and sketchpad out, I dedicated 30 minutes to clear out all the condoms, wrappers, syrofoams, and even soiled toilet paper around it and in between its root systems. I was appalled and embarrassed by the way we treated this tree. My heart was aching as I said sorry as I picked out one trash at a time. It was just impossible to draw its magnificence without doing so. I had to encourage every student who passed by to organize a clean up drive and ways of ensuring waste management in campus. It was sad to hear one of the students say, "This is U.P., students would rather march on the streets than clean the environment."

Yesterday, to continue the peace prayers for Japan by the Tala youth facilitated by Russell (I wasn't able to make it on time yesterday because of the tree illustration :-(. See photos of their prayers here) I engaged them in a lotus origami workshop and we used their prayers in combination with colored paper to make the flowers. The lotus flower is symbolic for the strength and beauty radiating amidst darkness and challenge. This beautiful flower can thrive in muddy and dirty water which is why it is a symbol for many spiritual paths that teach transcendence and wisdom.



No longer strangers to environmental disaster displacement, the members of the Muslim-Christian Peacemakers' Association of Tala have once been displaced by the flood waters that swelled and overflowed their river in 2009 during hurricane Ketsana. The entire community had to stay at the basketball court after the river erroded their homes and flushed out their material belongings. Luckily they all survived. The community was strengthened by the disaster as they worked hand in hand - Muslims and Chrsitians together to rebuild their homes and lives.

Below are photos from an arts relief I helped out in together with the Peacemakers Circle and Balay Rehabilitation Center.See more photos on this album - Climate Change Through the Eyes of Children

Climate change through the eyes of a child

her home by the river washed out

Tala kids in 2009 during an arts relief for emotional recovery

Together with the Imams and the Christian elders of the community, we brought the flowers down by the river side which once roared and engulfed them. After interfaith prayers in oneness with the Japanese people one by one we sent off each lotus flower with the river. We believed that the river and the ocean tsunami are one water. So we connected to that to transform future disasters to come.

prayers and color paper combined

a mandala of lotus flowers

offering prayers

sending off the prayers

As we got back to the interfaith center, many of the elders and older children reminisced about when the river was once clean where they swam, fished, and played. It was beautiful to hear them share that and to realize how the river has changed since then. It is now littered with plastic and styrofoam - a picture of disconnection with the earth. It was resolved that the community will continue with more inspiration and passion this time - cleaning the river. I hope to make sure this time I can continue sharing ecological solid waste management practices with them and a deeper understanding of our inner ecology.

It was fitting to make flowers on spring equinox and connect with the earth with these children again.We closed the day as I drew in the middle of the circle, the ancient baybayin script KA - a dugtong or bridging word we use for bridging: Kapatid (brother/sister), Kapuso (shared heart), Kaibigan (friend), Kamag-anak/pamilya (family), Kadugo (shared bloodline), etc. The word Ka in baybayin is a calligraphy of two rivers joined as one.

We honored Tala's river and the same body of water that connects them to the People of Japan by again placing our hands on the earth and with seven breaths channeled light and love for the earth's healing.

Mandalas in Nature with the Muslim-Christian Youth Groups in Manila

Mandalas weave communities together!

Last March 12, I was invited to facilitate a community mandala making for the Muslim-Christian youth groups from Tala and Culiat communities in Quezon City. The group was undergoing a grassroots leadership training under the United Religions Initiative Bowes Award grant through the Peacemakers' Circle organized by Orlan de Guzman. Russell Maier of the 1Mandala project co-facilitated with me with his co-creative energy and mandala making expertise.

 

The whole day activity was the first time the youth groups met each other after undergoing trainings in their own communities since October 2010. We celebrated the gathering through learning about mandala making and interconnectedness with nature at the La Mesa Dam Eco Park.

The workshop started with mandalas in creation through a dyad sharing with "divinated" images - they pick out a card that's upside down and discuss what the image is telling them. The images were of mandalas in nature (galaxies, plants, spiderwebs, a mother's womb, etc). Afterwards, they learned about patterns in nature and the elements of mandalas in art making (lines, shapes, color, patterns). Russell guided them in a symmetry exercise connecting them to their mirroring dialogue experience. In the afternoon, I shared about mandalas in sacred symbols from different faith traditions and led them to symbol making by connecting themselves in nature. We didn't have enough time to do a geometric pattern exercise with Islamic stars and arabesques and Christian Rosette windows but I hope to do that some other time. We closed the day with co-creation through a community mandala making with chalk, their personal symbols in nature, and natural found objects. 

That's Alan Berguia, Community Coordinator for Tala and Culiat communities. Photo by Orlan de Guzman

photos of mandalas in creation upside down waiting to send a message across :-) Photo by Orlan de Guzman

Drawing Patterns observed in Nature after a nature walk. Photo by Orlan de Guzman

Russ facilitating a body mirroring symmetry exercise. Photo by Orlan de Guzman

co-creating a mandala in groups

After creating a mandala in groups, the challenge was for them to go back in a wider circle and see how to connect the mandalas into one bigger mandala as one community

We closed the activity with a ritual prayer for the healing of the earth. I asked them to touch the earth and connect their heart beat to its heartbeat and to send good energies to Japan (the workshop was held the day after the quake)
photo by Wilma Busadre

co-creating with russ (sometimes drives me crazy! but all works out in the end)

Here's a video of the mandala making in action:

 

P.S. I had no sleep preparing for the workshop so I made sure I loaded with alkaline water and green smoothies after channeling reiki on them for the whole day adventure of working with 70 young people! I can now attest to the power of live food and energized water!