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| 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 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.
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| 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. |
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.
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| 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.
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