The Great Turning

We are all growing and evolving. I just turned 30. I just moved out of the city and into an ecovillage. I have just claimed my life-work as artist, gardener, healer. It's just time to upgrade to a new space. 

All my reflections will now be posted on my website: http://www.createartheart.org. 

Thank you so much for being part of my blogspot journey! 

Love,

Sarah

Compass Check

What do you do with 19 years of love letters to yourself and to God? Had to deal with up more than 30 journals compiled since I was 11 as I let go of clutter and possessions while packing to move out of Metro Manila 

After 18 years of writing in my journal, sustaining the energy to pen in my thoughts and reflections has become a challenge. Because I have been postponing to write for months as I learn to get to know this new mode of communication, I had this growing need to express. 

A shift in language is coming forth. There is this strange lull in my expression process. More and more I am conversing with myself in thought with a growing desire to talk to people directly rather than write. When I was most attuned, I used to converse with people in my dreams with matters they need to share and express to me. Lately, I am learning how immediate synchronicity with intention that manifests immediately in real time which required me to be more mindful and connected with my thoughts. Thus I spoke less and less and wrote less and less. They say the frequency of the time and space waves are making heaps of changes. I would say the same from the inner perspective.

I turned 30 last week. For two years, my life has undergone major earth quakes. A lot of clearing and sifting took place. This is a natural part of entering the 3rd decade as developmental psychologists and even clairvoyants would say. A Saturn Return as some astrologers would call it - a time of disintegration and integration. The great changes from my 28th year up to now was just really part of leaving my youth and entering adulthood.

I entered a big pause. 
This pause led me to deeply reflect on my direction.

After sharing my energies to do arts relief for Typhoon Sendong survivors last January - March in Cagayan de Oro where thousands died and were displaced, I felt the burn out of non-profit work. I realized doing a heart-based process for an INGO like Save the Children took so much energy because of their fast paced and output based intensity. After working for 10 years with the non-profit world and losing all my savings in it, I realized I need to be able to sustain myself while I work for sustainability. 

Many lessons also came forth after this wake up call. I chose not to go to Switzerland for the 2nd year of my Masters program because I felt the call of the earth in so many ways.

After Typhoon Sendong, learnings from years of working for the environmental movement surfaced again. 

If I was focused on conflict and peacebuilding, how can I also share my energies in ecological healing and restoration. Most importantly, should there be a divide in my work in these two fields?

And then it dawned to me. The wisdom of the earth is calling for an integrative approach. What if my theory of change is how we see the earth’s reminder to look at how conflict is also rooted to how we see nature as resource or as source of identity? As resource, most conflicts look at it as a source of unlimited income or power - thus so much violence stems from resource based perspective on nature. As a manifestation of identity, it looks as land, water, minerals as ethnic identity, as nation - thus so much military bases are built, indigenous peoples' death in defense of sacred mountains, so many generations of wars because of fatherland motherland histories that have not been healed and are carried over again and again in new forms of conflict.There has to be some common ground, a common language the earth can heal and help people transcend... the common ground is the soil beneath us, our shared resources, our shared identity with the earth body. ......the environmental component in the peace agendas. I believe its the common ground that can unite all in transcending the barriers. The elements of the earth are the third space where people can dialogue and overcome.

While I ponder on these questions, I decided to move to an ecovillage in Palawan called Maia Earth Village. I wanted to see holistic and integral way of addressing transformation. I realized after all these years, I have been focused so much on the doing and less on the Knowing and Being. For now, the Earth is my school, my Masters degree is documenting and writing 10 years of modules and activities with my self, communities, leaders through artmaking. My intention to continue my Masters Degree is there but for now, essential life questions are needing to be looked at. 

I have lots to share on how my journey from Switzerland has turned out. I went to Sri Lanka to undergo a training on interfaith education for children. I finally fulfilled the dream of doing art with UNICEF. I have shared presence with so many indigenous elders during a 492 year old peace pact reaffirmation and a School of Living Traditions conference on indigenous knowledge, systems, and practices. I shared my experience on art and peacebuilding for the Asia - Europe Alumni University forum on peacebuilding. I did lots and lots of mandalas and art as ritual spaces for indigenous wisdom gatherings and workshops. 

I am coming full circle with my own inner peace while healing with my old childhood wounding. I am now facing a deep process while my mother undergoes her own healing from cervical cancer, an acquired condition from so many unhealed parts of herself as this has never been in my family's genetic history. It is becoming a purging and healing experience. So much life wisdom is flowing.

There’s so many stories to share especially the development of two projects - Project Rainbow and Green Relief Initiative. I will write more soon as soon as I’m done with my portfolio website.
This blog too will change its design and format. How it will look like and how the stories will be shared is still being observed in its highest potential. 

Thank you so much for continuing to witness me in my life journey through this blog. 

Piece by Peace

I've been in the Refusal of the Call recently, a stage in Joseph Campbell's Monomyth particularly with this art for peacebuilding calling as part of my life - work. I felt I could turn it down and I could choose not to do it as I value integrity in my process particularly with inner peace as I come to terms with heavy release and healing work these last two years. 

Children, guided dream messages, and what is possible for new ways of healing and transforming the self, community, and the earth have always been there to remind me that what I need to speak about is already from within - what I experience, what the people I know have already done, and most importantly what important life lessons are there to share about the whole story of creative peacebuilding. 

Up to the last minute resisted but on the day of the talk fully embraced for this has always been not entirely about myself but something bigger at work. I spoke  about Art for Peacebuilding for the Asia - Europe Foundation University Alumni Network's (ASEFUAN) annual conference and meeting last August 1 at the Ateneo de Manila University. 

Here's the link to the conference overview:

11th ASEFUAN Academic Conference and Annual General Meeting: Conflict Transformation and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes in Asia and Europe

Here's the link to the program:
http://www.asefuan.org/docs/agm2012_programme_public.pdf

I felt that talking about art based peacebuilding was not enough. I'm a firm believer of experience in the work. I asked the organizers to allow me to set up an experiential artmaking process. They gladly accommodated my request to be designed alongside their photo exhibit entitled Shared Heritage: As We See It. The photographs are part of a traveling exhibit featuring the works of European and Asian delegates of last year's ASEF University program. 

Alongside, I set up Piece by Peace: Weaving Shared Heritage and Shared Future an interactive "tapestry" making installation.

Piece by Peace is an interactive artmaking installation inspired by the indigenous weaving traditions around the world. Tapestries are transformed into clothing that serve as social and political identities symbolizing uniqueness and diversity. It symbolizes IDENTITY as what causes some conflict in many parts of the world. Reframing this old way into reconnecting to the essence of the cloth as an interwoven process of many elements, it becomes a process that engages more than one person in dialogue with the other. The whole process emphasized Co-Creation within Third Space between Self and Other and Self as Other in a Shared Space. 

Because its a contemporary piece inspired by the traditional craft of weaving, it is a space where Past and Future meet - where Shared Heritage and Shared Future create a Third Space for dialogue. 

Mangyan and Maguindanao weave lead the way to a path of peace, followed by new ways of weaving stories and peacemaking together as symbolized by new patterns (Photo by Louise Far)

A long blank tapestry of boxes divided into two is a continuation of traditional weaves. As visitors of go around the photo exhibits, they will find elements that are a response or symbolic of the photo panels that they can collect and bring into the tapestry. Working as a dyad in front of someone, they start engaging in a dialogue process of artmaking - combining their elements together to create a new mandalic pattern based on the principles of order, balance, and harmony.

Cross-Cultural interaction with natural elements, fabric paint, feathers, leaves, etc. ( Photo by Louise Far)

Gratitude to the dream messages about this tapestry. 

One was of a woman wearing a large cloak with an image of a woman on its design indicating its source from the Talmud. Another was of young people protesting about a violent massacre and their young spokesperson talking about the nature of things and the many layers that provide meaning to it. 

EartHeart Wisdom

That's me near the horizon dancing to the Spring Equinox Sunset at the beach near Maia. A beautiful release after throwing up on the beach as part of my raw food detox. Photo by Doreen Jose

I love this image above. Its exactly how the beach near Maia Earth Village looks like and how a rainbow shone on this part as I was swimming toward shore.

It has been a long journey. The storms have been beautiful and have forced me to stay indoors and lock myself within... and I am I am I am so grateful to the beautiful cave I've lived in for two years now.  The sun is about to shine soon and the rainbow will paint the sky. Painting my cave walls some love and gratitude.





This blog will be transforming as www.eartheartwisdom.com.
My life-work portfolio will be moved to www.createartheart.org.

One Peace at a Time. 

Sprouting.

Giving Birth.

Soon :-)

Aurora

Fetus and Dragon Sunrise,  Palawan 2012

Spiritual growth is so much the artist’s journey. Our inner world is soul art, our lives its heartfelt canvas. Like true artists, we have to find that delicatebalance between willfulness and surrender—whento act, when to still. We have to allow our form tochange as intuition demands. Home is where the art is. Chaotic Magnificence… - Jeff Brown

It's 3 am. I just came out from a bad flu.  My eyes are a bit bruised but I'm wide awake from all the sleeping for the last 3 days to recover. I shouldn't keep my eyes open yet something from the tradition of storytellers that document the stories of humanity urged me to write.

When I was in gradeschool, I used to wake up to a dawn procession called the Aurora which my Lola (grandmother) would join in from her living room. She would light a candle and open her windows. I would stay still in my bed or join her and curl up with her on her rocking chair often in awe at this dawn time ritual with people carrying a statue of Mary with candles, rosary beads, and flowers.

This Aurora ritual has never left me.

In my university days, I would be able to study for my exams with a clear head at this time of dawn after an early evening's rest. Years on, I would find that the best time to work on my paintings is at this beautiful time.

At about 3 am is also the time when I would wake up with deep epiphanies, my own conversations with God. I haven't talked to God lately. I have broken up with him many times over the last two years as I did my inner work. But this early morning, I found myself just like in my early 20s waking up at this time feeling the embrace of the universe. I cried like I never cried before but also just cried like I did before. However this one is new. I was finally releasing deep anger at God.

I once asked elders who God was when I was young and I was warned not to question God's identity as it will be considered blasphemous. Having followed different yoga, tantra, and mystical paths since I was 17, I thought I had some kind of idea who this being was.

Who is God is a clear voice within me now ungraspable but graspable. But that's just who s/he is as s/he has always been. Sometimes this is a love-hate relationship. I hate the silence. I loved the signs. I hate the new direct messages. I love the affirmations. I hate the dark night of the soul. I loved the epiphanic break throughs like this one. Just like this - heart opening, tear-jerking release. It's a dance of call and answer.

Maybe its the chaotic magnificence as Jeff Brown says. Maybe its kundalini rising as my friend and inner dance teacher Pi would say. All I know is that its all part of my own shifting. I have to thank myself for the huge leaps I've done over the last two years. Saturn return: your orbiting journey is almost done.

I haven't been awake at this time with a good rest behind me. Most often lately its the time that I would catch some sleep. It's really a nice feeling to be in this peaceful zone. While studying an introduction to the I-Ching and oriental cosmology, I learned that this time is the spring time where wood energy prevails, a time that monks find best to wake up and meditate. The day actually begins here.

Maybe this is a trailmarker for a new day. 3 days of flu broken at 3 am on the 3rd day.
Not bad for a mini resurrection.

But then again, everyday, we die and get reborn again. It's a matter of how much one pays attention to this process. It may not be related but it's interesting how the recent shootings in Aurora, Colorado showed the Dark Knight movie. Maybe its saying that the dark night comes in tandem with the breaking of dawn.

Many say we are entering a time of great change and this change involves all these inner shiftings and lots and lots of dark nights. It is in these dark times when we are meant to shine our light for ourselves and for everybody.

Taking it one rebirth at a time.

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” - Rabindranath Tagore

This large angel cloud appeared above Sunday's prayer vigil in Aurora, Colorado. Photo by Crystal Fuller as shared by
Angel Intuitive Doreen Virtue

_____________
Now as Jack Kornfield says "After Ecstacy, the Laundry" : What to do with 3 days of backlog to wrap up an aid report, prepare for an international conference, and finish a mural for a streetchildren shelter?

Bathala Na. Bathalanawa.

Seeds of Dreams

I was going through my Father's stash of photos today while celebrating his birthday at his new house. Found these 3 photos that I've been looking for memorable snapshots of.

It was only when I got home that I realized the significance of these 3 images. I'd love to believe that the seeds of dreams have been planted more than 2 decades ago shaping the path leading me to a life work of art within the earth and heart :-)

Heart Angel for Flores de Mayo (1985), Earth worker harvesting beans at my mother's farm (1985), Little Artist  on my first  painting workshop (1988)

My Feet as Compass

When we walk like (we are running), we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the earth... Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth. Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

Two weeks ago, I joined the 3rd Kapwa Conference. It was an international gathering and symposium for Schools of Living Traditions and an academic conference on indigenous knowledge, systems, and practices. This was held at Baguio City, Philippines from June 25-July 2. 

The view from my apartment facing the Alpine Glaciers from last year's summer program (L)
The beautiful Baguio horizon, pine trees, plus freezing hands and feet (uncaptured) (R) 

Upon arriving, I immediately got the cosmic joke - I was in a parallel dimension! There are important reasons behind why I was in a gathering of indigenous elders, wisdom and culture bearers, artists, and healers and not in my Graduate School's campus on the Alpine mountains for the 2nd year of my Masters summer program. I am in the process of outlining them out for formal purposes (updating my donors and supporters for one) but the pine trees and the freezing mountain weather were enough to remind me about my true intentions for being where I was and not somewhere else. Knitted mittens, layered clothing; pine trees; and staying at a European styled apartelle were enough to tell me there is no difference: both places taught about transformation inside the earth, heart, and art school - only that its taught by ancient wisdom bearers 6 hours ahead and probably hundreds of feet lower in altitude. 

On the last day of the conference, a gathering of organizers, volunteers, and guests took place at the house of one of the conference co-founders- the amazingly inspiring Katrin de Guia. An inspiring speaker and advocate of indigenous knowledge applied in expressive arts therapy Mila Anugluan- Coger led a circle of dreamweaving as we shared our reflections together. Looking back, it was healing for me to participate in this circle and interact with her as she is taking her Ph.D in Expressive Arts Therapy at Lesley University where most of my professors at the European Graduate School teach too. So it also felt that I was still in the same classroom up in Switzerland despite that I was really thousands of miles away. 

Together as a circle, we did some toning and came up with a beautiful spirit song which I recorded for us to remember by. 






Escaping to a garden outside the house, I spent some time to put into words what I experienced. I ended up finding a perfectly shaped circle blister on my left foot and drew a red simple mandalic flower sun design around it. Perhaps it was truly what "embodied knowing," an indigenous wisdom in practice, truly meant. The sacred most often speaks in symbols first then it is our human gifts that shape them into language, culture, and meaning. I honor the sacred wisdom the unspoken is "trying to say." Maybe I'll let my feet do the talking :-)

To this day, I am still listening on how to put my reflections and learnings to share together. This is starting to become more of a normal process for me after a deeply moving experience. It's not about being with more than 30 tribes from all over my country and around the world that dumbfounded me but its about how our shared humanity and shared divinity reflected through the universal yet uniquely expressed symbols, myths, metaphor and  wisdom continue to reveal themselves in my thoughts and interactions with nature, conversations, places up to now. In short, its speaking to me in so many levels particularly about how and where my life-work will take shape. Maybe that's what the message of the circular blister on my left foot is about. I'm still boggled as to why my right foot doesn't have one as I was wearing a matched pair of hiking sandals the whole time. Interestingly, my left foot bears my  only birthmark: some brown freckled speckles sprinkled across my foot. Perhaps this is a mythological Achilles heel story that I have yet to discover.

Time is also a factor for the sharing while I balance my commitments with packing (or rather unpacking as I'm letting go of so many things and attachments (materially and metaphorically) for Maia Earth Village. I have to finish a temp job for a bilateral aid program to support me financially. Most urgently, I am preparing for a presentation and an interactive art installation on art and peacebuilding for an upcoming 11th ASEFUAN Annual Academic Conference and General Meeting on Conflict Transformation and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes in Asia and Europe in August.

So for now, I'm sharing photos of my beautiful experience through this Facebook Album: Kapwa Dreamweaving and this beautiful video of Maria Oyog Todi, a T'boli elder and culture bearer guiding me and a Japanese guest on how to dance their dance. The T'bolis were one of the first indigenous groups that inspired me about the sacred process of artmaking. Weavers wait for a dream to guide them on a design to be woven on their Tinalak cloth. Thus, they are called "Dreamweavers." 

Maybe the feet's message was made for dancing first! More deep reflections to come. 

Dreamweaving Part 1

This originally started as a post to update my Dream Projects page and it ended up as another river of words about life and art.


I love dreaming out loud. After months of not updating the Dream Section section of my blog, I finally had time and inspiration to declare my dreams again. My first instinct was to dive into a long, long list of what I want to do. I had to stop myself and take long walks before I got to the moment of writing these down. 

For years I usually manifest things this way: I make lists. I do some mapping. I day dream. Sometimes I self sabotage then I retrieve the dream again in a heroine's dramatic mode. Afraid of losing my chances, I jump on every opportunity that comes my way.

It must be growing older and having faced a lot of that inspired me to slow down and to transform the way I embody the role of being an artist. What is clear right now is working on  Creativity and Dreaming. 

On Creativity

As my art evolves, I am more and more focused on the word CREATIVITY and the process of CREATION and CO-CREATION. The word "art" now becomes a piece of creativity manifested. But if you ask me, I would rather use the word CREATION. 

In my local language (Tagalog), we refer to art as "sining" and it is used in a broad context to embody a practice that involves visual arts, music, dance, and literature; unlike the popular use of the word in English to exclusively refer to the visual art forms compartmentalized from music, literature, etc.  

In tagalog, there is no verb in reference to artmaking. We use the word creation to describe an active form of artmaking through the word "paglikha." This comes from root word "likha" or creation. A creative person is called "malikhain." Creativity is "pagkamalikhain." We refer to God as "Manlilikha" or Creator. Unless referred to the medium one does "painter - pintor, music - musikero, etc.," the general term for artist is also called "manlilikha." Artmaking therefore is a sacred process, a shared Divine experience. There is no word for co-creation implying that it is integrated in any creative endeavor. One beautiful word I love using when designing or conducting a workshop is the Tagalog version of Facilittor which is "Taga-pagpadaloy." It literally means - "one who flows."

Tagalog means Taga-Ilog: One who is from the River, who lives by the river

On Dreaming

I love this word. Dreaming is a creative process considering its two beautiful ways of usage : a real life movie from the subconscious as we sleep and an active process of visioning what is to come. 

Sacred texts and mythological stories across cultures involve turning points with dreams. For many of my country's indigenous weavers like the T'bolis, dreams are considered as bearers of images or messages for an upcoming weaving design. Life is guided by Dream Time. 


For many inventors, innovators, evolutionaries, light workers, and agents of transformation - the vision goes hand in hand with dreaming. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said those beautiful powerful lines four decades ago which we can now thread towards Barrack Obama, the first African American President of the United States of America. Imagination is held by dreams that help transform or manifest from what has passed and what is currently present.

So where doe these two words bring me now?

Where I am as an artist and light and life worker is about expanding into the how creative elements: medium, process, and message come into integration. 

I have always been a dreamer and I am still learning how to align with my birth vision to manifest my intentions to reality. This is all part of the co-creative process we are beautifully gifted with as human yet divine beings. I believe that the manifestation starts with a dream that has the potential to flow through our bodies and with the right people, places, and circumstances around us. 

The dream makes itself known with a seed, a big bang, a light bulb, an awakening moment... Eureka! Now I know yet I don't know. Wisdom speaks in paradox yet speaks clearly only with simple elementary words. Maybe I should stop philosophizing on how to end this post. For now, it just is. The dreaming continues beyond this sentence's period.

Rainbow Cocoon

Hello from Singapore! I am in awe of this beautiful garbage can painted by a child at one of the city's beautiful train stations. Of all the beautiful public art in the streets and the tapestry of heritage and contemporary pieces in the beautiful museums, this is the best creation so far.

There are truly a lot of words to share about this Summer Solstice week. I am still in deep listening about what is being revealed for sharing.  I am here on a free vacation from my brother whom I am helping out a bit for his advertising work. (Not so secretly, I'm on a "secret" mission to influence him on my inner hippie wisdom and making sure he doesn't become a carbon guzzling capitalist.)

There's a lot to say because right now I'm supposed to be transiting from Tanzania to Switzerland for a conference on interreligious dialogue, children, and poverty to my next summer program at my graduate school's campus on the Alpine mountains. 

This 180 degree move was brought about by my need to stay rooted this year: move to Maia, plant, sow, grow, harvest and be the mandala. 

But since travel has been already scheduled for a year now for the original intentions, it still had to take form and manifest. So my body had to ride a plane and fly. And so no matter how I tried to avoid the plane, here I am typing on my laptop thousands of miles away from my country.

Where I am is like having this beautiful trash can as a cocoon for almost a year now. I am being reminded by the innocence of children to keep to the essence of my journey and where my eternal inner work is leading me. They say its the Saturn Return that I'm in the eye of (Finally a universal validation!). I must say its pretty much a confirmation of all the peeling of layers that have taken place in my life for the last 2 years. 

But this is what the essence of a rainbow's message is telling me - after the rains, a message of hope will paint this beautiful oracle in the sky. 

I could have been this caterpillar inside the trash all this time that never knew that a child painted this magical message of hope outside me. It took some time to realize that it has always been there even in the darkest of days. Much like how it is in the trash can in this photo, I had to see this from a perspective outside of my cocoon. This speaks of the essence of awareness as reaching the state of seeing beyond One's Self.

This only means that I am about to move on to the next stage of metamorphosis. 

More to share soon.

The Peace of I: Zero as Circle

 The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men." - Black Elk                                                                        

Since this will be the first of a series of eartheart reflections called The Peace of I,  I started with a quote that talks about the first peace. I love this Native American wisdom and the cosmology of all indigenous belief systems around the world that sees the circle that connects all life to the self and the self to all of life. I feel so blessed having met a lot of mentors and guides from around the world who are guided by indigenous wisdom and practice. Words are not enough.

I walked around town today in a beautiful skirt with blemishes all over my legs from mosquitos and sandflies in Palawan and fresh break outs from emotional and partial raw food detox and PMS. And no matter how everything is chaotic outside, inside me is this lush of green plants sprouting from my heart. Just today, I couldn't wait to leap out of the jeepney and run home to dance under the rain when the sky broke loose this afternoon.

My room is still a mess and I have finally accepted that it will never be clean anymore until the last box is packed and shipped to Maia next week. Being with a lot of discomfort and emotional purging these last month in Manila was an invitation to mindfully discern what cleaning really truly means.

Palawan : As Above, So Below

On my plane on way back to Manila from 2 months in Mindanao and Palawan, I leafed through the first few pages of the book Zero Limits by Joe Vitale and Hew Len. It's interesting thinking that with all these years hearing about this book and the Ho'oponopono philosophy and practice, this book will find me or I, it at Maia's library. Unlike in my early twenties wherein I would scout for rare finds at used book stores, nowadays, I let a book find me. I'd love to believe that finding a perfect book is like a destined relationship between seeker and message bearer in alignment of perfect timing, just like opening a book randomly to read on a powerful message divinated just for you to read at that particular moment.

Had I read it before, I wouldn't have taken it with this much resonance.

I could swear that I was ready to die while reading it. My body was in a state of lightness that I could just merge with the clouds and surrender to heaven as if it was these cloud formations artists and seers have rendered as the eternal place after death. 

But that didn't prepare me for the deep cleanse that would take place next. 

Fast forward to a month of deep questioning and peeling of layers, the chaos inside me prompted me to look into how I show up as a peacemaker in my life. A friend of 10 years challenged me about my work in peacebuilding for the last 4 years. All ancient teachings, religious and spiritual traditions teach the essence of peace.  I should know this from my work in interfaith dialogue and sacred practices.

Yet, I still don't know. In the sense that knowing is wisdom in practice. 

I am in mindful awareness of the need to heal my wounds so I can fully forgive someone and this keeps me vulnerable to woundology, a state of being stuck in victim mentality as medical intuitive Carolyn Myss would put it. This paradox is an ongoing journey of embodying this beautiful Peace of I. The true knowing lies in the Wu-Wei, the practice of doing yet not doing in all conditions good or bad. 

A month later since, I feel I am now about to dock port from a ship that sailed me through the eye of the storm of purging experience of letting go and forgiveness work. At least, I'd love to believe, I am in my next destination or trailmarker after dancing with Venus as she transited around the sun yesterday.

I dug through my box of journals (God knows how I'm going to transfer this big box to Maia) to find my journal from June of 2004 when the last transit took place.

I found a small notebook that I wrapped with black cloth and hand painted with a moon and a flower. By the cover alone anyone could tell that this was one of my dark periods. I was 21 about to turn 22 by this time and I was working at a prestigious museum about to open its new building at the business district. I was still in love with this artist whom I chose to stop seeing the year before and weeks later he would invite me to his exhibit opening which I will end up not going to.@ I was writing down ideas for new paintings. I tried yoga asanas practice for the first time and I was going to turn a year old as vegetarian the next month. 

I found this in one of my entries and honestly felt this was the lightest writing so far. I don't even know if I wrote it anymore. It could be a quote that I copied from a book. But I remember the days I would climb up the roofdeck of the apartment building I lived alone in and stand up on the ledge to feel the breeze and write. Almost all of my entries in this journal wrote about the wind. 

The winds howl like the sea. I woke up as if I lived right next to the ocean. The leaves dance as the wind tickles them. They make such beautiful noise. I feel like I'm on a ship and I'm sitting on my balcony - above deck. Perhaps time travels faster when the clouds run- as if the earth spun at a faster rate - dancing. I want to dance with the wind. I'm beginning to think that where I live is not too bad after all. I stood up for around ten minutes and saw an almost perfect picture of the sunset with a block of square in the middle. But it was 11 minutes of God. I'm going to try my best to fight sadness - instead, I will make each day extra ordinary. 

On June 8, 2004 on the day of the first transit in our present generation,  I pasted a print out of Oriah Mountain Dreamer's well loved poem called "The Invitation." My friend Reena gave it to me. When I saw this the other day 8 years later to Venus' twin transit, it warmed my heart because I realized I was really this fragile and hopeless romantic person back then (I really hope no one gets to read these journals someday!). I read this poem as if I were speaking to a forever absent lover. 

It's beautiful how the video above accompanies the poem with the Buddhist mantra Om Mani Padme Hum that bows to the higher self.

On the eve of the recent Venus transit, I read this out loud and dedicated it to myself as a way of coming full circle from the first one and allowed myself to flow tears of liberation. On the morning of the transit, I found myself waking up from a dream of being with an abuser with my higher self intervening showing me my book of life about the spiral dance. I got up and lit a candle and let this float with a flower on a bowl of water in the middle of our stone mandala sacred space, cleaned the toilet mindfully, and took a loving beautiful shower. I dedicated these water blessings to the Lighting the Lights Ceremony by the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers who made a call for wisdom bearers around the world to hold a ceremony for water and Mother Earth through their WaterSongLine project. In the evening, I joined a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony with a visiting Karmapa and had my hair cut by him as part of my symbolic refuge to my own awakening. 

Walked around 3x around this stupa - like Mandala after the 17th Karmapa's lecture on the eve of the transit.

These rituals are just external things that helped remind me of the significance of my turning points within just like any other ritual that I have partaken in. Nothing about it is outside of myself. The symbols, the chants, the ecstatic experiences - they're there to help one connect my heart to the realm of all things. 

The other day, I looked at the mirror and for the first time, I stared deeply into my eyes and went inside the circle within the circle. I asked myself: "What do I really know about alchemy?"And hours after, a wise elder who was also a peaceworker from another part of the world whom I have never conversed with privately before messages me and asks me, "What is alchemy?" That same day, I had several synchronicities about shamanic plant medicine that connects one to other states and planes. It's interesting that I find these uncanny revelations very new every time it happens even if this has happened several times over the course of my life so far. 

The Peace of I, a state of Zero brings all these synchronicities about that bring one in alignment to one's sacred purpose or birth vision. I believe anyone can access this. We all have this beautiful capacity and potential to create magic and miracles in our lives. Conscious transformation is a process of clearing that takes place before this state can be reached. To the Ho'oponopono practice, its clearing with apology, gratitude, forgiveness, and love (I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank you, I Love You) to everyone and everything that takes place in one's awareness. These words are really the essence of all religions and sacred practices - love, compassion, forgiveness, transcendence, awakening, enlightenment, ascension. 

Most of the time we are focused on the envisioned state of bliss and enlightenment that we shun away all the negative experiences that take place on the road to this. It's how our society has created pill popping to muffle out illness, or strange behavior. We are so afraid of revealing our woundedness afraid of being judged that we forget to realize that illness is part of our body and spirit's way of clearing. Our body is so wonderfully perfect in all its functions that no quantum science can still fathom its extreme capacities and potentials. To encounter illness or states of dis-ease is part of the body's way of saying this is not really who you are so I will clean it out for you. To many medical intuitives, physical illnesses are a result of unaddressed emotional issues which they can see clearly in the parts of the body that need healing. Even beyond that is an astral or spiritual misalignment but that's an entirely different topic. The important thing is that awareness and acceptance that there is something that needs to be cleared and in the process honoring its dark, painful journey just as one would in a state of bliss. 

All shamans know this.

The shamanic processes bridge the seen and the unseen realms. To access this, all shamans undergo transformation, at least all the shamans and healers that I know of who really undergo death and rebirth (even the actual physical death). Their participation in the relationship between the seen and unseen and what they have control of and what they do not is true alchemy. I'm no shaman but all of us who consciously go through our own transformation and the bridging of what has been to what is yet to be are shamans in some way or another. 

Right now my process is this mindful moment to moment state of clearing of emotional baggages as I segreggate possessions to give away and to asses what is truly essential to keep. It's waking up everyday in a pile of boxes and old things or see another acne pop up with the inner knowing this is a beautiful part of my own alchemic transformation. I needed this affirmation to come from my own self saying, "I am in a perfect state right now." Seeing it as it is in deep observation helps prepare the way for clearing. At this point, this is where the alchemic process truly begins.

I want to end with sharing that I finally was able to finish the learning guide manual I was designing for Save the Children and Kids for Peace Foundation for Typhoon Sendong survivors a day before the transit. It was only fitting to wrap it up with the very first module I designed on children's coping and reactions based on the story of metamorphosis. Back then it was so impromptu as an interactive storytelling process that helped children identify feelings so I was not able to write it down. As a child I was always inspired by the book "Hope for the Flowers" by Tina Paulus and it was the first inspiration for this story. At the core, it is my own experience that brought it forth (Yes I am Yellow!). I have entitled it "The Magical Cocoon" and it tells the story of a caterpillar (whose name will be up to the children listening) who went to the unknown trusting the light s/he has within. The cocoon is that state of mixed emotions and disempowerment that take place after being displaced from a disaster. It can also be the evacuation center itself and uncertainty of how one's life can go back to normal. I still feel that it needs more tweaking but for now, its perfect as it is. Perhaps when I find the time, or when time finds me, I will really make an illustrated storybook out of it.

A small mandala I found by the Cagayan river during one of our site visits. This is the same river that swelled up and overflowed displacing hundreds of thousands and killing more than a thousand people along the Cagayan and Iligan Rivers last December 2011. 

I dedicate this to Bane Agbon and the ChildHeal Facilitators of Kids for Peace Foundation who invited me to share my learnings and ideas about integral well-being, expressive and transformative arts to their project with Save the Children. Up to now, I still cary this guilt that I could have done better or I could have just forced myself.  It was a long process of self forgiveness after I wrapped up my contract early as consultant and battled with my deadlines that I so often missed. I realized, I couldn't work in a large INGO system with fast paced demands requiring the delivery of many key messages in a very short time in a mass produced scale. I have deep respect and appreciation for the staff for their dedication because they still did what was needed to be done with thousands of children in immediate need. I realized I was knee deep in my inner work process too be healthy enough to dive in to the heavy demands of their work and this caused my burn out. Was I too idealistic to integrate whole systems approach in a process that just needed one aspect addressed immediately? I still wonder. But right now, I am just so grateful for all the learnings that I realized about my idealism and about simplicity. Tailor fitting my crazy art ideas that were adapted from my work with small communities into a limited time table, materials, manpower, and energy - not to mention more than two thousand children was not easy for a first timer in a major post emergency situation. It was totally different from our arts relief work with Typhoon Ondoy as I was merely working as volunteer artist. This time, the task to oversee the entire design of the modules and its implementation with an integral well-being framework became overwhelming with the intensive requirements of the funders. I sincerely appreciate all the patience and trust this organization has given me. I still hope I can learn from this further and maybe prepare much better in the future for this kind of work. 

Kids for Peace Foundation is a non-profit founded by Rosan Aliya Agbon who was 12 years old during an all out war in 2000 by the Philippine Government against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It was her dedication to bring children's voices in times of conflict that continue to inspire me and many leaders in our work for peace. I was introduced to their organization after the Lights for Peace ritual I co-created with artist friends and 400 interfaith public school children for the resumption of the Peace Talks between the Philippine Government and the MILF last year.